Precis #2

In this online opinion piece, "Please Stop Screaming At Me" the author, "GE MODEL 19GT270" humorously asserts a claim about how maybe people in general take out their frustration on TV and that maybe people should do something other than watching TV all the time. The author supports his claims by personifying the TV. But he supports his first by showing many points in which the TV suffers being yelled at, or as previously mentioned, having the owner take its frustrations out on it by throwing a burrito for a horrible DVD the owner rented -- as it was obviously not the TV's fault and, if anyone's, it should be the DVD's fault. He again supports his first claim by saying the owner snaps the TV's remote control out of angry due to a golf matching being watched. The author supports his second claim, that people should not watch TV all the time, by having the TV suggest the owner going out more, or at least, doing something that doesn't always involve the television. The TV humorously adds that it has "been on every day for at least a year".

Clarification Question:
Why is that some people feel the need to carry their frustrations about what they see on TV on their TV?

Application Question:
Do you ever find yourself doing this? Do you maybe get angry at your TV when you lose a game? Or pissed when a sports match isn't going the way you want it to?

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41255

Precis #1

Nancy Gibb's online article entitled "Fending Off the Swine Flu", Gibbs begins the article explaining that even though Bush may have handed over a mess to Obama from his last administration, this time, Bush's mess may prove useful this one time. Gibbs makes a claim about how measures must be taken, and how measures have been taken, though a bit extreme. She supports this when she said that Obama helped to put the Americans on a high alert level and when numerous Texas children stayed home from school, missing out on a standardized test to be given that day. Gibbs also talks about how during Bush's Administration, he had a plan fund that was suppose to reach $7 million for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, but that plan fund was never reached. As the article says, at least the plan for fending of this flu is "much more clear and cogent response than in the past" says Laurie Garrett a senior of Council on Foreign Relations.

Application Question:
Do you think it was necessary to make such extreme precautions for the swine flu?

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1949870_1949839_1949665,00.html

Frederick Douglass

In the Narrative of Frederic Douglass, I most immensely enjoyed the part where Frederick is being given knowledge, more specifically, for example, when he goes out with a piece of bread. He has this bread for these white children he encounters when he goes out each time. He trades the bread to these hungry little children in exchange for the real "knowledge of bread". This is one way in which he gained knowledge. Another important thing is revealed in this scene from the story between Frederick and the white children he gives bread to: that racism is a learned thing.