Reading Response 3

The following are responses to assigned readings from The New World Reader: Thinking and Writing about the Global Community, edited by Gilbert H. Muller.

“Asian Immigrants: Actors in Society” by Ronald Takaki

3) Interspersed between numerous poems, Ronald Takaki, in this excerpt “Asian Americans: Actors in History” uses a variety of examples to illustrate his thesis of Asian Americans having a dramatic impact on American history, and their needing to speak out about this American history as well as their Asian roots.

First, Takaki uses the example of Japenese-Americans needing to speak out about the internment of Japanese during World War II, and the dramatic impact this had on congressional hearings about the internment camps. Indeed, the survivors were eventually awarded $20,000 each by the Reagan administration. Second, Takaki discusses the ways Asian-Americans are using their culture in art, such as fiction and scholarly writings, and a one-woman show. Third, more Asian-Americans are questioning the stereotypes and labels they were handed in America, and confronting these ideas, rather than being timid about them. Lastly, Asian-Americans are looking at their own history, and trying to promote greater knowledge of their role in the story of America. Through this, they are discovering more about themselves and their home country, with Takaki using his own personal discoveries as an example.

Asian-Americans have a rich and storied history in the United States. Takaki wants them to acknowledge and celebrate their contributions to this land, and remember their connections to the ones their families left behind.

“Life on the Global Assembly Line” by Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes

2) By looking at where Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes’s article “Life on the Global Assembly Line” was printed — the magazine Ms. — it is clear that there will be at least one common factor uniting the audience of this magazine: womanhood. Moreover, because Ms. is a feminist publication, the likely female readers of this article will be liberal, probably well-educated women.

Thus, Ehrenreich and Fuentes use high-level, but not pretentious, diction to get their point across, and direct this diction to liberal women. The pronoun “she” is heard continually throughout the article and female workers are at the heart of the writing. For example, when the authors relate the group fainting of female workers due to toxic chemicals, they surely are aware of the female-connotations of the description of “mass hysteria” (154).

Additionally, because the audience is predominantly liberal, it is easier for the authors to take a strong, anti-business stance in their diction. Few Ms. readers would object to the classification of multinational corporations as shady, cutthroat dealmakers with no concern for human welfare. A strongly conservative audience would be far more skeptical, and require much more convincing (if they were to be convinced at all) that this is truly the case.

Lastly, because the audience is well-educated, the authors are able to not spend a lot of time describing deferent terms or processes or explaining the different international players involved. For example, the United Nations, National Institute on Occupational Safety and Health, and other groups are quickly glossed over; a less-educated audience would require more explanations as to what these organizations are and how they’re important. This is not to say the author write at too high of a level. They use the elementary school example of $3.10-$5 an hour being cheaper than $3-$5 a day to illustrate why companies are moving oversees, for goodness sakes. However, the authors are dealing with complex ideas here, and the relative brevity of the article demonstrates that they trust the audience to grasp these ideas quickly.

“The Culture of Liberty” by Mario Vargas Llosa

8) One day while I was watching “Real Time with Bill Maher” he raised an interesting point about how disgusted he was with the show “Road Rules” on MTV and how it must be horrible for any other country to watch it. Though I dismissed his opinion fairly quickly, and still believe it’s an overgeneralization of why the world hates us, I now see there is much in the show that would send a negative, untrue image of life in America.

First, anytime MTV casts anybody in a reality show, they are looking for one thing: drama. Thus, instead of getting a random, accurate sampling of American youth, what ends up making it onto TV are hypersexual, extremely confrontational, irreverent brats, basically, who show Americans simply as selfish, lascivious teenagers. This is not to say that our youth, or our society as a whole, is entirely devoid of these vices, but certainly not in these concentrations.

Second, many of the contests themselves play out like the seven deadly sins, making it seem like our society awards horrible behavior (which, I suppose, in some respects it does). For example, on one ignominious episode, contestants were required to force-feed themselves as much food as possible in a one-hour period to try to gain as much weight as possible; afterwards, all contests made themselves vomit up their disgusting fill. I cannot imagine being a struggling parent in countries with inconsistent food supplies, watching people binge and punge as I’m struggling to keep my children alive. Other episodes throw lust and pride into the mix, so gluttony doesn’t get left alone. Plus, the whole game show is based on greed anyway, giving the whole show an overarching sinfulness that would make Dante proud.

Lastly, the show doesn’t show any repercussions for negative behavior. Instead of reading like the cautionary tale it should, the show tends to award the greediest, most spiteful, most shameless contestant with the big prize at the end. Certainly this gives worldwide viewers a poor glimpse at how, in everyday society, the shameless backstabbers hopefully end up.

American culture has much to be hold up as an example of a positive contribution to society. MTV’s “Real World,” and in many ways MTV as a whole, just isn’t one of them.

Reading Response 2

The following are responses to assigned readings from The New World Reader: Thinking and Writing about the Global Community, edited by Gilbert H. Muller.

“Justice for Women” by Ellen Goodman

2) An angry, bitterly sarcastic tone pervades the text of Ellen Goodman’s article “Justice for Women,” which calls on the Bush administration to take a stronger stand for women’s rights by adopting a UN anti-discrimination convention. By using an informal, sardonic tone, Goodman approaches topics of grave seriousness — rape, genital mutilation, stoning women to death for “adultery” — as someone who is simply fed up; she’s mad as hell and she’s not going to take it anymore. This is not to say that there is not a well thought-out structure for the piece, but it is clear that Goodman is approaching the issues like you might see an enraged, acerbic barfly approach them. For example, Goodman puts sneers in her verbiage by continually, almost excessively, putting words in quotation marks: “inflicting the ‘law,’” “the crime of ‘adultery,’” “needed more ‘study,’” and so on (133-134). Goodman also achieves her sarcastic tone by using almost shockingly informal colloquialisms to describe geopolitical situations. Goodman refers to women as “the punching bags of injustice” and tongue-in-cheekly says Saudi Arabia is “no poster child for women’s rights" (133, 134). These and other stylistic elements give the reader the impression that Goodman has already seen the same, tired poltical excuses for not respecting women’s rights, and now she wants action.

This tone, of course, impacts what material Goodman selects for the piece. Goodman needs to establish the fact that women’s rights violations are occurring repeatedly in the world, so she uses several powerful examples, including an “honor rape” in Pakistan and the stoning of a woman in Nigeria, and then simply refers to countries that have abused women. Interspersed with these examples, Goodman emphasizes that the Bush administration is playing both sides of the coin by including quotes from Bush regarding women’s rights in Afghanistan and then showing that his State Department is suppressing passage of the convention. Goodman underscores the administration’s inactivity by describing how the previous three presidents have signed human rights treaties. These examples serve to tell the reader, “Duh. All these presidents, including Bush, agree that human rights is necessary. Why is the president’s administration doing nothing, then?” The tone and content of the article compel the reader to side with Goodman, and agree that something finally needs to be done.

“To Any Would-Be Terrorists” by Naomi Shihab Nye

1) In her compelling open letter “To Any Would-Be Terrorists,” Naomi Shihab Nye sets up an interesting relationship with her potential terrorist group: she is both a part of them and separate from them, like a family member that doesn’t want to associate herself with a black sheep that’s done a very bad thing. Nye repeatedly asks this audience questions using the word “you,” but finishes the essay by saying she’s their “distant Arab cousin” (314). Nye shares their heritage but not their objectives.

In establishing this black-sheep style, Nye uses a tone one might expect of an angry mother and uses words that tell this audience she is both one with them, but is furious. There is almost condescension in some of Nye’s diction when she is addressing the would-be terrorist audience. She asks them questions that one might ask a child that hasn’t learned a lesson in manners, like “Arabs have always been famous for their generosity. Remember?” (312). There is both arrogance and precision in this tone of speaking: yes, these lessons are obvious, but for terrorists, they aren’t. Nye hopes the potential terrorists understand these fundamental principles that have been wiped clean when they decided to take lives: these are people; they are nice; they don’t like killing people. Attempting to make this audience listen to her and swallow her superior style, Nye continually reinforces that she is a part of them, at least in terms of racial heritage. Nye tells the audience that she “know[s] what kind of food [they] like” and that she “feel[s] a little closer to [them] than most Americans could possibly feel” (311). To back up this connection Nye reminds her audience of her Palestinian father and her many Middle Eastern relatives and friends. Yes, this writer is scolding them, but she is not an entire outsider in doing so.

At the same time, Nye is addressing the wider American audience, reminding its members of their positive, compassionate attributes, and hoping this compassion will continue. Nye speaks about how Americans are empathetic to the situation in the Palestinian territories, how they are angered by the killing of Arabs, especially in Iraq, and how many of them have expressed solidarity with her, fearing she would be persecuted for her Arab background after Sept. 11. In doing so, Nye is hoping these Americans will continue having, and more Americans will adopt, a caring attitude towards the Muslims and Arabs in their communities. Thus, Nye’s essay is a plea for understanding from both Middle Eastern and American cultures.

A Shield for Democracy: The Importance in Protecting Journalists from Courts

Getting one’s morning paper is a dangerously mundane process.

Hobbling to the front door still in pajamas, millions of Americans see newspapers as an unchangeable part of our lives; as benign as our alarm clocks or cups of coffee. What many of us don’t see is the fragility of this institution that we take for granted. Between the lines of print, we can’t see Jim Taricani, who spent six months in house arrest for not revealing his source in a bribing scandal story. We don’t connect the situation of Josh Wolf — a video blogger nearing his sixth month in prison for an anti-G8 summit video — or Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams, San Francisco Chronicle reporters looking at 18 months in prison for protecting their sources in a steroid-dealing ring story. Unbeknown to many Americans, there is a war raging today between an overzealous judiciary and reporters trying to do their jobs. Dozens of journalists in the United States currently face jail time and fines for doing their jobs and protecting unnamed sources. Many Americans also likely don’t know that there is a protection available that we must activate: a federal shield law.

To understand the importance of a federal shield law, one must first understand the role of the press in American government. When framers of the Constitution included in the First Amendment a provision that protected freedom of the press, they were introducing this entity as an essential part of the government — another check in America's system of checks and balances. As journalist Andrew Marr explains in the British newspaper the Independent,

"The only way to keep the huge power of the market and the political elites in some kind of check is through an informed, active and occasionally difficult citizenry. And this, in turn, needs public-sphere journalism."

From this principle rises the notion of reporter's privilege: the idea that, much like in executive privilege, in fulfilling their role within the fourth estate, journalists are guaranteed certain privileges not granted to every citizen. One of these rights is the right to secrecy; in order for journalists to do their jobs successfully and for sources to feel comfortable in divulging information to reporters both must be assured that their identities will be protected.

However, this privilege is being stripped away by many in America's court system. By claiming that journalists should be required to testify in cases about which they received information from confidential sources, judges can charge those that refuse with contempt of court. Since 1984, over 20 America reporters have been jailed for contempt for protecting news sources, according to the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press. Cases in Connecticut, Florida, New York, and many other states are currently under review, with fines and jail time hanging in the balance. There are cases pending across the U.S. for other journalists. Across the globe, Reporters Without Borders cites 144 reporters currently under arrest, including two in the United States.

These numbers give rise to the need of a federal shield law. Currently there are three bills in Congress that would shield reporters from prosecution, the most comprehensive of which is the Free Speech Protection Act of 2005. Introduced by Senator Chrisropher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, the bill would provide a variety of individuals in a variety of media (including, coincidentally, bloggers) with protection against far reaching subpoenas, like those in the cases above. In only extreme cases would reporters be required to divulge the names of secret sources, thereby making sources comfortable in talking to the press and reporters safe in doing their jobs. Though some states, including Arizona, have their own shield laws in place, 17 states do not and many others have very weak laws in place. A national shield law would show that America as a whole understands the importance of a free press, and through this, transparent government.

A federal shield law is not simply a desire of those within the media; the majority of Americans support the idea as well. According to a First Amendment Center 2004 survey, when given the simple statement “Journalists should be allowed to keep a news source confidential,” the majority — 72 percent — said they strongly or mildly agreed, while only 23 percent mildly or strongly disagreed, with 4 percent unsure As editors at the New York Times, one of the very institutions under attack in this conflict, eloquently wrote:

"The specter of reporters being imprisoned merely for doing their jobs is something that should worry everyone who cherishes the First Amendment and the essential role of a free press in a democracy."

Clearly, American citizens understand this independent media importance.

Reasonably, there are concerns accompanying a law that could, in effect, prevent Americans from testifying about a crime. One could extend this concern to the idea that criminals might be emboldened and feel there is less chance of their crimes being discovered. However, there has been no correlation between a rise in crime and state federal shield laws, and none of these laws passed by the states have been repealed. Additionally, shield laws being proposed, including Dodd's, contain limits that allow prosecutors to obtain limited information from journalists if this is their only means of obtaining evidence. One could also argue that the idea of a fourth estate is flawed, and will not result in stronger government. Indeed, no studies have been done to determine if a federal shield law necessarily results in better journalism or greater government transparency. However, looking at countries that have greater restrictions on press freedoms, one sees there is an intimate connection between treatment of the press and treatment of individual rights. For example, the governments of China, Burma, and Eritrea repress freedom of the press, and are all listed by the State Department as human rights abusers. Though we may not understand the direct connection between a free press and a free society, it is clear that these bonds are great.

Declaration of Independence author Thomas Jefferson once said of the freedom of the press,

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter."

Thomas Jefferson was wrong: there is no choice between newspapers and (democratic) governments. They come together or they die alone. Without an informed electorate, corruption thrives, political interest atrophies, and an authoritarian, illegitimate government rises from the waste; countries like China and Eritrea show us this. It’s time America showed it understands the importance of journalism by passing a federal shield law, before its citizens wake up one morning to find no newspapers on their doorsteps.

Needing a Shield for Democracy: Journalists and the Courts

“Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without
newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment
to prefer the latter."

-Thomas Jefferson, 1787

With this dramatic quote, the father of our Declaration of Independence made an extremely powerful statement about a free press’ role in American society: independent media is the fourth estate, just as important to the welfare of a nation the executive, legislative and judicial branches.

The foundation of this estate is increasingly under attack, however, by an overzealous judiciary attempting to permanently check the powers of this estate. On June 5, 2005, Mississippi Circuit Judge Robert Bailey ruled that (Jackson) Clarion-Ledger reporter Ann Radelat must provide the information of a source that gave her a confidential memo under penalty of arrest. In 2004, Rhode Island television reporter Jim Taricani was sentenced to six months in prison for refusing to reveal a source who provided him a tape of an alleged bribe. In 2003, though the circumstances of her arrest have since become more dubious, former New York Times reporter Judith Miller was imprisoned for weeks for refusing to name the government source who leaked the information of a CIA spy.
These cases, and hundreds more like them, demonstrate the need for a defense for reporters and their sources. This defense is a federal shield law. Though some states, including Arizona, have their own shield laws, 17 states do not and many others have very weak laws in place. Currently there are three bills in Congress that would shield reporters from prosecution, the most comprehensive of which is the Free Speech Protection Act of 2005. Introduced by Senator Chrisropher Dodd, a Democrat from Connecticut, the bill would provide a variety of individuals in a variety of media (including, coincidentally, bloggers) with protection against far reaching subpoenas, like those in the cases above. Though there are exceptions to the shield, the bill provides much greater protection than reporters currently enjoy.
What is more compelling about this issue is that a federal shield law is not simply a desire of those within the media; the majority of Americans support the idea as well. According to a First Amendment Center 2004 survey, when given the simple statement “Journalists should be allowed to keep a news source confidential,” the majority — 72 percent — said they strongly or mildly agreed, while only 23 percent mildly or strongly disagreed, with 4 percent unsure. Clearly, these citizens understand the importance of an independent media in their society. As editors at the New York Times, one of the very institutions under attack in this conflict, eloquently wrote:

"The specter of reporters being imprisoned merely for doing their jobs is
something that should worry everyone who cherishes the First Amendment and the
essential role of a free press in a democracy."

Underlying the entire federal shield law debate is a simple fact: democracies need the light of a free press to survive. Without an informed electorate, corruption thrives, political interest atrophies, and an authoritarian, illegitimate government rises from the waste. In a time when news has become more fickle and less hard-hitting, it is tremendously important that journalists feel the duty and right to fully investigate wrongdoing and to report the information to the people. With the danger of lawsuits standing in both them and their sources way, there is no way this can be achieved. Thomas Jefferson was wrong: there is no choice between newspapers and (democratic) governments. They come together or they die alone. It’s time America had a federal shield law that proves we understand that.

Reading Response 1

The following are responses to assigned readings from The New World Reader: Thinking and Writing about the Global Community, edited by Gilbert H. Muller.

“Polygamy” by A. G. Mojtabai

1) The artful narrative lead that A. G. Mojtabai employs to open her essay “Polygamy” establishes Mojtabai’s background and outlook in the story, effectively placing the reader in the outsider position with which they must approach the essay’s topic.

Mojtabai almost immediately demonstrates to the reader that she is the misinformed stranger in a strange land by contrasting her preconceptions of the Iran with her perceived reality. Mojtabi describes her ideas before she came to the country that she would be greeted by “nightingales and roses,” and how instead she’s seen nothing but “high proprietary walls” and only heard the din of “street hawkers and traffic.” The culture from which Mojtabai comes clearly has influenced how she expected the environment to be. This influence has also influenced how Mojtabai expects certain institutions, like marriage, to be, and again, Mojtabai’s preconceptions will soon be challenged

Mojtabai immediately translates how this landscape misconception applies to the subject of polygamy by broaching the topic, in unconventional fashion, in the fourth paragraph. Rather than bring up the issue of polygamy head-on, Mojtabai slyly allows her father-in-laws words “What do you think of this?” and the shocking “s” on the end of wives to lay out the central issue of her piece (129). Here, Mojtabai explicitly lays out her roll, and that of her readers, in approaching the tricky polygamy subject. Mojtabai reminds the readers that she, like they, are “anthropologist[s] confronting opacity—the mind of the stranger” (129). And unlike in perceiving the country, where she allowed preconceived ideas to affect her impression of the landscape, Mojtabai is leaving her ethnocentric notions at the door. As she explains, “My judgment, when it came, wouldn’t be narrow, biased or culture-bound” (129). Mojtabai has cued the reader into the open, accepting mindset she expects them to have in reading the article, and now she and they are ready to proceed.

6) In mainstream America’s ever-raging sense of self-superiority, the idea of marriage continues to be an issue on which we refuse to bend. From the ages to genders of involved parties, Americans continue to see marriages outside the one, 18 or older man and one, 18 or older woman that occur around the world and in certain U.S. states, as shocking, repulsive, or an abomination.

Though I can recognize the fallacy in this way of thinking, I, too, have difficulty in accepting the idea of polygamy in many Middle Eastern countries. The reasoning that Mojtabai provides—decimation of the male population in warfare, a Koranic idea of shared love for multiple wives— is perfectly reasonable, and I agree, as she notes, that “a polygamous marriage [can] work” (131). Indeed, if all parties in the arrangement are content, and were not coerced into the marriage by relatives or society, I have not problem with polygamy specifically.

My major qualm with polygamy in many Middle Eastern countries is that it stands as another example of male-dominance in these societies. It makes sense that in countries where women face harsher restriction on what they wear, where they can go, what they can learn, and with whom they can speak, the fact that polyandrous relationships exist almost, if not entirely, with males having multiple wives. Though not having the right to marry multiple husbands may not bother these women, such as ideas like driving are casually dismissed as unimportant by many in the gender, the right to a multiple-spouse relationship still stands as one of the many gentlemen-only clubs in these societies.

“The Noble Feat of Nike” by Johan Norberg

3) “I traveled to Ho Chi Minh to examine the effects of multinational corporations on poor countries” (174).

By introducing this sentence in to his essay “The Noble Feat of Nike,” Johan Norberg is framing his arguments in favor of globalization as an insider’s account. “Listen to the man who’s seen, first-hand, what good multinationals can do in foreign lands,” the account seems to scream. But with any first-person account, a necessary question arises: how much is what the person saw, and how much is what they wanted to see?

For the most part, Norberg does a good job of substantiating his pro-globalization claims with specific numbers from the country—wages at the Nike plant are $54 a month, 3 times higher than state-owned enterprises; in 10 years, 2.2 million children have gone from labor to education; poverty in the country has been halved. If these numbers are to be believed, they provide strong support for Norberg’s more editorial claims, such as the workers look happier, want jobs for their families, and sure do like their air conditioning.

The responsibility of the newspaper or journal running Norberg’s story is to ensure that these numbers are to be believed. Far too often in mainstream media, fabrications and plagiarisms have found their way into major stories, and though this is ultimately the writer’s fault, the publication is also culpable. Norberg’s claims are fairly simple and should be easy to double-check with the government and world economic agencies. The publication running this story is compelled to examine these statistics to ensure a Jason Blair or Stephen Glass incident doesn’t happen here.

Of course, Norberg’s essay is not infallible. While examine the effects of higher paying jobs in third-world countries, he neglects to look into the effect this has on locally-owned businesses, and on inflation rates in the countries. Additionally, how many of the positive changes, such as increased child education, are tied directly to multinational corporations, and how many are simply a byproduct of a changing economy and society? The exact causal relationship is unexplored. However, by using first-person narrative accounts buttressed by concrete statistics, Norberg paints a convincing argument in favor or multinational expansion.

“Eat All of Your McAfrika, Honey . . .” by Carol Norris

2) When discussing issues as complex as multinational globalization and trade agreements and NGOs, it is important to adopt a keep-it-simple-stupid mentality. This rule is demonstrated by Carol Norris in her essay “Eat All of Your McAfrika, Honey . . .”

In the essay, Norris brings up complex ideas, references a variety of international policies and nuances, as well as problems in a globalized world. To make her readers understand the issues with which she is grappling, Norris uses simple examples and terms to illustrate her ideas. The effect of this strategy is two-fold. First, readers will more easily grasp the ideas she is referencing, and have a better time comprehending the base issues without getting too cut up in the confusing nuances. Second, Norris makes herself sympathetic to her readers. Were she to use long, rambling explanations and an academic vocabulary, Norris would be an outsider, a strange writer talking nonsense. Instead, she’s one of us—an understandable, believable contemporary.

Norris achieves her informal, colloquial style through continuous use of simple idioms and casual expressions. When describing how many readers will want her to view a McDonalds marketing scheme as truly honoring the suffering and those helping them in Africa, she was “see the cup half full” (218). When referencing that the United States uses irradiated beef, as opposed to pasteurized beef, Norris joking acts as if they’re the same, writing “Po-TAY-to, Po-TAH-to. Whatever” (219). This sense of down-home humor and sarcasm helps bring abstract and complex ideas down to the level many readers can understand, and pushes her readers into siding with her argument.

“Talking Trash” by Andy Rooney

3) Andy Rooney structures his essay “Talking Trash” as a personal narrative to illustrate a larger problem. By looking at his own habits of consumption and disposal, Rooney is trying to get the reader to extrapolate the effects of his behavior into those of the world as a whole. Rooney runs through an average day in his life—going to the grocery store, picking up dry cleaning, going about is routine—to show how much garbage is generated by every small action we take. By providing these examples in terms of chores most every American goes through, Rooney creates an effective and empathetic argument that Americans are living in a consume-and-discard culture.

Once area of weakness in Rooney’s arguments, however, is his lack of substantial statistics to back up his assertions. It is fairly easy to complain that people throw away too much garbage; it is much more difficult to provide concrete numbers demonstrating this wastefulness. Rooney’s ideas of the amount of excess packaging and excess waste are perfectly sensible, but in terms of cold, hard statistics, he provides only one: 24 million pounds as the amount of garbage New York City residents discard every day. The rest of Rooney’s figures are simple speculation, with ramblings like, “It would be interesting to conduct a serious test to determine what percentage of everything we discard. It must be more than 25%” (398). This test likely has been done, and would have provided a more concrete foundation to Rooney’s story, had he taken the time to research it. Instead, Rooney provides an amusing but ultimately unsubstantiated article on American overconsumption.