Assignment #2

Revolutionary Language

Recently The New York Times columnist Charles Blow wrote the column "Revolutionary Language" discussing the debate on gun control. Blow establishes a humorous yet serious tone right away in his lead.

"That sound you hear of a cultural paranoia by people who have lost their grip on the reigns of poet, and on reality, and who fear the worst is coming,"Blow said.

In his second paragraph he begins to the address the issue of gun control. Blow conveys the extremists agenda is preventing the conversation about gun control.

Blow use of colorful quotes contributes to the tone of his column. The quotes he uses do a good job providing quotes that make you think about the subject. Blow does a good job of letting the quotes he chooses speak for themselves.

The column ends when Blow said, "Again, calling the patriots to arms is, I think, no accident. Chew on that." Leaving readers thinking more on the subject of gun control.


The Thinking Person's Entertainment

Alissa Quart recently published "The Thinking Person's Entertainment" in the New York Times by discussing the connection of entertainment in every day life. Quart starts off by listing a list of television shows which included golden globe winner "Girls." Quart said the appeal of television shows is that it pulls us away from twitter, texts, emails, pointless videos and all the other technological distractions.

"They provide relief from non narrative mobile messages, from different voices nattering away, all at once, on different subjects and the multiple, inconstant jobs that now fill so much of our lives," Quart said. Her tone expresses energy and a interesting in the topic she is writing about.

Quart calls shows with multiple timelines a "hyperlink television" which refers to the way the shows creator chooses to tell a story. Whether if its like "Lost" a flack back bases television show or "Heroes" which uses different characters with separate timelines. Quart said with day to day life being a bombardment of different sources of entertainment the television ward has adapted to telling stories in a way "Web-savvy" audiences are use to.

"Those shows made sense to Web-savvy audiences alive to the fun of skipping back and fourth from one thread to the next and to random-seeming series of nonlinear sequences directed mostly by whim, taste and mood," Quart said. Quart closes her column by saying viewers prefer these complex narrative bases programs because it provides an escape from their hectic day to day lives.