ENG 103:01 Fall 2019

When it comes to Columbus day I feel like elementary school kids aren't learning exactly the full truth, and I know that what I learned about Christopher Columbus in elementary school is not what I have recently learned. I feel like kids deserve to know the truth in maybe a dumbed down way. But the way teachers almost glorify Columbus is teaching kids false information. The Indians deserve to have some recognition for their achievements and for us to recognize how they were treated by Columbus himself.

The various impacts humans have on the environment are common knowledge at this point, but what a lot of people don't know is the permanence of their actions. Recovering from future effects, and many of the impacts we've already seen, will be far more difficult than many people realize. For example, the Amazon Rainforest. The wildfires and deforestation in the amazon are broadcasted on all sorts of media platforms. But, recovering from this is far from simply planting a few more trees. There are over forty-thousand different plant species in the amazon, and over two-thousand different species of animals. According to the site New Scientist; it will take roughly sixty-five years for certain aspects to recover, and it will take upwards of four-thousand years for the landscape to revert back to it's native state. This is partially because the Amazon Rainforest is in a tropical wet climate. They see roughly one-hundred and twenty inches of rainfall annually. The massive amounts...

Christopher Columbus was once thought to be a hero who discovered the Americas by mistake when in fact he only discovered the Carribean and committed horrific acts against humanity but his crimes were overlooked because he found gold and other valuables so he was hailed as a hero. This isn't the only instance of people committing cruel acts with WW2 being the best example because war crimes were committed on all sides even the Allies. Crimes committed by the Soviets and the Allies were overlooked because they defeated the Axis powers and restored peace. So what we can see is that when one side is benefitting or profiting off of cruel acts or crimes they tend to overlook them and have some justification for their acts despite the cruelty of their actions.

    As of Monday, Oct 22, wildfires are spreading across Southern California in Pacific Palisades and San Bernardino. The fire grew tremendously at least burning 40 acres in less than an hour in  Palisades which resulted in three homes suffering the burning blaze with people sustaining minor injuries but luckily no one was killed. Evacuations went underway nearly all night with 200 homes deserted all day.     Firefighters arrived at the scene ultimately trying to extinguish the fire, with the help of helicopter crews dropping water overhead. The cause of the fire began with a small blaze aided by wind gusts of up to 30 mph forcing the blaze to move uphill and spread throughout the land. The fire will spread but "We will be expecting more fire weather as the week progresses ... because our concern is to make sure that these lines are contained and make sure the fire doesn't go outside " said Assistant Chief Patrick Butler, the incident commander of the Palaside...

For my group topic I was assigned the topic of animal rights and after just looking at the first website about it, my heart sink. Animals are being put through foul and  unnecessary conditions because of experimentation on them. Animal testing is a cruel and inhumane practice that results in these helpless animals being crippled or even killed.  There is no reason any living being should be put under conditions such as these. They do not deserve to suffer in such ways and should have the equal humane rights to live as we do. 

Over the past weeks I have done a lot of research over the topic of animal rights.  An estimated 26 million animals are used every year in the United States for scientific and commercial testing. The types of testings vary between things that can cause an animal stress, harm, pain or even deprivation from essential living needs such as food and water. Animals deserve to have just as many rights as do humans. They are living creatures just as much as we are, but they don't have the ability to speak for themselves. Many animals are mistreated and there is so much more that we as citizens can do to prevent this.

Lately in our class we have been talking about the rhetorical strategies like pathos, ethos, and logos. Since we have started this section I have been seeing these in every commercial or advertisement that I see online or on the TV. These four pictures are screenshots from Elizabeth Warren's Instagram post from this past Thursday. If you did not know, Elizabeth warren is a democratic candidate running for president. She is one of the front-runners in this election it seems. She gets a lot of press for having a plan for everything, she also speaks a lot about her support for minorities and the LGBTQ+ community. In these pictures I can see logos and pathos being used. The reason I say logos is because of the use of statistics in these photos, they are big and bold to really grab the reader's attention. The reason I would say pathos would be because of the way the information is told in these pictures. Elizabeth Warren is trying to get people to feel bad for the people mentioned...