Poem of choice:
Rainbow Death
America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.
Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!
Point of View:
This poem could have been written in the point of view of an observer of the America’s use of herbicides in the Vietnam War. This is quite clear as the protagonist in the poem knows a substantial amount of information about ‘agent orange’ which is the herbicide mainly used in the Vietnam War. This can be inferred from the persona’s knowledge that ‘agent orange’ had ‘execrable effects’. The fact that the persona says that ‘America did not foresee’ and that ‘agent orange’ caused ‘toll on the innocent and unborn’ which resulted in ‘illness, birth defects and premature’ death. This emphasizes that the Vietnam War was close to the persona and he/she probably had first-hand experience of it.
Situation and Setting:
The situation and setting in the poem is after ‘agent orange’ is used in the Vietnam War. This is evident as the persona speaks like the incident has already passed. This is also illuminated by the fact that the persona says things like ‘America did not foresee’ and ‘disregarding those who mourn’. These pieces of evidence all point to the fact that the observer is simply reflecting on the already-passed incident. It is also empahsized that the incident has already passed when the persona talks about ‘all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead’. After ‘agent orange’ has been used, the effects are extremely harsh and detrimental to the wellbeing of the Vietnamese people affected by it. Thus, it can be concluded that the persona is observing the after-effects of the use of ‘agent orange’ in the Vietnamese War.
Language/Diction:
The persona speaks about war in a very grim tone and tries to bring across the harsh consequences of war. This is very clear when the persona uses the word ‘potpourri’. Potpourri has multiple meanings, the first being ‘a collection of mixed dried flower petals’, the other being ‘a collection of miscellaneous and unrelated items’. The first meaning of the word could be an oxymoron when put together with the word ‘death’ as potpourri is something pleasant while death is not so ‘nice’. Thus, it could have been emphasizing that death is unpleasant, especially in war. The second meaning of the word can be interpreted to mean that there were many deaths in the war; deaths of soldiers, deaths of innocents, basically deaths of a lot of people. The title itself is also quite an oxymoron. The words ‘rainbow death’ are a very queer combination as rainbows are normally beautiful and are signs of hope while death is dismal and dark. The title is also a pun as the ‘rainbow’ in it refers to the different coloured herbicides used in the Vietnam War. All of this emphasizes that death is not pleasant.
Personal Response:
The main idea behind this poem is to convey the message that wars aren’t over when the battles are over. When the Vietnam War ended, the battles may have ceased, but the people were still greatly affected by the effects of the war. There were shortages of food, shelter and a lack of proper hygiene. Many children were left orphans by the destruction the war had caused and the many lives it had taken away. Thousands of people were also affected by the herbicide used in the war (like in this poem which talks about the horrible effects of ‘agent orange’). The poet effectively conveys the message about how horrifying war is and that we should not support it for the good of all. Disputes can always be settled through peaceful means; there is no need to go to war just to solve something. In conclusion, this poem is a powerful reminder to society that war is not the glorious event as portrayed by the government; rather it is a gruesome slug-out between countries and people and many lives are lost in the process.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
E-Learning 2 (25 - 26 May 2010) Task 1
Poem of choice:
Rainbow Death
America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.
Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!
Hubert Wilson was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service. Along with about a dozen intelligence school grads, Hubert was trained for around 14 months at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, before being assigned to several locations in 1970. About half of the intelligence school grads ended up in Da Nang (an Agent Orange hotspot) in the 6924th Security Squadron. The others were assigned to Shemya Island in Alaska, with the 6984th Security Squadron. Shemya Island turned out to be even more contaminated than Da Nang and this had consequences on Hubert’s life.
Approximately 15 years ago, Hubert started experiencing unexplained headaches and pains in his limbs. Four years ago, Hubert’s medical condition deteriorated and he started experiencing Parkinson-like symptoms such as shakiness when moving, horrific headaches and limb pains. No physician could diagnose his illness. Hubert’s educated guess was that the heavily contaminated drinking water at Shemya during my year there as an intelligence analyst had caused all of these problems. Organo-phosphate toxins may not run their toxic course until 20 to 30 years after initial exposure.
Although Hubert has mobility issues, his brain still functions (almost) as per normal. He decided to turn to writing just like his deceased father and the late singer /writer Johnny Cash.
Hubert’s short poem talks about a dangerous ingredient of warfare (chemical warfare that is) which was ‘agent orange’. This ‘agent orange’ is basically the codename for a herbicide developed by the United States which was used in the war against Vietnam. ‘Agent Orange’ was among a few other kinds of herbicides in the ‘Rainbow Herbicide’ herbicide program the United States had employed in the Vietnam War. (For your information, herbicides are sprayed on crops to, well, get rid of some kinds of weeds and encourage the growth of some kinds of plants)
Anyway, according to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to ‘agent orange’ during the Vietnam War. This resulted in more than 400 000 deaths and disabilities among the people, and also about 500 000 children born with birth defects (what a scary thought!).
From 1962 to 1971, Agent Orange was clearly the most commonly used of the ‘Rainbow Herbicides’ used by the United States in their herbicidal warfare program against Vietnam. Agent Orange was only one of the toxins produced by the United States during the program (there were also several others, like the colours of the rainbow!). These herbicides were extremely harmful and those exposed to large amounts of them developed several illnesses and disabilities over time.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Rainbow Death
America did not foresee
Green, pink, purple and other colors death potpourri!
Expecting others to pay a high price.
Now thinking twice?
Toll on the innocent and unborn.
Omnipotent and disregarding who will mourn.
Reflective about all the illness, birth defects and prematurely dead.
All the deceit continues to spread.
Nefariously America led astray -
Generations untold WILL pay -
Execrable effects of agent orange spray!
Hubert Wilson was a Vietnam War veteran who served in the USAF Security Service. Along with about a dozen intelligence school grads, Hubert was trained for around 14 months at Kelly Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, before being assigned to several locations in 1970. About half of the intelligence school grads ended up in Da Nang (an Agent Orange hotspot) in the 6924th Security Squadron. The others were assigned to Shemya Island in Alaska, with the 6984th Security Squadron. Shemya Island turned out to be even more contaminated than Da Nang and this had consequences on Hubert’s life.
Approximately 15 years ago, Hubert started experiencing unexplained headaches and pains in his limbs. Four years ago, Hubert’s medical condition deteriorated and he started experiencing Parkinson-like symptoms such as shakiness when moving, horrific headaches and limb pains. No physician could diagnose his illness. Hubert’s educated guess was that the heavily contaminated drinking water at Shemya during my year there as an intelligence analyst had caused all of these problems. Organo-phosphate toxins may not run their toxic course until 20 to 30 years after initial exposure.
Although Hubert has mobility issues, his brain still functions (almost) as per normal. He decided to turn to writing just like his deceased father and the late singer /writer Johnny Cash.
Hubert’s short poem talks about a dangerous ingredient of warfare (chemical warfare that is) which was ‘agent orange’. This ‘agent orange’ is basically the codename for a herbicide developed by the United States which was used in the war against Vietnam. ‘Agent Orange’ was among a few other kinds of herbicides in the ‘Rainbow Herbicide’ herbicide program the United States had employed in the Vietnam War. (For your information, herbicides are sprayed on crops to, well, get rid of some kinds of weeds and encourage the growth of some kinds of plants)
Anyway, according to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, over 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to ‘agent orange’ during the Vietnam War. This resulted in more than 400 000 deaths and disabilities among the people, and also about 500 000 children born with birth defects (what a scary thought!).
From 1962 to 1971, Agent Orange was clearly the most commonly used of the ‘Rainbow Herbicides’ used by the United States in their herbicidal warfare program against Vietnam. Agent Orange was only one of the toxins produced by the United States during the program (there were also several others, like the colours of the rainbow!). These herbicides were extremely harmful and those exposed to large amounts of them developed several illnesses and disabilities over time.
http://www.warpoetry.co.uk/2010warpoetry.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_Orange
Monday, May 10, 2010
Of Fallacies And Failures
Hello guys (and girls, and aliens, and the non-applicable [Okay you know what, just forget this fallacious sentence]). Well, it has been a rather long time since I last posted because I don’t need any English ace this term. But the ace can be carried forward to next term where English ace is compulsory so I might as well just do this while watching live commentary of the Chelsea versus Manchester United match (go Chelsea!). As you might be able to foreshadow from the title and the previous sentence, this post will be about the ace system and the fallacies that follow (sorry for the excessive use of the word; my classmate has proven to be extremely influential). And no it won’t be about soccer.
Alright, time to get down to business. First, let’s have a little briefing about this ‘ace’ system. I have no idea if it’s supposed to be an acronym or whatever but it was implemented with good intentions. Good intentions. Not good consequences. As we all know (most of us, except probably those watching the match now [awesome it’s 2 – 0 now!] [I think that might be a fallacious statement]), intentions have little effect on what happens in the end. For example, I shall use the classic situation of a test. Let’s pretend you want to get a nice grade for that o-so-challenging math test. So what do you do? No, you don’t say that was a rhetorical question, you attempt to get good marks by mugging (not stealing). So you see, there’s the intention there. However, how I wished getting good grades were that simple. No, see, you still have to take the test! And what do you get for that test? Wow, a whopping 14 marks out of a possible 40+3 (5 for some random bonus question because your teacher is feeling kind). This happens ever-so-often, and the poor soul who tried hard for that 30 ends up with a horrendous mark that should have been given to some other person undeserving of that A1.
You might scream, “I thoroughly don’t deserve it!” but does it make any difference? No; it looks like your intention and the outcome just didn’t match. Oh well. Luckily that test situation was hypothetical, unless the person whom I was actually talking about knows I am writing about him (sigh yet another fallacious statement).
Anyway, I had better steer back to what this post was originally about. Sorry, not soccer. Anyway, to really get this post back on track, let’s go back to the idea of ace. Ace (or was it ACE, or A.C.E. or whatever) was supposed to encourage students to be independent learners and the whatnot schools aim to impart in students. The politically correct (but fallacious) answer is that, yes; most students do bother to try for that ace. Gosh I feel really thirsty now. I shall get a drink.
*2 minutes later* (Do pardon the overtly random behavior.)
Oh that was nice and refreshing. So as I was saying, the ‘politically correct’ answer would be yes, it has worked to some extent. What I think, on the other hand, is that this system has largely failed. Yeah you read right. Spectacularly failed. At this point, if you were a teacher, you would probably stop reading this blog post and get all angry and upset and remain biased towards me for the rest of my life. Well I hope you’re not for my own sake. Let me explain the (potentially fallacious) reasons behind my idea.
You see, after all this time, ace has turned into some sort of horrible thing for students. Seriously, who would want to do extra work for no benefits at all? You might say the benefit of increased knowledge but I extol; hardly any students unless they have too much free time on their hands does ace for nothing. The main motivation students had behind doing ace was that if they did ace, they would get better marks at the end of the year, not because of ‘increased knowledge’. The school might have tried to solve this problem by implementing a new system this year. Ace would no longer affect the end-of-year score of students; rather it would affect something known as their ‘scholastic score’. This was supposed to emphasize that ace was supposed to be to ‘deepen the knowledge’ of students, or self-learning. However, this will not work. In fact, this new system has only worsened the situation.
Students do not even have the correct mentality when it comes to ace, and I myself can say that I am no exception from the norm. We do it not to ‘widen our sea of knowledge’, but to get a better grade. By changing to this new system, students will develop their strong dislike of ace even more as ace no longer affects the end-of-year Mean Subject Grade (or MSG, another disliked acronym). Yet we still have to ace. Imagine doing something and reaping a pathetic reward. It’s like spending an hour at night doing this blog post and (probably) getting no ace for it because of the fallacious argument I am fighting for.
Also, students have to even opt for which subjects they are going to do ace for each term. This was supposed to help students plan out which subjects they were going to do ace for each term but this has also brilliantly failed. Sure, you might say that the school just wants students to ensure they get the maximum ace at the end of the year. However, by doing so, the freedom of choice of students is greatly restricted. Each term, you have to do ace for a subject, whether you have time for it or not. Unlike the previous system, which didn’t really care when you did your ace as long as you accumulated the required 10 ace per subject at the end of the year, this system forces you to do ace each term. Yes, this might be to reduce the amount of stress students feel at the end of the year when they have to do ace, study for the exams and anything else. The truth is, students enjoy freedom. Not just students, rather everyone would like to feel free. Come on, who wouldn’t? This system reduces our freedom of choice, restricts it, and I know I know and you know that you know that I know that we don’t like feeling restricted!
Ooh, that was a rather long post filled withfellat fallacious arguments. Anyway, it’s time for me to end it all off. Anyone care to voice (or rather, type) their thoughts on this issue? I think many of you might take that as a rhetorical question but I can’t be bothered to type any longer.
On a side note: Cool it’s 7 to nothing at Stamford Bridge in favour of Chelsea and the title is Chelsea’s for the season! Chelsea completely reduces Wigan to a pile of demoralized players with dreams crushed by their empowering EIGHT goals to their ZERO. The hopes the redder half of Manchester had of winning the title have been effectively obliterated!
Alright, time to get down to business. First, let’s have a little briefing about this ‘ace’ system. I have no idea if it’s supposed to be an acronym or whatever but it was implemented with good intentions. Good intentions. Not good consequences. As we all know (most of us, except probably those watching the match now [awesome it’s 2 – 0 now!] [I think that might be a fallacious statement]), intentions have little effect on what happens in the end. For example, I shall use the classic situation of a test. Let’s pretend you want to get a nice grade for that o-so-challenging math test. So what do you do? No, you don’t say that was a rhetorical question, you attempt to get good marks by mugging (not stealing). So you see, there’s the intention there. However, how I wished getting good grades were that simple. No, see, you still have to take the test! And what do you get for that test? Wow, a whopping 14 marks out of a possible 40+3 (5 for some random bonus question because your teacher is feeling kind). This happens ever-so-often, and the poor soul who tried hard for that 30 ends up with a horrendous mark that should have been given to some other person undeserving of that A1.
You might scream, “I thoroughly don’t deserve it!” but does it make any difference? No; it looks like your intention and the outcome just didn’t match. Oh well. Luckily that test situation was hypothetical, unless the person whom I was actually talking about knows I am writing about him (sigh yet another fallacious statement).
Anyway, I had better steer back to what this post was originally about. Sorry, not soccer. Anyway, to really get this post back on track, let’s go back to the idea of ace. Ace (or was it ACE, or A.C.E. or whatever) was supposed to encourage students to be independent learners and the whatnot schools aim to impart in students. The politically correct (but fallacious) answer is that, yes; most students do bother to try for that ace. Gosh I feel really thirsty now. I shall get a drink.
*2 minutes later* (Do pardon the overtly random behavior.)
Oh that was nice and refreshing. So as I was saying, the ‘politically correct’ answer would be yes, it has worked to some extent. What I think, on the other hand, is that this system has largely failed. Yeah you read right. Spectacularly failed. At this point, if you were a teacher, you would probably stop reading this blog post and get all angry and upset and remain biased towards me for the rest of my life. Well I hope you’re not for my own sake. Let me explain the (potentially fallacious) reasons behind my idea.
You see, after all this time, ace has turned into some sort of horrible thing for students. Seriously, who would want to do extra work for no benefits at all? You might say the benefit of increased knowledge but I extol; hardly any students unless they have too much free time on their hands does ace for nothing. The main motivation students had behind doing ace was that if they did ace, they would get better marks at the end of the year, not because of ‘increased knowledge’. The school might have tried to solve this problem by implementing a new system this year. Ace would no longer affect the end-of-year score of students; rather it would affect something known as their ‘scholastic score’. This was supposed to emphasize that ace was supposed to be to ‘deepen the knowledge’ of students, or self-learning. However, this will not work. In fact, this new system has only worsened the situation.
Students do not even have the correct mentality when it comes to ace, and I myself can say that I am no exception from the norm. We do it not to ‘widen our sea of knowledge’, but to get a better grade. By changing to this new system, students will develop their strong dislike of ace even more as ace no longer affects the end-of-year Mean Subject Grade (or MSG, another disliked acronym). Yet we still have to ace. Imagine doing something and reaping a pathetic reward. It’s like spending an hour at night doing this blog post and (probably) getting no ace for it because of the fallacious argument I am fighting for.
Also, students have to even opt for which subjects they are going to do ace for each term. This was supposed to help students plan out which subjects they were going to do ace for each term but this has also brilliantly failed. Sure, you might say that the school just wants students to ensure they get the maximum ace at the end of the year. However, by doing so, the freedom of choice of students is greatly restricted. Each term, you have to do ace for a subject, whether you have time for it or not. Unlike the previous system, which didn’t really care when you did your ace as long as you accumulated the required 10 ace per subject at the end of the year, this system forces you to do ace each term. Yes, this might be to reduce the amount of stress students feel at the end of the year when they have to do ace, study for the exams and anything else. The truth is, students enjoy freedom. Not just students, rather everyone would like to feel free. Come on, who wouldn’t? This system reduces our freedom of choice, restricts it, and I know I know and you know that you know that I know that we don’t like feeling restricted!
Ooh, that was a rather long post filled with
On a side note: Cool it’s 7 to nothing at Stamford Bridge in favour of Chelsea and the title is Chelsea’s for the season! Chelsea completely reduces Wigan to a pile of demoralized players with dreams crushed by their empowering EIGHT goals to their ZERO. The hopes the redder half of Manchester had of winning the title have been effectively obliterated!
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