aboyle's blog

I thoroughly enjoyed my experience in this course. I signed up for this class because I needed a literature class for my General College core requirements, and honestly I wasn't really looking forward to it. I've never been very interested in literature; I have always excelled in and been more interested in writing classes, math, science, economics, et cetera. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that much of the work that this course required would be done on the computer. I have always been pretty interested in computers, and have always taken advantage of my knowledge of them when doing schoolwork. This course provided me the opportunity to use these skills, as well as learn many more skills that will help me in my academic and professional future.

I just fooled around with iMovie for a while, and came up with this little creation about the War in Iraq. I wanted to just present the facts about what happened and tell a story about it, without taking a side one way or the other, because I'm sure that no one is still on the fence about it, and will not be swayed by a 4 minute clip. I found myself getting frustrated at times because I could not use more than 30 seconds of a song, so this is not entirely the way I would want it. I would much rather play one song throughout, rather than having to switch every 30 seconds or so. Anyway, here is the link. It takes a couple of minutes to load, so please be patient.

I thought this story and the discussion we had about it in class today was very interesting. The rhetorical triangle was a good way to analyze the selection, as it forced us to look at the logical, emotional, and moral aspect of it. I felt that it was mainly emotional, since it centered on the experience of one person who had been rehabilitated, as opposed to the larger picture. I'm a numbers and facts guy, so the story didn't really do much for me in my stance on the death penalty, but I did find it interesting that as a society we do not try to rehabilitate our criminals, even though almost all of them will be re-released into society after being in prison.

So far I have thoroughly enjoyed the semester. I signed up for this class because I needed a literature class for my General College core requirements, and honestly I wasn't really looking forward to it. I've never been very interested in literature; I have always excelled in and been more interested in writing classes, math, science, economics, et cetera. I was pleasantly surprised when I found out that much of the work that this course entails would be done on the computer. I have always been pretty interested in computers, and have always taken advantage of my knowledge of them when doing schoolwork. This course provided me the opportunity to use these skills, as well as learn many more skills that will help me in my academic and professional future.

After many unsuccessful attempts at getting a good photo editing program for my Mac, and after having mixed success with using other people's computers to use the Serif program, I finally stumbled upon a trial version of Adobe Photoshop. What a powerful program.

This is the character of John Gault from Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." What I tried to do with this collage is show John's strength, will, brilliance, and ability to overcome a dark, cruel world. The eagle represents his ability to soar over the world by his own determination and brilliance, and the barely visible demons in the center represent the presence of evil in the world.

I skimmed over the Wal-Mart story from Chapter 14 of the textbook, and it appeared to be more of the same things that we always hear about Wal-Mart, the third world countries that manufacture Wal-Mart's products, and the US manufacturing jobs that are being shipped overseas. It is always negative, and Wal-Mart bashing is pretty popular among American writers and documentarians. I recently saw a book in the student store entitled "How Wal-Mart Is Destroying America." What you seldom hear about, however, is the positive effect that Wal-Mart has on American consumers. These low prices that are a result of Wal-Mart's supposed evil cost-cutting techniques save American consumers billions of dollars per year.

This revised profile, I feel, is much stronger than the first one. I tried to make it look more like a magazine article, inserted some pictures, divided it into two columns, and inserted a chart using excel. These images help to get my point across easier.

This profile is mainly about Friedman's scholarly works and the effects they had on American politics and economics, but it also details his humble background and rise to prominence in American society. Just some advice for any potential readers of this profile: tread carefully. This is probably very dry, boring reading for most people, as economic theory is for most. But it does detail the shift of the political landscape in America over the last half decade or so, so that may be interesting to more than just me.

Milton Friedman is a very influential American economist, who has authored 3 books and numerous essays on economic theory and policy. He has served as an advisor and spokesman for the United States Treasury, helped make policy for Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal, taught economics at the University of Chicago for over 30 years, has been with the Hoover Institute at Stanford University since 1977, and won the Nobel Prize in economics in 1976. His most influential book, "Capitalism and Freedom," was published in 1962, and warned of the threat to freedom posed by collectivist economies, particularly the Communist Soviet Union and the abundance of socialist governments that sprouted up after World War II. This work was not appreciated in its own time, but its help in shaping public opinion over the years assisted Ronald Reagan's election in 1980, and has contributed to the slowing of the growth of the United States government. Friedman has been a major force in the intellectual conservative movement in the United States since the book was published.