Uncalled for

Thursday, 25 September 2008

Uncalled for

(x-posted)

I would appreciate it if everyone would hate on:

Mr. Bady for sharing this.
Mr. Manuel and Mr. McCain for making it possible.

Sep 25, 2008 10:13:21 AM | Béisbol

2 Comments

Let's say that a woman earned an average of $3.70 per hour over the course of her long blue-collar career. That included 40 years of working at least 5 days of menial labor each week. She kept that money in a bank, and now after 7 years of retirement, she has a little nest egg and Social Security.

Because of problems in paying the mortgage or any of a thousand family emergencies, she needs money. She gets caught up in an on-line scam. There goes 40 years of sweat and her semi-secure future. The linked author empathizes with everyone but our hypothetical woman.

Is it the story of the Great White Hunter on an African Safari or is it the story of Robin Hood? Is there such a thing as a vigilante when national and international police agencies will NEVER catch the scammer? I find it hard to believe that you can take the law into your own hands when there is no enforceable law.

P.S. That Pudd'nhead Wilson book you have out is overdue by a week. That'll be $1,800.00 for late fees, fines and the new bailout surcharge. Don't make us have to send out Rocco again. Warmest Regards, The UCI Library System

Posted by: THE LIBRARY | Friday, 26 September 2008 at 04:55 AM

As the linked blogger, I want to respond. However, I don't want to leave my trash scattered all over SEK's front yard, so I've posted that comment and my response over on my own blog. Plus, anything I can do to lure some of the UCI library's hatred away from his presence is probably a good thing, right?

Posted by: zunguzungu | Friday, 26 September 2008 at 10:43 AM

The comments to this entry are closed.

My "reading" list for the Fall Quarter Batman Begins Detective Comics #47 "The Myth of Superman," Umberto Eco Superman Returns Action Comics #1 Planetary #10 Watchmen Stan Lee's Watchmen "The World Ozymandias Made," Matthew Wolf-Meyer "The Zeppo" Supreme Before you hoist pitchfork, carefully consider the following points: I'm teaching a composition course on rhetoric. The point is not to have them read literature, but understand rhetoric. Given the dominance of visual rhetoric today, my emphasis on visual literacy should be understandable. This course is writing intensive. Some teachers prefer to teach texts that model the sort of prose they want their students to produce. But study after study has shown that having undergraduates read Emerson has no effect on the quality of their prose. (Or the effect may be wholly deleterious, as when students who can't nest clauses come to believe their teachers expect them to write like Emerson.) By shifting the time-intensiveness of the course from the consumption of rhetorically-loaded works to the production and refinement of rhetorical analyses, I think I'll have a better chance to improve the quality of their writing in the 10 weeks I have with them. Spandex.

Unforeseen benefits The definition of rhetoric a student offered after I'd introduced my syllabus today: So rhetoric is when we're fat Batman, but our writing convinces our particular audience we're Christian Bale. Guess who won't be teaching the rhetorical triangle this quarter?