Windmills & Giants

If you were unable to annotate your copy of "Letter from Birmingham Jail," please do so tonight. On a similar topic, here is an opinion piece on the "Jena Six" by Steve Coll, published in The New Yorker.

Missed an article recently? Here's your chance to make it up:
For extra credit (10 pts), contrast the style (T-DIDLS) of the above article and this one by Richard G. Jones from The New York Times. Keep in mind the objective of each (to persuade and to inform) and their context.

You have one week. You may use these articles for discussion or extra credit, not both. Read More......

Great article!

What do you guys think? Did Davis overreact?

I love this:

"I think those high school kids shouldn't have been on his property," Lynch said. "But in this country, life is valued over property, and if someone is fleeing your property or on your property but not threatening you, you're not allowed to just shoot them."

We will talk about rhetorical fallacies later, but this is a big one. His argument is that while the "kids shouldn't have been on his property", he should not have shot them because "life is valued over property." He is applying his argument to one side only. It is reported in the article that Davis (the shooter) said,

"In a situation like that, you assume the worst-case scenario if you're going to protect your family from a possible home invasion and murder."

The Judge who made the top statement has redirected the intent from "protecting . . . family" to protecting property. Certainly shooting teens is a bad thing (apparently shooting a "pretty blonde high school cheerleader" is especially heinous; note the pathetic introduction and epithet), but was he unstable and shooting at whatever moved, or protecting his family? Was the amount of violence warranted? What do you guys think? Read More......