Holidays on Ice

This week, I started reading a new book, also by David Sedaris, called "Holidays on Ice."  The essays in this book revolve around the comical holiday experiences of David Sedaris.  The first essay, "Santaland Diaries," is about Sedaris's job as a Macy's elf.  Sedaris applies for several unsatisfying and low-pay jobs, such as a U.P.S truck driver and of course, a position as a Macy's elf.  Sedaris, who is 33 at the time, obtains the elf position despite failing the drug test.  Sedaris describes several hilarious instances while working at Macy's, like the time when he saw a mother instruct her son to urinate on an artificial mound of snow.  This essay provides a great example of why you should get a thorough and legitimate education, so you don't end up being a 33 year old elf at Macy's.

Me Talk Pretty One Day.

This week, I finished reading "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris.  One particularly amusing essay in the last 40 pages of the book was titled "Picka Pocketoni."  This essay is mainly about the stereotypes of the typical American against the different cultures of the world.  Sedaris is on a Paris subway with his boyfriend when a middle-aged American couple get on the subway.  The American man rudely declares Sedaris as a "ripe froggy."  The couple, however, does not know that Sedaris speaks English, so they keep shouting rude and stereotypical remarks against French culture.  The American man misunderstands a gesture from Sedaris and claims that Sedaris tried to pit-pocket him.  Sedaris is quite amused by the whole scene, realizing how vulgar and stupid Americans are at times.  As Sedaris walks off of the train, he seems to be quite upbeat about the American couple's remarks, considering himself to be a cunning "pit-pocket."

Me Talk Pretty One Day.

This week I continued to read "Me Talk Pretty One Day."  One particularly humorous essay in the book is about Sedaris's trip to France.  Sedaris only knows a few vulgar French words at first, so he decides to enroll in French classes.  The class that Sedaris takes is filled with people from many different cultures who have at least some French knowledge.  The teacher continuously embarrasses and punishes Sedaris for his lack of knowledge and effort.  Sedaris seems to think that his teacher would still hate him even if he had a full vocabulary of French words, but Sedaris's teacher only punishes Sedaris for his awful French speaking skills.

Me Talk Pretty One Day.

This week, I continued to read "Me Talk Pretty One Day."  Sedaris writes many hilarious essays that range from being about David's vile younger brother to criticizing the modern way of cooking.  One particularly amusing essay by Sedaris was about Sedaris's personal assistant job.  Sedaris becomes a personal assistant to a cheap foreign lady.  This lady, who is quite well-off, owns a small publishing company that operates at the convenience of her own home.  Sedaris envies her house and her leisurely life while working for her, but he soon becomes irritated with her wild and ridiculous demands.  Sedaris quits his job and becomes an employee of a small moving company.  The communist owner of the moving company treats Sedaris kindly, although he strikes Sedaris as the "cookoo" type.  Sedaris humorously describes how he knows the type of people his employers are based on how they pack their items up.  

Me Talk Pretty One Day.

This week, I read the first two essays of David Sedaris's "Me Talk Pretty One Day."  The first essay is about David's lisp as a child.  David humorously describes the nature of his teacher and the activities done to correct his lisp.  David seems ashamed of his lisp when it becomes eminent to David that he has a speech impediment.  Once David learns that he cannot overcome his lisp, he simply avoids saying words with "s" sounds and learns synonym replacements of words with "s" sounds, thus increasing his vocabulary.

The second essay in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" is about David's guitar lessons.  David's dad is a huge fan of jazz music, and he wants David and David's sisters to learn instruments.  The father gets David a guitar and lessons to go along with it, but David tries to find excuses to skip guitar lessons.  David feels slightly inferior from his guitar teacher, but soon becomes sympathetic to his teacher because he is taunted because of his height (he is very small).  

Ethics Project

Question: Should prisoners have the opportunity to be educated while serving their time?

Source 1: Garman, John. "Higher Education for Prisoners Will Lower Rates for Taxpayers." Jan. 17, 2002 3. 6 Dec 2008 .

The article I found on findarticles.com was written by Dr. John Garman. Dr. Garman is the president of Vista Community College in Berkeley, California and a regular contributor to San Francisco Weekly and Clackmans Literary Review. Garman writes a wide variety of articles from book reviews to current world issues. The article is mainly about the positive affects of treating prisoners, and is mainly centered towards allowing prisoners to be educated while serving their time.

Source 2: Davis , Aaron . "Schwarzenegger budget slashes education, releases prisoners." Associated Press January 10, 2008 1. 6 Dec 2008 .mjjjj

This article was written Aaron C. Davis, a frequent writer for the Associated Press and the Washington Post. This article is about how California has to cut down on prisoner education and other forms of education because of a money shortage throughout the state.

Source 3: Frolander-Ulf, Monica. "Teaching in Prison." (2001) 1. 8 Dec 2008 http://sks.sirs.com/cgi-bin/hst-article-display?id=SMN0307H-0-2372&artno=0000138786&type=ART&shfilter=U&key=prisoner%20education&title=Teaching%20in%20Prison&res=Y&ren=N&gov=N&lnk=N&ic=Y.

This article was found on Sirs.com, an online database of articles. This article specifically came from the Monthly Review Press, and is about teaching prisoners to read, write, and giving them basic education. The article presents many strong opinions about the affects on prisoners' lives if they were to recieve basic eduacation while in prison.

Source 4: Granoff , Gillian . "Prison College Programs Unlock the Keys to Human Potential." (2005) 1. 8 Dec 2008 http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2005/May/html/FEAT-BehindBars.html.

This article centered around prisoners recieving college degrees while in prison. Boston University, Harvard, Gerogtown, Bard College, and Wesleyan University are the 6 colleges that offer outstanding education programs for prisoners. Each college grants prisoners with degrees if they complete courses provided for them.

Source 5: Vacca , James . "Educated Prisoners are Less Likely to Return to Prison." December 2004 7. 8 Dec 2008 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa4111/is_200412/ai_n9466371.

"Educated Prisoners are Less Likely to Return to Prison" is an article written about the positive affects of educating prisoners. The idea of cost for the education is also presented, with rough estimates of the costs to provide free education to all prisoners.

Source 6: McCann, Sarah. "Program helps Arizona prisoners get ready for real life ." (2008) 1. 8 Dec 2008 http://features.csmonitor.com/innovation/2008/07/31/program-helps-arizona-prisoners-get-ready-for-real-life/.

This article is about prisons in Arizona that offer special programs to prisoners. The programs offer education and work to get prisoners ready for life after prison. The programs are designed to help inmates get jobs after prison and keep them from commiting more crimes.

Slapstick

In pages 90-274 of Slapstick, the middle and elderly life of Daffodil Swain is explained by Vonnegut.  Daffodil parts ways with his twin sister as she is forced to go to a mental facility, and Daffodil goes to college and medical school.  Daffodil becomes a doctor, although not a good one, and then he begins to realize the loneliness of his fellow Americans.  Daffodil decides to run for president, proposing that Americans get assigned middle names.  About 200 random people in all of the U.S.A. will be assigned the same middle name, making them a "family" of unrelated relatives.  Somewhere in the mix, Daffodil becomes dependent on an unnecessary medication that is used to treat people with turrets syndrome.  America soon falls apart when the Albanian Flu and the Green Death begin to take the lives of civilians.  Daffodil officially loses his presidential office when America becomes a territory of madness and insanity, with "kings" ruling over large parts of the land.  Daffodil goes to visit a women in Indiana who lets him use a device that lets people communicate with dead spirits.  Daffodil talks to his sister, who tells him that he should die immediately so that Daffodil and his sister can unite again.  After the conversation, Daffodil moves to New York, the island of Green Death, and the final resting place for Daffodil.