Brandon Kiem On Urban Environments and Evolution

Claim: In evolutionary terms, the urban environments we take for granted represent radical ecological upheavals, the sort of massive changes that for most of Earth’s history have played out over geological time, not a few hundred years.

Reason 1: This is new, and animals are adapting, all around us.
Backing:
"A growing body of scientific evidence suggests that the brains and behaviors of urban animals are changing rapidly in response." (assertion of facts)

Reason 2: The adaptable early immigrants, and other species that once avoided cities but are slowly moving in, are changing fast.
Backing: 
"Museum specimens gathered across the 20th century show that Minnesota’s urbanized small mammals — shrews and voles, bats and squirrels, mice and gophers — experienced a jump in brain size compared to rural mammals."
"Snell-Rood thinks this might reflect the cognitive demands of adjusting to changing food sources, threats, and landscapes." (assertion of facts)

Reason 3:  Urban animals tend to be bold, not backing down from threats that would send their country counterparts into retreat.

Reason 4: The city’s salamanders tend to be languid.

Reason 5: Muted stress responses have been found in many species of urban animals. When surprised or threatened, their endocrine systems release lower-than-usual amounts of stress hormones.
Backing:
“They’re clearly attenuating their physiological response to stress, probably because they’re constantly inundated with noise, traffic, and all kinds of environmental stresses in cities,” said biologist Jonathan Atwell of Indiana University. (use of scientific source)

Reason 6: The San Diego juncos sing at higher frequencies than those living in rural, traffic-free settings.

Reason 7: Urban squirrels, for example, seem to have adjusted to vocalization-drowning ambient noise by making tail-waving a routine part of communications.

Refutation 1: Not all changes in urban animals will represent adaptations to urban living, however.
Backing: 
"Most genetic mutations are neither beneficial nor harmful, at least not right away. They simply happen and, over long periods of time, accumulate in populations through what’s known as genetic drift."

Edward N. Luttwak on Syria's War and America

Claim: The Obama administration should resist the temptation to intervene more forcefully in Syria’s civil war. A victory by either side would be equally undesirable for the United States.

Reason 1: Iranian money, weapons and operatives and Hezbollah troops have become key factors in the fighting; Assad's win would be disastrous.
Backing:
"Mr. Assad’s triumph would dramatically affirm the power and prestige of Shiite Iran and Hezbollah, its Lebanon-based proxy — posing a direct threat both to the Sunni Arab states and to Israel." (assertion of fact)

Reason 2: Extremist groups, some identified with Al Qaeda, have become the most effective fighting force in Syria.
Backing: 
"If those rebel groups manage to win, they would almost certainly try to form a government hostile to the United States. Moreover, Israel could not expect tranquillity on its northern border if the jihadis were to triumph in Syria." 

Reason 3: Unavailability of help from Syria's neighbour - Turkey.
Backing: 
"In mid-2011, Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, loudly demanded that it end. But instead of being intimidated into surrender, Mr. Assad’s spokesmen publicly ridiculed Mr. Erdogan"
"While his armed forces proceeded to shoot down a Turkish fighter jet, before repeatedly firing artillery rounds into Turkish territory and setting off lethal car bombs at a Turkish border crossing. To everyone’s surprise, there was no significant retaliation."
"Turkey has large and restless minority populations that don’t trust their own government, which itself does not trust its own army"

Reason 4: The war is now being waged by warlords and dangerous extremists.
Backing:
"Taliban-style Salafist fanatics who beat and kill even devout Sunnis because they fail to ape their alien ways"
"Sunni extremists who have been murdering innocent Alawites and Christians merely because of their religion" 
"Jihadis from Iraq and all over the world who have advertised their intention to turn Syria into a base for global jihad aimed at Europe and the United States" (assertion of facts)

Reason 5: An Iranian-backed restoration of the Assad regime would increase Iran’s power and status across the entire Middle East, while a victory by the extremist-dominated rebels would inaugurate another wave of Al Qaeda terrorism.

Reason 6: Non-Sunni Syrians can expect only social exclusion or even outright massacre if the rebels win, while the nonfundamentalist Sunni majority would face renewed political oppression if Mr. Assad wins.

Reason 7: A full-scale American invasion to defeat both Mr. Assad and the extremists fighting against his regime wouldn't also be desirable.
Backing:
"That could lead to a Syria under American occupation. And very few Americans today are likely to support another costly military adventure in the Middle East." (use of common belief)

Mark Slouka on Writing Process

Claim: No stage of the writing process, as fraught for writers as those first few months of uncertainty.

Reason 1: Writers do not like to be asked to describe their book before finishing it.

Reason 2: Writers often find it difficult to avoid temptations to share.
Backing: 
"Because we’re unsure — about very nearly everything." (use of a commonly known belief)
"Because we’re running on faith and fumes."

Reason 3: Writers crave for validation to keep them going.

Reason 4: The inner critic says that you're not on the right track.
Backing:
"the I. C. will be rubbing our nose in the truth before the week is out: the work is as bad as we suspected it was." (use of a common human characteristic - doubt)

Reason 5: Writers are optimistic of the day, but people around do not know how to help.
Backing:
"If the well-meaning colleague doesn’t ask, she risks seeming unsupportive; ask, and she suffers the consequences: every syllable of her response will be studied and sifted with forensic care, every attempt at encouragement grimly accepted or politely dismissed, every stab at honesty received like a lance through the heart." (assertion of shared beliefs)
"leaves the unsuspecting participant only two possible pre-emptive moves" The first is to play for time, "Chances are it won’t work, but at least this way the blame is on the writer". Another is to "adamantly refuse to hear a word until the writer stops asking, at which point the coast is clear"

Reason 5: Writing isn't done with people, your vision is your own.

T.S Eliot on Metaphysical Poets

Claim: The phrase (metaphysical poets) has long done duty as a term of abuse, or as the label of a quaint and pleasant taste.

Reason 1: Extremely difficult to define metaphysical poetry, and also to decide what poets practice it and in which of their verses (para 1)
Backing:
Difficult to find any precise use of metaphor, simile, or other conceit, which is common to all the poets and at the same time important enough as an element of style to isolate these poets as a group.
We find, instead of the mere explication of the content of a comparison, a development by rapid association of thought which requires considerable agility on the part of the reader (para 1)

Reason 2: This telescoping of images and multiplied associations is characteristic of the phrase of some of the dramatists of the period which Donne knew, and is one of the sources of the vitality of their language. (para 2)

Reason 3: Johnson who employed the term metaphysical poets, remarks that the most heterogenous ideas are yoked by violence together. (para 3)
Backing:
The force of this impeachment lies in the failure of the conjunction, the fact that often the ideas are yoked but not united.
A degree of heterogeneity of material compelled into unity by the operation of the poet's mind is omnipresent in poetry.

Reason 4: It is to be observed that the language of these poets is as a rule simple and pure - a simplicity emulated without success by numerous modern poets. (para 4)

Refutation 1: The structure of the sentences, on the other hand, is sometimes far from simple
Backing:
But this is not a vice; it is a fidelity to thought and feeling.
As this fidelity induces variety of thought and feeling, so it induces variety of music.

Reason 5: If so shrewd and sensitive a critic as Johnson failed to define metaphysical poetry by its faults, it is worthwhile to inquire whether we may not have more success by adopting the opposite method.
Backing:
Johnson has hit, perhaps by accident, on one of their peculiarities, when he observed that 'their attempts were always analytic'; he would not agree that, after the dissociation, they put the material together again in a new unity

Reason 6: It is the difference between the intellectual poet and the reflective poet.
Backing:
When a poet's mind is perfectly equipped for its work, it is constantly amalgamating disparate experience; the ordinary man's experience is chaotic, irregular, fragmentary.

Reason 7: In the seventeenth century a dissociation of sensibility set in, from which we have never recovered; and this dissociation was aggravated by the influence of the two most powerful poets of the century, Milton and Dryden
Backing:
While the language became more refined, the feeling became more crude

Reason 8: The sentimental age began early in the eighteenth century
Backing:
The poets revolted against the ratiocinative, the descriptive; they thought and felt by fits, unbalanced; they reflected

Reason 9: The possible interests of a poet are unlimited; the more intelligent he is the better; the more intelligent he is the more likely that he will have interests: our only condition is that he turn them into poetry and not merely meditate on them poetically
Backing:
A philosophical theory which has entered into poetry is established for its truth or falsity in one sense ceases to matter, and its truth in another sense is proved.

Reason 10: Our civilisation comprehends great variety and complexity, and this variety and complexity, playing upon a refined sensibility, must produce various and complex results.
Backing:
The poet must become more and more comprehensive, more allusive, more indirect, in order to force, to dislocate if necessary, language into his meaning
Hence we get something which looks very much like the conceit - we get, in fact, a method curiously similar to that of the metaphysical poets, similar also in its use of obscure words and of a simple phrasing

Reason 11: The metaphysical poets are in direct current of English poetry, and their faults must be reprimanded by this standard, instead of antiquarian affection

Chris Maddox on Learning

The next essay is by programmer Chris Maddox, titled "Why I say Dumb Shit". It was published on the website gist.io, which is a platform for hackers who write. He writes about "learning about learning", its importance, and what one must do to go about it.

Maddox starts by confessing that he says a lot of unintelligent things, like telling an English professor that Lil Wayne was a better linguist than Shakespeare. He admits the naivety of it, but that's the point he says - as learning takes courage to admit that you're wrong, and brash foolishness to believe that you can add anything significant on top of brilliance.

The writer talks about how one can easily be cowed by greatness, preventing one from taking back anything from it. He brings up a quote from Fahrenheit 451, that talks about mistakes, and encourages one to make them to take full advantage of it. He concludes by offering a choice to his readers - either bask in the glow of smart people, or make your opinion heard, no matter how unintelligent, and then listen.

The writers style is very informal, as the use of the word "shit" in the title itself indicates. Taking personal experiences, he tries to be motivational and inspirational, which works to an extent. He also makes use of the word "brilliance" a lot, and at times uses one sentence paragraphs to dramatise the narration. His message is clear and simple - learning is a lot about making mistakes.

Margaret Sullivan on Journalists

The next essay is by Margaret Sullivan, who is a public editor appointed by the NY Times. The essay is titled "Who is a Journalist? A Question With Many Facets, and One Sure Answer", and here she ponders over what makes one a journalist, or who can call oneself a journalist in todays time.

She begins by talking about a certain Ms O'Brien, who wrote to her regarding a correction in an article where she wanted to be called a journalist. This brought up the question of who can call oneself a journalist, and there is a strong legal angle to this, she says; the federal shield law gives legal protection to journalists who have promised confidentiality to their sources. Then there is the sense of professional respect shown to people who have broken major news stories.

The author then talks about being a "blogger", and how some people consider that as an insult, and that these matters have become significant, as in case of Glenn Greenwald, who was also involved in leaking some major news stories about the US government. Then she mentions one instance where the journalistic credentials of an established broadcaster came under attack - the flip side of this discussion.

Concluding, Sullivan gives a partial definition of a journalist: one who understands, at a cellular level, and doesn't shy away from, the adversarial relationship between government and press. The writing style is concise, and to the point, with short sentences and without use of any complex adjectives.

It appears to be the requirement for such an essay, where its difficult to be objective and reach a definitive conclusion. The essay ends up highlighting the difficulty in separating out "job titles" due to the rise of the internet - the lines aren't clear cut anymore.

Tim Kreider on Quiet Ones

Then sometimes words need to be forced out, giving the feeling that they might just not be "mine", but of someone else, someone I do not yet know.

The next essay is titled "Quiet Ones", and I mention the title first because it was what led me to read it further - what could possibly come out of quietness? The author is Tim Kreider, and the article was published in NY Times online opinion pages, in November 2012.

The essay begins by explaining the Amtrak's coach section called the "Quiet Car", where loud talking is forbidden and cell phones are supposed to be switched off. The essay can be divided into three broad sections - the first where he gives an account of an experience where people were not following the rules, second where he talks about how quietness is not valued anymore, and finally, another experience where the author himself was involved fighting against the rules.

While the first account describes how at times people can be ignorant of what's going around them, the essay gets interesting when the writer talks about the world today and its tendency to be noisy. He describes how TV and music is played everywhere, and about how people tend to complain too much, and spend a lot more time tapping away or conversing on phones, then finally coming back to how some people refuse to recognise the moral reality of those around them - it could be because of the rise of internet, he says.

Although some of the facts may be right, I'm always skeptical when some one talks about "how the world is changing"; its hardly an objective statement to make. The writer then concludes by talking on behalf of the "quiet ones", sending a message to everyone else who barge into their havens, to be quieter. The authors style is fairly reflective, and makes use of a good amount of humour. He uses a lot of jargon and phrases, and relatively long sentences. The accounts of personal experiences add well to the overall point of the essay.