Non-fiction critical analysis Global Warming

In "Study: Global warming skeptics know more about climate science" by Maxim Lott, the author wants us to know that the skeptics may be smarter than the believers. The author tries to show us this by explaining the results of a test given to people who are believers and skeptics. The results showed that the skeptics got more right than the people who believed. The author uses this to show that skeptics aren't dumb or ignorant, but know about the same as believers.

The author wants to convince us that people should try to convince skeptics not by berating them, but by explaining the science, no matter the political party. One way he does this is through results of a test. He uses the results of the test to show that the skeptics aren't stupid or uninformed. He uses this to try and convince us that telling people what they already know won't change their opinions. The author also uses quotes from scientists to further prove his point. For example "The study’s author, Kahan, says that the global warming debate has become so politically polarized that people pick their side based on politics rather than what they know about science." Also, “Climate contrarians know what scientists have found but they’re choosing to reject those findings, usually for political reasons,” Aaron Huertas, a spokesman for the Union of Concerned Scientists". The author uses both of these to convince us of his beliefs about convincing skeptics of climate change.

I have learned something about skeptics of climate change. I always thought they didn't know all of the facts, but I now realize that they have more of a misunderstanding of the facts than an ignoance of these facts.

Agatha Raisin blogpost

In the "Agatha Raisin" book series, the main character has a very conflicting personality. Even though she grew up in the Birmingham slum, she had a very innocent and kind personality. Eventually, she had to create a hard exterior because of her environment and because of her ruthless climb to the top in the PR industry. After fulfilling her dream of moving to the Cotswold, she doesn't have keep up her ruthless behavior, which means she starts to revert to her kind self. A perfect example of this is her friend/ex-husband, James Lacey. She's kind to him because she really likes him, but she's ruthless because she's extremely jealous and competitive for his affection. Because of this, both sides of her personality shine in her interactions with him.

Her kind side shines when talking to James Lacey. Because she's really keen on him, she tries to be nice and even has to combat this because she's too nice. One time when she was going to have lunch with him, she lit candles and wore a very pretty/revealing dress. She constantly focuses on her weight and appearance which wasn't really a priority before James. She really cares, which she didn't really do before the Cotswold. She has a lot of new priorities which show that she cares and that she is kind enough to try.

Although, with James Lacey, she brings back her ruthless side and kind of sees him as a prize. She's very competitive and focused on being with him. If there's a possibility of him being with someone else, she is determined to make her leave him alone by lying or anything else. She would even investigate cases just to spend time with him and make sure that they always have stuff to do together. This shows that her nature to work transfers to her personal life too.

In conclusion, Agatha has two very different personalities. She's a kind, yet ruthless person. She wants to be kind, but has been breed to be manipulative. She is actually kind of reverting back to her nature of being nice from her childhood.

"The Silent Wife" Literary essay

In the book "The Silent Wife", the main character, Jodi, goes through a lot of injustices as a wife, and even after they split up. She constantly provided for her husband and believed in him while he was broke and working on his first project. Even with her constant love and support, her husband, Todd, takes away their home and money when he's forced to get married to his latest mistress after getting her pregnant. Jodi had to suffer while he went out and consistently cheated on his wife, then has to suffer even more when he's done with her and ready to move on the the next person to cheat on. Even when her friend springs the idea of an assassination on her and when Jodi goes through with it, she still hasn't gotten justice. Jodi has tried to be a good wife all her life to an ungrateful husband, then is forced to suffer even more when Todd takes away all stability in her life and plans to not do spousal support or give alimony.

One of the biggest injustices committed against Jodi is Todd's constant cheating. Before the floozy Todd was forced to marry, he still constantly cheated on her. It was pretty obvious with the going outback with the friend's wife and such. Jodi knew about all of his affairs, yet never divorced him. She reasoned (correctly if I might add) that if she becomes a point of stability, then Todd will never leave her. She was such a good wife that would never divorce him even with all the affairs.

Even with being such a good wife, Todd quite easily moves on. The worst example of this is when he discovers that because they had a special type of marriage, he wouldn't have to pay alimony and he becomes ecstatic. You can obviously see that he was attached to her as a point of stability, not as a person. He just shifts that stability to his floozy, Natasha, and then starts to cheat on her, too. He even tried to get her evicted and was going to cancel her credit cards without even telling her. He gives her a month to move out. One month to completely change her life. He takes all of the things that could give her even a sense of stability because he doesn't want to spend any money on someone he was married to for twenty years. These are all obvious injustices that Jodi has had to deal with.

In conclusion, Todd is a horrible person. A women he "loved" for twenty years now means nothing to him. He's prepared to take all their money and house because he can't be bothered to support her. She was a great wife while he couldn't be bothered to be even be a smidgen of a decent husband. Even him being murdered can't make up for all the injustices done against her.

Link to original here

Gone Girl Blogpost 2

In the book, Gone Girl, one major plot twist (don't read this if you want to read the book), is when Nick, Amy's husband, discovers that his wife has so much of a sense of judgement that she is compelled to give punishment for anything she deems a crime. In Nick's case, it means faking her death so that all signs point to him because he's a bad husband and he cheated on her. It's seen that she is very thorough and even wrote in a fake diary with 5 years worth of entries in different pens and based on actual events which makes her seem innocent and abused by Nick. Later in the book, you find out that she has done this with other people and see how her sense of justice is way off.

An example Nick finds is with a guy named Thomas. He was dating Amy and liked her, but then began to cheat on her. She finds justice by inviting him over, having sex with him, making it look like rape, calling the police, then dropping charges. Amy could've put him in prison for a long time and ruined his life. She even hurt her wrists to make it look like she was roped onto the bed. Framing someone for rape is way worse than just cheating on a girlfriend. Technically, she's the criminal in this case for framing someone. Amy believes that this is justice when having her arrested would truly be justice.

Another example of her inane logic for justice is with her friend, Hillary, from high school. Amy had befriended Hillary, which made Hillary popular. Eventually, Hillary became even more popular than Amy. To fix this situation, she tricks Hillary by making her dress like her and tell her mother, as a joke, that she was going to replace Amy. Amy then threw herself down some stairs and got Hillary expelled for being a creepy stalker. Hillary hadn't even done anything wrong, but Amy wanted revenge for Hillary stealing the spotlight. 

In conclusion, Amy's sense of justice is like an abusive cop. It takes a level one crime and makes it punishment for a four, four for a seven, seven for a ten. She claims to be about justice, but it all seems to be revenge based, not justice based. It seems like it would be hard to even claim that she is for justice, because she shows no signs of that.

Blog post for gone girl

    Characters in the moment can really be seen from 2 sides. As an idiot who doesn't plan or an aware person who doesn't get caught up on things. I can say that without a doubt, that Nick from "Gone Girl" is the idiot. Near the beginning of the book Nick makes two very big and bad decisions. 1 moving back to Missouri and 2 opening a bar. Throughout the book, the book only emphasizes how bad these decisions are, and Nick does them without thinking. Even without finding out the consequences of his actions, these still would be terrible decisions that prove how Nick being impulsive is terrible for him and people around him.

    The first of these actions, which is the worst of the two, is moving to Missouri. Nick's mother has cancer, so Nick forces his wife, Amy, to move with him. They are newly unemployed and gave most of their (her) trust to their parents when their career of writing very popular children's books has become very pitiful as each new book brings in less and less people and they are broke. The discussion is barely a paragraph and Nick treats her like she is the enemy during the very quick negotiations. Amy has never been to Missouri and is used to New York.  Nick is now forcing her to go to this basically foreign place. He also immediately tells his sister that without thinking about it all. This motion really sets up the entire story and she really disappeared because nick is an idiot.

    The second big mistake Nick makes is opening a bar with his sister. First off they have no experience with bar tending or mixology, they only did it because it was a childhood dream. Second, they opened a bar that's in the middle of a town filled with hobos or very poor people, so money is not very available. Also the place is very old and dirty, but Nick claims that it's rustic. Finally, the money he used to buy it came from the last of their trust fund, which is really just Amy's money. Nick keeps on making really stupid decisions all the time.

    To conclude, Nick is very impulsive, but rarely in a good way. These two drastic decisions are terrible, but he fails to see that. Moving and opening a business need to be thought about, but Nick decides these in a day. These decisions will probably be his downfall.

Blog Review of Sophia's Post on the Book "Lolita"

                                                       

The book described by Sophia sounds horrifying, yet somewhat ingenious. It describes a man that attempts to have a relationship with a twelve-year old girl. The surprising part is he apparently describes her as the dominant person in the relationship. He says that she seduces him and that she is smitten with him. Sophia then claims that most of these events are probably fabricated as the man is much older than Lolita so probably pushed her into these acts. Apparently, he threatened her with foster care and and juvenile detention. This book really seems to show how unreliable an narrator can be.

First off, this post makes me want to read the book to see how deceptive the narrator really is. The narrator sounds like a charming and intellectual man. I would be very curious to see where I was deceived and how many times I actually figured out that I was deceived. Another reason I would want to read it is because I want to compare the events of the book to what actually happened. I feel that in the end, I would just want to get it to see how the narrator contrasts with the facts.

This book kind of reminds me of another memoir about a man that was doing something illegal and didn't fell at fault. The main difference is that the main character in my book realized that he was doing something wrong and tried to fix it. He was a cop that conversed with criminals to get bigger criminals. In the end, he realized that dealing with shady people was wrong and decided get one last criminal, then quit the force. I don't think that the narrator of "Lolita" ever felt guilty about his action.

To conclude, "Lolita" sounds like a very interesting story. It's about somebody doing something illegal, then doesn't feel guilty about it at the time. This story seems more unique than others because the author doesn't see himself as a criminal. He see's himself as a man seduced by Lolita. This seems like a book that would be very hard to analyze, but would be rewarding to do so.

The blog post

No lights, No sirens critical analysis.

In the book "No lights, No sirens" by Robert Cea, the author want the reader to know the faults in the police system. Even in the first third of the book, you can see the drastic change in Robert. In the beginning, he seems optimistic and understands the streets, but not the people fighting them. He believes that the police are against crime, pure and simple. At the third mark, he truly understands the police and the streets and how they work together. He shows the heartlessness of the police and their constant tolerance to active crime to have street cred. He has friends on the streets who are obviously criminals and they both know it. Basically, Robert learns about "true" police system.

The author subtlety adds clues to show the change in Robert's character. He does this to show how the police system is not as innocent and just as it may seems. The biggest way the author shows this is by using Robert's method. He changes them by focusing on his hero. Because of this, Robert changes to be more tricky and manipulative than he was at the beginning when he just wanted to do justice fairly and honestly. He tricks drug dealers and takes bribes to add charges. Another strategy the author uses is the scene with Robert and his girlfriend. He uses this as a comparison to show how his new personality traits have changed his social life. He yells at a guy for looking at his girlfriend and seems more apathetic. Even when they have sex by a fire, all he thinks about is the streets and actually hurts her.

I think that the author really shows how a memoir can still teach about a topic. This book focuses on the main character's struggles and changes, but still teaches about the police system. It seems really weird that this isn't a fiction. This book really shows the darkness of this system.