Blogging Reflection

I have really enjoyed keeping my blog throughout the semester, especially since I have had a blog for five years now. I started blogging back in 2008 about political campaigns and I continue to blog about them to this day. I even started another blog in 2010 called "Marin Hikes" which talked about good hikes in Marin County in the Bay Area where I live. While I stopped blogging about hiking in Marin, I still continue to blog about political races.

I found blogging in Writ 140 to be a slightly different experience however. For Writ 140, I had to do assignments instead of free work so I was more focused in my responses to the blog prompts. It also taught me about how I can work on my audience. For example, my blogposts used to be too long so it would be difficult for people to read them. I also realized how I need to keep my blogposts simple so people are not confused.

Overall, what I learned is that my blogging is good but definitely can be improved. This work may inspire me to do other blogging, including a blog about life at USC, an online diary basically that I would update once a week. Maybe I should even think about a Vlog on Youtube.

Logical Fallacy #2: Appeal to Fear

While known under many names including ad baculum and fear mongering, the appeal to fear is a well known scare tactic used in arguments. There is a difference between fear mongering and actual fear. For example, actual fear would be person A telling person B , "Do not lie down in the middle of Highway 405 at 1am, someone could drive over you," because the fear is not a threat but more of a likely result of lying down in the middle of Highway 405 at 1am.

An example of the appeal to fear is the Willie Horton ad used in the 1988 Presidential campaign by George H.W. Bush (R) against Democratic opponent Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis (D). Before this ad, Dukakis was leading in the polls. This ad talked about Willie Horton who committed violent crimes in Massachusetts under a furlough program Massachusetts had even though Dukakis himself had not created the program. This ad was meant to scare people by associating Horton with Dukakis. The ad worked by erasing Dukakis's lead in the polls.

Another example of fear mongering is the "Daisy" ad. This ad was used in the 1964 Presidential campaign between President Lyndon Johnson (D) and Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater (R). Johnson released this ad called "Daisy" which had a little girl picking flowers and then a nuclear bomb exploded and the ad suggested that Johnson would be the best one to protect the United States from a nuclear bomb explosion. This ad's main job was to scare people into voting for Johnson instead of focusing on the issues themselves. The ad helped Johnson too, he won with about 60% of the vote.

Logical Fallacy Ad Hominem

One of the most widely used and famous logical fallacies is the ad hominem argument. What is the ad hominem argument? It is when person A tries to win the argument by attacking person B's personal life instead of attacking the points that person B made.

For example, 

Person A: "Person B's argument that the Yankees are better than the Red Sox is invalid because Person B lives in New York and would obviously be biased toward the Yankees." 

This argument style is extremely common in the political sphere with elections. An example of this argument is the swift boat ads of 2004 where Bush attacked Senator John Kerry (D) for Kerry's service to the country during the Vietnam War.  Bush said that since Kerry's service in the Vietnam War was not as strong as made out to be, then Kerry should not be President. These swift boat ads stayed away from the issues and attacked Kerry on defense making him seem unqualified to lead the country with foreign policy issues. 

Definition of Critical Thinking

My simple definition of critical thinking is carefully examining all sides of an issue and solutions before picking a side to support. 

This diagram of critical thinking helps summarize my viewpoint on it. Critical thinking is basically a circle with no end where one must be informed and look at all sides of the issue. The idea of testing the theory and thinking of potential alternatives yourself is important instead of simply relying on other people's ideas to help you with your theory with critical thinking. 

My essay was about Proposition 187 which would deny social services to California residents without legal documentation to live there. I discussed how the creators did not use critical thinking because they failed to examine both sides of the issue and did not see how Proposition 187 would cause tensions between white Californians and the immigrant community and even within the immigrant community itself. 

Source from Le Noir Et Blanc

The source I chose from "Le Noir Et Blanc" is a movie review of "L.A. Confidential" by Peter Travers. I chose this source to examine to see how the movie reviewers in 1997 viewed "L.A. Confidential" and compared it to the other movies at the time.

The review immediately started attacking other noir style movies such as "Mulholland Falls" for example and portrayed the noir genre as a difficult genre to write in a successful movie in, mainly because most of the ideas and styles had already been filmed. Then the movie reviewer focuses on how "L.A. Confidential" and how it successfully captures the spirit of Los Angeles during the 1940s and how it shows the underlying problems with the police force of Los Angeles. 

What did I learn about Race and Class? 

I learned from this review how difficult it can be for filmmakers to authentically portray the themes of race and class of Los Angeles in the 1940s. I saw how the filmmakers portrayed the distinct angles and sides of the crime in Los Angeles with the example of one police officer who chased after wife beaters and the other police officers who went out of their way to beat up Mexicans. 

Overall though, the article itself mainly focused on reviewing the movie itself instead of discussing the inherent race and class issues in the movie. While the audience itself was aimed for the Rolling Stone magazine readers who would more likely be interested in reading about movies instead of about race and class issues, I was glad to get a perspective how it compared to other movies in terms of its accuracy in portraying race and class issues. 

How have readings influenced my understanding of the film?

The Fulton book Reluctant Metropolis helped me understand Devil in a Blue Dress by pointing out the themes of segregation in Los Angeles. It described how certain parts of LA were sectioned off for African Americans, Hispanics, Asians and White people. Devil in a Blue Dress describes how Los Angeles is sectioned off with Crenshaw being heavily African American but areas such as Malibu being heavily white and a place African Americans are unwelcomed. For example, Eazy goes to Malibu and is threatened by white boys who may see him as someone who does not belong in Malibu.

The 1992 LA Riots

The event I will be examining is the 1992 LA riot. This was when South Central erupted after hearing the not guilty verdict of Rodney King, an African American motorist who was beaten by four police officers for no apparent reason and the beating was caught on video tape. The trial was held with no African American jurors in Simi Valley, a conservative and mainly white enclave in the Los Angeles area. The riots caused nearly $1 billion in property damage, lasted for six days and resulted in extreme devastation of many businesses in Los Angeles. The fires from the riots even blocked out the sun for a few days.

While the riots certainly were damaging, I will be examining the root cause. Was it more than just the Rodney King verdict that caused LA to erupt and create extensive damage? In my research, I will be examining other causes of the riots, how the rebuilding after the riots was handled and how to prevent future riots.

LA Riots