Genre-colored glasses |
Thoughts on genre, language, grammar, and other
rhetorical and linguistic norms |
Genre-colored glasses |
Thoughts on genre, language, grammar, and other
rhetorical and linguistic norms |
Just letting you regular readers know that I'm having to take a brief break from the weekly blog. Lots of stuff going on right now. Juggling too many boxes, trying to keep them all from falling. But I'll be back!
Did you mean to try the connections game from last week? It's still there, if you want a little intellectual exercise. Amy
0 Comments
It’s summertime here in the Northern hemisphere, so let’s have some fun. At the family reunion, my grandson taught me a game new to me called Connections. One person names two things, seemingly unrelated, and the other person has to find a real connection from one thing to another to another to another until they find a genuine linked connection from the first item to the second. Sort of like Six Degrees of Separation but no required number and no Kevin Bacon involved The two items can’t have an easy or obvious connection. His example was: you can't use stone and paint, because you can just paint a rock. But I could name rock and selfie, and then you could build a story about how prevalent rocks are at the ocean and how many selfies are taken at the ocean so that you’re likely to have a rock show up in many selfies. I’m trying an adult (and maybe more discouraging) variation on the game. I’m intrigued by what connections pop up between news stories if I look. So in my version, name two items in the news and find a link from one to the other through other items in the news. Let’s play the game. Two recent news headlines: 1. Kansas GOP candidate says there is 'only barbarism' outside of Western civilization 2. Immigrant children being held in fenced cages at border detention facilities I know, I know, one connection seems too easy. Which “civilization” is being barbaric here? But remember, you can’t offer two things that connect too easily, so I’m going to go another route (even though I may end up with the same idea in the end. Because reality.) Starting with barbarism outside of Western civilization-- 1. Republican Kansas State Senator Steve Fitzgerald, who is running for Congress, gave a speech at a gathering of Republicans in Kansas, and he was quoted as saying: “"Outside of Western civilization is only barbarism.” I kid you not. I’m embarrassed to be a (formerly proud) Kansan these days in many ways, but this one showed enough ignorance to put the cherry on top. Of course, there are ignorant people everywhere, but . . . OK, back to the connections game (think of each of the bullets in the list below as an arrow pointing to the next link): 1. Kansas GOP candidate says there is 'only barbarism' outside of Western civilization
2. Immigrant children being held in fenced cages at border detention facilities Ta da!! What a proud moment to be able to demonstrate a link between the ignorance of a US politician and the community action of a group of volunteers who happen to be in Thailand, between the barbarism of administrative decisions about how to handle children at a US border and the determination to find a humane way to rescue another group of children. As of this moment, rescuers have gotten 8 of the Thai boys out alive! Meanwhile, the powers-that-be in the US have declared that they need more time to reunite detained children with their families. You make the connection. If the Thai boys were at the Texas-Mexico border, they’d still be trapped. Here’s a connection challenge for you:
I’m copying below the top news stories at the moment (NOT about the Thai boys) from CNN and from FOX news. Let me know if you can see how to connect them: 1. CNN: Boris Johnson resigns in major Brexit blow to UK PM Theresa May 2. Fox News: Supreme Court battle lines drawn as conservative group launches ad backing Trump pick I don’t know, maybe those violate the rules about not making it too easy, but they are in fact the top stories on each of those sites, and I can imagine different ways to connect. So have at it! Can you make the connection? Let me know if you do. Got any connection challenges for me? It’s summertime, after all. Time for lightheartedness and play (and sad sarcasm) I've had a crazy enough past week that I wondered how I would have space enough in my head to write a blog post this week. I realized my experiences in my head were largely visual ones--that is, I was picturing my week rather than wording it. That got me wondering whether images are sufficiently generic that I could try to represent my week in images and you would get it. So here's an experiment: I've done my best to find images that capture the major and multiple activities pulling at me this week. Can you tell what I've been up to? They're different and conflicting competitions for my time, so don't try to create a coherent whole out of them. I'm eager to hear whether it worked, so I hope you'll comment either on this blog or on social media postings. Do these images work generically so you recognize the actions? [edited for clarity: the photo of surgery was not my own surgery. All is well.] All photos Creative Commons photos by Pixabay, no attribution required, except:
Eye photo credit: bark, 40+28 Eye Strain, flickr (CC by 2.0) Woman in hospital bed: Alison Young, 28 October 2009, flickr (CC by NC-SA 2.0) Hands holding: Vormingplus Gent-Eeklo vzw Adult Helping Senior In Hospital, flickr (CC by NC 2.0)(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) |
Author
|