Thursday, January 31, 2008

Okay guys, this is my revised speech. Well part of it. Read it and tell me what you think.

Why me? Why not? Jake Raynor

“Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken, or else we shall be plunged into the dark abyss of annihilation.” A quote by Martin Luther King Jr. Why are we still fighting wars, when we are supposed to be setting aside our differences?

After so many years of fighting wars, you would think we would have gotten smart enough to realize that fighting is not the answer? Look back at some of the most famous wars in history like the WW II, WW I, and even the Revolutionary war. How did each of these wars end? They ended with a treaty that both sides could agree upon. Now, I understand that they didn’t come to that agreement at the beginning, and thus resorted to violence, but the problem is that they didn’t agree on a solution not that they couldn’t. They instead decided to kill one another, ending many peoples’ lives needlessly. Here’s an example of something that might have happened during the revolutionary war.

‘A man is running through the forest, panting heavily, his arms pumping up and down, and adrenaline flowing through his body. He is a Loyalist, and is running for his life. The troop he was assigned to was attacked, and he just barely escaped. The gunshots ended a few minutes a go, but the cheers did not sound familiar, and the man was too scared to see who had won, so he just kept running. After a little while, he stops and hides in a bush, catching his breath. He had left his gun at the camp, and he had no food. It is just a matter of time before either he starves to death or is killed by the colonists. A nearby town is 6 miles away, but the militia is between him and the town. Thoughts were racing inside the man’s head, like “What about my family? Can I make it back to town without the colonists attacking me? Will I ever see my friend Joe?” As these thoughts are racing though his head, thoughts of his wife, his daughter, of days long past of playing in the stream with Joe, and even the fond memories of eating dinner with his wife and daughter, the time Joe had brought food to celebrate the daughter’s birth. All these thoughts motivated the man, urging him to take the chance and head to the town.

With these thoughts motivating him, he turns around and starts running, listening to every sound, every crunch of a twig, looking around him like a mad man. After a while of doing this the man hears something. He stops and listens. It’s the sounds of the militia’s camp. “So the militia did win.” He thought. A tear crept out of his eye at the thought of his dead comrades. He quickly wiped away the tear with his sleeve, and sat down at the base of a tree. Worry and exhaustion finally caused the man to sleep, with his face in his hands to block out the light.

A short while later he is roughly woken up by a colonist militia scout. The scout says “come with me”. The man, in his confused state, complies with the man. After a few minutes of walking the man is pushed out onto the dirt road leading to town, with a militia camp in the middle of it. By now the man is wide awake and alert. He is pushed on to the ground and men come to tie up his hands and feet. Then the man is forcefully pulled up by his hair. A man looks into his face and says “Loyalist, do you have any wishes you want us to do before you die?”

The man says “yes. I want someone to tell my wife and child I love them, my last name is Hearst. Also please tell Joe Leaderman that I want him to look after my family. They are in the village the road comes from.”

Right then a sob could be heard from among the soldiers. The voice of the scout said “Please forgive me Earl. I’ll watch over your family.” When Earl looked to where the voice was coming from, he saw Joe, with his hands covering his face. And that was the last thing Earl saw.’

there you go.

6 comments:

Grace said...

Um...well, what does the whole Rev. War story do to prove your point? It really just winds on too long and ends on a completely unrelated note. I really cannot tell what you are getting at. At all. It's actually really bothering me.
(Also, the last line- "he saw Joe, with his hands covering his face"-- uh, how does he recognize Joe if his hands are covering his face? No. You can make him look distressed some other way.)

"As these thoughts are racing though his head, thoughts of his wife, his daughter, of days long past of playing in the stream with Joe, and even the fond memories of eating dinner with his wife and daughter, the time Joe had brought food to celebrate the daughter’s birth. All these thoughts motivated the man, urging him to take the chance and head to the town." --Stop. Just STOP. Bad, bad paragraph. So much redundancy. Even if you want to make a point that Joe is important, there's no need to mention his name 3 times in 2 sentences. The sentence doesn't flow at all. It's too long. Just...work on that second half of that paragraph, 'k?
(Also, when he thinks "Will I ever see my friend Joe?", add an "again" to the end. It'll make it sound better.)

"All THESE THOUGHTS MOTIVATED the man, urging him to take the chance and head to the town.

With THESE THOUGHTS MOTIVATING him, he turns around and starts running..." --Hey. Hey. NO. Change that now.

1st sentence of your 2nd paragraph needs a ",wouldn't you?" at the end.

Also, what? We CAN agree on a solution, it's never impossible to come to a conclusion. (We just WON'T, which is exactly what you said about past wars. Really the only big difference factor is our advanced technology for weapons. We're still humans.) Also, history is littered with wars as bloody and unresolved as ours. ALSO, you're probably going to want to specify what wars we're fighting now that we apparently can't resolve. Just saying "yup, we still don't know when to stop fighting, wars are even worse these days" isn't really gonna cut it. It leaves your mind grasping for a firmer foothold. WHAT wars?

"Madman" is one word. (Just a technical correction.)

"Now, I understand that they didn’t come to that agreement at the beginning, and thus resorted to violence, but the problem is that they didn’t agree on a solution [,] not that they couldn’t." -- NO ONE is ever going to really understand that sentence. It seems to be a key point in your speech, so you might wanna change that a bit.

So I think I covered some stuff, but I'm not exactly the concrit master. Anyone else?

Jake said...

gee thanks Grace. That is almost the exact same thing ms. Braitmen said. That makes me feel so much better.

Jake said...

after ten minutes of trying to write, i am seriously considering an f test grade..., i mean, i'm not the type of pessimist that says "oh woe is me!" i say "oh woe is the world and all it's idiots!" since the idiots are in charge, making it worse. But i'm not mad at something about me. i hate this topic.

Grace said...

It's a really stupid topic. All I have is unquestionably worse than yours, so I'm just all up in my cozy critic's nest here, not having to actually show people my own writing. I hate the topic. I can't churn out anything. Wish this wasn't compulsory...

gg said...

That was good advice that Grace gave.

A little revision like she said will definitely tighten it up.

Grace said...

A little? I believe I said "if you don't get rid of everything, like ALL of it, and rewrite it, you will die." Or something like that.