Thoughts on "Crossfire"

Notice and Focus + Ranking:

Step 1: They were great at making no time to listen to the other and throwing insults and strict opinions at each other. They shut out any voice that was not their own and tried very hard to pull John Stewart in a certain direction but failed. It was a brutal setting, with lots of cold faces and their responses to each other were incredibly biased.. they refused to pay any attention to the other.

Step 2: ignorance, biased responses and brutal language

Step 3: The ignorance of the two came into play immediately when they started off abruptly just talking nonstop chatter back and forth. It almost gives you a headache and while it may be entertaining to watch two people argue back and forth it is also incredibly frustrating when the two people just make jabs at each other but the one is not even listening to the other. There is no point. Their responses seem to be very biased, meaning they do not want anything to do with what the other has to say but want to make their point across. They do not keep their ears open when the other speaks.. also very annoying. The language was just harsh to begin with, it is very forceful and cold. You can feel the anger these two men have for the others perspective.


The Method

1. "Why do we have to argue?"x2, "Stop hurting America"x2, "it kills me"x2, "believe"x8, "stop"x5, "is he the best?"x5 "bad"x3


2. argue, hate, best, win, bad, stop

3. paper/plastic, red sox/yankees, black/white

4. The line said by John Stewart, "Stop hurting America" caught my attention. John Stewart is basically forming a sentence that raps up the entire video. He tells them to just stop, to avoid, to pull away, to disinvolve themselves from political hypocrisy and to cut out all the biased statements and the constant arguing. These two ignorant political television show hosts are getting absolutely no where and fighting so hard to pull Stewart in to believe one perspective or the other and it is exhausting for him. He shows them that what they are doing is insignificant and useless. Stewart's claim in that one sentence, I believe, completely states what his point is. I like it.

in a mind of my own

Hi! I’m Melissa and I am extremely new to this freedom in my life. I like it a lot. To address the topic, I am excited to learn about writing. I never took a comp class in high school. I always stuck with basic Honors English. I look forward, strangely enough, to receiving my topic on a research paper that will be due months away from the time. I usually pick something that is interesting to me, something that I will enjoy researching, not something that makes me want to avoid working on it at all cost. I can procrastinate occasionally if I get lazy… most of that kicked in my last year of high school. I like to start with a pen and paper, it helps me brainstorm I think. Maybe. I like writing something down and scratching it out and working with other parts of a sentence. The beginning of papers is typically frustrating for me because it takes awhile for the good ideas to roll in. I usually base my thesis off of the very core of the paper and then I go from there. I was told all throughout high school that a thesis was one sentence that basically briefed you on what you were about to read, or what the paper was all about. I hope that’s true. I usually work better in complete and total silence. I get distracted fairly easily and any noise from people or a television can throw me off. I like being alone; otherwise I end up in a two-hour conversation with the closest person near me. Total peace and quiet is good stuff when it comes to me. I like to change words in papers and it makes me happy when things sound smoother, then I don’t feel so frustrated. In high school, the most I’ve ever written would be maybe six to eight pages? I think that is right. As typical as this sounds, I like to write when it comes easier and when it is an interesting topic… otherwise, I can be bad at pushing myself. I like proof reading! I think it is very helpful. I also usually organize my paragraphs based on where they fit and what makes the paper sound smoother. I guess that is a very basic thing to say haha. Anyways, I’m excited to write!