"Notes from a New Orleans Daughter" by Sheryl St. Germain

     This was a very interesting piece. I was especially fond of the authors voice and writing style, which let the reader basically into her every though. This piece definitely had a lot more telling than showing, but I felt that in a piece like this, it worked. I thought at first that it would have been interesting for this white woman to grow up in the rich black culture of New Orleans, and as she went on to talk about how racist her family was, I couldn't even imagine how hard that must of been. I also found it very interesting when she brought up all of the racism she has experienced in Iowa.

"Household Words" by Barbara Kingsolver

     Wow, what irony. Immediately before reading this piece, I was at Buffalo Wild Wings for a social function with my business fraternity. And while I was sitting talking to a friend, a tall, frail, ragged looking man came up to me, asking if I could please buy him some food. I automatically told him no, I didn't have any more money on me, so he kindly nodded and walked away.
     I spent the rest of the night feeling so guilty for turning the man down. Who knows how long it's been since he's had something decent to eat, and I couldn't spare a few measly dollars to help him?
     And low and behold, our blog assignment is a piece about the cruelty and ignorance of the people in our society when it comes to the treatment of "homeless" people. Biggest guilt trip ever.
     But Kingsolver really does make an excellent and extremely valid point, and I feel like everyone needs to read this essay, to give themselves a little perspective on how life actually is for homeless people.
     Goodness do I feel like a huge jerk right now.

"Notes From a Parallel Universe" by Jennifer Kahn

     This was a very interesting and odd piece. I appreciated how Kahn took it upon herself to delve into the works of cranks, which as she notes, can be pretty delirious. It is true though that many new theories keep surfacing about physics and dark matter and what not, and it is hard for us to know whether it's complete craziness or if it has any truth to it. Kahn did an excellent job of showing the two extremes of cranks while also including those in the middle. Her writing style was very straight forward, but also revealed to the reader that she thought some of the stuff was pretty bizarre, too.

"The Dead of Winter" by Debbie Drechsler

     I loved this piece. And I'm not normally a huge fan of graphic novels, either. I think what I liked most about it though was the artwork. Drechsler's drawings are so well done and vivid and even the way she portrayed the landscape was very detailed. The topic of the piece, which was Drechsler as a young adult getting an abortion, was also a very sticky topic that she described very well. She seemed to have no thoughts whatsoever of keeping the baby, but once the procedure was done you could tell that she in some way felt guilty about it. The combination of the writing style and beautiful graphics made this one of my favorite pieces out of the textbook so far.

"The Things They Carried" by Demetria Martinez

     This piece has a very strong message. I especially liked the line "...abandoned by their smuggler, abandoned by a gluttonous nation that craves cheap labor but detests the laborer." In "Inherit The Earth" Martinez commented on the illegal immigrants trying to smuggle themselves and their families into the United States, and many dying along the way. Her writing is so powerful and the images are so vivid that she really makes the reader feel the emotion she is conveying.
     In "The Things The Carried", the hard facts are conveyed by Martinez in a way that make them seem astounding to the reader, obviously in a negative way. The deaths and struggles of immigrants is a very touchy subject in our country, and Martinez does an excellent job of taking all politics out of the matter and making readers notice for themselves the lack of humanity shown to these people.

"What's Inside You, Brother"

     I have mixed feelings about this piece. The fact that it was written in second person both drew me to and turned me off from the essay. I like that it's different, and very poetic sounding, but at the same time I felt a tad bit of cheesiness about it. The actual story and imagery were very detailed and thorough though, and I really enjoyed reading the piece. The message was very powerful, and once I made it through to the end, I recognized how the second person was supposed to be perceived. He was basically speaking to himself from different periods of his life, and I do believe it created the intended affect; to show his readers that it takes more than a punch to knock him down.