Summary&response-Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results

Summary:

Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results, which was written by Paul Rogat Loeb. He was interviewed on CNN a few years ago with Rosa Parks, a mother of the civil rights movement. She was the woman who wouldn’t go to the back of the bus. She wouldn’t get up and give her seat in the white section to a white person. Before this event, she had spent 12 years helping lead the local NAACP chapter. Parks wasn’t the only person who shape model of social commitment. Paul Rogat Loeb claimed that Parks’ story reinforces a notion that anyone who takes a committed public stand. But once the media let us enshrine heroes on pedestals, we may hard to measure up in our eyes. And we may not knowing the detail or having uncertainties and doubts. A young African American activist said. “when people who work for social changes are presented as saints, so much more noble than the rest of us. We get a false sense that from the moment they were born they were called to act, never had doubts, were bathed in a circle of light.” These activists showed us that it changed public sentiment, and the entrenched institutional power which can’t easily be accepted. Parks’ story is an example of social change, and it conveys an empowering moral that is lost in her public myth. Many times Parks’ peers and her predecessors’ struggles failed, but it still bring them a better world in the end. “For only we act, despite all our uncertainties and doubts, do we have the chance to shape history,” Paul Rogat Loeb said.

Response:

In Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results, Paul Rogat Loeb told us a mother of the civil rights movement called Rosa Parks. She is a person who just an ordinary person, but she is very courage. She wouldn’t get up and give her seat in the white section to a white person. It’s very unfair in that time, different races didn’t have equal rights. For other example, Martin Luther King also a civil rights movement leader. To promote his philosophy of nonviolent protest against segregation and other kinds of social injustice, he organized a series of marches. “I have a dream” is his famous speech, he strives for racial equality. Race issue always receives the attention in the world. Many people offer their life in civil rights movement even if it would undergo many difficult. Although most of them failed in the end, all of them were our heroes. We should thanks for those forerunners. They promote racial equality, so we have an equal society. We wouldn’t worry it is not equal between people and people. Parks’ story gives us an example although sometimes our struggles will fail. If we can stick it out, we will gain more in the end.

Summary & Response - Barry: Male fixations

Summary

In “Male fixations,” Dave Barry points out the stereotype about men are supposed to know how to fix things. Because this is a compensative things for women about guys never clean the bathroom or something else. But in fact, not all men will fix things. According to the example that Barry gives us, when men will not fix things, they will find a lot of excuses to escape from the reality. For example in the article, his wife has told his husband that the commode has started making a loud groaning noise, he will stride into the bathroom and pretend to inspect it seriously, and say that almost men will say historically “there is nothing wrong with the commode.” Sometimes guys will choose not to escape but disguise that they can do it and then make a mess. Or try to make a sicere-looking frowny face to deceive somebody there’s nothing happen even if the truth speaks for itself. Such as, “Do you hear that grinding sound in the engine?” his wife asked. And his husband will reply,” I don’t hear any grinding sound.” Even if his husband shout her can hear him over the grinding sound. In fact, guys act though they are in control of the situation by predispositions even they are not.
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Response:

That is a typical stereotype about men should fix things. Why should men know how to fix things? Everyone is proficient in different things. Nowadays, more and more women will study like architecture, electric machinery, electrical engineering, and some subjects we think that only men will study. Men also can be househusbands who do chores just like housewives. Maybe men can do chores better than women or vice versa.

In my opinion, I don’t think that men should be proficient in fixing things. Fix things is an ability. Maybe we only just do not know how to fix things but be proficient in other abilities like languages, teaching, studying and etc. Sometimes, we do not find excuses to escape from the reality on purpose, but women’s stereotype forces us to do that. If men say honestly “I don’t know how to fix it,” we are usually abused by women like “You are a man, and I can’t believe you do not know how to fix things. By the way, if men ask women do you think that women must be a good cook, I think that most women’s answer is No. That‘s the same situation, but the character just change from men to women. Most women will think why we should be a good cook. But when you have this thought, why cannot just think of men being in the same situation?

In my conclusion, it is not necessary for a man knowing how to fix things as long as he has other abilities.

Summary and Response- Appearances Are Destructive

Summary

Appearances Are Destructive, written by Mark Mathabane and adopted from The News York Times, describes how the author's sisters are treated in American school and how open dress codes affect American students. Having enrolling them at one of the American public school, Mark originally is expectant to give his sisters a brand-new lives; however, they are teased by their classmates because of their plain and unattractive clothes. These sisters are not specialized in dressing up themselves for they do not have to think about what they wear and just wear uniforms.

Trying to find one school which is more proper for them to study, Mark is astonished that the phenomenon exists in almost American schools; students care about the appearance instead of their studies. In class, most students are distracted; they take their mirrors out, put them on the desk and start to gaze their faces rather than books. They always compare what they wear, how much their jewelries are and whether their brands are high and valued. Mark also points out that civil libertarians prefer open dress codes for humans' freedom is not invaded; however, in Mark's mind, freedom is never affected by dress codes. There are so many people wearing uniforms when they work.

Mark concludes that students should not concentrate on materialism; instead, they should focus on school works. If they release the minds of pursuing outer vanity, they can be more mature and gain the real freedom from themselves.

Response

After reading the article, I can fully understand what the author talks about and agree with his thoughts. In the modern society, people live under the environment filling with the stimulation of senses. In cities, there are too many neon lamps lighting up at night. With the prosperous medium, people see plenty of dazzling images and beautiful celebrities appearing on television or on the websites. While people watch these programs or pictures, they are unconsciously imbued with the concepts of keeping up with the times. People blindly worship the latest fashion, extremely expensive and well-known brands and try their best to make them become beautiful or mimic singers or movie stars. Because of the stimulation of senses, people all over the world prefer the beautiful appearance for humans always use their eyes to "judge" people.

A question is in my mind for a long time; one day if all human beings are blind, what the world would be? If people lose their sight ability, they are bound to "feel" people by using their hearts. When people make friends, they use their true hearts to judge whether the person is good or not; there is no obstruction and influence because eyes do not get between them. Especially, when people choose their mates, they are not concerned people whether they have good-looking faces; instead, they choose the person having good characteristics, similar habits and hobbies. If the hypothesis would happen, I deeply believe that there would be enormous changes between people to people.

To my thinking, appearance is not the priority we have to consider firstly; instead, when we get along with people, we should be concerned about their thoughtfulness. We should endeavor not to be superficial and become more mature.

Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results

Summary:
This is an article written by Paul Rogat Loeb who gives comments on social issues provides his perspective to see a social heroine, Rosa Parks. The author breaks the conventional model shaped by our society and demonstrates the real story that brings up a successful person.
At the beginning, the authors recalls the time he meets a social heroine, Parks and finds out that the most important background was skipped in the introduction of Parks’ achievement of the civil rights development. The interviewer only describes it as the single-handed outcome without reporting other people’s hard working and the training that Parks have participated.
Through media, it is not easy for audiences to find a common people to reach a famous change. They try to highlight the marvelous actions making by heroes and pay no attention to most people’s assistance. As a result, people tend to consider heroes are born to achieve it and seldom think that an ordinary person is able to make a significant difference in dedicating our society.
The conventional thought also set a myth that it is too hard for common people to contribute such an achievement. They just see the outcome instead of noticing the examples that motivate their behaviors. They ignore the hard working process that common people have done before the critical change. The real story of the efforts are transferred by media and missed in public.
Park’s story shows that social change depends on people’s participation making the world better. However, people would give up because of the uncertainties and suspicion. The one who has the opportunity to change history needs to keep on hard-working and wait to activate modest fruit by chance.

Response:
In the article Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results, the author provides his own point of view to explore the main factors producing a social hero. The author discovers that the host only focused on the outcome and the conventional thought have shaped what a hero should be. He guides his readers to know the real story of a hero in the background.
Usually, our media reports the marvelous achievement, yet they do not tell the efforts that the heroes, their peers and the previous people have worked for. For example, when we talk about Dr. Sun Yat-sen’s revolution, do common people deeply discuss the details or the previous efforts that he and other people had prepared and worked? No, the media only shows his achievement, so we seldom notice the main factors that let him succeed.
The conventional thoughts also shape the hero as the person who is born to act extraordinarily. However, we can find the truth in the article that even ordinary people are able to produce extraordinary results like Parks. So, what are the mainly reasons that contributes her as a social heroine? Comparing to other people who have participated in civil rights development like her, they usually give up in the process of facing uncertainties and suspicion.
In my conclusion, an ordinary person can actually produce marvelous results. Although working hard for uncertain things can not guarantee people to reach their goals, it is out of the question for people to succeed if they give up before gain the fruit.

Summary & Response – Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results

Summary & Response – Ordinary People Produce Extraordinary Results

Rosa Parks, who refused to give her seat to a white person, became popular in America and even was interviewed on CNN. Hence, some people called her “mother of the civil rights movement.” Before this event, Rosa Parks had spent 12 years leading the local NAACP (The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.) But it didn’t mean that she created the association but improved the movement for change at right time. It told us that this inevitable act might never happened without the lowly and dispiriting work that she or others did earlier on. It also told us that the first step she got involved in brought a lot of people courage to refuse to move to the back of the bus. The description of Parks suggested that social activists would not take dramatic stands without reasons. And it implied that if we acted alone initially, it must go along with the greatest impact.

Usually, a historical change was represented by an ordinary person who took extraordinary actions. An African American activist once said, “When people who work for social change are presented as saints, so much more noble than the rest of us. We get a false sense that from the moment they were born they were called to act, never had doubts, and were bathed in a circle of light. ”

The Rosa Parks’ story also told us that even if being the ordinary grass-roots, you can fight to preserve freedom, expand the sphere of democracy and so on. These activists taught us how to shift public point of view and find the power to protect despite all odds. Sometimes they brought about a supernatural outpouring of courage and heart. Give you a question! Do we have the chance to shape history despite all out uncertainties and doubts? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response:

According to the article, it is “racial discrimination” evidently. Nowadays, this problem is still there. The white race thinks that his class is the highest among the black race and oriental. But I appreciate Rosa Parks, a black-skinned woman, persists in refusing to give her seat to a white person. This event inspires a lot of black-skinned people to assert their human rights.

Theoretically, everyone has the same relations on the equal basis, but it is impossible in reality. We cannot change the innate inequality, so we try to change our acquired inequality. In my opinion, I don’t think that a person’s skin color can decide a person’s class whether is high or low. There are still bad people in white race, of course, and there are good people in black race. Give you a good example. Obama, who is a black person, is an unprecedented black-skinned president in America. In his life, Obama improved himself constantly and finally he won the United State Presidential Election. And that is a black-skinned person. “The white race is better than others.” is typically stereotype. Human is human no matter what his skin color is. We are all the same and no one has special human rights in this world. If president do wrong, he is still accused by law.
We cannot discriminate a person by innate factors because he doesn’t want it, too. Equality is difficult and even we can say that is impossible. What we can do is to reduce inequality things to the minimum.

Summary and Response-The Decline of Neatness

Summary

The Decline of Neatness, written by Norman Cousins, depreciates the sloppy clothes people wear now for the sloppiness virus will ruin our society, especially in clothing styles, speaking ways, emotions and human relationships. Norman Cousins, first of all, regards comfortable clothing as the most important things while there are more and more young people loving to wear torn blue jeans. These people have strong desires to be fashionable so that they can catch people’s eye; however, in Norman Cousins’ mind, their preference is just a kind of blind behavior and lack of individual characteristics. Secondly, Norman Cousins despises slovenly speech people use today for these fragmentary words are the symbol of incoherence and casualness.

The casualness, moreover, influences the emotion and attitude people have a lot. When people become casual, they are prone to be brutal and violent facing others; in addition, children living in the society will be affected a lot because they see and mimic people around them everyday. Lastly, untidiness is also related to human relationships, as it is seen in films that people’s feelings are removed toward sex. In conclusion, Cousins deeply hopes that Victorian attitudes can be brought to an end, and people and the society can go back to basics.

Response

I always wonder why people who wearing torn and frayed clothes think they are in fashion. After reading the article, Norman Cousins tells what I wonder and gives me the answers. When it comes to clothing, there are many people wearing uncomfortable clothes in order to look fashionable; moreover, many young people try hard to mimic the clothes which singers or movie stars wear. In my opinion, the behavior is lack of deep meaning and cannot show individual characteristic because everyone is like the same. Why do not we wear comfortable clothing and feel at ease?

Slovenly words are used frequently nowadays but I do not agree with the phenomenon. There are more and more people having the habit to use fragmentary words while talking to people, especially chatting on the Internet. They enjoy using sprawled words and abbreviation; however, their sounds are no more than grunts and murmurs.

I also deem that the casual attitudes affect people’s behavior a lot. When they use little words communicating with others, they will gradually become careless and informal. Facing people, they will care less and then do some impolite action; in addition, in their mind, they will feel impatient and then become violent. It is a continuous process.

I conclude that everyone should be reliable to the phenomenon of untidiness; celebrities should not wear sloppy clothes so that people will not follow suit. Elders should be good models because children are lack of judgments and directly learn what they see on the streets or on TV. We should listen our true feeling and do what we really want to do instead of being blind. I am deeply convinced that neatness is the priority. If everyone does not follow the fashion right away, our society or even the world will become quite better.

Summary and response for "The Decline of Neatness"

Summary:

The trend of getting sloppy is unable to prevent. Norton Cousins claims that the slopping virus is gradually nibbling up our conceptions of being neat. This is just like the butterfly effect, influencing the people all over the world.

The first issue is about the way we dress. Blue jeans are the most common clothing either at now or at several decades ago. A casual and relaxed look of clothing is also a symbol of dressing nowadays. Cousins explains that the way people dress make them feel they “stamp out the cookie cutters.” Another issue is the sloppy and violent speech. Today people speak a noun or a phrase which is considered as a “chopped-up phrase” to express the whole meaning of a sentence. Cousins further explains that the reason why people speak with violence and brutality is the casual attitude of speaking. The final issue is about the relationship between humans. Because of the casual attitude of sex films, our thinking gradually becomes open from conservative. It also means that people will be unable to feel anything.

Cousins’s purpose is not to make people experience Victorian attitude; conversely, he says that our “calculated sloppiness” will disappear and suggests that people in their career can find new eyesight which people will be fund of and learn from it.

Response:

With rapid development of technology, the world we live is gradually becoming more and more convenient. “Technology is connecting to people” claimed by Nokia is a well-known slogan, announcing that technology is leading everyone to a whole new world. However, due to the trend of becoming convenient, we may gradually become lazy for relying on those high-tech products. This effect may transfer to other aspects such as the way we speak or the way we do things. In the future, this condition continues.

Almost every language has this kind of problem: the laziness of speaking. In traditional education, we are well taught to speak the whole sentences while answering a question. But we sometimes just answer a noun or a phrase instead of a sentence. Maybe it is like translation. In the translation class, we have learned that a good translation work should convey the meaning which is faithful to the author. As the translating skill promotes, we can use as less words as possible to convey the meaning. Maybe the oral skill is also influenced. It seems that using several words to express a meaning may be considered as laziness or even degeneration. If we can change the way of thinking, maybe it is another evolution because we can use words with precise meanings to express what we are thinking!

If a thing is good, it may not be so good as it looks like. Just like technology, maybe it can bring us convenience, but it also brings the earth pollution. If we can emphasize on the positive points of a thing and try to solve the problems the negative points produce, there will still be many things for us to learn.