English 102--Three-Essay Packet
Essay #1 (link)
“Veiled
Intentions: Don’t Judge a Muslim Girl by Her Covering” by Maysan
Haydar
Link: Veiled Intentions: Don’t Judge a Muslim Girl by Her Covering by Maysan Haydar--PDF
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Essay #2 “Televising Humiliation” by Adam Cohen In November 2006, a camera crew from NBC's "Dateline" and a
police SWAT team descended on the Texas home of Louis William Conradt Jr., a 56-year-old assistant district attorney.
The series' "To Catch a Predator" team had allegedly caught Conradt making online advances to a decoy who pretended
to be a 13-year-old boy. When the police and TV crew stormed Conradt's home, he took out a handgun and shot himself to
death. "That'll make good TV," one of the police officers on the scene
reportedly told an NBC producer. Deeply cynical, perhaps, but prescient.
"Dateline" aired a segment based on the grim encounter. After telling the ghoulish tale, it ended with Conradt's
sister Patricia decrying the "reckless actions of a self-appointed group
acting as judge, jury and executioner, that was
encouraged by an out-of-control reality show." Patricia Conradt sued NBC for more than $100
million. Last month, Judge Denny Chin of U.S. District Court in New York
ruled that her lawsuit could go forward. Chin's thoughtful ruling sends an
important message at a time when humiliation television is ubiquitous, and
plumbing ever lower depths of depravity in search of ratings. NBC's "To Catch a Predator" franchise is based on an ugly
premise. The show lures people into engaging in loathsome activities. It then
teams up with the police to stage a humiliating, televised arrest, while the
accused still has the presumption of innocence. Each party to the bargain compromises its professional standards. Rather
than hold police accountable, "Dateline" becomes their partners -
and may well prod them to more invasive and outrageous actions than they had
planned. When Conradt did not show up at the
"sting house" - the usual "To Catch a Predator" format -
producers allegedly asked police as a "favor" to storm his home.
Patricia Conradt contends that the show encourages
police "to give a special intensity to any arrests, so as to enhance the
camera effect." The police make their own corrupt bargain, ceding
law enforcement to TV producers. Could Conradt have
been taken alive if he had been arrested in more conventional fashion,
without SWAT agents, cameras and television producers swarming his home? Chin
said a jury could plausibly find that it was the television circus, in which
the police acted as the ringleader, that led to his
suicide. "To Catch a Predator" is part of an ever-growing lineup of
shows that calculatingly appeal to their audience's worst instincts. The
common theme is indulging the audience's voyeuristic pleasure at someone
else's humiliation, and the nastiness of the put-down has become the whole
point of the shows. Humiliation TV has been around for some time. "The Weakest
Link" updated the conventional quiz show by installing a viciously
insulting host, and putting the focus on the contestants' decision about
which of their competitors is the most worthless. "The Apprentice"
purported to be about young people getting a start in business, but the whole
hour built up to a single moment: when Donald Trump barked "You're
fired." But to hold viewers' interest, the levels of shame have inevitably kept
growing. A new Fox show, "Moment of Truth," in a coveted time slot
after "American Idol," dispenses cash prizes for truthfully (based
on a lie-detector test) answering intensely private questions. Sample: "Since you've been married, have you ever had sexual
relations with someone other than your husband?" If the show is as true
as it says it is, questions in two recent episodes
seemed carefully designed to break up contestants' marriages. There are First Amendment concerns, of course, when courts consider suits
over TV shows. But when the media act more as police than as journalists, and
actually push the police into more extreme violations of rights than the
police would come up with themselves, the free speech defense begins to
weaken. Patricia Conradt's lawsuit contains several
legal claims, including "intentional infliction of emotional
distress," for which the bar is very high: conduct "so outrageous
in character, and so extreme in degree, as to go beyond all possible bounds
of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a
civilized community." Reprehensible as "Moment of Truth" is, it doubtless falls into
the venerable category of verbal grotesquery protected by the First
Amendment. The producers of "To Catch a Predator," however, appear
to be on the verge - if not over it - of becoming brown shirts with
television cameras. If you are going into the business of storming people's
homes and humiliating them to the point of suicide, you should be sure to
have some good lawyers on retainer. * Adam Cohen is the assistant editor of The New York Times editorial board.
Credit: The New York Times Media Group Copyright International Herald Tribune Mar 12, 2008 MLA 7th given by ProQuest Works Cited Cohen, Adam. "Televising Humiliation Editorial Observer." International
Herald Tribune: 8. ProQuest. 2008.
Web. 5 Apr. 2011 <http://search.proquest.com/docview/318901015?accountid=1169>.
APA 6th given by ProQuest Cohen, A. (2008, Televising humiliation editorial observer.
International Herald Tribune, pp. 8. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/318901015?accountid=1169 Essay #3 “Your Kid’s Going to Pay for Cheating—Eventually” by Leonard Pitts, Jr. Leonard Pitts can be reached 888-251-4407 or leonardpitts@mindspring.com Recently school
officials in Piper, Kan., adopted an official policy on plagiarism -- with
punishments ranging from redoing an assignment to expulsion. Unfortunately,
all that comes too late to help Christine Pelton. She used to be a
teacher. Taught biology at Piper High, to be exact. Then, last fall, she
assigned her students to collect 20 leaves and write a report on them. The kids
knew from the classroom syllabus -- a document they and their parents both
signed -- that cheating would not be tolerated. Anyone who plagiarized would
receive no credit for the assignment, which counted toward half their
semester grade. Well, 28 of Pelton's 118 sophomores turned in work that seemed
conspicuously similar. It took only a little Web research
for her to confirm that they had indeed cut-and-pasted their papers together.
True to her
word, Pelton issued 28 zeroes. What followed was to
moral integrity as the Keystone Kops are to law enforcement. Parents rose in
outrage, some even making harassing phone calls to her home. Pelton offered the cheaters make-up assignments that
would have allowed them to pass the class with D's. They refused. Besieged by
angry mothers and fathers, the school board ordered the teacher to soften the
punishment. She went to
school the next day and found the kids in a celebratory mood, cheering their
victory and crowing that they no longer had to listen to teachers. By
lunchtime, Pelton had quit. The school's principal
and 13 of 32 teachers have also reportedly resigned. In the months since
then, the cheaters have become the target of ridicule and condemnation in
media around the world. In spite of that,
the parents of the 28 ethically challenged students continue to rally to
their defense. One says it's not plagiarism if you only copy a sentence or
two. Another expresses doubt the kids even know what plagiarism means. To that, I can
only say this: Please shut up. Haven't you already done enough damage? Students have
always cheated, yes. But what's most troubling here is not the amorality of
adolescents, but the fact that parents are so eagerly complicit, so ready to
look the other way, so willing to rationalize the fact that their children
are, in essence, liars and thieves. Lying about
authorship of the work, thieving the grade that results. Those students,
their parents and the school board that caved in like cardboard in the rain
are all emblematic of a society in which cheating has become not just
epidemic but somehow, tolerated, even at the highest levels. As one senior
told CBS News, "It probably sounds twisted, but I would say that in this
day and age, cheating is almost not wrong." Who can blame
the kid for thinking that way when the news is full of noted historians
cribbing from one another, Enron cooking the books well done, Merrill Lynch
recommending garbage stock, a Notre Dame football coach falsifying his resume. Whatever works, right? Ours is not to judge,
right? Wrong. At the risk of
being preachy, I'd like to point out the common thread between the
historians, the coach, Enron and Merrill Lynch: They all got caught. Cheaters almost
always do. No, not necessarily in big, splashy stories that make CBS News.
Sometimes, it's just in the small, quiet corners of inauthentic lives when
they are brought up short by their own inadequacies and forced to acknowledge
the hollowness of their achievements. To admit they aren't what others believe
them to be. Reputation, it
has been said, is about who you are when people are watching. Character is
about who you are when there's nobody in the room
but you. Both matter, but of the two, character is far and away the most
important. The former can induce others to think well of you. But only the
latter allows you to think well of yourself. This is the
lesson of Piper High, for those who have ears to hear. Turns out
Christine Pelton is still teaching after all. MLA 7th given by ProQuest Leonard Pitts, Tribune,Media
Services. "Your Kid's Going to Pay for Cheating -- Eventually: [Final
Edition]." Orlando Sentinel: G.3. ProQuest
Newsstand. 2002. Web. 5 Apr. 2011 <http://search.proquest.com/docview/279772982?accountid=1169>.
APA 6th given by ProQuest Leonard Pitts, Tribune,Media
Services. (2002, Your kid's going to pay for cheating -- eventually: [final
edition]. Orlando Sentinel, pp. G.3. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/279772982?accountid=1169
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