New Words
I learnt two new words today.
Muffin-top:
What you get if you pair tight jeans with a skimpy top that exposes your flabby tummy; the excess bits of flab which hang out; what Australians call love-handles
Yuck.
Recrimination:
An accusation to counter attack a previous accusation.
Micheal Kinsley recriminates the charges put forward in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
Sure, none of us would have predicted that a natural disaster like this would strike so suddenly and so destructively.
In defense of the US government, Kinsley argued that the idea of levee improvement was quite a crazy idea and that the US government had more pressing needs, specifically national security, to attend to.
However there was one key accusation which he failed to deliver a recrimination on: the US government’s slow response in providing aid to the one million survivors who are now homeless.
But there are no recriminations possible. It’s a fact that the President failed to act quickly enough to fix the situation. Kinsley ignores this fact entirely. This makes his argument weak because he does not even address the issue.
He should have said that while no one could have prepared for Katrina’s visit, much more could have been done to clean up after she left.
Kinsley uses a lot of sarcasm and writes his column as if he were having a conversation with the reader. To gun down Senator Mary Landrieu’s charges that the US government did not pay any attention to her when she pressed for levee improvement, he highlights other “pressing issues” which she pushed for such such as more boats for Louisiana shipyards.
He’s got a great punchy ending and he drives his point through. But he’s left out a very big hole in his argument.
291206
2 comments:
You're right about Kinsley using sarcasm. That's a device he uses quite often, and I think much more effectively than Maureen Dowd of the NYT.
You said that Kinsley did not address the issue of Bush not doing enough to fix the levees. But Kinsley did address that... he said the current Bush is in the clear 'cos if he did do something, it wouldn't have been fixed in time anyway cos such a huge construction would take many years.
Btw, in case you mistake Kinsley for a Bush fan -- he isn't. He generally whacks Bush! :)
Good first effort, Stef. What you should do now is go through Kinsley's article again and study how he uses sarcasm. It's not an easy technique. A difficult device to use in a column. When not done well, it falls flat... really flat!
Very cool design! Useful information. Go on! » »
Post a Comment