Graham Hill: Why I’m a weekday vegetarian

Graham Hill’s talk in the TED show was about his idea of being a weekday vegetarian and its uses. Graham Hill introduced himself as a “green guy” and grew up with “two hippy parents” . Hill was the creator of the site www.treehugger.com. In the talk, he uses his sense of humor to convince people to be a vegetarian and explain how he came up the idea of being a ‘weekday vegetarian’.

For example, he talks about how eating a hamburger a day can increase our risk of dying by 3 times. In addition to cruelty, 10 billion animals were killed for meat everyday. Then, according to the environment, eating meat causes more  trips of all transportation, such as car, truck, train, plane or boat. Furthermore, meat needs to be processed. Therefore, meat is a significant factor that causes more air-pollution than the transportations and factories. Also, meat uses water hundred times more than vegetable’s processes do. Graham Hill said: “With this society, we are eating twice the meat as we did in the 50s”. It means that the number of meat products is increasing day by day. Producing meat causes certain environment impacts and it is increasing everyday. So being a vegetarian can help the world’s environment a lot.

However, “Imagine your last hamburger” – hilariously said Graham Hill, he admitted that to be a vegetarian is not an easy thing. You have to choose between a meat eater and a vegetarian. Hill also he was not ready to be fully vegetarian. His common sense and good intention of protecting environment by being a vegetarian conflict with his taste. Graham Hill said “I committed to do it later. But not surprisingly, later never came”. Concluding his conscious and habit of eating, Graham Hill thought: “How about ‘weekday vegetarian’?” The name was already what it meant, you can schedule your eating habit by being a vegetarian from Monday to Friday and in the weekend is your choice. You can either be a vegetarian or a meat eater. If you feel tired during the weekday, you can swap the day’s meal with fish. Based on the “major co-operate in term of environmental damage and health are red processed meat”, we can replace meat, or a vegetarian day, by fish. Fish is known as a clean food, especially fish from the ocean. With salt-water, fish meat was clean since the fish was alive. Fish caused less process of producing and less poison element than red meat.

In conclusion, if you cut meat for 5 days a week to be a vegetarian, you are helping to keep the environment clean. Graham Hill said as he tried it last year (2009), after a few months, his footprints were smaller and he felt that he was helping to decrease both air and water pollution. Also, Graham Hill felt healthier and lost weight. He had the feeling of living longer, feeling better about animals and saved his money. So, considering us as a weekday vegetarian like Graham Hill would help to be healthier and protect the Earth.

Bangkok – peace was over

Bangkok

In the middle of March, the Red Shirts from the North of Bangkok travelled down to Bangkok with purpose of breaking down the recent government Prime Minister of Thailand – Abhisit Vejjajiva. Most of them were farmers from the North’s countryside. The attack lasted for nearly 3 months, from the 4th of March until the 23rd of May. The anti-government’s movement began by going on strike.

Many downtown streets were still closed off when soldiers raided and found weapons left in the rubble and garbage filled the camp. They found hidden explosives and rifles. The Red Shirt leaders have surrendered in their red shirts. Red shirt people, most from poor, rural areas demonstrated because they felt they were forgotten by the government. People who packed to go on strike left their work at home and spent over 2 months to get the government’s attention. The camps shut down the city and caused a significant decrease in Thailand’s economy. A large amount of workers did not go to work even though the manufacture was still happening.

Abhisit Vejjajiva accepted Red Shirt’s demands to disperse his government in the middle of May and after the election finished on September-2010, they will leave the parliament immediately. However, the Red Shirts did not accept the deal. They continued attacking with the purpose to break down the recent government immediately. Finally, a military campaign played out after 6 o’clock against demonstrators, which caused the deaths of 39 people. Red Shirt demonstrators camped out in the center of Bangkok and stopped all the movement in the city. Entrance to plush shopping centers, theater and hotels was blockaded. Troops demolished this 3 square kilometers wide camp district, which enclosed up to 20.000 people.

The event affected the country’s economic and tourism system. First of all, the strikers burnt down the shopping centers, which are seen as the main source of the country’s economy. The country’s security was unstable. There were hundreds of trip to Bangkok, or Thailand, canceled. Since this country depends on tourism, this protest has decreased Thailand’s income from tourism.

Thaksin Shinawatra – Thailand’s last Prime Minister is wanted at the moment. He is considered as a terrorism because he led the Red Shirt fight against the current government. Thaksin was overthrown in a bloodless coup in 2006 when he attended a UN conference in New York, USA. Since then, he lives in exile. He was sentenced to two years in prison for abuse of power while he was still Prime Minister. Thaksin was captured for using power illegally because the government found 1.5 billion USD in his account without appropriate reasons/sources. However, Thaksin was loved and adored by most of the citizens from countryside area of North of Bangkok. He was a “Prime Minister who cares about poor people more than upper class,” said a Thai woman, who attended the strike last April.

At the moment, Thailand – one of the most peaceful countries in the world was no longer peaceful. The instability showed up after the attack. Bangkok, Chiang Mai or even Phuket on the South are not tourists’ choice anymore. One of the biggest shopping centers in South-East area was burnt down. The country wasted over 2 months fighting for nothing but making the relationship between the government and citizens more stressed out. People did not (or could not) go to work while the strike was happening. Many companies’ income were affected, included foreign companies. Money was wasted on weapons and camp’s needs. Therefore, this attack was wasted and truly destroyed the country’s peace and economic.

To survive

To Survive

To survive, I gotta let liars live,

To survive, I gotta face your words,

To survive, I gotta let you go

even if you were one of the best things to help me live.

I stop breathing to make a call

To say goodbye and to give some luck.

Now I am still alive.

I let liars live their lives.

I’ll see them again.

Somehow I become one of them,

Somehow I have wounds and pain.

So do they.

Somehow we can be friend,

Last forever,

Longer than I am with you.

Now I still breathe and live and laugh

And I face your words everyday.

Pretending those were poems

With lies, I blow’ em away

into the past,

For my own good.

To survive

To survive, I gotta let liars live,

To survive, I gotta face your words,

To survive, I gotta let you go
even if you were one of the best things to help me live.

I stop breathing to make a call

To say goodbye and to give some luck.

Now I am still alive.

I let liars live their lives.

I’ll see them again.

Somehow I become one of them,

Somehow I have wounds and pain.

So do they.

Somehow we can be friend,

Last forever,

Longer than I am with you.

Now I still breathe and live and laugh

And I face your words everyday.

Pretending those were poems

With lies, I blow’ em away

into the past,

For my own good.

Gloomy Sunday

Sunday is gloomy

My hours are slumberless

Dearest the shadows

I live with are numberless

Little white flowers

Will never awaken you

Not where the black coach

Of sorrow has taken you

Angels have no thought

Of ever returning you

Would they be angry

If I thought of joining you

Gloomy Sunday

Sunday is gloomy
With shadows I spend it all
My heart and I have decided
To end it all
Soon there’ll be flowers and prayers
That are said I know
But let them not weep
Let them know
That I’m glad to go
Death is no dream
For in death I’m caressing you
With the last breath of my soul
I’ll be blessing you
Gloomy Sunday

Dreaming
I was only dreaming
I wake and I find you asleep
In the deep of my heart dear
Darling I hope
That my dream never haunted you
My heart is telling you
How much I wanted you
Gloomy Sunday
Gloomy Sunday

By László Jávor

The famous poem “Gloomy Sunday” is written by Laszlo Javor in 1933. It is a depressed personal condition poem about the author’s sad love story. “Gloomy Sunday” is a lyrical form. The used of death theme gives readers the mood of depression, hopelessness and sadness. As any other poems, Laszlo Javor uses a lot of literary devices and figurative languages to write his poem. For example: exaggeration, personification, metaphor, imagery and symbolization.

Lazlo Javor wrote Gloomy Sunday when he was rejected by the girl he loves. The subject matter of the poem is the feeling of the man after having a broken heart by his lover. It is bringing the thought of hopeless, disappointed and suicide. The man in the poem is thinking about death but he is still so much in love with the girl. He blames God does not let him to be with her. He is thinking darkly about what he is going to do. The theme of death is written through the way of the poem. “To end it all . Soon there’ll be flowers and prayers
” – This two lines show the thought of death clearly. Javor used flowers and prayers, two things represent funeral. as a metaphor technique. The character wants to end everything at the time. He has no goal to live and think it is time for him to go away because he cannot forget the girl.

This is a personal condition poem, which is based on the writer’s situation. After being rejected, he thinks he is living with shadows and not really being himself. As a loving heart, he creates the imagery technique of angels taking the girl away from him. “Angels have no thought. Of ever returning you. Would they be angry. If I thought of joining you” - The character starts to blame one of the supernatural creation, “angels”. This is an example of exaggeration technique. The rejecting affects the character’s way of thinking. He thinks about supernatural does not let him to join in the girl’s life. There is personification technique in “Gloomy Sunday”. “Not where the black coach. Of sorrow has taken you” –  Javor  characterized sorrow “black coach of sorrow” as a force to bring the girl away from the man. Javor also put in the idea of depression and sadness by using “the black coach of sorrow” instead of only “sorrow”.

As a lyrical form, “Gloomy Sunday” has the rhyme scheme of a song. It has the usual rhyme technique within four lines, which is ABCB and ACBB for the two first verses of the poem. However, during the third verse, the poem changed its style of rhyming into freedom reading, which does not carry any rhyming scheme. The rhyming and the used of literary devices in the poem take big parts of helping the reader to understand the poem deeply. Laszlo Javor brings up the mood of depression throughout the poem, along with death and hopeless feeling of the main character.

In conclusion, “Gloomy Sunday” is a personal condition poem, which is written successfully as a lyrical form of poem. It uses literary devices to create the mood of depression. “Gloomy Sunday” uses the image of a man who is having a depressed time from being rejected by his lover. Laszlo Javor makes the poem as dark as possible. The reader can see the darkness of depression throughout the poem clearly. 

Too Much Time

TOO MUCH TIME

At the root of insanity
Is having “Too Much Time” on your hands
“Too Much Time” to think
“Too Much Time” to remember past hurts
And to wish things could be different.

“Too Much Time” spent alone,
Staring at these four walls
With “Too Much Time” to think,
To remember past hurts
And to wish things were different.

Got to rid myself of this insanity.
I’ll busy myself with a flurry of activities
And seek the companionship of others.
They’ll tell me time heals all wounds,

But for now I’ll still cry–
When I have “Too Much Time” to think
And remember past hurts,
Wishing things are different.

______________________________________________

“Too Much Time” is a poem written by Jo.A Witt in 1994, which is an in famous piano songwriter from the United States of America. The subject matter of “Too Much Time” is about the depression and loneliness in life with the theme of a man passing pains day by day. The poem is written full of literary devices, such as metaphor, imagery, figurative language and personal context. The poem “Too Much Time” has a special beat style of reading. It leads us through the depression with the main character and creates a sense of sadness in our mind.

Poem “Too Much Time” tells us about the depression and loneliness from surviving life and being haunted by the past of the character. He cannot move on from the past. He tries everything to get out of this depression, but he is helpless. He is stuck with the past’s promises and memories. He lives in the loneliness and fear of past hurts everyday. The only thing he can do is wishing for a better day. He plans for a day he does not have to think about the pains he is having. He knows a busy day with works and relationships will help him get through the pain. But unfortunately at the moment, he still cries and always wishes the past could be different.

Jo A. Witt creates the theme in “Too Much Time” by the atmosphere of being alone with the feeling being affected from the past’s hurts. The main character thinks spending time alone is dangerous for him, because the pain of the past will continuously haunt him. He is scared to be alone, because at that time, all the past hurts and depressions come back to his head. As same as any other poems, Too Much Time also has the figurative language. “At the root of insanity. Is having too much time on your hands” These two lines contain the metaphor technique. The root of insanity tells how deeply and truly he would wait for a thing, it would be a chance or the girl he loves. At the very first lines, by the metaphor technique, we can feel the sadness that will lead us throughout the poem. “Staring at these four walls. With too much time to think” The imagery of an empty room with four soulless walls surround him creates the thought of emptiness inside him. The main character cannot solve his problem. He is stressfully thinking about the way to get out of this depression. He wants to take a happy live. Using a literary device, imagery, Jo.A Witt puts in the poem a cold atmosphere, which is caused from the empty room and its heartless walls.

As a free verse poem, rhyme scheme is written randomly in the poem. Jo.A Witt narrates the poem through a short scene about a man’s recent thoughts of what he is being through. Even though he is sitting in an empty room, nothing bothers him, but his mind is full of depression. “Got to rid myself of this insanity. I’ll busy myself with a flurry of activities” These two lines are the only lines which have rhyme scheme in the poem with two words “insanity” and “activity”. Personal condition is put in as the main context of the poem. Using the first pronoun, Jo.A Witt makes the reader join the feeling of the main character while reading the poem. The depression is put in

In conclusion, “Too Much Time” has brought up sense of depression and loneliness clearly throughout the theme of a depressed man. The poem carries different kinds of literary devices. Jo.A Witt creates the poem as easy to understand as possible. Therefore, “Too Much Time” is written with simple techniques and images. It succeeds in putting the sadness and depression in the reader’s mind.

The Survivor

The Survivor

Once more he sees his companions’ faces

Livid in the first faint light,

Gray with cement dust,

Nebulous in the mist,

Tinged with death in their uneasy sleep.

At night, under the heavy burden

Of their dreams, their jaws move,

Chewing a non-existent turnip. (imaginary)

‘Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people,

Go away. I haven’t dispossessed anyone,

Haven’t usurped anyone’s bread.

No one died in my place. No one.

Go back into your mist.

It’s not my fault if I live and breathe,

Eat, drink, sleep and put on clothes.’

-   Primo Levi

___________________________________________________

The Survivor is an excellent poem written by a famous Italian poet, Primo Levi.  Written as a cultural condition, the poem is about how we have to deal with the life’s unfairness being a lower living standard. Using the theme of impoverish workers surviving in an unfair society, this free verse poem gives the reader a feeling of being restricted and treated unfair.  To support the main idea of “The Survivor”, Primo Levi uses the imagery figurative language and sets the poem as a social condition poem.

The content of the poem is about a man who survives his life through tough times and wants to be treated fairly. He is sick of his job and people around him. In his dreams, he shouts out what he has been thinking when he was awake. He wonders why everything in his life is unfair to him while he did nothing wrong. “The Survivor” is aimed to blame the unfairness of life that bothers an innocence man, who is impoverished and has not done anything wrong during his lifetime. He is restrained and depressed from things around him. The pressures of being weak in the society break him down. The main character finds more depressions when he looks around and sees his friends are as same as him, hopeless and helpless.

The poem’s theme is set at night, when people sleep and suffer with their nightmares. The body is covered with cement and is not showered. The main character in the poem cannot sleep tightly, because the fear of tomorrow will be the same haunts him every seconds. ‘At night, under the heavy burden- Of their dreams, their jaws move’ describes how the workers talk in their dream, which shows the tiredness after a though day follows them in their sleep either. It gives the readers the idea how the main character cannot find peace in his sleep. This is a metaphor written to show the unfairness stops him from looking forward for a better future. He cannot have a peaceful second in his life. He says what he dreams in his sleeps. He knows he cannot do anything to against the arrangement of his lives in reality. He always why life is so unfair while he did not do anything wrong.

The poem is written as a free verse form. There is no rhyming scheme in the poem. Primo Levi writes half of the poem as a quote of himself about life, which gives “The Survivor” the personal condition. “The Survivor” uses the imagery signal of having an unmercifully sleep to describe the worries in the workers’ head every time. The speech sounds mourning and painfully. Two lines: ‘Stand back, leave me alone, submerged people, – Go away. I haven’t dispossessed anyone,” creates a weak character in the poem. He is helpless and defending himself from people who hurt him and troubles those are happening to him. The angriness in his voice by using ordinary phrase makes the poem easier to understand. The reader will get the idea of an ordinary man lamenting about his life, how he wants to get away without the unfairness. “The Survivor” makes the reader feel depressed in an unfair world, where people are treated badly and causes them sleepless nights. The poem brings them the idea of being subdued in life and can only speak at night, when no one is listening and words cannot help.

Concluding the analysis, “The Survivor” creates the idea of dealing with hardness and unfairness in life sadly. A impoverish worker is drawn with literacy devices. Primo Levi hardly puts the thought about the depressed feeling of being treated unfair. The image he uses to describe the situation more depressed. Primo Levi uses his poem to send his message of discrimination successfully.

Passage 2

This writing piece is analyzing an extract, which describes the writer’s experience when he visits Kathmandu in Nepal. The extract is a documentary written as a diary of the author. This adventure to Nepal diary carries a nostalgically feeling of traveling alone. It is written as a personal condition and used literary devices, such as description, personification and imagery.

This personal context’s subject matter is a journey to Nepal alone of the author. He went to two temples and feeing homesick while taking the trip. The style he used to build up his writing strongly is writing the text type as a documentary-diary writing piece. This extract is aimed for any age’s audience to read. It carries a package of information in Nepal. Along with the feeling news having during taking the adventure, which is the nostalgic, the author tried to give information of Nepal’s people, lifestyle and its culture.

Using the description and imagery techniques helps the extract to become more exciting and worth reading. He cares about everything happening on the street. Also at the end of the text type, he puts in the personification technique for the flute music. He feels that flute music always makes him tear himself apart. This also helps to bold up his feeling at the time.

The author has transformed a documentary extract into a diary form. He succeeds in using techniques to describe his feeling and Nepal in the extract. He expresses his feeling of nostalgic fluently through his writing.

Passage 1

The analysis is about the extract, which is taken from a short story set in Canada. As a non-fiction writing, it carries the writer’s purpose of giving the reader ideas of dealing with lost in life. The used of literary devices support the text fluently to create the mood of depressing. The theme is taken in countryside with a farmer family.

This extract’s subject matter is about the depression of a family after their father, or husband, died. It was written as a non-fiction piece by telling the reader a normal life in the countryside. The widowed in the extract cannot stop thinking about her past husband. The author wants to give the reader an idea of dealing with the lost of a family member can cause a long time depression. Using the theme of harvesting time in countryside, the story is built up fluently to bring in the mood of depressing of the woman, who does not have her husband harvesting with her this season.

As same as any other writing piece, the author uses literary devices to support his idea. The used of imagery is aimed to create the picture of the subject matter. For example, the bitterness is shown when the author describes how beautiful the field is while the wife is standing there along. She silently blames that beauty took away her husband. The writer also uses foils to add more sadness in the extract through the image of how they try to move on with their mother. They start their new goals and show the strength of minds to prove the broken period is going away.

The extract above is carefully written by using literary devices. It is a scene in a human’s lifetime, losing somebody they love. The text is built up with depressed mood and takes place in countryside. The writer has done his job successfully by transmitting his purpose to the reader fluently.