Past Present: Jimmy Baca

Baca’s “Past, Present” blends two traditional types of writing the narrative essay and the persuasive essay very well. He goes into great detail in the narrative part of his essay by talking about his own experience in jail. The audience knows exactly the types of emotions he goes through while he illustrates the terrible time he spent in jail. He explains, " I said i hated being back and that no movie could begin to show the injustices practiced here." Baca is being interviewed about his movie, and just talking about it got him all worked up and upset. After, he got up and told them to all "Fuck off", demonstrating his true feelings about the time he spent in jail. Baca uses the persuasive writing style in his essay by truly convincing the audience how terrible jail is. Most people understand that jail is a place that no one ever wants to end up, but Baca takes that feeling and makes the audience share that same feeling he had. He states, " When a man leaves prison, he cannot look into the mirror for fear of seeing what he has become. In the sense, he no longer knows himself". That statement persuaded me into actually feeling like if I ever ended up in jail, I would be miserable. Not being yourself anyone is a very scary feeling to think about because the one person you should know inside and out is yourself. Overall, Baca does a phenomenal job using both the persuasive and narrative writing styles in his essay and I enjoyed learning about his experience in jail and what he took from it.

Sanitized Reality: Nicholas Connolly

Disney World is known as the happiest place in the world. As a child or even as an adult everyone wants to visit Disney World at least once in their lifetime, even Super Bowl Champions want to visit right after they won the most prestigious event in American sports. Unfortunately, Salamone and Salamone feel the complete opposite about this magical wonderland. Salamone and Salamone describe Disney World as a " sanitized reality" because Disney World is one of only a few places in the world that affects the way we act. People visiting Disney World cannot wait to get in and escape reality. They spend a whole day in a fantasy world where there are no worries, no troubles, and most importantly no sense of reality. Salamone and Salamone stated, " The guest is exposed to the frontstage and left to absorb the almost subliminal message of the setting"(169). They're are implying that Disney World uses a low dose of subliminal messaging towards their customers, both kids and adults, which gives them the sense to come back again and again. They brainwash children's brains with imagination and a life that really doesn't exist. For the people who visit, they get one day to just simply escape from the world. They can, in a way, be whoever they want and do whatever they want. Moms and Dads can take their kids to Disney World where they can have a relaxing day and not have to worry about work, bills, or any other " real" world problems and Salamone and Salamone have a serious problem with all of this.

Another case of sanitized reality in the United States are the views of capitalism and democracy. These two very important views is what America stands for and they're slowly slipping away. The Federal Reserve just put in 700 billion dollars into the economy and the Dow Jones Industrial is still going down 500 points a day on average. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two of the worlds largest federal home mortgage corporations are now being run by the government. Capitalism as a whole in America is slipping away from a free market into a market ran by our own government. Democracy, what the United States of America represents, is now being questioned by everyone, Conservatives, Republicans, and Independents. This war in Iraq has been going on for almost a decade and not one person seems to want it to continue. The unfortunate part is that there seems to be no end to this war anytime soon. If you watch the news or read the paper, more people are jumping on the bandwagon of getting out of Iraq and hoped that the bailout would've never happened, but the government hasn't seemed to listen to any of this. Democracy and capitalism are two of the biggest examples of sanitized reality today in our country and I hope it doesn't stay this way.