What's Wrong With Having Long Limbs?

    Lately little consideration has been given to those of us who “limb-impaired” and by this I mean people with long arms and legs.  We are plagued with all sorts of prejudice ranging from corrupt dress codes to the responsibility of reaching the high shelves.  Changes need to be made and quickly before, like us in ill-fitting sweaters, this gets out of hand.
    Any tall person in a workplace or especially school has it very hard.  They must deal with the horror that is the dress code.  The dreaded “tips of the fingers when standing” rule has us shaking in our boots.  While they may be appropriate and even smart for certain outfits, no high school girl, myself included, wants to have to wear Bermuda shorts every single day in the summer!  Shorts that are very appropriate and could even be considered modest for today’s society often break this horrendous ‘fingertip’ rule and we are stuck changing into smelly gym clothes that are provided from the clothing reject pile in the locker room.  As if this is any less distracting than exceedingly short shorts?
    One of the biggest problems that long-armed people constantly face is sleeves that are too short.  When you find that perfect shirt and try it on, imagine the feeling when one discovers that your sleeves only reach mid arm!  My suggestion for this is that the average length for sleeves be at least three inches longer.  If any of you short armed people have need of something different, it’s absolutely your turn to try ordering online in “short”.  We have too long had the misfortune of having to find a website that offers sleeves and pants in “long” or “extra-long” as required.  As a tall person myself, I am always going into stores to try on pants only to find that they are much too short even in the ‘long’ sizes that these stores carry.  This is an easily remedied issue.
    Yet another predicament we do not lack is high shelves.  Any time anyone at all cannot reach something, it is always us that are called over to get it for them.  I say we are tired of this!  No longer will we be responsible for your ‘short’coming!  Anyone under the height of 5’6 will be required by law to carry around a step stool, or even a ladder depending on their height, wherever they go!  We should not have make up for the problems that short people cause!  Tall people should be the basis for measurements and considerations everywhere!

"Kiss and Tell" - Alain de Botton

   To produce a comic effect in “Kiss and Tell” Alain de Botton employs the characterization of the father figure, Mr. Rogers, to facilitate the sometimes unwanted but always undeniable similarities between parent and child.  Throughout the excerpt, Isabel is clearly embarrassed by her parents even doing "her best not to recognize" them.  Her father is clearly supposed to be a nerdy character, noticing "lighting fixtures" and even describes something as "fiddly".   Isabel unmistakably does not want the boy she is gonig out with to associate her with her parents.  She does her best to be different from them refraining from using the same type of vocabulary and making fun of them by pointing out how her father is about to sneeze or her "willow tree"-like dress.  In addition to this, they are accompanied by words such as "ominously" and "maniac".  De Botton also uses a metaphor to liken Mr. Rogers' actions to that of "the vigorous hand gestures of a man waving off a departing cruise ship.

"A Modest Proposal" Analysis

In the incredibly written satire A Modest Proposal, Jonathan Swift draws on emotion inducing imagery, black humor, and bizarre logos with the aim of writing an unorthodox solution to both overpopulation and widespread hunger.

Jonathan Swift paints a picture in the reader’s head of the disarray of his Ireland.  He vividly describes “the streets, the roads, and cabin-doors crowded by beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning for an alms”.  He uses these images to sell his point as the only solution to bring back “the publick good of [his] country”.  Swift wants the reader to picture this in their head so they can see how serious the issue is.  They need to know that his is the only possible solution and any other would not be as effective as they need to be.  If the reader is more easily able to picture these things, it will be much easier for them to be persuaded by Swift.  He clearly describes the methods of cooking babies and how they would “be very good boiled on the fourth day, especially in winter.”  Images are very helpful in Swift’s attempted persuasion.

Jonathan Swift also uses black humor to make the piece a clear satire.  By saying that “a child will make two dishes at an entertainment for friends”, he is trying to infuse rather grim humor into something that would otherwise be dismal and gross.  This change of expectations allows the reader to read the piece without immediately being put off by the grotesqueness of it all.  On the contrary, it may also cause the reader to stop reading!  They could be completely disgusted when he describes how an infant could make “a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled” and not finish the piece.  He infuses these unrealistic but surprisingly funny bits to make the piece even more ridiculous!

    Swift’s bizarre use of logos or statistical information is incredibly persuasive and attempts to rationalize his out of the ordinary proposal.  He brings up ‘facts’ like how, if they carried out his method, they could have “the addition of some thousand carcasses in [their] exportation of barrel’d beef” which he probably intended to sway any business that exports meat.  He, of course, knows that this entire proposal is entirely ridiculous but used particulars such as the latter to make it seem as though he was completely serious.  He even takes it to the point where he is arguing that people will gain “eight schillings per annum by the sale of children”, actually presuming that people would consider selling their children.  What makes this so incredibly humorous is that he goes about this Modest Proposal so seriously when he knows that no one would actually consider eating children.