“Audio Recording Response”

Right off the bat, we have some very straightforward observations about the speaker and who they might be. The voice speaking appears to be a young man who can fluently speak English. It is likely that English is his first language. He speaks with ease and without doubt. Being an American, I can recognize that the young man is also American. Within his accent and tone, no traces of the south can be found, nor the west coast, so my guess would be somewhere mid western or the north east. Other indications that the speaker is a young person would be all of the “Umm”’s and “Like”’s that he uses as filler words. It makes up for the time he is thinking mid sentence. Regardless of how “choppy” his sentences were, everything he is speaking of is easy to understand and follow along with. The story was not hard to follow, and the speaker spoke slowly. One last thing to consider! The speaker is not in the presence of anybody else. He is not currently communicating with anyone.  He is alone. People’s speech patterns change depending on who they’re around. This is probably only a variation of the way the speaker talks. Who knows how he dictates his words and syntax when he is in the presence of his family or friends. At this moment, he is not giving much thought to the things he says or the way he says them. 

BAEFY

Baefy is a slang word that combines the words “bae “and “wifey” together. “Wifey” Meaning “Wife” and “Bae” which translates to “Before Anyone Else”. The word is usually used  in talking about your significant other or someone very close to you. For example, “Me and Baefy are gonna go cuddle and watch The Notebook together then go and knit sweaters for each other”. The term “Baefy” is one that I only recall hearing in the past year or two. I’ve only heard it verbally in an ironic tone of voice. It is notable that “Baefy” is a genderless term.

Online it is very hard to find the origins of “Baefy” are very hard to find on the internet but it’s root words can be traced back. The term “Bae” surfaced in 2014 in internet memes. Of these memes the most popular ones consisted of a picture of someone sleeping and the caption is usually something like, “Lol, Bae caught me slippin, love him”. Now the comedic part of this meme is that if the viewer looks close enough they can see that the person sleeping was actually the one who took the picture. It’s meaning has remained the same over the years. “Bae” has been used by many artists such as Ice Jay Jay Fish, Pharrell Williams and Lil’ Wayne. Though it is mainly used by teenagers and young people. Nowadays, “Bae” or “Baefy” is used in a more ironic and comedic way. Nobody (that I know of) seriously refers to any as “Bae” in a regular conversation, it’s very 2010’s comedy. Memes have evolved and so has the language.I don’t see “Bae” or “Baefy” having a future in any other way other than memes and other random internet comedy. 

The definition of “Wifey” is “Girlfriend described as wife material”. It’s hard to find the exact year that “wifey” originated but it was around the same time as “Bae”. For example “ After a year and a half of being together, I knew she was wifey”. The meaning of “wifey” has stayed the same. Mainly young people and teenagers use it in an ironic way. It is appropriate for sarcastic and funny situations.

“Wifey.” Cyber Definitions, www.cyberdefinitions.com/definitions/WIFEY.html. 

DB POST #4

While I do not wear a suit and tie when speaking in my “suit and tie” language, it’s really interesting how my brain just automatically knows when it’s time to make the switch and not think twice about it. I can find hard physical evidence of it in my phone while observing the way I communicate with friends and family versus how I communicate with my professors. When on the phone with my friends I don’t wear any sort of filter or feel the need to really sound “proper”. They can understand what I’m trying to communicate with them clearly, which is all that matters to me. Sometimes I wonder how my professors would react if I emailed them like, “ayo whatsup professor can I please have an extension on this thursday’s essay, I’ve got mad work to do”. (This is not how I speak). Obviously this isn’t very suit and tie in the slightest bit, I don’t follow many grammatical rules but it’s clear what I’m asking for. So what’s the big deal? But I don’t do this. I speak my suit and tie language when in the presence of teachers, strangers and other people of higher authority. 

I speak my “pajamas and uncombed hair” language around people I feel comfortable with. I put away all my filters and speak candidly. I don’t use a whole lot of slang words but one big indicator of my “pajamas and uncombed hair” language is through swear words. It’s a bad habit that I’m trying to kick. Something interesting about the way I use language to observe is that under no circumstance what’s so ever do I ever curse around my parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents. Perhaps I’m not as comfortable around them but something in my head does not allow me to swear around them. It feels weird and uncomfortable.

HALF MARATHON

In my Junior year of high school it was my goal to run a half marathon. It’s something I had been thinking about for a long time but was too cowardly to really commit to. I had been running for the cross country team at my school and various other clubs for some years prior. Although I had never really ventured past the 6 or seven mile mark. One day on a wim, I signed up for the brooklyn half marathon. Forcing myself to commit to the distance. 

From a young age my parents planted a seed in my brain that stuck which entailed seeing how far I could physically push myself. That’s why the distance of 13 miles mattered to me. Could I do it? In the weeks leading up to the race I made sure that I was comfortable running three fourths the distance. I ensured I followed a strict weekly schedule of running 4 to 5 times a week. 

2 Nights before my scheduled half marathon some conflict arose. I was foolishly messing around on my skateboard trying to kickflip when I sprained my ankle. Not any ordinary sprained ankle though, it was an unable to run type sprained ankle. If I told my mom or dad this they would surely have pulled me from the race. So instead, for the two days leading up to the race I got up at 5:30 in the morning, 30 minute before my Dad woke up, and iced the hell out of my foot. Then when I got to school I would immediately get an Ice pack from the nurse, then another before lunch, and yet another before school ended. And finally before I went to bed I would ice it.  

All of this work paid off as the morning of my race my ankle was free of pain.n As for the race itself, it was lightwork. I was overprepared. Finishing though I felt euphoric and also delusional at the same time because of how physically exerted I was. 

DB POST #6

Several summers ago when I was just a young boy, me and my family decided to vacation in Europe. From the start I was already nervous about going to another country where people don’t speak the same language as me. We stayed in Paris for a week before spending our last few days in Normandy, not too far from the D-Day beaches. It was a long drive from Paris to Normandy. After many hours in the car, me and my family decided to stop in a small town and get some lunch. After wandering around town for some time we ended up choosing to eat at a diner. To set the scene up and provide some context, we only speak English, and the restaurant we entered was practically empty. Only two men sat at the bar. Upon entering the restaurant we were immediately shown out as the hostess informed us there were no available seats for us. Well obviously this wasn’t the case. We clearly communicated that we are five people who would like a table. That’s usually the first order of business when you enter a restaurant. What would we be doing in there? Clearly they just didn’t want to deal with English speaking people. Perhaps they dislike Americans or maybe they ran out of food. But I find it far more probable they didn’t want to deal with English speaking people. It was a language barrier that the restaurant employees just didn’t feel like dealing with. It really wouldn’t have been hard to just point at stuff on the menu. His whole interaction caused my Father to throw a fit.

DB POST #7

I will interview my girlfriend Abi. I know I’ll get good authentic answers from her. I’m going to record the interview on my camera, I’m hoping that we can both be in it but I might have to hold the camera. An original question I will ask her is “Coming from a Spanish speaking family, why weren’t you taught to fluently speak it / how does this make you feel?”. Some tips from the text that I will consider is to be open minded, ask open ended questions and treat it like a normal conversation. This will give the interview more flow and make it feel more natural. 

DB POST #8

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4LVgPD2Bb0

Interview with my Girlfriend Abi Rivera 

I met Abi in Brooklyn by Fort Hamilton on a Thursday afternoon. We immediately went to the Parade Grounds where I would conduct the interview. On the way there we talked some about what we would be discussing and what type of questions I would be asking her. Although I did not tell her the exact questions that I was planning on asking. She seemed fine with this, I assured her it wasn’t going to be anything too personal or uncomfortable. 

Currently Abi is a freshman at New York University in the stem program. She’s from Queens but was living in Long Island prior to moving into her dorm at NYU. Abi is half Puerto Rican and half Greek, though she feels far more connected with her Puerto Rican side. We met in our freshman year of highschool and have remained good friends since. I knew I would get the best interview out of Abi because of how far back we go and how often we talk. I knew this interview would be no big deal.

Watching over our interview I noticed me and Abi spoke somewhat differently than we normally do. For the first couple minutes I sounded a little more robotic than usual. Starting off the interview was awkward and fiddly. Our voices felt a little weird and too formal, this isn’t exactly how we speak. As for Abi I also noticed that her tone of voice was a little different than how she normally speaks. I immediately recognized the tone voice she was using as the one she uses when she’s talking to some family of mine or a teacher of hers. Even though it was a very slight and subtle change in her speech, I could tell pretty easily as it’s not how she talks to me. As the interview progressed things felt a little more natural and fluent. We connected well and we each had more things to say in general. Abi definitely spoke more than me, which made sense being that she was the one being interviewed . Going into the  interview I knew she would have plenty of quality and well thought out responses to my question. She speaks from the heart. 

Our body language seemed a little more stiff and fidgety than normal. But not by much. Throughout the entire interview Abi was twitching around, tapping her feet and messing with her hands. But physically she didn’t seem nervous or uncomfortable. On the other hand, I think I looked very strange and out of place. I couldn’t really sit still, I was adjusting my body constantly, playing with my notebook, fidgeting with my cast and my shirt. This seemed to last the entire interview although I wasn’t really feeling weird or uncomfortable. I think I am just regularly a very fidgety person, this wasn’t an indication as to how I was feeling. One aspect that majorly affected our speech and body language was the fact that we were being recorded. Having a conversation with someone while you know your being recorded can completely switch up how you act. We both were probably much more aware of how we were speaking and acting knowing that it was all being recorded.

My favorite question that I asked her was “Coming from a Spanish speaking family, why weren’t you ever taught to speak spanish?” . I’ve alway been meaning to ask Abi about her Puerto Rican side and why she wasn’t taught to speak it. I know that most of her family members know how to speak it. In this interview I finally got to hear about why she wasn’t taught it. In asking her I discovered that her and her cousins are the first generation in the family who cannot speak Spanish. Her family just didn’t see how it was relevant to her generation. Abi expressed that not knowing her family’s native language feels robbed of her identity. Regardless of this she says she plans on learning the language one day. 

Overall we connected well. Watching this interview (again and again) felt more like I was eavesdropping in on someone’s conversation rather than listening to an actual interview. It went well and had a nice flow to it.

DB POST #9

Right off of the back, I was surprised by all of the hate that Brown received in response to her blog post. It was interesting that she felt it necessary to immediately address this. So what I suppose this essay is, is a glossary of words that Brown wants the reader to unlearn because they are aebelist? So many of these words I use on a day to day basis. I did not know that by using many of these words / terms that I am discriminating against people with disabilities. Does Brown want to erase these words from the English language? Obviously I think that’s a little far fetched but do these words really have such a negative impact on people’s lives they feel the need to get rid of them? Hey no judgement I’m just curious and this is the first time I’m hearing about any of this. I’m very lucky to be an able-bodied person.  

I’m curious as to what Brown would consider an “able bodied” person as. Would one with a mental disability not be considered able bodied? I have a learning disability and I personally don’t. To put emphasis on what I was saying before, I was quite shocked upon seeing some of the words that are considered “ableist”. For example “stupid” and “dumb”. I use these words without thinking twice about it. I probably even use them in a classroom environment. I’m curious to hear from people with disabilities to hear from them about how some of these words have personally affected them. 

LANGUAGE MYTH

  JACOB ALTSTEIN FILM.mp4 (399.939 MB) 

PROPAGANDA

When we think of propaganda, I think what comes to mind is evil dictatorships and political corruption. Kim Jong Un, WW2, Hitller, Vladimir Putin. But in reality, propaganda is something that is everywhere, and it’s not necessarily evil, I mean sometimes it is but not all the time. Propaganda is notoriously used as a tactic against opposing groups but is also used to spread kindness and hope. Propaganda is used as a way to sort of “nudge” the viewer’s views on a certain topic, to think for them. Perhaps it uses some negative statistic about a group, it gets very toxic. 

A really famous poster that is technically propaganda is Obama’s campaign poster of him in red white and blue with the word “HOPE” in big bold letters below. It’s very nice to look at. The image itself uses patriotic feel good imagery to get the audience to associate the image with the candidate. “HOPE” is a clever and simple message that works nicely. 

The second piece of propaganda comes from Nike. It’s a picture of a young chubby little boy profusely sweating while on a run. In the middle of the image, it reads “Find your greatness” with the Nike slogan below. The image evokes feelings of self improvement. I think to myself, “If he can do it then so can I”. The word greatness, the Nike slogan and this picture of this young kid striving to make improvements for his health all tie together as the viewer associates these things with Nike. 

The Nike one definitely affected me when I first saw it some years ago. It was so simple, yet left an impression on me.

AMY TAN’S, MOTHER TONGUE

Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue, was a wonderful informative story that spotlighted the struggles of growing up with a parent who speaks “broken English”, and her experience with language and how people are perceived based off of how they speak. Through her writing, she educates the reader and gives them a new perspective on language. Amy kicks off her anecdote with an unexpected discovery she had had made during a speech she was giving. She was delivering a lengthy speech with fancy technical words when she realized her mother was in the room. And the way she was speaking was not the way her mother ever heard her speak. She felt strange and uncomfortable. Reading this made me think about the way I speak when I’m around different people. If I spoke to my parents the way I speak around my friends, they would shoot me questionable looks. I definitely have a filter that I put on around certain people. I’m not going to just randomly drop “F-bombs” around my parents and teachers. So I totally understand how Amy was feeling. 

The world looks at you and chooses whether or not they should take you seriously based off of the way you speak. Amy observed this all throughout her childhood. Watching countless times as her mother’s, complaints, words and wishes were ignored because of the way she sounded. People’s perception of Amy’s mother came all from the way she spoke. What she was actually trying to say did not even matter.  Amy had to go as far as getting on the phone for her mother and yelling at people . I really enjoyed reading this. It gave me some perspective and insight as well as some things to think about and reflect on. 

ON KEEPING A NOTEBOOK

My Interpretation of Joan Dideon’s On keeping a Notebook

For Joan Dideon, keeping her notebook is a sort of reality check and form of self expression for herself. All of the random thoughts she has goes directly into her notebook. The pages are a good depiction of what goes on within Joan’s mind. In On Keeping a Notebook, Joan is trying to make sense of all the nonsensical things she’s jotted down and trying to come to a conclusion about why she keeps a notebook. I think Joan is overanalyzing her notebooks. The point of them (in my opinion) is to get all the random wacky stuff out of her head so it’s not just floating around her mind space. By writing down her thoughts she is filtering out the insignificant articles of information. 

This external harddrive which takes the form of a notebook, helps to keep Joan sane. It helps her to capture a feeling or a moment and can organize her thoughts and emotions.

L&L SNAPSHOT

My eyes were only ever fixated on the clock above the door. Impatiently waiting six o’clock to roll around, my teacher’s words drowned out like hearing someone speak from underwater. I had never felt so lost and disinterested in an academic environment. This surly was not the fun play time I’ve heard the other kids talk about. 6 o’clock would roll around and my dad would appear at the door, rescuing me from this dreadful afterschool program. 

Throughout my childhood, I’ve always heard my cousins boasting about “Hebrew school”. All the time Hebrew this Hebrew that. Jealousy ran through my veins. I imagined all the fun the other kids were probably having there. I begged and begged my parents to sign me up and finally they said yes. This was great, behind those temple doors waited two hours of kickball and apple juice, pure bliss. Or that’s what I thought of course. Something much different awaited me within the confines of those temple walls. Something much more dull and academic. Reality hit me in the basement floor of Beth Elohim in Park Slope when my teacher struck me with two hours of the Hebrew alphabet and a fat Hebrew vocabulary book. There were no kick balls to be seen, no sliced apples and juice. I had been deceived by those fools. 

I felt stupid. Hebrew School made me feel stupid and incompitant. I could not for the life of me remember those letters, they resembled random squiggly lines to me. I have my earliest memories of giving up here. My perception of school and learning had been completely altered. Like many other days, I sat there on the carpet waiting for 6PM’s arrival. The clock strikes 6, I hit the cubbies, grab my stuff, I’m the first one out of there where my dad greets me. “Learn anything” 

“Lotov” I respond in Hebrew which translates to “No Good”. All the parents around me found this quite humorous. All the hours I spent zoning out, but I made damn sure to learn how to tell my dad how bad Hebrew school was.

WRITING ABOUT YOURSELF

I really appreciate how much Zinsser stresses how important writing about yourself is. It’s a great way to sort out one’s mind and make sense of what is going on in life. Zinsser describes writing about yourself as a “liberating journey”, picking apart your brain, getting to the root of that one thing that’s been gnawing away at your brain. Just putting your thoughts down on paper will make everything clearer as you can now actually see your thoughts. Approaching writing about yourself is this way will have a great impact on one’s writing. Keeping all this in mind, Zinsser also heavily stresses how crucial it is to incorporate as much detail in writing. Incorporating the five senses in writing will greatly help paint a better picture in the readers head. Zinsser stresses to approach writing as if it were a detailed painting.   

L&L DRAFT

My eyes were only ever fixated on the clock above the door. Impatiently waiting six o’clock to roll around, my teacher’s words drowned out like hearing someone speak from underwater. I had never felt so lost and disinterested in an academic environment. This surly was not the fun play time I’ve heard the other kids talk about. 6 o’clock would roll around and my dad would appear at the door, rescuing me from this dreadful afterschool program. 

Throughout my childhood, I’ve always heard my cousins boasting about “Hebrew school”. All the time Hebrewthis Hebrew that. Jealousy ran through my veins. I imagined all the fun the other kids were probably having there. I begged and begged my parents to sign me up and finally they said yes. This was great, behind those temple doors waited two hours of kickball and apple juice, pure bliss. Or that’s what I thought of course. Something much different awaited me within the confines of those temple walls. Something much more dull and academic. Reality hit me in the basement floor of Beth Elohim in Park Slope when my teacher struck me with two hours of the Hebrew alphabet and a fat Hebrew vocabulary book. There were no kick balls to be seen, no sliced apples and juice. I had been deceived by those fools. 

I felt stupid. Hebrew School made me feel stupid and incompitant. I could not for the life of me remember those letters, they resembled random squiggly lines to me. I have my earliest memories of giving up here. My perception of school and learning had been completely altered. Like many other days, I sat there on the carpet waiting for 6PM’s arrival.When the time finally came, I hit the cubbies, grabbed my stuff, and would be the first one out of there where my dad greets me. “Learn anything?” He asks

“Lotov” I respond in Hebrew which translates to “No Good”. All the parents around me found this quite humorous. All the hours I spent zoning out, but I made damn sure to learn how to tell my dad how bad Hebrew school was.

This was my first experience ever feeling “dumb” in a classroom environment. In all honesty these are really old memories that I’m digging up so it’s rather fuzzy. But around this time was when my teachers first contacted my parents about my unsatisfactory performance in their classes. I was taken to a number of psychologists, therapists as well as taken out of class to be “tested” by other teachers. Eventually I was diagnosed with ADHD. Looking back as a college student to myself as a kid in elementary school, having had a label that said “learning disability” slapped on my forehead left me feeling shattered and unworthy. Over the years as I got older, school did get more challenging for me. I could not read as “advanced” books as the other kids. 

Did all of the special attention I received in school make me feel worse about myself?  As I got older I just wanted to be treated like every other kid. I became an underachiever and just wanted to fail in peace.

IF BLACK ENGLISH ISN’T A LANGUAGE

James Baldwin states how much white people take from black language and culture. “Black Language” was born due to black people not getting a good education. It came from systematic racism. Black Language still however gets white washed. At first I was intrigued by this idea of how someone from Paris would not understand someone from merciless, but then I recalled the time I went to Georgia with my family. Upon arriving there I was shocked about how different people spoke. I remember at certain moments really having to pay attention to what they were saying to understand. I wonder what I sounded like to them. 

JUNE JORDAN

In June Jordan’s Nobody Means More to Me than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan she discusses Black English not being recognized as a language in America. Black English has many rules and guidelines to it. Languages have many different “sub-languages” within them. In the UK people speak differently based on the region. There are different words and accents, but still, it’s the same language. So why isn’t this acceptable in America, why was black English frowned upon. June Jordan has the students of her class, “The Art of Black English” analyze in depth the rules of Black English. When writing a letter that would be published in The Village Voice, June Jordan is faced with the decision of whether or not to write it in SAE or BE. Writing in BE meant that their words were going to be ignored and disregarded. Regardless of this they write in BE. This decision was smart as in the long run, they were fighting for equality in language and writing as well as recognition.

SHITTY FIRST DRAFTS

Wow I really wish we had read this in the beginning of this class, it would have been really beneficial. To have the reaffirmation that it’s totally ok to write something that sounds bizarre and senseless and it’s ok because nobody else is going to read it. She states that going into drafting it’s important to drop all expectations going in and just let it all out. When I sit down to write an essay or some extended paper, the blank google document that stares back at me is intimidating.”How am I supposed to fill these pages with my thoughts and ideas ?”. It’s overwhelming. At some point there my essay will be fully typed up and completed. But the thing that bothers me is why does it take me so long to produce these sentences. Why can’t it take minutes rather than days? Well as Anne Lamott points out all the good writing emerges from the really sloppy and chaotic writing. This is a “technique” I started using this year that consists of just putting everything that comes to mind on the paper. Once this is complete I can go back and weave through my words and tweak and expand the things I like as well as get rid of all the things I don’t. As she states, not even the most world famous writers can sit down and produce quality writing. No, everybody has to get through the first draft first. 

DRAFT

How does Amy Tan persuade her audience? What is Rhetoric? What is the text doing? 

Mother Tongue was published in 1990. It is a nonfiction / personal narrative essay. 

Audience: I believe her target audience is a wide variety of people. The target audience of this essay is most likely people who have never really put much thought into language, speech, accents discrimination based off language and speech. Her intended audience is people like me who never really knew much about the topic before I read Mother Tongue. On another note, her intended audience could be people who had a similar situation as her growing up. 

-The purpose of this essay is to get the reader to understand what it’s like growing up with a parent who speaks “limited” English.

-The purpose of this essay is to make the reader understand why you shouldn’t judge a person based on the way they speak.

It sounds silly and basic, but Amy Tan is really just pushing the classic phrase, “don’t judge a book by it’s cover”. If you look beyond Amy Tan’s mother’s “limited” way of speaking, you’ll see an extremely intelligent person thirsty for knowledge. Examples of this include:

1. She reads the Forbes report
2. Listens to wall street Week
3. Has a stock broker

The evidence is supported through her own personal experience with her mother as well as

what she saw her mother experience. In talking about how her mother’s wishes and words were

often discredited, Amy states, “the fact that people in department stores, at banks, and at

restaurants did not take her seriously, did not give her good service, pretended not to

I see bits and pieces of ethos pathos and logos used in Mother Tongue. I would choose mainly pathos because Amy Tan’s Mother Tongue leaves an emotional impact on the reader. Amy Tan recalls rather traumatizing and hard experiences that she went through as a child and as an adult. Mother Tongue also uses logos in that the arguments she makes are based on her own memories and things she went through. 

This story is all about judgment.

HOW TO WRITE WITH STYLE

Well I’ve never really taken into consideration what it’s like to write in the way that newspaper columnists write. Obviously it’s supposed to be strictly informative and factual with no opinions dropped in there. I suppose what I’m saying is that I’ve never actually taken it into consideration that there is a person behind those news columns. It’s not that they sound robotic or anything, it’s just not how people really talk. But I found it interesting on how one is supposed to write. Skip over all the non important details and scenes and say what you mean to say.

THE RIGHT TO WRITE

This one of those things were there isn’t really one “right” answer. How does one have the “right” to tell another’s story. Do you have to be connected to the person or people of that story? It would be totally normal if I wrote a novel about my grandpa’s childhood. We’re connected by blood. But would it be okay for me to write a story about someone not related to me and from a different culture and background from me? I feel like I would receive some backlash for this. It almost feels like theft, like I’m taking a peoples story. On the otherhand, if I wrote a book about Alexander the Great I feel like it would be fine regarldess of the fact that we have no connection. I don’t know, it’s weird and complicated. 

WRITE TILL YOU DROP

Well first off, the first thing that caught my attention in this piece was the word “idiosyncratic”  which means a distinctive or peculiar feature of a certain place or thing. Dillard writes about Hemmingway and I don’t really have any prior knowledge of Hemmingway so I was pretty lost. Dillard really seems to put his heart, soul sweat and blood into his writing. I like his idea about writing as if you knew you were going to die or as if your audience consisted of terminally ill people. That reminds me, I used to be scared of boats and the ocean and one day I found out my family was going on a week long cruise. Two days prior to the trip I sat in my school’s library and wrote my will because I was certain the ship would sink in some violent storm. To my suprise It was like 6 pages long and had some pretty thoughtful words.

RESEARCH ESSAY DRAFT

Everyday I find myself asking, is it too late? Is our planet doomed? Over the course of my life I’ve observed time and time again that my country’s leaders and politicians straight up ignore the ever worsening condition of our planet. Why has climate change been so politicized? Why is it a “liberal” issue. It certainly is not a liberal issue, it’s a human issue. In short, here’s what I have to say: humanity is doomed, every year we have our climate strikes, retweet activism “please spread this information” but what does that do? I am unimpressed with our government’s feeble attempts at enforcing environmental laws. When do we start holding our leaders accountable for their actions as well as their lack of actions. Recently at the COP26 which is this convention where world leaders get together and talk about climate change, Borris Johnson was heavily advocating for other countries to really try and cut down on their carbon emissions. And what does he do right after that? Well he got on his private jet to have dinner in London. Our leaders, well the ones that actually “care”,  love to pick and choose when they want to care about global warming. There is no change to be had until they are held accountable for the damages they have done to this planet. Do you really think it’s up to everyday people like me and you to solve this global issue? Now unless we’re talking revolution I’d say we’re out of luck.