O_O #1

Above is a picture of wonderful Nissan engineering from the late 1980 to early 1990's. The Nissan 240SX. I personally have owned 3 of these cars but the one that left the biggest impact was my 1991 SE (the trim level) Fastback. It was far from being pretty like the one above. Mine was white and had what seemed to be the standard for a high mileage 240sx; a dent in the passenger side fender and a worn driver's seat. The worn section, which is worn enough that the metal skeleton of the seat is showing, is on the outside lumbar support of the seat. A seat which caused your back to hurt for an entire day after just 10 minutes of sitting in it. Soon after owning it the cup-holder mod was preformed so I would have a cupholder. The previous owner, a friend of mine from high school, had switched exhausts and then switched again to put the stock one back on before he sold it. Unfortunately he just used some u-bolt clamps to put the muffler back on and it fell off driving it one day. Then later on the rest of the piping from the catalytic converter back to where the muffler should have been came off while driving over a speed bump. The resulting lack of exhaust provided for a nice deep, throaty sound emanating from the heart of the car under the hood. The engine to these works of engineering art was a truck motor. Or at least that is the joke about it. The Nissan 240SX exists in Japan as the Nissan Silvia. The Silvia, 1991 on up, is powered by a 2.0L all aluminum dual overhead cam inline four cylinder that was either naturally aspirated or turbocharged. The turbo version, the SR20DET, pumped out a fairly decent 215hp. The previous 1989-1990 Silvia had a CA18DET which is an 1.8L iron block, aluminum head, dual overhead cam inline four cylinder that produced around 185hp. However those crazy Japanese engineers figured that Americans would rather have a big torquey naturally aspirated four cylinder engine and the North American version of the car, the 240SX, came equipped with the KA24E/DE. The KA series of motors were 2.4L iron block, aluminum head that depending on the years either had a single overhead cam, 1989-1990, or a dual overhead cam, 1991-98, design producing 133hp and 155hp respectively. With 175k on the clock the KA24DE in my Fastback produced 129rwhp and 131rwtq which is really not bad considering the mileage and that it was running at 11:1 AFR (air to fuel ratio). Eventually throughout the year that I owned the car I put 30k hard miles on it delivering pizza for Valentino's at their 27th and Superior store. At 205k on the clock the clutch slave cylinder went out of the car and it ended up getting towed. The engine still ran but the car was unable to move under its own power. It ended up like the other 2 Nissan 240sx's that I have owned, not running. One of these was my first 240sx, my 1991 Fastback Super-HICAS with a lsd and four wheel steering and the other was my 1992 SE Coupe that I just sold to my friend Ryan. Ryan, who I met while getting involved in the local car scene, has ended up being one of my best friends. We had spents countless nights cruising around in my beat up Fastback or drifting in empty parking lots after it rained. That's what 240sx's are good for, drifting. They lack the power to really do anything impressive in the 1/4 mile but they handle like a dream. I don't know what happened to my Fastback that got towed, I ended up selling it to the company because I was broke at the time, but my Coupe is still in the hands of my friend Ryan who is currently in the process of rebuilding the engine with higher compression pistons from the KA24E (sohc version) for a little more performance. Once its done I can't wait for my back to start hurting again.

Judith Reflection

A Perfect Circle along with Maynard James Keenan's other band Tool were played quite heavily during my high school years. During those high school years I was beginning to develop my own personal ideas on various topics like many other youths. One such topic was religion.
Seward, my hometown, is like many small towns in the Midwest. It is predominately made up of Christian middle-class families. Now I was confirmed a Methodist but it was during my High School years when I began to ask questions about what I was supposed to believe in. My pension for rock music and black clothes along being the child of a single parent and my association to peoples that were closer in my economic bracket cast a shadow on me. Wearing black and associating with the "poor kids" was just not something you did if you wanted to be popular. Wearing black and listening to rock music was almost like participating in Satanic rituals I think to some people. The ironic aspect of it all was that the people who were active church members and considered themselves Christians were often the first to exclude or pass judgment on people solely because looks or who somebody associated with. I'm not going to lie. I'm not innocent of passing judgment on people, I am making a judgment right now in fact. But things such as clothes, taste in music, hobbies, and economic class have not discouraged me from trying to befriend people. I don't refuse to be friends with someone just because they are poor.
I guess the point that I'm trying to make is that many of the people who claim to be religious and standing on the moral/ethical high ground are in fact on the same level as everyone else. Just because you believe (or don't) in something does not automatically make you a good or bad person. Actions speak louder than words, and they also speak louder than beliefs.

Judith Observation

Rhetorical Analysis (Final Draft)

The year is 1937 and Spain is in the middle of a civil war between the Nationalist forces and the ruling Republican forces. The famous Pablo Picasso has been commissioned to paint the mural centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair in Paris. His inspiration for the mural arrived when the Condor Legion took flight over the small Basque town of Guernica in northern Spain on April 26, 1937. The elite unit of the German Luftwaffe laid waste to the small town using carpet bombing tactics and cutting down anyone who tried to escape from the crumbling town. In the small town of originally 5,000 people, there were probably more people in town because it was a market day, 1,600 people were slaughtered after the town burned for three days. The Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco denied any involvement in the attack as did the German government. The town of Guernica had no strategical value but was the central location for the Basque people. Having finally found inspiration Picasso painted the above piece of art, Guernica, which depicts the tragedy of war through appeals to pathos, ethos, and the logical constructs of allegory and symbolism.

Picasso himself had a fascination with bullfighting and many of his works reflect this. In Guernica the bullfight is somewhat untraditional. There is no matador, instead the fight is between the bull and the horse. The bull, depicted on the far left, which can be interpreted as Franco who was responsible for the tragedy at Guernica. The horse, shown as the central point, is skewered by a lance to symbolize the slaughter of the people of Guernica. The absence of a matador, which would represent the Republican Spanish Government at the time, shows the lack of involvement the government had in controlling the situation. In this the bull fight is an allegory for war. The twisted nature of this bull fight, in that it is bull vs. horse, illustrates the twisted and gruesome reality of war. The bombing of Guernica was not part of the civil war between the Republican and Nationalist forces. It was instead a slaughter of a noncombatant village by the fascist allies of Franco and so the bull fight was not between a man and a bull. Using the bull as a symbol for Franco and his Nationalists establishes a certain ethos. Bulls are characterized as aggressive, often mean, and masculine animals. On the contrast using the usually docile horse as a symbol for the citizens of Guernica also establishes a specific ethos. To convey the argument that the bombing of Guernica was an unjustified massacre it is logical to represent the victims as the less aggressive animal and the aggressor as the more aggressive. It would not make much sense if the people of Guernica were portrayed as a more dominant animal. The stark contrast between the characterizations of bulls and horses builds upon the idea that this attack was one-sided. Through the logos concept of cause and effect Picasso makes the statement that if you go to war, death and destruction will follow and often times the casualties are not limited to the combatant. The civil war between the Nationalists and the Republicans cause the noncombatant Basque village of Guernica to become a target.

Appeals to pathos are everywhere in Guernica and prove to be tremendously effective. The choice of Picasso to only use black, white, and gray helps to convey the depressing and somber reality of war. This limited color palette of blacks, whites, and grays is common among the earlier analytical cubist works. The use of various shades expresses the idea that not everything is black and white. The extremely dark shades used in conjunction with the black background set the mood as dark and brooding.

The graphic images of a dismembered soldier still clutching a broken sword, the skewered horse, the burning woman, and the weeping mother all work to invoke sorrow and dread upon the audience. The weeping mother who is holding her dead child in her arms with her head raised skyward and mouth open screaming conveys tremendous sorrow. The tongues of the mother and the horse are sharp triangular shapes which emphasize the harshness of the emotions they are expressing. Picasso's cubist style, which uses geometrical shapes and attempts to display all the perspectives of an object on a two dimensional plane, and allegory of the bull fight themselves dehumanize the mural to depict the inhumanness of war.

The arrangement of the individual aspects of the mural also are important. The horse is placed in the center to emphasize the importance of its ideal in the piece. Also to emphasize the horse there is a light shining down upon it. The bull is however placed on the outskirts of the piece and appears to be looking away from the scene in the middle. This action of looking away by the bull gives the feeling that Franco, didn't care about the people of Guernica and just looked the other way will the German Luftwaffe used the town as bombing practice. The absence of the symbol for the Spanish Government, the matador who is the usual opponent for the bull, relays the feeling that the government really didn’t do anything to stop the horse from being slaughtered. The chaotic imagery of the mural shows the chaotic nature of war. Within all the death and destruction there is hope. A flower grows out of the sword of the fallen soldier. The flower is a symbol of new life. The fact that it is sprouting up from death symbolizes that regrowth or rebuilding is possible.

Much of the power of the mural stems from the ethos of its creator, Pablo Picasso. As one of the founders of cubism and a well known artist at the time he had the ability to influence the masses. Also the power draws on that when it was presented the massive mural was the centerpiece for the Spanish Pavilion at the World's Fair. The theme of the World's Fair in Paris was modern technology. Picasso's Guernica along with other works presented at the Republican Spanish Pavilion shocked spectators and exposed them to the horrors of Franco's fascist Nationalist regime. The power of Guernica is still prevalent today. A reproduction of the piece hangs outside the Security Council chamber in the United Nations. And on Colin Powell's February 5, 2003 visit to the UN the reproduction was covered. Most likely because Powell was there arguing for war in Iraq.

Works Cited
Walsh, David. "UN conceals Picasso’s “Guernica” for Powell’s presentation." World Socialist Website. 2003. http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/guer-f08.shtml

Bowers, J. "Picasso: Surrealism and the War Years." Baltimore City Paper. 2004. http://www.citypaper.com/arts/story.asp?id=7455

"Treasures of the World." PBS.org. http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html

Guernica

The above image is that of the mural titled, Guernica, created in 1937 by the artist Pablo Picasso. When questioned about the meaning of aspects of the mural Picasso responded with, "...this bull is a bull and this horse is a horse... If you give a meaning to certain things in my paintings it may be very true, but it is not my idea to give this meaning. What ideas and conclusions you have got I obtained too, but instinctively, unconsciously. I make the painting for the painting. I paint the objects for what they are." Not to undermine or dispute Picasso's statement but aspects of the mural do have meaning, provided you understand the cultural context in which the mural was created.
Spain at the time of this mural's creation was in the middle of a civil war between the Republican government forces in charge and the Nationalist forces of General Francisco Franco. Franco's regime attracted the attention of Nazi Germany and Italy. On April 26, 1937 the Condor Legion, an elite aerial unit of Hitler's Luftwaffe created to practice battlefield tactics, bombed the small Basque town of Guernica in Spain. Guernica was the central point for the Basque people who resisted the Nationalist forces of Franco. The original population of the small town was only about 5,000 people but the day of the attack was a Monday which would have been a market day. A market day would have attracted people from the surrounding areas into the town. For three hours the bombing continued. Anyone trying to flee the town was mowed down by the planes above. When it was all done around 1,600 people were killed. The Condor Legion was under control of Leiutenant Colonel von Richthofen. After the attack occured Richthofen denied the that the target was Guernica and instead stated that the intended target was a bridge nearby. Not a single one of the 24 aircraft hit the bridge, or the arms factory or railway nearby.
Picasso had been commissioned prior to paint the mural centerpiece for the Republican Spanish Pavillion at the 1937 World's Fair in Paris. After the attack on Guernica he recieves his inspiration for the mural. After the fair Picasso's artwork tours Europe and North America from WWII to 1981 raising awareness about the fascist regimes on the rise and the Spanish Civil War. It travels everywhere but Spain, because Picasso refused to let it travel there until they had democracy and civil liberty. Picasso dies in 1973 and Franco dies in 1975. On October 25, 1981, the 100th anniversary of Picasso's birth, the Spanish government finally returns Guernica to Spain where Picasso always intended it to go.

http://www.pbs.org/treasuresoftheworld/a_nav/guernica_nav/main_guerfrm.html
http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/guernica.htm