"We want Google to be the third half of your brain." -- Sergey Brin

     Overall, I think that the Digital Public Library of America is a good idea. It will be a good way for people to have access to texts that they may not have been able to access normally. Of course, that only applies to epople that have the means/technology to use it.

     To hear that Google did not defend itself effectively in its court case against the Author's Guild and the AAP does not truly surprise me. Google, at the end of day, is a corporation. It may be a business powered by unlimited access to information, but it is a corporation nonetheless. I hope that Google manages to rework the settlement it has with the Author's Guild and the AAP, but like Darnton said, technologically, the nation is capable of creating it's own digital library without depending on Google.

     Personally, I kind of have to agree with the author's who choose to enforce the copyright laws. They did produce the work, and I think that in and of itself, should give them the power to decide what happens to it. Of course, it would be wonderful if authors were more inclined to let their work become public domain, but then how would they make a living?

   I truly hope that a compromise can be reached on this issue. Both sides have compelling arguments.

"Books are not made for furniture, but there is nothing else that so beautifully furnishes a house." -- Henry Ward Beecher

     James Gleick's article perfectly expresses the way I feel about digitization. I'm all for easy access to information, but I do have some personal quirks that stop me from fully supporting the move digital books/articles/etc.

     Gleick explains the position of those who oppose the digital movement, and I have to say that it is a position that I agree with. A big part of history is exploration and discovery. With everything available at your fingertips from the comfort of your own home, the need to go out into the world is lessened. Who needs to go to the Bibliotheca Alexandrina in Egypt to see a genuine manuscript of the Qur'an on display when you can simple search for the information on the internet? Sure you'll find the information, but the experience is not the same. For instance, when Professor Bowden brought her books to show to class, I was very excited. To know that I was being given the chance to handle something from so far back into the past was amazing. Not many people get the chance to do that, when you think about it.

     On the other hand, I do think that for academic purposes, it is a good idea for the British Library to digitize is books and such. As a student, I know how frustrating it can be to not have access to certain books and articles that may help me with my work.

     As with most thing, there are both benefits and drawbacks to our increasingly digital age. As long as a balance can be struck between the two extremes in the situation, everything will work out fine.

All men by nature desire knowledge. -- Aristotle

     When I think of Wikipedia, I never think that somewhere along the line, it had a starting point. It's always been a vast pool of information, whether it be about it Damascus or the medicinal uses of papaya (these are both topics that I have come across on Wikipedia). Of course, I know that Wikipedia is never truly a reliable source, simply because of its main function: to be an easily accessible source of information based in truth. Fortunately, but unfortunately for Wikipedia, truth is relative; this leads to friction amongst editors and information that can be less than reliable.

      I would never cite Wikipedia in any of my research for school, but I unashamedly use it as a jumping off point for almost everything that I am interested in. For instance, when doing our poetry-close reading papers, I needed to know what a paper nautilus was; now, thanks to Wikipedia, I know more about them than I ever needed to. I guess this is good information to have when I watch Jeopardy. Another topic that was interesting was the fact that non-professional editors had some hostility towards the professionals. I think that's a silly attitude to have, because at the end of the day, they're all there for the same thing: amassing information.

     It was nice to read about Wikipedia's conception. I always wondered about it, but never took the time to look too deeply into the matter. Despite it's humble beginning as Nupedia, Wikipedia has grown into a something that Wales can, and does, take pride in.

A superior man is modest in his speech, but exceeds in his actions. -- Confucius

     In Act III of Pygmalion, Professor Higgins proves that as always, actions speak louder than words (or linguistic style, in any case). Professor Higgins goes to visit his mother, who is a bit startled, as well as apprehensive, at his visit. She believes him much too eccentric to be brought in front of the respectable company that she is expecting. He explains that he wants to bring the subject of his experiment to her home, as he has a bet with Pickering. Although Mrs. Higgins is none too pleased to hear that a common flower girl will soon be entering her home, she allows it. Through out the visit to his mother's house, both Higgins and Colonel Pickering come off as enthusiastic, ineffective little boys, rather than the men of science they previously proves themselves to be. Mrs Higgins is constantly rebuking Higgins for his lack of manners, his behavior towards the guests, and his clumsiness. Overall, I believe that Act III proves that Higgins cannot be the romantic hero of Pygmalion; his attitude towards women has not changed at all. He tells his mother, "My idea of a lovable woman is somebody as like you as possible. I shall never get into the way of seriously liking young women: some habits lie too deep to be changed."

     Act IV opens with the trio's return to Higgins home on Wimpole Street. Higgins and Pickering are talking and interacting as though Eliza is not there. Higgins is bothered by the fact that he cannot find his slippers. Eliza is kind enough to find his slippers and set them down in front of him, but Higgins pays her no mind. Higgins and Pickering go on to talk about the experiment and how glad they were that it was over, as it had become boring. This really made me sad, as well as also angry on Eliza's part. Higgins and Pickering used Eliza and then tossed her away, as if she wasn't a human being with feelings. Later in the act, Eliza and Higgins argue, with Eliza making the point that to Higgins, she is not important -- "not so much as them slippers."

     I was very happy to see Eliza stand up to Higgins in the face of his bullying superiority. She forced him to recognize her as a person, and not just a cog in the machine of his experiment. She even says that she won't sell herself, in reference to Higgins saying that with her new way of speaking, she could get married. I'm glad that Higgins and Eliza argued; it made Higgins reconsider what women were capable of, and what they could be.

"Pygmalion" -- George Bernard Shaw

     As a child, I watched the movie "My Fair Lady," so I was pleasantly surprised when I realized that this was the original stage play the the movie was adapted from.

     "Pygmalion," by George Bernard Shaw, is a social commentary on the different social stratas in early 20th century London. It tells of the story of Professor Higgins, Colonel Pickering, and their attempt to change Eliza Doolittle, a flower girl on the street, into a young woman fit for proper society, specifically a duchess.

     The title "Pygmalion" comes from the legendary figure of Cyprus. Pygmalion is best known for being in Ovid's Metamorphoses X,  in which he is a sculptor who carved a woman out of ivory. Disgusted by the behavior of the women of his era, Pygmalion decides to live alone and unmarried; he then goes on to create a statue more perfect than any living woman. Despite his claim that he was not interested in women, Pygmalion falls in love with his sculpture and prays to Venus for her to be brought to life; subsequently, the statue is brought to life and they live happily ever after.

     In Shaw's play, one could argue that  Eliza Doolittle is being brought to life through speech by Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering. Professor Higgins embodies Pygmalion in a way, what with his aversion to women. In Act II, he says that, to him, women "might as well be blocks of wood." Unfortunately, he has a penchant for swearing, forgetting his table manners, and a terribly quarrelsome nature.  One could argue that because of these negative qualities, Colonel Pickering and Mrs. Pearce also embody Pygmalion, but in a lesser way. Colonel Pickering teaches her self-respect by treating her with respect  and dignity. Mrs Pearce changes her outward appearance, which is just as important as her manner of speech. Together, the three of them make a perfect Pygmalion figure.

By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin

     This article was an extremely interesting read. George Orwell's argument that the English language is in a bad way is valid, and in my opinion, true. Orwell states that writing in the English language is being plagued by extreme vagueness and overall ineptitude. He goes on to say that this is occurring because of a growing reliance on metaphors that are outdated and lack meaning; he claims that these metaphors are popular because they save the author from the task of being original and creating phrases for themselves. Orwell claims that such a reliance shows that the author is not interested in what it is that he or she is writing about.

     Orwell goes on to discuss the use of flowery language and how it is really not a necessity. Most people tend to think that using high-brow language is a mark of someone's intelligence, or their class. That is definitely not always the case. Anyone has the ability to go through a thesaurus and find words that they think makes them sound intelligent; At the end of the day, it's not the words one uses to convey ones meaning/argument that count, it's the ideas behind it. This reminds of how much my teachers/professors stress that flowery language and fluff does not a good paper make; instead, it may make you seem as though you know very little. If your ideas are concrete, there will always be a simpler way to say it.

     This brings me to another point in Orwell's article: politicians. Orwell argues that politicians use this decline in language, and meaning, to their advantage, which I whole-heartedly believe is true. Most politicians cannot write a speech (or have one written for them) that does not include some type of metaphor, or an abstract concept in place of a concrete idea. Like Orwell said, political language is "designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

     This growing reliance on metaphors and flowery language is still a major one, and like Orwell said, this isn't something that can be solved all at once. Instead, we can all try to change our own habits.
   

Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge. ~Andrea Dworkin

     I was happy to see that when answering the question of "What is Feminine Criticism?" the essay split up the idea by country. I believe that depending on ones country of origin, a feminist critic may have differing ideas about the construction of the feminine gender. Unfortunately, the essay really only described feminine criticism from the point of view of women who were white and from the Western world. There are many other feminists who did a lot in their own countries to further the position of women in their societies, like Urvashi Butalia in India or Uchida Jenko in Japan. Overall, I wish the essay would have focused on a more diverse selection of feminist critics, but it was a good read nonetheless.

     Too see what it was that French, American, and British feminists focused on was interesting. I could see why they chose to focus on the things that they did, as they are of cultural importance for them; for example, in France, words have genders. I know that as someone who has studied French for the past 6 years (with all female teachers), it has been pointed out more than once, and with a quiet (and sometimes not so quiet) discontent that words that are feminine gendered are most times abstract, or things that are small or frivolous. For instance, the word "mouse", une souris, is feminine, whereas the word "skeleton", un squelette is masculine. The gender of the word "organ" (orgue) is masculine when speaking of the body part; when speaking of the instrument, it becomes feminine. For French feminist critics to focus their attention on language and deem it "phallocentric" did not really surprise me when I thought about it.

     American and British feminist critics were kind of similar, but they focused on different areas. They worried more about what had been written rather than how, but the Americans tended to focus on rediscovering women's history through the writing of women and the emotion behind it, while the British turned their attention to the more political side of things. When I think about it, it makes sense that American critics were more focused on the emotional side of things, because I believe that as a whole, American society is much ore emotionally demonstrative than our British counterparts. As someone who grew up with a British mother, I know that not every British person is an emotionless bot with a stiff upper lip, but they are very focused on moving forward rather than spending time on displays of emotional incontinence. For them to focus of the political sad of things and criticize American feminists was something I kind of expected.

   I really enjoyed this reading. It was interesting to see each cultures influence on what feminist critics thought to be the most important idea when dissecting the construction of the feminine gender.