Ah, Google. Master of our hearts. Like Wikipedia, Google is becoming (or has become) our go-to for any sort of fact-finding mission. Unfortunately I think that Google has started to take advantage of the fact that their company name has become a common verb. "You can Ask Jeeves it" simply doesn't have the same ring to it. I like the autoGoogle feature, wherein the search guy living in the computer tries to guess what you're going to say. However, I like it more for the entertainment value than for the saving of my poor, overworked fingers. Although, in the age of smartphones, the autocomplete is useful. Google uses its position as the goto search engine to its own advantage. Because of the personalized advertising feature, Google can make a living off of selling our search histories. It can also promote companies that support it, rather than simply allowing the search results to show what is most relevant. Monopolies are always dangerous, even when ere only talking about search engines. Who is going to regulate Google's practices if there is no other search engine to turn to that can produce the same type of efficiency?

The article on the creation and the creator of Wikipedia was fairly enlightening. I have long considered Wikipedia's information sources to be of the bored teenager variety, and therefore give little credence to the information I find there. I do admit using Wales' "Google Test". What's scary is how much faith that users put in the information found on Wikipedia. Even though there is some sort of policing of information going on, I don't think its enough to consider Wikipedia a credible source. The admins seem to be there mostly to remove profanity and nonsense, not to edit for factual information. I think its Stephen Colbert who actually encourages his fans to make up ridiculous information about him and post it on his Wikipedia page. Also, its concerning that when you review a page or article, you are asked to assess your own level of expertise. I just think there's way too much leeway when it comes to facts and Wikipedia.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Pygmalion, but there is something that has been bothering me throughout the play. Neither Higgins nor Pickering, though Higgins more obviously, view Eliza as a person. Higgins constantly refers to her as random inanimate objects. Both have conversations about her while she is next to them while making no effort acknowledge, let alone include her. Pickering sees slightly beyond her role as a student, as he calls her "Miss Doolittle" and notices that her gifts of mimicry extend beyond dialect to the piano. Higgins, however, sees her only in relation to what she can prove about his linguistic prowess, and what she can offer him (his slippers, remembering his appointments).

That's why I love it when Eliza finally has enough, and asserts herself, even if it is in a fit of fury. Sometimes, though, nothing can say "I'm not gonna take it anymore" like a slipper to the face. The conflict further shows Higgins' utter obliviousness to Eliza's existence as an actual person. He has no clue what she's upset about, and doesn't even seem to track that she was right beside him and Pickering when they were discussing "their" victory. Eliza has spent months allowing herself to be shaped, and it's only when she breaks out of the mold that Higgins has created that he shows an actual interest in her as a person.

As I start writing this response to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," I find that I am more hesitant than usual. I feel like I'm in danger of doing the kind of writing he blames for the "general collapse" of the English language. Worse, you'll all now be aware of the fact that my writing is bad.

Ah, well. The part of Orwell's argument that I found most interesting was the idea that meaning should choose words, rather than words dictating meaning. It's true that we often get so concerned with sounding intelligent that we forget to make our actual point. Using too many words is just as dangerous as using the wrong ones, since our meaning can get lost or even changed in the midst of all the letters. I also often fall victim (case in point) (again) to cliched metaphors and phrases. It's easy to rely on these words to try to describe something, even if they don't actually describe what we think they do.

Especially in political writing and speaking, where meaning is essential, I think Orwell is right that we need to concentrate on being more succinct and exact. However, given the nature of politics, this is very difficult. "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible." Politicians use metaphors, and especially euphemisms to make their points more palatable to the public. Very few would vote for a politicians who advocated the total destructionof a village and its people, and so politicians frame such ideas under the guise of "spreading democracy" or "achieving liberation for an oppressed people." Not only is this type of language bad, its also dangerous.

Lyn Pykett's feminist critique of Wuthering Heights reiterated the importance of literacy in the actions and identities of the two Catherines. She describes the first Catherine's diary as being indicative of her rebellious, dissatisfied nature. The fact that Catherine wrote about the things in her life that she did, as well as the ones that caused her frustration, shows that she was determined to exist outside of society's expectations for girls. Growing up, she is wild and unrestrained. It is only after going to Thrushcross Grange that she begins to conform. In this conformity, she loses part of herself. It might be the most vital part, since her transformation into a proper lady eventually leads to her demise, though it may be in a roundabout way. I think this is a common theme in feminist literature; a woman gives up her own desires and personality in order to be what society wants her to be, and so causes her destruction.

Cathy uses books in order to hang onto her identity. She refuses to allow her will to succumb to the imprisonment at Wuthering Heights, though she cannot do anything about the physical entrapment. Books eventually allow her to choose Hareton, which will make her happy. Cathy is able to fulfill her desires, because she holds onto the power of literacy. Catherine stops holding reading and writing in any sort of real esteem, and so stops fighting for her identity.

In the essay on the Marxist critique of Wuthering Heights, it was really interesting to me how Eagleton uses the laws of inheritance of the time (I.e. Hindley's being in line to inherit everything, and Catherine's expected inheritance of nothing) to show why Catherine and Heathcliff formed such a strong bond in the beginning. He, as an uneducated foreigner and she, as the younger sister of the heir, were both outsiders to the Heights. As a small child, Catherine had no concern as to how she would be provided for in the future, and so formed the attachment that she wanted to form, not one that would benefit her in the long run. It was interesting to me, because we've talked about how Catherine's need for financial security dictated her decision making later in life, but this fact shows that the same lack of future financial security leads to there even being a choice. Had Catherine never formed the close emotional relationship to Heathcliff, then she would have no hesitancy in choosing Linton.

The essay on cultural criticism was a little more confusing. Armstrong seems to suggest, in several places, that Charlotte Bronte attempted to make Wuthering Heights more socially accepted by attempting to prove that her sister was unaffected by the surrounding culture when she wrote it. Emily had "'a secret power and fire' ... that came strictly from within" (430). Describing her sister this way allows for the novel to be read in a sort of cultural vacuum, since there's very little possibility that someone who rarely ventured into the world could make the cultural connections. I think that Armstrong is implying that Charlotte made these claims about Emily in an effort to shield her novel from critics, and that the claims are not actually true.