Brandewie's Blog #3

If I were to draw a picture of America today, it would be of the space shuttle taking off. There is all this thrust coming from below. But the booster rocket — Washington — is cracked and leaking energy, and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan. So we can’t achieve escape velocity to enter the next orbit — the next great industrial revolution, which is going to be E.T., energy technology.
This is an editorial from the New York Times, from the Sunday 21, 2008 edition. It is by Thomas L. Friedman, it is an editorial about how our government is not doing enough to get ourselves out of the energy crisis. I believe editorials are generally a source of good writing because in an editorial, a writer is given free rein to write about a topic that he or she feels passionate about. In the first sentence Friedman uses a metaphor comparing our country to a space shuttle. If the metaphor were to end right here you may believe that Friedman only saw great future and potential for the United States. I think of a space shuttle as a positive metaphor rather than a negative one. However in the next sentence he explains, “But the booster rocket — Washington — is cracked and leaking energy, and the pilots in the cockpit are fighting over the flight plan.” He shows the things that he disagrees in the government effectively with the metaphor as his tool. If Friedman would have just stated, “Our energy plan in America is not working,” It would have not been nearly as convincing as comparing it to a dysfunctional space shuttle. In the next sentence, the metaphor is continued by just saying we can’t enter the next orbit; now the metaphor is further entered the readers mind by stating we. We, a collective pronoun, now include the reader into the article. Now I will take the first sentence and show how it can be remodeled into another good sentence.
If I were to draw a picture of Wabash today, it would prove to have kept many of the historic traditions of the past.