Nick Kristof's articles cover a lot of topics and he has a handle on all of them. I really enjoyed his articles that deal with human rights, especially "What About American Girls Sold on the Streets?" and "'Three Cups of Tea,' Spilled." I felt that these two pieces are really different but also very similar. "What About American Girls Sold on the Streets?" talks about the issues of teenage prostitutes while "'Three Cups of Tea,' Spilled" focuses on building schools in underprivileged areas around the world. But education is a theme in both of these pieces. Without an education, these groups of underprivileged people suffer. I felt there was a very similar takeaway from both articles.
"'Three Cups of Tea,' Spilled" touched on some interesting things. Kristof talks about Greg's point that Americans should be focused on outreach in Muslim countries because "building schools tends to promote stability more than dropping bombs." This was a very refreshing idea to me. But I'm guessing that most Americans would be against this idea -- why would we go to Afghanistan to help their schools when 1) we're at war with them and 2) our schools also need help. People need to stop and think more about these issues. Kristof also points out another flaw of the American public when he talks about the scandal surrounded by Greg and how his actions might not be legitimate. Americans won't want to look at his ideas about helping people and won't be encouraged by his ideas because they will immediately look at the scandal surrounding him. Reading Kristof's articles are educational but this one especially made me upset about how easily judgmental and resistant our country can be.
"What About American Girls Sold on the Streets?" also made me think a lot. Kristof points out the flaws in our system that target teenage prostitutes. I agree with him that they are not being treated in the right way. Clearly, something bad is going on when a 12-year-old girl has to take up prostitution and a juvenile detention center isn't going to help her in the right way. Kristof is right, these girls need "sympathy and social services."
I like how Kristof's pieces flow. In these two pieces, he starts out with some background information and then leads you into the story and what he wants you to think about. He has very keen insights on what is going on in his articles. He isn't just telling the reader a story, he is also introducing questions and sneaks his opinion in there also. He doesn't just tell the reader his opinion and list them all out but I am able to understand where he is coming from. I really appreciated that.
I agree with you that these two articles were the most interesting of the five articles we had to read by Kristof. And I like your point about how, yeah, building schools in Afghanistan is most certainly going to help that country more than a military presence might. I recently read a profile about a platoon in Afghanistan nicknamed "The Kill Team," in which some of the soldiers actually killed Afghanis for fun and kept trophies from their kills. The article is here, if you're interested: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
ReplyDeleteIn light of this, it seems silly that people would be opposed to building schools and helping out the people of Afghanistan, because some of what we're doing now with our military isn't entirely working.
Anyway, I would agree with you that Kristof is relatively sneaky with his opinions in these two piece, but he does tend to just throw what he thinks out there in some of his other articles: in one of the others he directly states what he thinks the US government should do. But overall I agree with you, sorry for such a long comment!