Sparring partner needed (rated 1400-1500)

Haha I’m not cool and old. I have no idea what discord and snap chat are.

Good luck OP.

I may throw my name in the hat but I have multiple training partners at the moment. I’m 1400-1500 OTB.

I play the Sicilian (Najdorf, Dragon, Classical and O’Kelly), English and Modern Defence if you want work on those lines.

ah well 

discord is basically instant messenger but with extra functions

I just thought discord because you don't need to exchange emails, just call them (like a phone call with camera).

I don't want a phone number unless it is necessary... any forms of communication that both parties can reach other than chess.com is fine 

And of course I don't want to force anyone to exchange private info that's why i said other forms of communication are acceptable.

And the thing about zoom is I don't know if i'm able to acess zoom do to my platform I play chess on a school computer.

Many people use sources of media to obtain vital information about what's going on in the world, whether that be local, political, national, scientific, or any other forms of news. While humanity has certainly benefited from the ease of access to information from media sources such as articles, there certainly have been detrimental effects from the vast sources of information, mainly in the form of fallacies. These fallacies try to play to the readers emotions, ethics, and/or logic to deceive the audience into supporting their beliefs through deceptive means. In the article titled “A Crisis Neither Candidate Will Address” by Jessica Grose brings a prime example of a logical fallacy. In the first paragraph Grose states that it has been four and a half years since schools shut down due to Covid. In the following sentence Grose attempts to correlate the previous by stating, “There is evidence that this generation of K-12 students has not fully recovered academically -- and may never do so.” Normally, this would be fine as an introduction into the evidence to support the original claim. The problem here is that this introduction never follows up with the needed evidence to base the correlation off of. Grose follows this claim of correlation with another entirely new reason to add why students are academically failing, then proceeds to explain why and how the two election candidates fail to address these educational needs. This delegitimizes Gross' claims because she openly shows that she is simply assuming that the closing of school led to downfall of student academic performance without providing any evidence whatsoever to back this claim. This is an example of the logical fallacy known as the faulty causality. Another example of a logical fallacy is prevalent in the article titled, “New Media and Politics” by Ross Douthat. In this article he states, “In 2015, Barack Obama submitted to interviews with three YouTube stars, one of whom was notable for eating cereal out of a bathtub. It was a moment that opened a window into the media landscape of the future, after the mainstream media as we have known it -- while also making that future seem basically absurd. (Douthat)” In this statement Douthat claims that the act of former president, Barack Obama, being in an interview not with mainstream media but with YouTube influencers shows a lack of proper political formality between the aspects of media and politics. But this isn’t the first time important political figures have sat down with questionable interviewers. The year prior to this event, Barack Obama sat down with Zach Galifianakis for an interview which was by no means formal, with more of a casual and comedic atmosphere. But these interviews and interactions are quite common in fact. Just this year, Donald Trump was seen in a live stream with popular Twitch streamer, Adin Ross. Soon after Kamala Harris attempted to get a live stream set up with another popular streamer, Kai Cenat. These interactions aren’t as absurd once you know the reason behind them, which is so politicians can garner support in specific demographics by associating with trending people that the target demographic relates with. With the understanding of these seemingly absurd interviews acknowledged; Douthat’s claims no longer have any logical absurdity therefore diminishing the claims connection with the evidence provided. We have seen these actions performed both before and after the Douthats’ claims.

The articles also utilize ethical fallacies to mislead the target audience to persuade them. In Ross Douthat’s article it comes in the form of ad hominem arguments as he mainly prioritizes attacking the character of individuals rather than making a proper argument. The most blatant use of such deceptive tactics comes from none other than Douthat. Firstly, Douthat addresses what he believes is the future of media and of whom should not have authority in that delicate field, But it isn't embodied by cereal-eating YouTubers…” Instead of focusing on the content that these YouTubers provide within the political aspects of media he rather attempts to delegitimize their character by calling them out on actions of theirs that led to them to garner a following on social media. In this example Douthat attempts to provide a sense of uncertainty towards his audiences’ perception of these new media influences by calling to question the character of the person but purposely disregards any and all of the context. Following this he further digs down the ad hominem hole. Here Douthat claims that the future of political media is being “...embodied by the sex-and-relationships podcaster and the bro comedians who scored important interviews with Kamala Harris and Donald Trump…” once again attacking the character of the interview rather than the content and perspective they provide. But unlike Douthats' other use of deception, in this example he actually shows a glimpse of acknowledgement of the interviewer's topics of discussion, “...the host of "Call Her Daddy," Alex Cooper, tossing Harris questions about abortion and student loans…” This further showcases that Douthats’ claims fail to account for the reality of the interviews content instead focusing on the interviewer themself, purposely creating a personal attack to make up for a lack of real issues to address. Unlike Douthat however, Grose takes more subtle advances.

Finally, they also encase their writings with the use of emotional fallacies. Mainly found as examples of either/or fallacies. Douthats’ article he elaborates, “Does a 90-minute debate matter more than the viral clips that it produces?” In this instance he infers that only one form of media can prevail over the other. He successfully does by diminishing the given context of the situation at hand. This is also evident in Groses’ article where she states

I saw the show Antigone on Thursday, September 28th. This show followed the story of a girl named Antigone, who buried her brother illegally. She thought it was unjust that the government was going to leave him out for everyone to see his dead body, so she buried him to honor the dead’s spirit. The government, to ensure this did not happen, made it illegal to bury him, but Antigone did it anyway. After finding out that Antigone was the one to bury her brother, she was sentenced to death.

While Antigone was being sentenced, her fiancé, the man sentencing her to death’s son, begged him to free her. When she was not set free, he went into the tomb where she was and stayed there with her. She eventually was tired of waiting for her slow death and hung herself. When she did this, her fiancé killed himself as well. Once news got out of what had happened, the man who sentenced Antigone to death was heartbroken, his wife even more. His wife left the room and killed herself as well. After everyone the man loved was dead, he begged for someone to kill him too, but no one did. He lived with guilt for the rest of his miserable life.

The set of this play was nice, it was simple and consisted of 3-4 ancient pillar ruins to set the scene of ancient Greece. I believe the pillars were made to look like ruins because this play was a modern rendition, and if it were set as the original version then it wouldn’t be ruins, but to show it’s modern form, they tried to make the set look as they thought it would in the future, which was ruined and old. They also used modern technical elements such as a projector to show different clips, acting like modern streaming platforms, to spread the news. For example, at one point, they showed the person who was in a previous clip, the news anchor, now in a gaming set up acting as a twitch streamer. They had this type of clip multiple times throughout the show with different social platforms being shown.

They used the modern element in a lot of ways. Not only did they use projectors, most of the play, at least one character was on their phone. Whether they were taking a selfie or using their phone as a distraction or a way to pretend they were not paying attention, someone was always on their phone. Another way was with the costumes. While most characters were wearing suits and formal attire, Antigone was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. She later changed into a wedding type dress, but for most of the play she was in jeans, which does is not very ancient Greece attire.

The lights in this play had a significant role in setting the mood of the scene. When the play started, the lights were at a normal setting across the full set. As the play progressed the lighting changed too. When Antigone was being sentenced to death, the spotlight was on her, showing she was the most important character in that scene. When the man sentencing Antigone to death was begging for his life, the lights started out regular and bright, but as he grew more upset, the lights turned red and darkened. The lights showed who to focus on and how the mood of the play changed when the brightness or color changed.

The music and sounds in the play did not stick out to me too much, however the music before the play did. While waiting for the play to start, the background music was the theme of 90’s grunge music. I think that the reason they chose this music was because it had a rebellious feel. Antigone was rebellious by going against the law and she had an angsty vibe. The sound crew chose this music because Antigone was rebellious and therefore fit the theme.

The play was interactive which was a nice touch. When the government official came out onto the set, he gave many audience members a handshake and a smile. This small gesture was nice because it was not too much. It was small and simple but kept the audience engaged and having fun. This play was nice and produced well, from even the music before the play, to the set and modernized references, everything seemed methodically planned out and all of it went well.