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Speech Comm

201--2nd period

It's Thursday, you know the drill.

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301--3rd period

So? Speeches? Rhetoric? Power? Shep...you had a really good observation yesterday. Elaborate for the class.

Oh, and if I don't start getting some coffee out of you, I'm going to get cranky. You can't spoil me for a few days then stop Boone. That's just mean.

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Speechify me.

Bel's speech is all about how power, be it physical or magical, is how the strong control the weak, blah blah blah, oh yes, he's completely oblivious to the fact that the person with the most power over him is physically not nearly as strong as him.

"Bel, you entirely missed hegemony and the will to power. What if someone won't submit to you?"

"You force them to?" he said hesitantly. "At least...that's how they do it where I'm from."

She shakes her head softly, "But what does forced compliance do to personal power?"

"It takes personal power away from the one you're forcing because they're doing what you want, not what they want," Bel said, puzzled. Was this a trick question?

Phoebe doesn't look up, but she is listening very intently to this discussion.

"To what end? And what does that do to yo--the aggressors personal power?"

She narrows her eyes, waiting for his answer.

"Let me know if you want a hint."

"It, um, takes away from the aggressor's personal power because he's relying on force?" Bel said hopefully.

"Belthazor, what is the role of a martyr?"

"To die for a cause?"

"How?"

"Um, in a public way, to make a statement about their beliefs?" Bel was seriously confused now.

Sighing softly, she smiled. "Ok,look at it like this.If you use force against someone who is unwilling...who gains more popular support? The one who takes power, or the one who retains personal power? And how long can an agressor stand against a unified front that refuses to give up anything?"

Bel's brow furrowed. "As long as it wants if it has the strength," he said. "I mean, just because one person won't submit doesn't mean that other people won't either once they see what an example is made of the unwilling person."

Phoebe flinches slightly and looks back down at her notes.

Phoebe's speech is about how having power isn't a matter of being strong or weak, but about how you use what power you have. "Power isn't always a physical thing," she finishes. "Sometimes, the best power you have is the power to know when you need to walk away instead of fight."

She's mostly quiet the rest of the class.

"Walking away...always an option. Good job, Phoebe."

Phoebe smiles faintly. "Thank you." She looks back down at the notebook she's taking notes in.

Cole kept stealing glances at Phoebe throughout the class.

Phoebe looks at Cole quite often during the class, but tries to keep him from noticing that she's aware of everything having to do with him.

Alanna blinked at her notes. "Swords are powerful?" What the hell was I on on Tuesday? "Ummmm...what's the topic?"

"How do you define power? In what ways do you have power? In what ways do others have power over you? Doodling isn't speechwriting, Alanna."

Alanna ruffled through her notebook, hoping that she had written down something intelligent somewhere. No such luck. "Um, power. Power is something that gives one individual control over a group. You can have power by being born into it, like a king or warlord, or um, you can study into it? Like a sorcerer! Um, others have power over me in various ways. Em, my knight master dictates where I go and what I do. And Duke Gareth oversees my education, at home at least. And yeah, the king has power over everyone. Yeah."

"And that's what's called impromptu. I'll let you off the hook today...but never again. I have office hours if you need help."

She winks at her and turns to the next speaker.

"Yes ma'am." Alanna fell into her seat and glared at her bag. "This is all somehow your fault." She stage whispered to it.

Isabel signed in and gave a speech all about how knowledge is power and how knowledge about a person can give you power over them or vice versa.

"Very good, Isabel...enlightened."

Atomic batteries to power...turbines to speed...

Shep looks up when he hears his name. "What that rhetoric is boring as dry toast?"

"No." she sighs, exasperated. "That the emotional appeal is tied to time and place and audience."

"Oh yeah, that. What you said. These 'powerful speeches' were all that and a bag of chips when people were all worked up about whatever the people were speechifying about. But a speech on... say the pros or cons of the Vietnam War is just... well, rhetorical now, because the war is over and there's nothing to get us all worked up about."

Just when CJ thinks he's done, he adds in, "Which leads me back to 'boring as dry toast.'

Boone snuck in ~~much like a ninja~~ late and with coffee.

Accepting the ~~ninja's~~ coffee gratefully, she nods at him. "What'cha think, Boone? Boring as dry toast?"

"No," he answers honestly. "There was one or two I actually liked." He seems a little surprised to have discovered this.

"Yeah?" she's moderatley surprised herself, "Like what? And...why?"

"Well, there was this one...and I don't know. Should I go to the clinic? Maybe all the caffeine broke something that was kind of important..."

"You're not getting off that easy. Come on...give me something."

"Do you want me to actually give the speech or something?" He asks, then realizes 'Stupid Question, Duh' and reached into his bag to pull out a printed piece of paper.

"...And some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movements and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us."

"Why that one?"

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Speech Comm

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