CNN: I Wanted to Be the Last Thing They Heard, Not the Gunfire

While the United States mourns over the loss of 26 lives due to a school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, new and reassuring stories of the incident continue to emerge over the weekend, helping comfort Americans about the self-lessness that is human nature.
Janet Vollmer, a Kindergarten teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary School, comforted her kids during the lockdown by reading to them. She wanted them to know that they were all going to be fine, as long as they are together. After leading them to the bathroom and hiding everyone there for a while, the police escorted all of the kids, all of whom were covering their eyes, to the firehouse nearby.
Chelsea J. Carter, author of this article, is a writer for CNN. This article is written during the weekend focusing around the second worst school shooting in US history. Other than the small community of Newtown, the whole nation is slowly absorbing what happened, stunned and wondering how the government will handle the even more controversial gun safety issue. The purpose of this article was to shed some light over the heroes in yet another horrible gun tragedy in the US. There is no particular audience for the piece other than the American public, since this truly should affect everyone and reveal a need for some serious reforms. A rhetorical element used in this article is appealing to emotions, otherwise known as pathos. In this technique, the author taps into the readers emotions, making them attached to the article. Carter applies this tactic very usefully, since my parents recommended me this article based on how "catchy" it was.

Red Bull Flugtag Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mD8D1GrrWU8

This commercial was for the Red Bull Flugtag tour in 2010, visiting cities such as Miami and Philadelphia. Flugtag is a very unique event because it is not necessarily competitive or talented as much as it is showmanship and comical. Teams from all around the world perform by building an airplane, acting out a sketch beforehand, and finally riding the plane off of a giant platform into the water.
The context in which this commercial is centered around is the 2010 tour, which was by far the largest tour in history. Perhaps the reason this tour was so successful was because of the commercial itself, since its purpose was to attract people into coming to one of the events. The audience of this advertisement is anyone in the areas mentioned in the commercial that might be interested in seeing flugtag. This is where is gets tricky to the advertisers. Because flugtag is such a unique sport, one might notice that it was presented in the commercial in the same manner.
Some of the rhetorical elements and strategies in this commercial were very different and unorthodox, yet fitting for a "sport" like flugtag. As seen in the advertisement, a very cheesy song is played with footage of many of the bloopers is past events. To someone unfamiliar with flugtag, it may be very confusing, which can also arouse curiosity about the sport. I think that the advertisement was very effective in terms of getting the message across about the attitude towards flugtag as well as making people laugh, wanting to learn more about it, and come to events. 

NPR: No Deal on 'Fiscal Cliff' Without Tax Increase on Rich, Geithner Says

This article focuses on the United States' Treasury Secretary, Timothy Geithner, and his perspective toward the debate about what to do with the expiration of some major tax cuts and budget plans known as the "Fiscal Cliff". There are two main arguments about the situation: letting the planned tax increases and budget cuts go through into 2013, which will slow U.S. growth but help the deficit; or canceling some of the tax increases, which will allow the debt to continue to rise. Geithner supports President Obama's plan to increase taxes and cut spending by moving the money around to different programs; House Speaker John Boehner rejects this offer as a "non-serious proposal." It concludes with a cliffhanger (no pun intended), stating Geithner's words, "they're going to have to figure out the politics on what to do next."

The author of this article, Krishnadev Calamur, is an author and editor at NPR, one of the nation's largest public radio companies. The context of this article is around the current issue that could turn into a crisis, which leads many Americans to be concerned. Calamur's purpose is to inform his audience of Americans further about the Fiscal Cliff by showing an undervalued but credible perspective.
By far the most effective rhetorical element that Calamur used was the unbiased, objective tone used in the piece. This attracts both sides of the political spectrum to read the article and assess Geither's perspective. In my opinion, Calamur used this strategy very successfully to accomplish his goal because there are very few articles nowadays that stay away from polarizing their audience and labeling themselves as a conservative or liberal writer.

Dreams from My Father: Preface, Intro, Ch.1

This book, originally published in 1995, is President Barack Obama's first book. As "A Story of Race and Inheritance", the author insightfully depicts the author's ancestry and the challenges his parents and grandparents faced involving race. Throughout the first chapter, Obama, after finding out that his father died, traces his roots back to his father as a Kenyan immigrant and his mother as a white liberal from Illinois. He recalls his earliest childhood memories in Hawaii after his father left the family. Lastly, he sets the stage for his later childhood years, where he will inevitably face prejudice, and begin his journey to self-discovery.
While I was reading the book, it was hard to imagine the future president in 1995 writing a book well before he was even the Senator from Illinois. However, the thought keeps me interested in the book because it establishes his credibility as the author of the story.
The context around this story is the publicity following his election as the first black president of the Harvard Law Review. Obama took a year off to write his thoughts about race relations on paper, but book tuned out to be very different than as planned. The purpose of this book is to give a perspective on racism by telling the story of a very successful person who went through racial hardship while growing up. His audience is a very broad base of readers who are interested in inheritance, race, and how they relate to each other.
A rhetorical element that stuck out to me was the terrific imagery Obama uses when describing his family members and anecdotes. His words are very appealing and allow the reader think about how the author must feel about these people and events. Using these rhetorical strategies helps Obama successfully accomplish his purpose.       

PBS: NFL Board Paid $2 Million to Players While Denying Football-Concussion Link

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sports/concussion-watch/nfl-board-paid-2m-to-players-while-league-denied-football-concussion-link/

This article reveals the many flaws within the stubborn, hypocritical organization known as the NFL. The majority of the article overviews cases with permanently injured players after they retire, quoting various doctors outside of the NFL, stating things along the lines of "the League is ignoring devastating evidence and denying direct links between football careers and T&P (total and permanent) injury." One of the ongoing stories throughout the piece was the Mike Webster claim in the 90's and early 00's, where Webster was the first ex-player diagnosed with the degenerative brain disorder, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.

Steve Fainaru and Mark Fainaru-Wada wrote this article for PBS, the non-profit, large public broadcasting network that has been around for over 40 years. The context of this article is around the authors' new book coming out in 2013, and although the article never specifically references to it, the piece does make the author want to read more about these types of injuries.

The purpose of this article is to prepare and perhaps excite the authors' audience of reminiscent football fans for their upcoming book next year. In order to achieve this goal rhetorically, the authors brought up a widespread controversy dating back over the last 30 years to attract older and younger football fans and make them interested in the subject. Specifically, they used enthymemes about the link between football and permanent brain injury to the players. I think the authors achieved this goal successfully because the reader is prone to leaving this article with a greater interest in post-football disorders of NFL players.

Bill Clinton Speech at Montco - 11/5/12

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pxd8MH_9EVQ

On November 5th, only a day before the 2012 election, former President Bill Clinton spoke at pro-Obama rally at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania. In this portion of the speech, appropriately titled "the future", Clinton discussed how President Obama is the right choice in this election by describing the president's past actions and how they will positively affect students and the middle class. For example, he described a program going into effect next year that will have students pay a low, fixed student loan rate off of their income.
As many Americans know right now, the United States is going through tough times. The economy is recovering at a sluggish rate, the number of Americans on food stamps or welfare is increasing, and students are graduating from college into an environment with 7.9% unemployment. Considering these times, former President Clinton spoke for his audience of young people and students to inspire and connect with Montgomery County citizens and to encourage them to vote for President Obama on Election Day.
Two prominent rhetorical elements President Clinton used in his speech were logos and pathos. He used logos by sharing irrefutable facts to express his point and pathos by connecting to the people living in that area and talking about the Community College itself: "What works is what works here... We have a lot of cooperation at the community college, do you like that?... [Obama] has invested in the finest student loan reform in my lifetime."
Former President Bill Clinton accomplished his purpose successfully through this speech because he made his audience energetic and enthusiastic. Also, he implemented Obama's name behind each of the successes in this country, which led the audience to respond in a very confident, positive manner.
  

Moneyball ch 5: The Jeremy Brown Blue Plate Special

This chapter of my independent reading for the quarter really stuck out to me because this is the point in the story where Billy Beane, Paul DePodesta, and the Oakland A's management really start turning Bill James's theory into reality. Beane's long list of unorthodox methods in choosing players for the 2002 MLB Draft is revealed to the rest of the organization, causing shock and possibly snickering throughout the rest of the league. For example, Beane and DePodesta make a "wish list" of twenty ballplayers who in a perfect world would receive in the draft. To everyone's surprise, they get thirteen of them, when most teams would be happy to get three.
This was an absolute stab at the conventional wisdom and context of running a Major League Baseball team. Before Billy Beane, teams hardly implemented any statistical analysis in the MLB. The other GMs did not realize that they were misinterpreting their players by looking the wrong stats (steals, hits) instead of the stats that actually lead to wins (OBP, slugging). The purpose of this chapter was to show to baseball readers the breakthrough of Bill James's long lost ideas into fruition. This breakthrough will lead to a new outlook toward decision-making in the MLB. That is, of course, not until the A's prove the success of their method.
A rhetorical device used often in this chapter is onomatopoeia, specifically when describing actions being done in the A's management room during the draft. For example, Lewis describes cheers and other sounds every time Billy Beane the A's scouts luck out of a draft pick. Lewis thoroughly accomplished his purpose of showing the breakthrough by capturing the emotion and conveying it to the reader through this device.

The Guardian: Hurricane Sandy barrels towards the US

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/25/hurricanes-sandy-us-east-coast/print

This article from the UK provides a fascinating perspective of the incoming Hurricane Sandy approaching the east coast early this week. It summarizes a lot of the outside factors that may intensify this storm, such as the jet stream heading north and the cold front slowly moving south. Although the storm is only predicted to be categorized as a tropical storm by the time it hits places like Philadelphia and New York, the author continuously suggests to keep the uncertainty in mind while keeping track of the storm.
Harry J Enten, writer for the Guardian and author of the article, is a graduate from Dartmouth and has interned at NBC. In addition, the Guardian is a major worldwide newspaper as well as in the UK.
The context of this article is the potential danger of Hurricane Sandy and perhaps the ongoing discussion of climate change, since the author opens with a comparison to Hurricane Irene, a storm that hit the same area at around the same time last year. The two purposes of this article are to inform his audience of readers about the hurricane in the US and advise readers that are residents of that area to stay safe.
In order to accomplish his goals, Enten appropriately uses logical evidence through facts to support his argument. For example, he states that in comparison to Hurricane Isaac, which at its lowest pressure earlier this year was 968 millibars, Hurricane Sandy has the potential to reach 935 millibars. This means the storm will hit harder and in a larger area.
Enten successfully accomplished his goals because he used facts and comparisons to support very sweeping statements about Sandy. This ensures to the readers that the author is not just using hyperbole to rile them up, but actually cares for their safety in this treacherous storm.
  

Walmart Muddy Kid Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fgIZHvMWVao

This 30-second ad shows a bunch of Walmart cleaning products being purchased and then a young boy denying to his mom that he used her towels while making mud pies. The context around this commercial is the background that moms often clean up after their kids, which also connects to the target market of this commercial, moms of young kids or customers that deal with dirty laundry very frequently.
The purpose that this commercial was created for is to attract consumers into buying Walmart products. In this commercial, although the advertising was more specifically centered around cleaning products, perhaps the more important purpose was to just persuade customers to go to the store. The audience was anyone watching on their television.  
One of the most prominent and generally most effective rhetorical devices in this ad is the use of a small boy which many people would find adorable and funny. This keeps the consumer interested and also very happy, which is exactly what the advertisers want out of the ad. Another factor that stuck out to me was that almost cause-and-effect structure of the commercial. In other words, if you buy these products at Walmart, you will be better prepared and will not have to stress out the next time your cute little child uses your towels to make mud pies in the backyard.
In my opinion, the advertisers for Walmart successfully accomplished their task in this commercial. I believe they connected and drew the attention of their target market through the incorporation of common but useful rhetorical device and strategies. In addition, I think they used the strategies appropriately and effectively enough to the point that the commercial will draw more customers to Walmart stores.     

Time Magazine: Einstein and the Suicide Star

http://science.time.com/2012/10/11/einstein-and-the-suicide-star/

Thanks to humankind's modern-day telescopes, the center of the Milky Way galaxy is now being turned into a giant physics laboratory.

A massive black hole in the center of our galaxy named Sagittarius A is currently pulling two bright, fast-orbiting stars, SO-2 and SO-102, very close with its large gravitational influence. What scientists want to test is if the black hole's gravitational pull actually affects the brightness of the stars, just as Albert Einstein predicted. More specifically, the star's path of light ultimately perceived by our telescopes should theoretically be disrupted by the black hole. By about 2018, SO-2 will be close enough to the black hole for astronomers to test whether Einstein's theory, establishing the laws of physics, is demoted and suitable for revision.

Daniel Cray, the author of this article, began contributing to Time Magazine when he won their national student essay. Over his years writing articles, he has authored more than 250 Time Magazine articles and has landed over 60 cover stories. 

This is an appropriate article for today's context because, as it states in the article, over three record-breaking new telescopes are to be implemented within the next 10 years. The author's objective was to show to science readers that today is an exciting time in astrophysics and retesting laws that have been in place for a long time. A rhetorical device that prominently stood out was the tone of skepticism that almost wanted to challenge Einstein's legacy. For example, the author uses the phrase "if at all" as a phase in a sentence describing how scientists will measure any change in light direction. The author successfully achieved his purpose of proving that Einstein's theory can be up for question because of his influence through his cynical tone.        

Op-Ed: Two Presidents, Smoking and Scheming

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/07/opinion/sunday/dowd-two-presidents-smoking-and-scheming.html?ref=todayspaper

This NY Times piece by Maureen Dowd illustrates a scene in which the famous Aaron Sorkin TV character, Jed Bartlet, gives President Obama some debating tips and ideas while still in the aftermath of the first Presidential Debate. Bartlet, who has some experience of debating throughout his seasons on "The West Wing", sets him up with spectacular rebuttals against Romney's points. The real breakthrough was when Bartlet suggested that the prepping for the next debate should consist of nothing more than "Governor, you're lying." 

Maureen Dowd won the Pulitzer prize in 1999 for distinguished commentary and has been writing for the Op-Ed section of the Times for over 16 years. Her audience is a very consistent flow of opinion readers, since this piece is the first selection on the NY Times Op-Ed page. It is based around the Presidential Election and her conversation with Aaron Sorkin about the recent debate. The purpose was to entertain her readers by bringing Jed Bartlet back to life and also shooting down many of Romney's arguments used to sling mud at toward the President's image. 

The rhetorical element that stood out the most to me was the light, comedic tone about the piece that kept the reader laughing. For example, Dowd incorporated Sorkin's new character, Will McAvoy, into the piece by having him shouting at moderator Jim Lehrer about his poor performance while holding him in a hammerlock. I imagine all of "The Newsroom" fans like myself hollering in laughter at that picture. 

MSNBC Political Cartoon: Week of 9/14

This political cartoon, posted on MSNBC last week, depicts a cartoonist's point of view of the Romney campaign. As you can see, the presidential candidate is portrayed as a robot being programmed by elephants, or his campaign advisors. His strategists are having trouble setting up the Romney-bot, illustrated by his recent gaffes insulting "government dependents," or so-called 47% of the country. But a breakthrough has been reached, shown by the cord being yanked out of the socket. Overall, this cartoon illustrates the Romney campaign going out of control, and his Republican Party supporters are losing their patience and depleting.

Chris Weyant, the illustrator of this cartoon and long-time cartoonist for The Hill, uses a majority of his cartoons to assess political campaigns and other political events in the news. Around election time every four years, Weyant uses his talents  in drawing satirical cartoons to voice his opinion about political campaigners. The audience for this cartoon is readers of The Hill and other papers or websites that frequently post political cartoons. More specifically, ones who like to laugh at mistakes that presidential nominees make throughout the campaigning process.

One of the devices that I noticed was strongly incorporated into the drawing is the arrangement of each of the elements of the cartoon. For example, when I saw this cartoon in the slideshow on MSNBC.com, the first element that jumped out at me was Romney's face, followed by the "clank, clunk, whirr" indicating that something was not going too well.

Moneyball: Ch. 1-2

Moneyball tells the story of GM Billy Beane and how his low-budget Oakland A’s changed the game of professional baseball in 2002. That year, they tied the Yankees for 2^nd-most wins in the regular season, even though they had a third of the money. This unbelievable efficiency sparked the interest of Michael Lewis, author of the book, who decided to dive into the subject a year later by spending time with the GM of the Blue Jays, who aims to rebuild his team along the same lines as the A's.

The book starts off with the story of Billy Beane himself. In 1980, he is a huge prospect in the MLB draft coming out of high school. Instead of attending Stanford, he decides to be drafted. The story fast-forwards to 2001, where Billy Beane is now GM of the Oakland A's. He and Paul DePodesta, his young assistant hired out of Harvard, are disgusted by how the seasoned scouts pick prospects. It is the 2002 draft when the two begin to shake things up in scouting meetings. They look for performance-related factors instead of personal features.

The purpose of this book is to inform baseball fans how the 2002 MLB season changed the scouting game forever. A rhetorical element used is the description of frequent temper tantrums that Beane has. They grab the attention of the characters and the readers. Since I am only on chapter three of the book, I will soon find out whether Lewis accomplishes his purpose.  

  

NY Times Article: For Young Athletes, Good Reasons to Break the Fast-Food Habit

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/14/for-young-athletes-good-reasons-to-break-the-fast-food-habit/?ref=health

Every summer I work with kids at a summer day camp by being their counselor and supervising their sports, art, music, and other activities throughout the day. When lunchtime comes around, many of the campers order bagged lunches that the camp provides. Inevitably, the most popular lunch is always pizza.

Believe it or not, this may not be the healthiest choice for the kids' developing bodies. This article discusses certain facts about eating habits among athletes spanning from 6-years-old to high school-level sports. In addition, it provides studies showing the lack of fruits and vegetables that are needed for more reliable energy as well as how eating habits in childhood affect decisions in many years to come. Sindya Bhanoo, the author of this article, is a journalist who has written a few articles for the Times over the past year. She received a Masters in Journalism from Berkeley in 2008.

This text is written in reference to present-day United States because it is the home of obesity at its best, where over 30% of the adult population is overweight. The purpose is to show the article's audience, which are parents of athletic children, that eating healthy has its benefits for young athletes, both on and off the field. The author uses logos to support her argument with scientific studies and facts. In my opinion, Bhanoo elegantly explains to her readers that eating healthy has its advantages by convincing them that it increases performance in sports, as conveyed in the title.