TA - Early Affirmative Action

My last paper in this class is on the topic of the Indian Placement Program, in the broader context of Affirmative Action. I had the idea before I began this paper that this topic would be (BY FAR) the easiest to write about, since - after all - I'm a Native American! Wouldn't this naturally be easy? Unfortunately I have discovered that the matter of my race/blood/genes/heritage/whatever has no influence whatsoever on the ease or depth of my research.

That's a bummer.

But hey, life goes on! I'm discovering more and more about this topic as the time goes by, such as many of the benefits the Navajos especially received at the hands of this program in the Church. My mother is one of those beneficiaries, along with many of her siblings.

I've also learned some of the darker sides to this topic: broken families, abuse, cultural dilution, and psychological problems for the students. Mind you, I do not believe some of these claims nor many of the others that I didn't list here (such as stealing children - come on, let's be honest). But for the Native American/Navajo people this issue was a controversial one. I mentioned that in the past tense since the Indian Placement Program ended in the 90s - and I'll have to do more research on that to figure out exactly why. :-D

I think that the point I want to get out of this paper is that Affirmative Action will always be a two-sided debate, no matter which end you approach it from. I think that this instance of A.A., which I like to call Early-Onset Affirmative Action, is the best way to go about raising the level of Native American society: it gives the child opportunities! It opens his/her eyes to the world that they have all around them! It also gives these children an understanding (if they're willing to accept it) of the value of hard work.

There is a lot more involved in this whole debate, as well in my own position here in this post, but I believe that the idea of Affirmative Action now (i.e., hire/enroll the minority over the majority regardless) is inherently flawed. How can you expect to fight inequality with inequality? Give the minorities opportunities from their childhoods and make them aware that to achieve success in this world they must work for it.

FW - Independent Intelligence

In the oncoming turbulence of the movie The Golden Compass, I have repeatedly heard the vilifications of the book (by Philip Pullman) by BYU students that have not even opened it. I must admit that these situations have begun to try my patience, and I now find it difficult in the extreme not to become angry in my defense of the book. What makes me the most angry in these discussions is the fact that these "defenders of the faith" have not even read the books in question, but have heard that they were written by an atheist.

Since when do we as a church tell our members to believe what they are told, or what they read, by the virtue of man's authority alone? We are at Brigham Young University; the very namesake of this institution is quite likely hopping up and down (as much as a spirit can) in frustration over the gullibility/naïvety of this generation of Saints. Brother Brigham's sermon on Feb 20, 1853 described how we as church members should not take the words of the leaders of the church as truth solely on the merit of the leaders of the church being men of God, but that we should still find our own answers from the ultimate source of truth: the Living God. God alone can tell us the truth of all things, and we should build our testimonies on that fact, ability, and privilege.

This principle can be applied to literary matters as well. These books by Philip Pullman have become a hiss and a byword among many a Christian sect, much more so in the past few months than ever before. It is now fashionable for a Christian to hop onto the "Protest Pullman" bandwagon - but when has jumping on a bandwagon ever been a good idea?

Students of BYU, Latter-day Saints, people in general: learn to make decisions for yourself, based on your own observation and personal revelation (the two work together, remember). Be independent in your thoughts, relying on our God for your guidance, and not the snivellings of so-called "Christians" who have the gall to defame children's literature while defying the very precepts of the Bible they claim to follow.

"O be wise; what can I say more?"
-Jacob 6:12

TA - Race(ist) Organizations

One of my favorite classes in my entire BYU career is American Heritage. I was one of those lucky students that had the serendipitous opportunity to take that class twice, and therefore I was able to participate in twice the amount of lab discussions. One of these was on the subject of Race Relations, and the question was posed:

"Are race organizations, such as the NAACP, inherently racist?"

Another tender mercy in this class was the presence of one of the few African American students enrolled at BYU, a lovely girl that we'll call Jane. Jane was very vocal in her stance that the NAACP is NOT racist; it's just an organization that promotes the association of people of color.

She was the only one that felt that way in our class.

The opinion of everyone else in the class (the white people) was that YES, indeed, the NAACP and other such organizations are racist by definition, since they are only concerned with (and usually only admit) people of a certain race or ethnicity, and work towards their advancement beyond that of other races/ethnicities. When created by and for minorities, these organizations are not viewed as anything more than what Jane had mentioned - but if these organizations were created by and promoted white welfare, then they would immediately be decried as most obviously racist. The opinions of the students began to fly, and the discussion became gloriously heated.

Being the only other non-white student in the class, I felt that my opinion on the matter was somewhat weightier than everyone else's.

I agreed with the whites.

FW - Home?

Provo has become my home. Who would have ever thought that such an occurrence would come to pass? Despite my best attempts to remain a (poor) wayfaring stranger in Utah Valley, I have succumbed to the weakness of all human beings and labeled the locale of my apartment and University as home. There was a time when I would have been ashamed to admit such a thing...but I have since matured. :-P

I never noticed my subconscious home assignment until I traveled Portland to visit my sister and her husband, and realized how strange everyone was. The Portlandians were so weird! A lot of my time was spent gawking at the different styles of people (not just fashion), all the while constantly reminding myself that these people were a much more accurate representation of the real world than Provo people are. The fact that I was accustomed to a Mormon-style life was also accentuated by a joke my brother-in-law said; while referring to the incredibly straight pine trees in the Portland area, he remarked: "These are the only straight things in Portland!"

He wasn't kidding.

When I pulled in to Provo this evening I purposely made the comment to my fellow travelers of how wonderful it was to be back in Provo, around Provoish people. Even though I have no plans of making this mountain place my permanent home (no freakin' way), I must concede to the naked truth that I belong in Provo. Even if only temporarily. And that is a scary thought.

TA - What is Revision?

Revision:
1. the act or work of revising.
2. a process of revising.
3. a revised form or version, as of a book.

I seriously thought of being cheeky and using a similar answer in class (thanks Dictionary.com) when we saw this question on the board (and thus be rebellious, as only real BYU rebels can do it). Granted, the real question was implied, and I assumed it was along the lines of "What is your idea of revision in relation to you becoming a better writer?" That question is a bit different than the first.

This is what I came up with in the first 5 minutes of class: "Revision, as the word means, is the 'looking again' at something, in this case a paper. You first do the paper so that you can see it as a whole, then you go through the paper making corrections and edits. The purpose of it is to make your paper function better as a whole. When you first write a paper you tend to write in blocks of ideas; revising the paper allows you to make the flow more organic. Revision is a terrific tool/tactic, since you will almost always make 'dumb' mistakes the first time through a paper."

Nicole then let us know what we'll be doing for our next "paper," only a few class days away: We're revising our first papers to make a spanking good one. Apparently, a part of Revision is not only to clean up and edit - but to cut from your paper. At this point I had to ask myself: "How can you cut out a part of your paper without feeling some semblance of shame?"

Logical Ben: Well, you cut things out if (A) the audience doesn't care, (B) you are overly redundant, or (C) you have parts that are extremely weak. Sounds great, right?
Emotional Ben: But wait! This is still your paper! Didn't you spend a lot of time on this?
Logical Ben: No, no, don't think of it that way. You are making your creation something even better than it was in the past. This is for the best; your paper won't feel a thing.

Once again, the question must be posed: "How can you cut out a part of your paper - your beautiful, altruistic, helpless paper - without feeling some semblance of shame?"

Emotional Ben: Face it. You can't.

FW - I love my truck

The title of this post says it all. I think my truck pretty much rocks everyone's world, even if they don't know it yet. There are many advantages to having a big truck, all of which are viable and worth considering. Here are ten of them:

1. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.
2. You tower over every other driver on the road.
3. You can hit things and not even care.
4. You can carry big, manly things in the bed.
5. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.
6. You can change lanes without looking, since everyone will move out of your way.
7. You can haul a trailer with big, manly things in it.
8. You can drive over a cinder block without it even touching the vehicle.
9. Your truck looks even better when covered in mud.
10. Everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck.

As you can see, this list more than outweighs dinky little concerns like bad gas mileage, terrible parking potential, and severely limited passenger capacity. Such disadvantages pale in comparison to the glory of owning and driving a large, powerful, roaring machine that moves according to your every whim. Driving a truck is more than just directing an automobile; it's piloting power, and looking good while doing it.

The American symbol of the horse in the Old West eventually evolved - willingly, I'm sure - into the pickup truck in our modern age. References to pickup trucks can be seen in our politics (Pres. Bush occasionally drives other foreign dignitaries in his white F-250), music (American Pie), and movies (Urban Cowboy), not to mention television and books. A pickup truck, as you can see, is really the only way to go to be truly American. Anything else and you're practically European.

This is she. ------------------>

Did I mention that everyone thinks you're hotter for driving a big truck?

TA - My problem with this topic

I cannot form an argument from our general topic of technology.

There. I said it. I suck as a member of this class and as a human being. I have found a lot of information (a TON of it), all of which is very informative and makes me feel a lot smarter. However, none of my data leads towards a single enthymeme. I can develop WATCOs until the cows come home, but nothing that I come up with leads toward a viable argument.

What can I propose that would change how our children approach cell phone usage? I have a lot of data that shows that texting and other such new age communication media make our children less able to function in a real time interacting environment - but do we get rid of cell phones all together? Or should we treat text message as we did the Dodo and end its existence on this earth entirely? Even limiting the amount of text messaging in our nation and culture seems to be something that is beyond the ability of our population.

I was so interested in this topic when I first began researching it that I began attacking it with a religious zeal. But - I have since come to the depressing realization that my research has so far been in vain. Unless I can come up with a good WATCO and develop that into an airtight enthymeme, I might as well be doing research on balloon animals and their effect on the ozone layer.


I have a lot of work to do before this paper is due in six days. Pray for me.

FW - Daylight Savings Time

I always love the autumn change in the clocks (bet you thought I was going to say leaves), when the nation as a whole jettisons an unsuspecting hour from our timepieces before going to bed. Oh! The joy that we feel when greeted by one more magical hour of rest for our wearied bones! But with the sweet comes the bitter: the dreaded spring months, the crank of the clock as we swing the minute hand up a full turn (or press a measly button), and the bleary, puffy-eyed days we have to endure before our bodies can get used to only seven hours of sleep (...if we're lucky).

Why do we have Daylight Savings Time? Well, that's a good question. After a few different people arbitrarily decided that we should wake up earlier to enjoy the better part of the day (thank you, William Willet) and Benjamin Franklin coined his now-cliche adage "Early to bed early to rise / Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise," the U.S. decided to follow the example of Europe (isn't that always the best decision??) and dictated from the federal level that all clocks were to change at 2:00 AM in the summer and the fall. Why? The effect was to reduce our dependence on artificial light in the evenings. But since the government can only change how we measure time and not time itself, we've ended up using just as much artificial light in the morning as we would have used at night.

This is why "oxymorons" such as Government Intelligence spring up in our chain mails.

As for the practical impact of DST, I always await the extra fall hour of sleep with the same feelings I had as a child approaching Christmas Eve: anxious, excited, and somehow unbelieving that such a fantastic occurrence could really happen in a single night.

Santa may not be real, but Daylight Savings Time is.

Unless you live in Arizona.

FW - My (Hel)LSAT Experience

I spent the entirety of yesterday morning in a cocoon of quiet chaos. Yesterday morning I took my first practice LSAT ever. As in, I haven't even looked at a real section of the test before. I knew that it was supposed to be a difficult thing to do, but I've been able to conquer a number of difficult things in the past. I figured: "Hey, I'm a smart guy. I can keep a good GPA. The LSAT is a fear only to lesser mortals."

I wish I could describe to you the horror that I felt about 50 minutes into the test when I realized that I had no idea what I was doing. My entire framework of confidence and perceived ability crashed around me, not so much like a house of cards as a house of African Elephants. On a foundation of mines. I was completely taken by surprise by the difficulty of the exam, and I was dismayed at my obvious lack of preparation.

Dismayed is a poor choice of words. In fact, I would call it hyperbole. I suppose horrified is a better word, or maybe aghast or thunderstruck.

In all truth, I think the best adjective to describe my experience with the LSAT is humiliating. I was severely humbled and innerly embarrassed by my presumptuous approach to the exam and its level of difficulty. This is not an easy test. Granted, it isn't impossible either, but I am not of the caliber of scholar to waltz into the exam room and polka out of it with top marks. I know there are some people that can and have done that; I, however, am not of that crowd.

BUT - do not think that this means that I will cower before the might that is the LSAT. I've only just begun, and now that I know my enemy I know how to defeat it. This test has not seen the last of me, no siree. I will make this test rue the day it ever set its beady little scanner on my social security number. And when the time comes when I shall poke it in its sleeping eye for real, only one of us will leave the exam room triumphant.

And on that future day - that bright, beautiful, future day - I will emerge from the bowels of hell bloody, but unbowed.

RA - Elementary Problems with Technology

"Now predominant in high schools, cell phones are creeping into elementary and middle schools. MobileYouth, tracker of technology issues, estimates 200,000 U.S. children aged 5 to 9 carry cell phones, and in 2006 that number will nearly double. Also, over 7 million aged 10 to 14 have cell phones, a number hitting 11 million in the next two years. Knowing this, cell phone companies market more aggressively to youngsters, offering decorative phones that download Internet music."

- Communicator, March 2005
National Association of Elementary School Principals (NAESP)

This is a pretty short paragraph to be analyzing, but it was actually the longest paragraph in the article that I found regarding Technology and Communication. The WATCO of the entire article is WATCO elementary school students having cell phones on the quality of their educational environment? The enthymeme claims that students having cell phones decreases the quality of their educational environment because elementary school cell phone usage disrupts class and facilitates inappropriate behavior. The audience is elementary school educators, and the implicit assumption is that anything that disrupts class and facilitates inappropriate behavior decreases the quality of students' educational environment.

*Whew*

The strongest appeal in this short paragraph-ette is to logos (with all the statistics littering the sentences), but my favorite appeal is to pathos. I love the author's choice of the verbs "creeping," "hitting," and the adverb "aggressively" when referring to cell phones; they communicate the stance of the author much more effectively than actually stating the stance.

In terms of style, there are not that many adjectives used in this paragraph - which is great! In fact, there is a single adjective here (decorative) as well as a single adverb (aggressively), and represent appropriate usage of modifiers. The most important part of the paragraph - the methods being used to ensnare more children into the questionable life of cell phone usage - is kept until the end. Furthermore, there is only ONE usage of the "to be" verb in the entire paragraph, a commendable achievement indeed.

Well done, anonymous author of a short paragraph.

TA - Dynamic Style

I like to think that I have style, at least in my writing. It was a great boon to my self-esteem when Nicole mentioned that your style isn't just an extra point in your papers; on the contrary, your style is one of the greatest contributors to your ethos, your credibility. However...I'm not quite sure how I would go about changing my style. I mean, come on, I don't really try to write this way. How do I do it differently?

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend the last class period due to illness, so any techniques or hints on Nicole gave the class on how to tweak a writing style went unheard by me. Hopefully the assistance that she gave the class will be simple enough (and by simple I mean just easier to understand than calculus, no offense meant Nicole) that I will be able to learn it and implement it without too many hiccups. With my track record this should be a cinch. Yeah, right.

But then again, would I want to change my writing style? Doesn't that seem just a bit more personal than your clothing style, or your hairstyle? The latter two certainly represent your own idea of yourself, but your writing style is more of an extension of yourself than a representation of the same. I try to write the way that I speak. Granted, I can take the time to make an exceptionally pithy statement or create alluring allusions while writing, but the basics of my style are still connected to my way of thinking and speaking. It just seems to me that this kind of attribute is more permanent than your hair color, nail length, or the cut of your shoe.

Nevertheless, despite my own feelings or opinions on the static-ness of style, I will do whatsoever my benevolent English professor requires of me. All with a smile.

:-D

FW - Spam. A lot.

I hate spam.

I'm not just talking about the pink meat wannabe, which I don't like anyway. Who doesn't notice their spam folder exponentially increasing in girth, or unsolicited email scum polluting their inbox, without disgust? Whatever hellions concocted the scheme of emitting mass emails to unsuspecting and unentreating innocents for the sole purpose of force-feeding their products should be flogged, verbally abused, whipped, and tickle-tortured. Then followed up with a nice round beating.

Perhaps I should ask for forgiveness for the strength of my declamation. I'm normally not an angry person (...I think I've said that before...), but sometimes my patience with a practice reaches a breaking point. Not only does my spam folder routinely break the 400-email mark, but the admittance into my Inbox of scandalous emails from people I have never known is becoming more common. So many times I want to reply to the emails that I find, but I know that by so doing I would only be confirming that my address is, indeed, connected to a real living, breathing, consuming individual.

No thank you, but I would not like to modify any body parts, whether naturally or artificially, mine or anybody else's. I'm afraid I would only get prescription drugs from my own trusted physician, not from your internet store, and certainly not for a condition that I do not have. I also have no desire for a Rolex knockoff, I do not want a relationship with an unknown (and most likely imaginary) young lady, and I would have no need whatsoever for Hannah Montana tickets.

Thank you Internet, but no thank you. Take your crap somewhere else.

TA - How do I know what to keep in my paper?

I wrote my first paper in this Persuasive Writing class.

I actually finished it.

We then had a peer review session in class, and my peer didn't have that much bad stuff to say about it at all. So I certainly shouldn't feel bad in any way. But I kinda do.

There was a lot of research that I just couldn't include in my paper. What was I to do? We were supposed to write a 1,000 word paper, and while that seemed daunting at the outset I quickly realized that 1,000 words come a bit sooner than you'd expect. I can't stop wondering if I should have dropped a paragraph that didn't completely mold with my enthymeme (argument), and replaced it with a paragraph that had more information and less emotion.

My enthymeme is as follows: Comprehensive sex education improves teenage sexual health because comprehensive sex education teaches information about contraceptives and more accurate information regarding STDs. The paragraph in question (too long to include here) was about the illegality of some decisions made by the government in relation to their funding toward abstinence-only programs. However, that topic doesn't exactly fit in with my enthymeme. I included it, though, because it would arouse emotion in my audience of conservative parents - and I wanted that emotion.

My other paragraph would have dealt with the statistics of European teenagers and their response to a very liberal sexual education policy. While pretty dang interesting in itself (...uh-huh...), it would not have made my audience feel the indignation that my current paragraph should. Stuck in the decision of whether to keep the paragraph or not, I followed the path-of-least-resistance method and used the 'illegality' paragraph that I had already written.

Now I can only hope that my decision will actually arouse emotion. *ahem* That is, an emotion other than the frustration my professor might feel about an irrelevant paragraph.

FW - Procrastinators Unite! ...Tomorrow!

I really do want to get my work done in a reasonable amount of time, but sometimes I just get into such an apathetic mood that nothing gets done. Kind of like my previous Free Write post where I talked about how I hate being spacy. This one's a lot like that, except this one deals with my purposeful spaciness - my addiction to procrastination!

My problem is that procrastination has almost always worked in the past. It really is a problem. I have seen the successes of it and the failures of it, and all of that experience rolled together does not, as of yet, seem to be secure enough to merit a drastic change in my behavior. Don't get me wrong - I'm all for changing yourself in order to become better - but you can't make a definite, permanent change to yourself mentally, emotionally, or physically unless you believe in what you are doing.

I know that better planning and performance will make my life less stressed...but I don't know that deep down inside me. I hope to have soon an epiphany on a grand scale that will knock me back down to terra firma. Unfortunately that has not happened yet; consequently, here I sit at 11:30 in the evening the night before my first paper is due in this class. I have not yet begun the actual writing of the paper.

Doesn't anyone know what I'm going through?

RA - Dig, by Incubus

We all have a weakness,
But some of ours are easier to identify.
Look me in the eye
And ask for forgiveness;
We'll make a pact to never speak that word again.
Yes, you are my friend.
We all have something that digs at us;
At least we dig each other.
So when weakness turns my ego up
I know you'll count on the me from yesterday.
If I turn into another,
Dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone.
We all have a sickness
That cleverly attaches and multiplies,
No matter how hard we try.
We all have someone that digs at us;
At least we dig each other.
So when sickness turns my ego up
I know you'll act as a clever medicine.
If I turn into another,
Dig me up from under what is covering
The better part of me.
Sing this song!
Remind me that we'll always have each other
When everything else is gone.

WATCO understanding each others' weaknesses in a relationship on the happiness of each member of the relationship?
Audience: the girlfriend.
Enthymeme: (a)Understanding each others' weaknesses in a relationship (b) enriches the happiness of each member of the relationship, because (a1) knowing the pitfalls of someone's personality (c) makes one more likely to hold on to and help the relationship.
Assumption: Whatever (c) makes you more likely to hold on to and help the relationship (b) enriches the happiness of each member of the relationship.

Ethos: "Yes, you are my friend." Doesn't that just say enough for credibility?
Pathos: The lyrics are pretty good, and they make you feel for the boyfriend since he's the one forgiving the girlfriend. He also asks her to be there to dig him out from under whatever crap he puts himself under - emotional!
Logos: I suppose it is true that everyone has "a weakness, but some of ours are easier to identify." The logical flow also makes sense - if I turn into somebody I'm not because of my weakness, remind me of who I really am.

S: I wouldn't call any of this sufficient, but what the hey, it's a catchy song.
T: This is a typical example - anyone who has been in a relationship understands the pitfalls of personality flaws.
A: Life is the most authentic source you can have. That and the internet.
R: What little information is in the song is perfectly relevant to the argument.

FW - Two missed posts...

Aaargh! Thanks to my spaciness I have missed two posts in a row. I felt terrible when I fell asleep on Thursday night last week (on my couch) without posting anything, but I felt exponentially more awful on Monday morning when I realized that I had simply forgotten again the night before! And I forgot to do my library tests. I pretty much sucked this weekend.

I felt like this. ----->

I think I should re-christen it to: The Epiphany of a Gregarious Boo-Boo.

I hate being spacy! It always happens: I get going in a groove where everything is moving the way it should, I'm getting my assignments done all according to schedule, then BLAM! I experience a day or two of complete mental inebriation, throwing off my groove ("I'm sorry, but you've thrown off the Emperor's groove...") and causing me to not only miss assignments but miss quizzes! And even tests! Even today I nearly forgot to write, and it was only the grace of God that caused me to remember this assignment. Sorry to you faithful few who await my (supposedly) steady posts.

I think it was General Conference. I'll blame that. It's such a different way to spend my entire weekend: watching TV for at least 6 hours, going almost the entire day before I shower, being all churchy one moment and then secular the next; it's just so weird! I almost never watch TV anyway. Thanks to my groove being completely thrown off this weekend, I actually didn't get any homework done. Whatsoever.

*sigh*

However, the church is still true. I didn't forget that one.

FW - Pet Peeves

There are a few things that just plain make me mad. Like organic food. Why do we buy it, and in increasing proportions? The benefits that you experience from eating organic foods mirror the benefits you receive from eating natural foods (such as fruits, vegetables, grains, etc.), and yet the people that are hooked on organic foods will blindly swear by them. Of course, I am being a little bigoted by classifying all organic food buyers as sheep...but those are the kind that I have the most experience with.

Another pet peeve of mine is when people chew their food during meals with their mouths open. Don't they realize that that's disgusting? The sight alone is bad - I am reminded of Michael Caine's quote from Miss Congeniality: "I'm sorry, what was the question? I was distracted by the half-masticated cow rolling around in your WIDE-OPEN TRAP." The sound they make, however, is simply revolting, like a bovine trying to walk through a bog. *SLOP SLOP SLOP* I don't care that much with gum (oddly), but with real food I cannot help but suppress a shiver.

And let us not forget the people that drive throughout the entire city and/or interstate highway with their blinker on. I've mostly experienced the right blinky. This one doesn't make me angry as much as it makes me laugh at the person driving. Sometimes I try to play a game and see how long I can make both of my blinkers alternate flashing at them (like winking each eye) before they realize their error and turn off the turn signal. Sometimes I pray that the extended use will burn it out.

I'm really not an angry person. I just tend to be a frustrated one.

TA - Coherence, Amplification, and Cohesion

This is the first time when I really have no idea how to expand (amplify) a technical point that we covered the past week. Since we talked about our RA assignment on Wed, and then chose paper topics on Fri, I will do my best on the topic we covered on Monday.

I found it interesting that we didn't have to organize our persuasive papers in any specific way (except to not throw out our enthymemes until the conclusion, and only if we feel that we have to at that). Instead, we have to make sure that our paragraphs have certain benchmarks of organization: the sentences balance old and new information (Cohesion), they develop the ideas (Amplification), and the paragraph as a whole has to make sense and be about one topic (Coherence).

The only problem that I feel is how to correctly have cohesive sentences; speaking with and old/new balance for the length of a paper will undoubtedly become boring, if not maddening.

As an illuminating example, I will bold the old subject material of the following paragraph and italicize the new subject material:

"I do not understand how we are to compose a paragraph following the guidelines of Cohesion. Having only been in this class for a few weeks, I have not learned much about the actual composition of a paper beyond creating an enthymeme. What Nicole has taught us so far on cohesion has been very educational and helpful on a conceptual level. However, the comfort that the concept of cohesion sparked in my mind quickly became more of a deadweight of confusion as I attempted to write in a cohesive manner, or as I understood it to be. The concept of the balancing act that cohesion employs appears to be difficult to apply in a real writing situation.

Interesting, interesting... As I struggled to compose that paragraph by following the rules of Cohesion (and Coherence and Amplification), the struggle became easier and easier. That paragraph took me a bit longer to compose than I normally take to write, but I began to feel it more the more I attempted it. I guess that's what this blog is for, eh?

RA - Future, by Tomer Hanuka

WATCO modern-day apathy in home and world affairs on the possibilities of the future?
Audience: The average citizen
Enthymeme:(a)Modern-day apathy in home and world affairs (b) degrades the possibilities of the future, because (a) modern-day apathy in home and world affairs (c) distances our culture from emotion and motivation for change.
Assumption: Anything that distances our culture from emotion or motivation for change degrades the possibilities of the future.

Ethos: He portrays the classic western family (mother, father, daughter) in normal-ish poses, even though his name doesn’t sound Western. The point of view is also third-person: no one in the painting is looking at you. It’s almost like looking through a glass wall and experiencing their life for what it is.
Pathos: So much of the painting is done in a deep orange color. I’m not sure what Hanuka meant it to represent, but I see it as Destruction. The tornado, storm, and volcano are all causes of destruction, the leaves in the background are being infected by it, the father is already full of the orange color throughout his skin, and the daughter is being infected by it. The color kills nature and kills all emotion in the people – why aren’t the father and daughter interacting in any way? Why is the father ‘reading’ an empty paper? The orange has destroyed all sense of emotion for the father, is destroying it for the girl (she's only somewhat interested in the leprous infection on her arm), but has not yet touched the mother - the only one in the painting interested in the turmoil and chaos outside her own bubble.
Logos: The painting is obviously a look into the future (the title is Future). The newspaper is empty. Not a word. They also all have oxygen tanks – they’re must not be any breathable air at this point in the future.

STAR
S: This painting isn't exactly sufficient, but for the medium I believe that there is a lot of information in it.
T: The reasons supporting the argument aren't exactly typical, nor do they explain how we reached this point. The painting is almost totally an appeal to pathos however, so the reasons don't have to be too typical (at least, I don't think they need to for a painting such as this).
A: I don't believe there is any kind of authentic sources to back up the artist's claims. But they are kind of catchy.
R: All the reasons pretty much are relevant to the argument. After all, the argument is the painting, and the reasons are all aspects of the painting.

FW - I love soccer

I think it's really a shame that the game of soccer is one that is not that highly valued in the United States. Of course, quantitatively rating value is a difficult thing to do, but we obviously care much less about soccer than we do football, basketball, or baseball. And that's really a shame, since it is such a great game to play that involves skill for all the players.

My ward has started a weekly soccer game every Tuesday evening at Kiwanis Park, and I have fully thrown myself into the fray. I am quite terrible at the main part of the game - I was one of those nerdy children that didn't play many sports as a child - but I thoroughly enjoy playing Goalkeeper. I feel that the goalie is the underdog of soccer: He's not lauded when a goal is scored, he gets little honor when he blocks a shot, but he gets almost all the blame when he allows a shot to score. So sad.

So naturally, since I tend to be the underdog in most of my endeavors, I gravitated toward the goalie. It fits me great! I don't need to receive glory, laud, and honor, and my past experiences being the underdog has taught me how to shake off any kind of undue criticism. I also become a very aggressive person in soccer (who knew?), and that aggression comes in pretty dang handy when I charge a lone forward who's naïvely thinking of attempting a goal on my turf.

I rock.

I really do.

Really.

But I suppose I could use some practice.

RA - Verizon Kiosk

My experience at the Verizon Kiosk was actually pretty good; Kevin, the guy at the kiosk in the mall that I went to, was really down to earth and explained things really well to my friend and I.

Audience: Kevin saw me as a technologically-savvy guy that knew what kind of phone he was looking for. H e nailed the audience correctly and didn't try to sell me on any gimmicks or dumb selling tricks. He also found out at the very beginning that I like music a lot, and he used that to his advantage: During the entire pitch (all 15 minutes) he had his way cool cellphone playing MP3s right in front of me.

Ethos: Kevin immediately set up a peer-to-peer relationship with us, and we learned that he was a student as well at BYU. His credibility to me as a student quickly rose higher knowing that he was a student as well; he knew what kind of service would be best for a college student since he is one. He quickly let us know, too, which phones really weren't worth the price that had to be paid for them and which ones were great steals. Of course, those could have been selling tactics as well, but the way that he informed us was in such a real buddy-buddy way that there was no detectable guile in his statements. He was good.

Pathos: I'm not sure what emotion Kevin appealed to, but it was all in an effort to make us feel at ease and not pressured whatsoever. He used colloquial language and just the right amount of superlatives to make him seem real and approachable (since almost all college students speak with a bunch of superlatives).

Logos: Much of what Kevin had to share with us was Logos - the differing minute plans, text-messaging plans, etc. He knew these data so well that when he showed us the corresponding pages in the plan brochure (upside down to him) he didn't even have to look at the page to point to plan specifics that were printed on the page. He also had a knowledge of other cell phone companies and their plans and such.

Overall, Kevin did a good job persuading me as a student with my interests in mind. However, I still believe that I will buy my next phone and plan through Helio. ;-)

TA - Different Introductions

We learned in class on Wednesday about the different types of introductions, and for our homework we were to write two types of introductions for a theoretical persuasive paper. I decided to kill two birds with one stone and complete that assignment and my blog assignment. Hip hip hooray!

For my enthymemes I will use one of the enthymemes that I already used for another homework assignment:

• What are the consequences of eating daily at Subway on a person's health and weight?
• Eating daily at Subway improves your health and weight
  
• because eating daily at Subway puts more fresh vegetables and fiber into a person's diet.

The four different types of introductions are as follows:

The funnel
Since the advent of refined sugar and processed foods into the American diet, the general populace of the nation has experienced an increase in girth and a decrease in density. In recent years, as the population has endeavored to find a healthy medium between pleasure and propriety, a number of eating establishments have begun advertising their meals as a means to reach a more wholesome and nutritious end. Subway, one of these establishments, has been exceptionally effective with this tactic in their advertising campaign. This begs the question: How can eating at Subway increase my health?

Some say this, some say that
The American population has been steadily gaining weight for over a century. Subway , known for their fresh selection of sandwich foods, promotes a healthy and weight-reducing diet through their meals and daily exercise. The company claims that their sandwiches will cause you to shed the pounds; however, some purport that the sandwiches can end up just as fattening as standard fast food choices. In order to make the best decision, we must know the consequences of following Subway's advice and choosing their meals on a daily basis on the health of our society.

The narrative/anecdote
Jared Fogle was a young man that, under normal circumstances, would have a normal life ahead of him, full of excitement, joys, sorrows, and the like. However, Jared did not fall in the category of 'normal circumstances'; at 425 pounds he had realized that his future looked very bleak indeed. Almost dogmatically, Jared began a steady diet of Subway sandwiches in order to turn his life around, and consequently changed his body and his confidence forever. If such a possibility is available to Jared, shouldn't the same beginning reach the same end for any other member of our society?

The expeditious
Within the past ten years, hundreds of people have reported losing weight and increasing their health by following the "Subway diet," or by eating a Subway sandwich for at least one meal a day. One reason for their weight loss could be contributed to an increase in exercise among all of those who reported a weight loss, regardless of their Subway diet. History has shown, however, that increased physical activity is hard to maintain among a large group of people. Therefore, the only common explanation available is that Subway sandwiches really do help their consumers lose weight and increase their health.

Some of these intros are more effective than others with this topic, and they each appeal to different audiences.

FW - Eric Whitacre's "A Boy and a Girl"

Many people do not understand the power that exists in classical style music. I often feel privileged that I am moved by so many orchestral or choral works that have been written in a somewhat classical style. This entry is going to be my a reflection of my fondness for the choral a capella works of Eric Whitacre, namely A Boy and A Girl.


Eric Whitacre is an American composer born in 1970, and has published a number of different choral and orchestral pieces. In fact, one of his choral albums features our very own BYU Singers. He has also recently premiered his first opera, Paradise Lost, to great critical acclaim. His use of chord clusters and silence in his music draws in the listener for an experience that, while in a choral style, is brand new and fresh. All this might sound incredibly pallid to the average reader, but the musical style in which Eric composes is anything but lacking in color.

The piece that I am so moved by at the moment, A Boy and A Girl, is one of Whitacre's pieces that we are performing in BYU Singers this year. This is the poem by Octavio Paz, translated by Muriel Rukeyser:

Stretched out on the grass
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their oranges, giving their kisses
like waves exchanging foam.

Stretched out on the beach
a boy and a girl.
Savoring their limes, giving their kisses
like clouds exchanging foam.

Stretched out underground
a boy and a girl.
Saying nothing, never kissing,
giving silence for silence.

The poetry is exquisite and somewhat heart-wrenching, complete in its own power without the aid of any musical support. Eric, however, has the talent of not only writing music, but of writing emotion. The last verse is sung in almost the same harmony as the other verses, but much, much softer. It's sung almost as if the choir were singing only loud enough to be felt, but not quite loud enough to wake the two slumbering lovers. The joy expressed in the words "kissing" in the first two verses is sadly, wistfully, and painfully resung in the last verse; the singers and listeners can almost hear a sweet, pained cry in the music, almost a wail, as the two lovers' inability to be once again with each other is painted in sound.

A Boy and A Girl is an exquisite masterpiece that, unfortunately, cannot be described in writing. The appreciation due to the piece can only be found by listening to the music and experiencing the soul of Whitacre's work. And where would a better place be to experience Whitacre's music than here on the BYU campus? And with what better choir should you experience the music than the choir already used to record so many of Whitacre's earlier pieces?

A Boy and A Girl will be performed on Friday and Saturday, September 28 and 29, in the Provo Tabernacle by the Brigham Young University Singers as part of the annual Choral Showcase. A wide variety of choral works will be sung (from the ridiculous to the sublime), showing the versatility and the ability of the different choral groups on campus. Personally, I would go if only to listen to a few of the choral pieces of Eric Whitacre. It will be an experience not soon forgotten.


Edit: Since I published the post, I have been told that we will not be performing any Whitacre pieces at the concert. Well, there goes all of that rhetoric.

;-)

TA - Hmmm, what to apply in a technical manner?

(Even though this experience might better fall under Rhetorical Analysis, I did not know what else to use as a purely technical element.)

This week we discussed a lot about enthymemes and Reader Rights, and we covered STAR on Friday. In discussing STAR (Sufficient, Typical, Accurate, and Relevant) as a response to the "Why?" question, Sis. Esplin/Nicole read us a story of her own creation detailing the account of Gold's Gym's attempt to recruit her into their ranks. I started thinking a bit about how Boy Band's persuasion and reasons for joining Gold's Gym aligned with STAR - granted, Boy Band was speaking and not writing, but the application of STAR was still interesting.

Boy Band didn't have enough Stuff in his argument to persuade the protagonist of the story to enlist into the gym's membership. He had a number of different reasons that might have been supportive of his argument if applied to a different audience, but Nicole was not one to be moved by the high quality of the weight machines or the incredible ab workout that she could receive on a daily basis. Basically, the reasons that were supporting Boy Band's argument were shallow and few.

The reasoning was certainly Typical (as we know, exercise will help you to look and feel better), but his sources were certainly not the most Accurate sources one could hope for. Gym salespeople are usually given information about the gym by the gym itself (perhaps an instance of a source citing itself), and all the information about the gym that Boy Band used was certainly of a biased nature. As to primary or secondary sources, my guess would be that Boy Band used primary sources - after all, he was working for Gold's Gym, and Gold's Gym supplied him with the information he was using to pitch their gym. His information was also Relevant to the argument at hand (Join Gold's Gym!), at least as far as I know about the discussion. There was a passage of time, however, in which Nicole zoned out during some of his explanations; at that point Boy Band certainly could have been blowing a lot of hot air and exploring different tangents.

As a whole, Boy Band hit around half of the points in STAR. We'll never know how he would have done if he put his argument down on paper, but chances are he would have fared poorer in that attempt. We can only hope.

RA - G4 Ad

My ad this week is from a televised ad for a G4 program called Midnight Spank. Having never seen the channel, let alone the program, I cannot say anything about it - except that I loved their ad. So here it is:



The argument here is that you need to watch Midnight Spank, or else bad things will happen (i.e., butterfly will open the horrible bag). The target audience is a little more difficult to pin down, but it's mainly late teenagers and early twenty-year olds; namely, college youth. The ad includes a young man (20-something) in a restroom at a club or party at a nice house, and he appears to be enjoying himself. His location, his dress, even the ambiance of the room appeal to people of college age, and perhaps a little beyond that age as well.

The best part of this ad is the wacky way that it uses the tools of persuasion. The ad appeals to ethos in that the ad is on national TV and is endorsed by a real channel. Furthermore, and appealing to the target audience, the main authority in the advertisement is a butterfly that alone holds the ability to open or close the horrible bag. Her domineering style of speech, a combination of her no-nonsense approach to the subject matter, her repeated descriptions, and her repeated use of Richard's name, make her a formidable authority in what she is persuading Richard to do.

The appeal to pathos is much stronger in this ad than its appeal to ethos. The disturbing sound effects and the slight echo to the speech certainly appeals to fear, but the true appeal to the emotion of fear comes from the sight of the horrible bag. The greatest fear that human beings have is the fear of the unknown; that fear is tapped by the shapeless, shifting, bleeding pile that is encased in the burlap bag. That fear is somewhat augmented by the seemingly innocent butterfly threatening to unleash the contents of the bag unless its demands are met unconditionally. The absurdity of the situation adds the element of comedy to the ad, and the 'slap!' sound effect near the end of the commercial and the jovial dictation of the details of the program confirm the humor that has been hinted at during the entire advertisement.

There is not much appeal to logos in this commercial, except to give the information about the show times of Midnight Spank (Weeknights @ 12 Midnight, only on G4). No more information is given on the content of the show. This also appeals to the target audience and their inherent curiosity: Since the ad is humorously absurd we can infer that the corresponding show must have at least the same characteristics, if not more. The curiosity of the audience, brought about by the lack of information, can be a stronger incentive to watch the show than a preview of the show's content - especially if the show is less than desirable.

The credibility of the butterfly, the appeal to fear, and the distinct lack of information in this ad all appeal to the target audience of college-age youth, and encourages us to stay up just a little later and watch Midnight Spank, only on G4.

FW - His Dark Materials, by Philip Pullman

This being my first real post for the class, I figured I'd go ahead and take my freebie and write about what I want. ;-)

When I saw the preview for the upcoming movie The Golden Compass, I realized two things: I wanted to see the movie, and that would require reading the book first. I learned from Amazon.com that there were three books together in the series. So, $13.50 and a couple of days later, I had the three books in a set and a week to go before school started.

I devoured the first book, The Golden Compass (The Northern Lights outside the US). It was a different experience than my normal Orson Scott Card-infused literary journeys, but it was very refreshing. The second book The Subtle Knife wasn't quite as good as the first, and the last book The Amber Spyglass was the hardest to follow. Pullman takes his (sweet) time to introduce the plot and main characters. You're halfway through the second book before the plot starts moving of its own accord without you having to help by turning the pages. However, the story was excellent and absorbing, even though the trilogy ended with a number of loose ends dangling into space.

I don't like to give plots away and such, but I do feel that I need to say something about the trilogy: I honestly don't know how the movies will be received in the United States since we are still a religious country, despite what many ACLU groupies tell us. The Golden Compass (and the corresponding movie, I assume) is innocent enough, but The Subtle Knife unfolds the central plot to the trilogy that drives the decisions of the characters. In a nutshell: Pullman is an atheist, and his trilogy is anti-organized religion, if not anti-God. It will be interesting to see how the entire story plays out on the big screen.

My recommendation: Read the books! They are enjoyable, witty, and leave you wondering almost to the very end which characters are with or against the protagonist. I'll end with my favorite passage...

Will said to his [father], "You said I was a warrior. You told me that was my nature, and I shouldn't argue with it. Father, you were wrong. I fought because I had to. I can't choose my nature, but I can choose what I do. And I will choose, because now I'm free."

His father's smile was full of pride and tenderness. "Well done, my boy. Well done indeed," he said.
-The Amber Spyglass