TOW #3: CDC Anti-Smoking Ad

This warning advertisement from the CDC connects smoking to heart problems and urges
smokers to kick their often-fatal habit before such problems set in. Experts
everywhere hope these will lower the numbers of smoking
adults in the United States.

In March of this year, the release of this advertisement sent shock waves across the country due to its graphic nature and hard-hitting message: it depicts an actual smoker, about to undergo open heart surgery, with a warning connecting smoking to health problems, specifically those that would require drastic open heart surgery.  It was unveiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a world-renowned public health institute that in recent years has shown great concern about the numbers of adult smokers in the United States.  According to their website, 19% of adults smoke cigarettes.  As smoking is infamous for negatively affecting nearly every organ in the body and for causing a variety of health issues, the CDC hoped that advertisements such as the one featured above would encourage people to kick the dangerous habit before health problems arise.  The advertisement is obviously aimed at current smokers, but it could also target the friends and loved ones of people who smoke; they could use things, like this advertisement, to encourage smokers they know to quit.
Audiences are more likely to connect to a text or visual if the person who wrote it or is featured in it is similar to them or knows what they're talking about.  The ad appeals to ethos in this way, as it features an actual smoker with his own advice for those who haven't stopped smoking; he is in the same group as his audience and therefore knows the effects of smoking first hand.  They are therefore more likely to connect with him and take the ad seriously.  There is also the smallest of anecdotes in this ad: the man smoked, probably for years judging by his apparent age at the time of his surgery, and it resulted in him having severe health problems that had to be remedied by a scary, risky open heart surgery.  His situation is not one anyone would want to be in, and smoking could put a person in his shoes.  This would force viewers to think twice before starting to smoke or to make the decision to quit.
It is difficult to tell whether this ad would succeed in its mission.  On one hand, the message is very serious, and if a viewer was receptive to the information they may decide never to smoke or to quit doing so.  On the other, smoking is a very hard habit to quit, and smokers are warned all the time about the health risks, but continue to smoke anyway.  All in all, it seems only a viewer who is thinking about quitting smoking already would be affected by this ad, since it would reinforce what they would already be thinking.

TOW #2: "The Pope's Radical Whisper"

Pope Francis and some Vatican employees stand near a car, donated by an Italian priest, that
Francis plans to use to drive around Vatican City. He seems to be much more
frugal, down-to-earth, and visually subdued than his predecessor. 

Many have heard recently about the progressive things that relatively-new Pope Francis has been saying and doing, such as his thoughts on homosexuality and his lack of pomp and circumstance, since these things are so abnormal in the modern Catholic Church and within the Vatican itself (two different things, people). However, in this editorial, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wants readers to understand that Francis has not radicalized the teachings of the Church and didn't "right past wrongs"; instead, he shows a refreshing mix of humility and sincerity and does not have all of the answers. Obviously, this information would be aimed mostly towards Catholics or those who have left the Church because of its teachings and coverings-up of certain scandals but are still interested in its workings.
Some readers may dismiss Bruni's article as praising a trait in Francis (humility) that is not really there or is already present in other famous people. To combat this, Bruni contrasts Francis's humbleness with the lack of it in many politicians, including President Barack Obama: Bruni says "he could take a page from this pope" (Bruni 1). This, as well as other similar examples, force readers to admit that yes, Pope Francis is more humble than many leaders, than even normal people in this age of social media. It supports Bruni's point that Francis is a sort of gift for the Church, as he will probably revitalize it and bring a lot of people back. Towards the beginning of the piece, Bruni describes Francis and his manner. He writes, "It was the sweetness in his timbre, the meekness of his posture... Instead of commanding people to follow him, he invited them to join him. And did so gently, in what felt like a whisper." (1). Since most readers would never have seen Francis in real life and have probably seen little footage of him, the description in this passage helps readers form in their mind a better picture of this pope. In order to believe that someone is humble, it helps to know that they look and act the part, and this passage displays this quite well. 

I think that Bruni would have achieved his purpose of convincing readers that Francis is, in personality at least, quite unlike any recent pope, but only if the reader was someone who was already open to this possibility. If a reader is not, if they need concrete proof that Francis is going to reform the Church completely, they would not believe Bruni; after all, he does acknowledge that Francis has a long way to go, particularly in areas such as women's rights, the sinfulness of homosexuality, and celibate priests. 

TOW #1: What Is Fox New's Problem With Chelsea Manning?

Link: http://www.advocate.com/commentary/2013/09/04/op-ed-what-fox-newss-problem-chelsea-manning

Fox News is often seen as an overtly-conservative media source, but freedom of speech is extended to all, no matter what their political views. Recently, they reached a new low by refusing to refer to Private Chelsea Manning (formerly Private Bradley Manning) using female pronouns and calling her by her proper name after she came out as transgender. Manning was convicted violating the Espionage Act by releasing classified military documents, and was sentenced to 35 years in prison, where she will most likely not receive the sex-reassignment surgery or hormone therapy. In a scathing, yet accurate, op-ed published in the LGBT magazine The Advocate, commentary editor Michelle Garcia criticizes the numerous insensitivities exhibited by Fox News anchors. She says that acknowledging Manning's gender identity is the "human" thing to do. It is clear that her purpose is to say that treating each other well is humane and morally right, and that Fox News does not do this by failing to refer to Manning as a woman. 
This article is intended for those who care about either LGBT issues or about Chelsea Manning, since it rages against those who do not respect them. In order to prove that Fox News has callously dealt with the Manning story, Garcia gives the reader multiple examples of things that happened on-air. She writes "First, Fox News's America's Newsroom host Greg Jarrett continued to use male pronouns to refer to Private Manning after her announcement August 22... And then there was the gem where Fox & Friends teased a segment about Manning while playing Aerosmith's 'Dude Looks Like a Lady.'" (1) As she is trying to make a factual argument, Garcia's article cannot be seen as credible without examples like these; they serve to strengthen her piece. Garcia also uses pathos to appeal to her readers when she emphasizes her central point: "It's silly, right? Using the wrong gender pronouns for a person, when they don't like it. So maybe you shouldn't do it either." (1) As readers would obviously want to be treated kindly themselves, they'd be able to feel for Manning, for others in her situation, and for Garcia in her anger. When one feels an emotional connection to a piece of writing, one is more likely to accept whatever argument it is making. I think that Garcia achieved her purpose quite well, as she appealed to readers' emotionally by showing them her own outrage and supporting it with multiple examples. 

IRB Intro for Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth by Reza Aslan

Like many religious figures, the true story of Jesus Christ has long been hidden. However, in his new book, religious scholar Reza Aslan tries to tell His story by using stories from the Gospels as well as information discovered by historians and archaeologists. Though I'm no longer religious myself, I've enjoyed learning about various belief systems since attending catechism as a child and later reading Dan Brown's novels featuring religious iconographer Robert Langdon. I also greatly enjoy history in general; one of my favorite books is a double biography of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Consequently, when I heard about Zealot from interviews with Aslan on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and The Colbert Report, I thought it sounded very interesting, a book I could learn a lot from. From Zealot I hope to gain a more complete understanding of the life of Jesus and of His original teachings, as accounts of both have been twisted and changed throughout the centuries. I also want to see what research methods Aslan used to gather his information, since I am interested in becoming a historian or archaeologist; I'm wondering how Aslan could have possibly gathered enough information from thousands of years ago and compile it into a book with a logical and factual message. I'm hoping that Zealot isn't written in such a way that it focuses too heavily on the teachings of the Gospels, as they have been altered and translated countless times since they were written, which, anyway, was decades after Jesus died. Either way, the reviews have been very positive, so I'm hoping this book will live up to them!

"The Good Short Life" by Dudley Clendinen Analysis

"But we don't talk about how to die. We act as if facing death weren't one of life's greatest,
most absorbing thrills and challenges. Believe me, it is. This is not dull." (Clendinen 64)
Image credit goes to artist Ferdinand Hodler

Dudley Clendinen passed away in May 2012 at the age of 67, after a career of writing about societal problems and civil rights. During his final two years, he had been suffering from the neurodegenerative Lou Gehrig's disease, also known as ALS. In his piece "The Good Short Life" he writes about his desire to commit suicide instead of living through the roughest period of his disease. In his essay Clendinen wishes to make readers understand why a terminally ill person would want to end their life on their own terms, to show that doing so it not a disregard for the people in their life. He also addresses that no one thinks about how to die, even though they think about everything else. Clendinen’s piece is also not difficult to read or understand. For all of these reasons, this essay is truly meant for anyone, as everyone is going to die one day and should think about how they want it to happen.

Clendinen uses quite a bit of narration in order to give his readers some background about his life. When telling about receiving the news about his illness, he writes, “When the neurologist gave me the diagnosis that November, he shook my head hand with a cracked smile and released me to the chill, empty parking lot below… I’m not prepared for this, I thought.” (Clendinen 64). He writes a lot about his own thoughts so that the reader understands his choice to take his own life. In the beginning of the essay Clendinen also defines his disease, in case it is unknown or unfamiliar to the reader. He writes about Lou Gehrig, the baseball player for which the disease is named, the symptoms, and which type of ALS he has. Both of these rhetorical strategies make it easier for the reader to connect to Clendinen and therefore to see why he wants to take his own life. Despite this, Clendinen would not achieve his purpose with all readers. Those who do not believe in suicide or in harming oneself in any way would never agree with him; only open-minded ones, or those who are terminally ill or know someone who is, would understand.

"The Foul Reign of 'Self-Reliance'" by Benjamin Anastas Analysis

"As a sad result, it has been the swagger of a man's walk that makes his measure, and
Americans' right to love ourselves before any other that trumps all" (Anastas 5).
Image credit to www.mychild.gov.au

Benjamin Anastas is the author of many works of fiction as well as memoirs, articles, and book reviews. However, his essay “The Foul Reign of Self-Reliance” is rather a combination of a memoir and a review, as Anastas uses his high school literature class as the basis for a criticism of Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance”. Anastas claims that the self-centered, arrogant nature of the essay has damaged the American public since its publication, convincing them that they always deserve more, are able to achieve absolutely anything, and should only care about themselves. Though no context is given, one can assume that Anastas is becoming increasingly concerned by the prevalence of these attitudes in modern American society and the pride of place given to “Self-Reliance” in American literature. This essay is clearly not meant for fans of Emerson or those who agree with his ideas, as he attacks both throughout his entire essay. Instead, those who are fans of Anastas, staunchly opposed to either Emerson or the overconfident message of “Self-Reliance”, or merely interested in literary criticism would enjoy the essay.

One of the most important things in the essay is the anthology Anastas used in high school, and he describes it in the beginning and refers to it a few times. He vividly illustrates, “The class was early American literature, the textbook an anthology with the heft of a volume of the Babylonian Talmud; a ribbon for holding your place… and a slick hardcover the same shade of green as the back side of a dollar bill.” (Anastas 1). The aforementioned passage sticks in the mind of the reader because it describes the anthology so well and gives it pride of place in the essay. It is also where Anastas found “Self-Reliance”, the piece that his essay is centered around. Anastas also uses a lot of cause and effect analysis, citing Emerson’s work as a possible cause of America’s bloated sense of self-importance; this is the very theme, the very purpose, of his essay, so in addition to being a review-memoir, “The Foul Reign of Self-Reliance” is an examination of this cause-and-effect relationship. Due to the nature of the essay, one can easily say that Anastas accomplished his purpose quite well, as one can hardly find a single praise of Emerson. A reader would walk away knowing that arrogance is not a positive trait and that Emerson’s approval of such an attitude is plainly wrong.

"Humanism" by Richard Sennett Analysis

"In a world filled with mobile people- economic immigrants and political exiles in particular-
an old humanist ideal might help them to give shape to their lives" (Sennett 244).
Image credit to Humanists of Greater Portland

Richard Sennett is a professor of humanities at New York University and a professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. He mentions his famous studies of the modern workplace in his essay “Humanism”, which seem to the basis for his concern about how people are no longer enriching their own life experience, preferring to passively put up with whatever comes their way. Sennett states his purpose on the very first page of the essay: he wants to argue that displacement and bad luck can be dealt with by following the humanist philosophy of finding coherency in conflicting things and taking control of one’s own life. This is what he calls having a “voice”.

To convince his readers to adopt this philosophy, Sennett includes many examples that explain it. For instance, he writes about the philosophers Baruch Spinoza and Pico della Mirandola; they were exiled from their native lands, but even during their unhappy periods they were able to speculate on how man must carve his own path, even though they both believed that man was created by God. Another rhetorical device he uses is comparison, which helps the reader to connect the various pieces of Sennett’s argument and see what humanism means today. When talking about modern tendency to switch between jobs every few years and never find a career, Sennett writes, “These precepts reflect, if they do not precisely mirror, Pico’s understanding of Man as his own Maker…. The human subject should stand apart from his or her circumstances emotionally and intellectually….” (Sennett 248). He also sprinkles a bit of symbolism throughout the essay to show readers how much people are ignoring humanism in seemingly-small ways today. One way in which he does this is writing about email and its speed, lamenting the loss of careful consideration of diction and tone that characterized letter writing in previous decades. This, he claims, is yet another form of the loss of “voice”. 

While Sennett’s essay seems targeted towards anyone curious about the topic and its modern implications, it would be best read by those who are already familiar with humanism, perhaps teachers or college students. However, his basic message, that people should stand up for themselves and take charge of their lives, is very clear and is carried throughout the essay, so he accomplished his purpose very well. 

"The Crazy State of Psychiatry" by Marcia Angell Analysis

"It seems that Americans are in the midst of a raging epidemic of mental illness,
 at least as judged by the increase in the numbers treated for it." (Angell 6)
Credit goes to National Institute of Mental Health at www.nimh.nih.gov/statistics/SMI_AASR.shtml

Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, writes about a worrying trend: mental illnesses, as well as prescription psychoactive drug use, seem to have been on the rise since the 1980s. The essay focuses on the following questions: whether psychoactive drugs work, whether the number of mental illnesses is truly increasing or if specialists are recognizing problems that were always present, or whether the reason behind the apparent increase is simply that there are now too many criteria for mental illnesses. To do this, Angell analyzes the information presented in three books on these topics written by members of the medical profession.

Angell wants to bring this medical conflict to the lay reader, as she tries to make things easier to understand. She defines terms such as “double-blind” and “neurotransmitter” that may be confusing to the reader, and gives simplified explanations as to how processes like the brain’s chemical releases work. This makes it much easier for the reader to comprehend what she is writing about. Instead of just supplying the reader with a steady stream of vague anecdotes to support her point (a method she criticizes psychiatrists for practicing), she uses statistics and quotes. For example, she writes about how in one random study, 46 percent of adults met criteria for having at least one mental illness (Angell 6). She also divides information into sections; each book she writes about has its own section, including the Diagnostic and Statistical Manuel of Mental Disorders and its problems. As this subject is not one that many readers would be familiar with, slowly feeding them each topic makes all of the information easier to handle.

Many would think that Angell means to turn readers against psychiatry or drug companies, even though she does mention that many of these people would swear that drugs work. This is supported by the fact that most of her essay attacks the use of drugs and precious few words are used in support of drugs. However, towards the end, it seems that she thinks there are merely doubts about the effectiveness of drugs, not that they are harmful, as she writes, “…. We need to stop thinking of psychoactive drugs as the best, and often the only, treatment for mental illnesses or emotional distress” (Angell 27) Therefore, her purpose is unclear. If she meant to turn readers against drugs, she succeeded, and if she intended to do the opposite, she most likely has not. 

"Other Women" by Francine Prose Analysis

".... I found out that my husband had, so to speak, worked his way through the group.... In fact, this was not how it happened. In fact, I'm pretty sure that my husband only slept with two of the women in the group.... Obviously, saying all the women in the group makes a better story than saying two of the women in the group." (Prose 240)
Cartoon credit to Mark Anderson, found on www.andertoons.com

Women in the early 1970s were being swallowed up by the feminist revolution, by calls to get jobs and not rush into marriage and to stand up to the patriarchy and all men who willfully upheld it. In 1972, Francine Prose, now a published author and president of the literacy-promoting PEN American Center, is unhappily married and has all but dropped out of a PhD program. Wondering if her womanhood was the reason for her miserable situation (as sexism seemed to be the cause of all problems in those days), she joins a "feminist conscious-raising group" near campus. A few months later, Prose leaves her husband. A year afterward, he tells her that he slept with a few women in the group before Prose had even left him. This seems to her a horrible wrong to commit another woman and completely changes her view of feminism.
Initially, Prose's reason for writing "Other Women" could be unclear to reader; she could easily be a so-called "radfem" raging about the unreliability of men. Fortunately, one can soon determine that Prose is trying to convey a completely different idea, that no gender is better than any other. The clincher comes towards the end when she writes, "I can thank my Cambridge women's group.... for having cured me of the notion that women are no more or less likely to than men to treat people well or badly...." (Prose 241). As the entire essay is one long first-person narration of Prose's experiences, the reader is able to experience her troubles as if they are their own, and can effortlessly connect to Prose and agree with her opinions. Prose describes her husband revealing the truth and her revelation that followed as a cause-and-effect analysis, making the road map of the essay easier for the reader to follow. 
In the minds of many, the feminist tone of the essay would for women only, and admittedly it seems that it is targeted towards women, specifically those who consider themselves feminists. However, its valuable lesson about the disconnection between gender and interpersonal behavior is one that men, as well as people of other genders or of no gender, would benefit from learning. Regardless of the original ambiguity, Prose uses second half of "Other Women" to deliver and elaborate upon her message in such a clear and concise way that it seems even more important than her husband cheating on her. She does well in achieving her purpose.