IRB intro #3- "Freakonomics"

"Freakonomics" by Levitt and Dubner is a series of discussions based on dissimilar topics that share commonalities. They do this by sharing statistics and appealing to logic. The study of economics and the exposure to different ways of thinking that this nonfiction contains never fails to surprise and impress me.

TOW #16- IRB “What Do School Teachers and Sumo Wrestlers Have in Common?”

            Although the professions of being a schoolteacher and a Japanese Sumo Wrestler seem distant, they have one thing in common and it is the beauty of incentive, a thing that motivates or encourages one to do something. The author compares the possibility of promotion that provokes teachers to inflate their students’ scores to the ways that sumo wrestlers purposely lose matches due to bribery and black mail. Not only that, but the author also mentions how factors such as guilt and pride are weak motivators when compared to money and social incentives, which has power to influence anyone and anything. Through emphasizing causes and effects of events and appealing to logos, Levitt explores and emphasizes the effect of incentives on people’s choice of actions.

            Causes and effects often have the power to reveal consequences of a decision. By revealing that posting pictures of criminals of prostitution and shaming their reputation has decreased the amount of people soliciting prostitutes and mentioning the fact that money that is awarded to teachers with high overall class grades have increased teachers cheating for their students shows the scary results that are brought by social and money incentives. Not only that, but the author mentions how the effect of making three dollar fines for late- arriving parents in day cares is less than making three hundred dollar fee in terms of influencing parents and encouraging them to pick their children on time. Not only that, but the author incorporates the use of statistics to emphasize his point. With numbers that show the decrease in homicides and the logic of teachers changing the same consecutive answers that makes cheating easy and often times what catches them red handed, the author appeals to the readers logically and strongly makes his position.

            Through the author’s use of cause and effect and appeal to logos, I was very much convinced and was amused to see the author’s view and claim that asserts that schoolteachers and sumo wrestlers have many things in common because whether in a classroom or a wrestling match, most people have incentive to cheat.

TOW #15- Non fiction “Shred Alert”

             The article that I came across this week is about the increasing number of people who owns smart phones, tablets, or laptops that become victims of professional data thieves. There have been an increasing number of awareness campaigns that inform uninformed citizens of the crisis that has been on-going since technology has been advancing. While this article educates, it also criticizes the people who endlessly risks their chances of getting hacked, as people often doubt the chances that they have of exposing their identity. Through negative diction and appealing to logos, Rothman criticizes and informs the readers of professional data thieves.

            The pessimistic diction that the writer uses to describe hackers such as “destroyers”, “shredding”, and “smashing” have the effect of scaring the readers. Not only does it emphasize the dangerous consequences of not using technology properly, but it also appeals to pathos to draw out the emotion of fear out of the readers. Not only does she us negative diction to characterize the hackers, but she also uses words such as “dull –witted” and “foolish” to describe the people who don’t think about the risk of putting in personal information on unreliable websites.

            Not only does the author use negative diction to scare off the readers, but she also uses facts and statistics to appeal to the readers logically. As identity theft has increased 34% since 2011 with 150,000 victims a year, the author persuades the readers to make smart choices on their personal devices. Through the use of negative diction and appeal to logos, Rothman successfully criticizes and informs the readers of the risks of becoming the victims of internet thieves.

TOW #14- FDR's New Deal

            While delving into the causes of the Great Depression, I came across a picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt in a political cartoon as he was elected as a President after Herbert Hoover lost the election. Shown on the picture below, Roosevelt is a doctor and Uncle Sam is an old, sick man as the nurse is a congress. The medicine bottle are labeled as SCC, FDIC, SS, AAA, WPA, and other parts of the New Deal that Franklin D Roosevelt created to fix the Great Depression. Through positive connotation and appealing to ethos, the artist was able to portray his positive view towards FDR’s efforts in trying to heal the broken economics in the United States.

            One part of the cartoon that stands out the most is the character of the congress. It is hard to identify the gender of the character as it has a face of a male but has a body of a female. The body language of the character also shows respect for the doctor, implying the artist’s positive view towards FDR.

            Not only that, but Uncle Sam in this political cartoon is unlike the man who points at people on posters with bold colors of clothing and facial expression. However, we can figure out that it is uncle same by the patriotic clothes that is under his robe and the initials “US” on his slippers. In this particular cartoon, he is an old man who is sick. This portrays how Franklin Roosevelt was trying to help the poor, old, unemployed citizens through the system of New Deal and as shown on the conversation bubble in the picture, how he stopped at nothing to cure the sick economics in the America.

            The artist, by including positive connotations and appealing to pathos, successfully displays how he feels about Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal. By observing the rhetorical devices that artist incorporated in the political cartoon, I was able to understand more about the Great Depression and America’s view on FDR as well.

TOW #13- "Terrorism"

              On an uneventful Saturday morning, I came across a video that popped up on a social media website. Unlike other videos, this one wasn’t about people doing questionable things to follow our society’s standard of being “funny”. It was simply a conversation between a white American and Muslim student, talking about the topic of terrorism during a college class. When the professor told the students that words such as “mercy, peace, and compassion” are mentioned in the Karan 355 times and that Islam is a religion that preaches peace and tolerance, the white American student, just like any other white students would, asked why the world’s most troubled spots were plagued with Islamic terrorism if Islam is a religion that preaches peace. By appealing to logos and pathos, the Muslim student answers this question as well as putting the situation into perspectives.

            The Muslim student starts with the definition of terrorism. Although terrorists are often classified as Muslims who invade different parts of the world to act against other religions, he claims that the world’s biggest terrorists can be the “white superpowers”. He tells the class that everyone around the world knows that the strike of the twin towers killed 3,000 people, but that nobody knows that the bombing of Afghanistan killed more than 15,000 people as 50,000 tons of explosives were dropped onto innocent civilians. The numbers that he presents to showcase his argument stands for itself. It reveals how uninformed people are about the harms that come to the Islamic states from the US and Britain and how dramatized the terrorized events in US can be when comparing the harms that were done of both sides. Then, he continues by stating that overall, 500,000 innocent men, women, and even children were killed in Afghanistan in order to appeal to pathos.

            Finally, when the white student asked, “If Muslims like you feel that way, then why don’t you get out of our country?” he simply replies by saying, “We will… as soon as you promise to leave ours.”

             The Muslim student was effective by appealing to logos and pathos when putting the rest of the students into his perspective when talking about terrorism. I was able to be aware of how uninformed I was and thought his way of portraying his position was very effective.

TOW #12- "The Liar's Club" IRB

            In the memoir ‘The Liar’s Club”, Mary Karr recalls back to when she is seven, experiencing the most traumatic event in her life. Living in Leechfield, one of the “the ugliest towns on the planet”, Karr grew up in poison- infested environment with a family full of violence, dislocation, and fragmentation. During the first half of the book, Karr introduces her mom by describing how she was taken away to a mental institution due to her nervous breakdowns.  With her grandma suffering from cancer and her father becoming an alcoholic, Kerr and her little sister is left neglected and goes from door to door, begging for a meal. By including similes, Kerr displays the emotions she encountered during her brutal childhood experiences as well as her complex thoughts.

            In the beginning of the book, Kerr only has broken pieces of her memory from a tragic event. She can only describe this indescribable moment with similes that help readers grasp her emotions. As she recalls back to when she discovered a fuzzy memory of being assisted out of her house by the police, she says it felt like the moment “a crystal ball that whirls from a foggy blur into focus” (14). Once she can no longer piece her stories back together, she compares her frustration to a ghost and how “like the smudge of a bad word quickly wiped off a school blackboard, the ghost can call undue attention to itself by its very vagueness” (25). With the use of similes, Kerr displays her complex emotions as well as her inner conflicts.

            It is undeniable that Kerr’s use of figurative language, such as simile, makes her memoir dramatic, portraying the great warmth and pain that built her strong sense of self. The gritty eloquence of her voice incorporated in her similes gave me vivid pictures and left me speechless.

TOW #11- “It’s Going to be Just Turned Around”

                As evidently shown in this political cartoon, this image depicts the American’s favor in changing the immigration law. From my background knowledge, I know that during the 1920s, Communism was expanding in different countries and that Americans feared the effects of having immigrants over: terrorists bombing their cities, foreign workers killing their land owners, and the expand of communism. Through the use of juxtaposition and appealing to logos, the artist proposes her though in order to change the present immigration law.

                Through juxtaposition, the artist clearly states what he is in favor of and what he isn’t. Using funnels that face the opposite direction, it makes it even more obvious that he wants to turn the immigration law around 180 degrees. One other difference in the two pictures is the white, dusty smoke. The smoke that is on the top left, surrounding the New York City shows not only the chaos, but the 40 bombs that harmed and threatened the Americans, essentially creating a negative bias toward the immigrants. The smoke on the right, showing the open end of the funnel shows the mess that is disturbing the peace in the United States. People are unrecognizable and their bags are carelessly thrown in the air. On the bottom right picture, however, the foreigners are patiently waiting until it is their turn to be selected and meet the requirements before they are allowed into the United States. There is no smoke on both ends of the funnel, which represents peace, and people are recognizable, walking in an organized order. This shows a logical reasoning as to why their immigration law should be changed and to show that it is the most rational solution to the problem.

                Evans uses juxtaposition as well as appealing to logos in order to portray his thought on the present immigration law. I think that the artist was successful as I was able to understand what he was in favor of with just a little bit of background information.