TOW #13 - The Dispensable Rocket by John Updike

Based on history, men and women have different roles assigned to them. Men “were for combat” and hunting while women bore and took care of the children. These roles gave rise to the argument that a man’s body is disposable while the woman’s body is more precious and important. In light of him growing older, John Updike thoughtfully shares his views, using metaphors and personal anecdotes, on the expendable nature of a man’s body and how it affects a man’s behaviors and emotions in The Disposable Rocket.

Updike explains how a man’s body is disposable when having children using metaphors. When having a child, Updike explains how a woman is a “device for retention” while a man, “his body is, like a delivery rocket that falls away in space, a disposable means.” Comparing a man’s body to a piece of a rocket ship that floats off into space, allows the audience to understand the idea of being used and thrown away that Updike tries to portray. The contrast between a woman being for “retention” and a man being “disposable” puts the emphasis and importance on a woman because she is the one who does the majority of the work. A man lacks importance because his “job” is relatively short and fleeting compared to the “job” of the woman.

Once Updike establishes the idea of a man being expendable, he then shares how the feeling of insignificance affects a man’s behaviors and emotions. By giving a personal anecdote, Updike is able to evoke ethos and pathos because the audience sees his first hand account and can feel sympathy towards Updike who feels useless, lost. He describes how all of his life, he would take pleasure in falling down. He describes how many things including “... the pain-smothering adrenaline rush, form cumbersome and unfashionable bliss… Take your body to the edge, and see if it flies.” While Updike seems a little radical and whiny, the audience can sympathize for him as he searches for significance. The intensity of putting his body in danger of injury exemplifies how large his longing for meaning and importance is.

After many years of life, John Updike reflects on his importance as a man and aims to share his finding that men are dispensable, by using metaphors and a personal anecdote. Considering the traditional roles of men and women in society, many arguments can be made yet one indefinitely holds true: men and women are equal; they always have been and they always will be.

TOW #12 blink by Malcolm Gladwell

Have you ever wondered why when you see a snake you jump without thinking? Malcolm Gladwell, writer of Outliers, attempts to answer this question and more for his reader in blink. Gladwell has done extensive research in the area of our brains known as the adaptive unconscious. It’s where we make our split second decisions whether it be jumping from in front of a moving car or concluding that someone is stuck up from a glance at their attire. Gladwell explicitly states his goals: to convince us that quick decisions can be very effective, to teach us when to trust and when to be wary of our instincts, and to convince us that our split-second decisions can be controlled.

As his hook, Gladwell tells an intriguing story about a museum and its purchase of a sculpture. A man sold the museum the “ancient” sculpture; its type is often discovered in archeological digs. The museum had experts come in and analyze the sculpture's authenticity and it passed the test. However, when they showed the it to fellow collectors some first impressions were “fresh” (an ancient sculpture should not seem fresh), repulsive, and “that thing has never been in the ground.” In the end it turned out that the sculpture was a fake despite the months of professional testing ran on it. What this story does is immediately draw in the audience; we want to know what happens. While we don’t yet know how the story ties to the rest of the book, we nonetheless want to know how the story shakes out. As we’re engrossed, Gladwell introduces the subject of the entire book, the power of the subconscious, intuition. From the irony of the outcome of the story we begin to see what Gladwell’s argument is and want to know more because the subconscious is an uncommon topic that many have a vague understanding of.

From other experts, he goes on to give other testimonies on how powerful the subconscious really is. Having read only half of the book, I can’t wait to read how he answers all of our questions.

TOW #11 - Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln

In 1865, the American civil war was was nearing it’s end. With President Lincoln being re-elected, Americans looked to him for guidance and eloquence. In his Second Inaugural Address, President Lincoln addresses speaks of God in order to establish his ethos, which allows him to create an effective homily his “fellow-countrymen”. He calls for all American citizens to do what’s necessary to end the war and establish everlasting peace in an effort to establish a better sense of unity.

Most Americans were Christians who followed the bible, therefore talking about God allowed for Lincoln’s message to be easily absorbed and trusted. He says, “... with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the world we are in… to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.” Once Lincoln has the American people’s trust in his message, he uses his spiritual tone to let them know what to do in the time of crisis. The major disunity and division in the country was the open wound that his words healed. Lincoln puts the North and the South under one category by mentioning that “both read from the same Bible and pray to the same God.” By uniting the American people through a strong force of religion, he is able to create a sense of hope and show everyone that they are not very different, yet the same in many ways.

Abraham Lincoln was able to spark a sense of unity in a largely divided country by pointing out what everyone had in common, religion. He expertly does this by first establishing his ethos with the speaking of God, and then using God’s teachings to deliver a homily that would strike the hearts of all Americans.

TOW #10 - from Words That Work by Frank Luntz

Dr. Frank Luntz is a political consultant who studies polls and focuses groups in order to craft arguments. In this excerpt from his book Words That Work, Luntz originally addresses the spouses of Republican men and women of Congress. In 2007, with the media becoming more and more powerful and the presidential election coming in the next year, Luntz informs the congressional spouses that proper word choice is pivotal.  In this excerpt, Luntz presents real-word examples in addition to using careful diction to emphasize that sometimes leaving out the right words makes all the difference.

In order to support his claim that “effective communication requires that you stop saying words and phrases that undermine your ability to educate the American people,” Luntz gives a list of what to “never say” versus what one should “instead say” followed by an example that appeals to logos.  After one of his lists he writes, “Similarly, ‘capitalism’ reminds people of harsh economic competition that yields losers as well as winners, while ‘the free market economy’ provides opportunity to all and allows everyone to succeed.” He appeals to logos by simply providing what the American people think. He also appeals to pathos with his use of the words “harsh” and “losers”. This lets the spouses realize disdain that the wrong word can cause, causing them to understand how their words can affect an audience. Different connotations of words that mean the same thing can paint a different picture in an audience’s mind. After further establishing his ethos by mentioning his involvement in a “language creation effort involving environmental issues”, he goes on to give another example of how the wrong word can create the wrong picture. “‘Drilling for oil’ causes people to paint a picture in their minds of an old fashioned rig… ‘Exploring for energy’ conjures a picture of twenty-first technology…”. Placing the words “drilling” and “exploring” and “oil”and “energy” right next to each other gives the congressional spouses the opportunity to analyze the differences in the effects of the phrases that mean essentially the same thing. Also, Lentz’s juxtaposition of the terms “old” and “twenty-first century” in his analysis provides the spouses with the mindset of their own audience, the American people. With his specific examples and careful word choice, Lentz effectively conveys the right words have the right meaning and the wrong words don’t.

IRB Intro #2

blink by Malcolm Gladwell is the opportunity to see and learn about our subconscious, when we think without thinking. Gladwell presents his research into how the brain works in our everyday lives. His other works include Tipping Point and Outliers in addition to his regular articles for The New Yorker. For this marking period, Eamon and I decided to trade IRB books from last marking period. I trust his judgement and hope that we’ll be able to have good discussion about both of our books.

TOW #8 - Between the World and Me

Ta-Nehisi Coates writes Between the World and Me as a letter to his son, in light of the recent news that no charges would be brought up against the police officer who killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. His book is for all Americans, so they can see what it’s like to be black in America, specifically through Coates’s eyes. He shares personal stories, recounting on what he has learned throughout his life. His title Between the World and Me indicates that his message is a personal one, and is aimed towards everyone. When he mentions his childhood in Baltimore he writes, “Not being violent enough could cost me my body. Being too violent could cost me my body.” Coates had to fend for himself in his hometown while also keeping himself out of trouble. He depicts the harsh reality and helps the reader understand as to how merely trying to live can feel unfair, especially for a child. With accounts from his childhood, Coates also shares realizations that he has come to as an adult. “Black people love their children with a kind of obsession,” he writes. “You are all we have, and you come to us endangered. I think we would like to kill you ourselves before seeing you killed by the streets that America made.” Coates gives his son and America the raw feelings a parent has when they hear of the horror stories happening around the country. No parent wants their child to prematurely lose their life. His statement allows Americans to understand the fear that is put into Black parents’ hearts when their child wants to go to the movies or their school football game. It can happen anywhere and to anyone. If the audience accepts Coates’s invitation to try on his shoes they’ll be able to have a better idea of what it’s like to be black in America.

TOW #7 - Nick Anderson Cartoon

Nick Anderson is a liberal cartoonist who focuses his drawings mainly on political and social issues within the U.S. The question as to whether abortion is moral or immoral is widely debated around the country. With that also comes the question as to when abortion should be illegal. In 2013, when this cartoon was made, most states had their own laws stating when abortion was illegal. The timeline spanned from after 12 weeks in some states to after 28 weeks in others; nine states had no laws restricting abortion. Also, with the U.S.’s federalist government, the Supreme Court can make final decisions and throw out state laws. In light of the controversy around abortion, Nick Anderson uses the woman’s facial expression and the phrases in the picture to say that a woman should have the final say, and not the federal government, when it comes to her having an abortion.

In the picture, a woman is in a clinic and the doctor is evaluating her body by looking at screen. The audience assumes that the doctor, a man with the words “Big Government” on his back, has some sort of apparatus hooked up to the woman in order to show information. Analyzing the picture all together allows for Americans to see Anderson’s purpose. The text “If you are reading this you are too far up my uterus” in addition to the woman’s facial expression, lets the audience understand that the woman is unhappy with the “big government’s” interference in her decision because she should have control over her body, not an outside party. Also considering that the doctor is a man and not a woman, Anderson presents the idea that a man does not understand what it takes from a woman to birth a child. Since he doesn’t know or understand, he should not be making decisions for her. Most government officials making decisions on abortion laws are men, so Anderson appeals to logos because it seems illogical for a man outside of the situation to make decisions for a woman and her body. She should have the right to make the ultimate decision concerning her body.