TOW #13 - Ice Cream's Identity Crisis

There’s not much better than sitting in front of the TV, spooning some ice cream into your mouth, and not having a care in the world.  But wait.  Is that really ice cream you’re eating?  In his article “Ice Cream’s Identity Crisis”, Dan Barry explores how Breyer’s, one of the most trusted ice cream brands for years, has started turning “ice cream” into “frozen dairy dessert.”  Barry utilizes the rhetorical devices of humor and expert authority in order to show the audience what has changed in food production in America.

            In this unconcerned piece, Barry makes jokes and uses a sarcastic tone throughout his essay to maintain the lightheartedness of the article.  This is about a trivial subject and there is no greater deeper meaning to this piece.  Barry simply wants to give his readers a laugh and maybe make them think twice about what they consume every day.  Barry, in a somewhat exaggerated sense of outrage, writes, “Remember the old schoolyard song?

I scream,

You scream,

We all scream for frozen dairy dessert ...” (Barry 2).

Inserting this clever little joke makes the reader chuckle to themselves, then presents a more serious (although still by no means grave) concern: the changes made to the food industry simply for profit.  Is Barry arguing that Breyer’s needs to change their policies?  That the FDA must enforce stricter regulations?  That we should stop eating frozen dairy product all together?  No, of course not.  He is simply making an observation that the reader can take with a grain of salt; Barry won’t be upset or disrespected if the readers continue to indulge in this fake ice cream product.

            Barry also employs an expert authority to give his argument some credibility.  He says himself he is no food expert, so he enlists the help of one in order to prove that he has a valid point.  Barry quotes a spokeswoman from the FDA to demonstrate that there are small, yet substantial, differences between “ice cream” and “frozen dairy dessert.”  But, as I have described earlier, Barry isn’t making a super passionate plea or argument; he is simply writing a fun article.  With that said, any argument, even one made in jest, requires evidence to be read as intellectual literature, and Barry provides that here with expert authority.

*This is the thrid installment of my project of exploring Dan Barry’s writing.  Barry is, of course, a reliable source.  He is columnist for the New York Times and he writes about sports (among other things) and how they affect our lives.

TOW 12 - How Soccer Explains the World (first half)

I have just completed the first half of my second IRB How Soccer Explains the World.  In this book, Franklin Foer attempts to chronicle the theory of globalization by using the extended metaphor of soccer.  It seems like a very interesting book and, since I love soccer, I think it would be a really cool juxtaposition between the seemingly trivial sport of soccer with the large idea of globalization. 

The writing by Foer in this book is fantastic.  He uses mostly a narrative style of writing, and it is simply splendid.  He uses quotes very effectively and brings in lots of different ideas and evidence to support his argument.  I’ll give you an example of a passage:

“Starting in the 1980s, the soccer hooligan widely came to be considered a leading enemy of the West.  ‘A disgrace to civilized society,’ Margaret Thatcher once said.  Based on a death toll- more than one hundred in the 1980s- the English were the world’s leading producer of deranged fans, but they were far from alone.  Throughout Europe, Latin America, and Africa, violence had become part of soccer’s culture.  And even in places where violence had long accompanied soccer, it became more widespread and destructive in the eighties and nineties.  The Serbian fans were merely a bit better organized and much better armed than the rest of the world” (Foer 13).

As you can see from this passage, Foer is an enthralling writer that captures an audience.  Although this may stem from my interest in his topic, I really enjoy his writing.  I think his use of specifics (of course he gets into a lot more detail in the following chapter than just the excerpt I presented) combined with quotes create a great read.  Foer travelled to most of the places he writes about, and he recorded most of the conversations he had there.  He then puts in direct quotes from villains, officials, and some players which add greatly to the storyline of the book.  These give his characters life, something nonfiction books often fail to accomplish.

My only negative comment about this book is that the relationship between soccer and globalization seems a bit stretched at some points.  It feels a little bit like Foer is using this just as a gimmick and the relationship is not as evident as it seems.  When I look closer at the text, I realize there are some logical fallacies and I don’t quite see how soccer mirrors globalization- it seems to me that soccer is a benefactor of globalization.  Hopefully in the second half of the book Foer ties up these loose ends. 

TOW #11 - Onion Explains: International Drug Trade

For my TOW this week, I analyzed a visual text authored by The Onion in the form of a video.  This video dealt with explaining how international drug trade works.

The international drug trade is one of the most complex and layered problems facing America today.  Respected news agency The Onion recently released a video explaining the multifaceted issue to a wide audience.  Of course, The Onion is a satirical magazine that satirized the stereotypes of the international drug trade and the politicians who propose often-ridiculous ideas on how to limit this behavior.  Through the use of allusions to pop culture, and a serious tone in a professional manner, The Onion effectively satirizes this current event.

In the opening few seconds, the authors put up a picture eerily similar to the scenes of TV’s smash hit Breaking Bad in order to create a relatable form of satire for the large audience.  If The Onion used very advanced, wonky satire, no matter how clever or funny it may be, the audience will not understand and thus will be rendered ineffective.  The authors must use clever and creative ways to make fun of this issue, but it also must be somewhat ubiquitous so that at least most of their audience will understand the jokes presented.  By satirizing the stereotypes about the drug trade, many of which come from America’s obsessive viewing of Breaking Bad, from the platform of a television show, The Onion creates an effective and powerful satire that the entire audience can appreciate.

Throughout the 3 minute long clip, the narrator uses a professional-sounding tone and the images to go along with it are realistic and serious-looking.  By making the appearance as such, The Onion avoids making their satirical piece seem petty, silly, or goofy.  Yes, they are producing a fake story in order to elicit laughs, but they also understand that this is a serious issue and there is some merit to the message behind the video.  The video at one point states something along the lines of “in order to combat the drug trade, the US government should simply let American’s know of all of the household products that can get them just as high as commercial drugs.”  This satirizes some politician’s views that legalizing more drugs will slow the illegal drug trade and be a benefit to society as a whole.  So while The Onion developed this piece jokingly and with jovial intentions, they also were prudent enough to not make the entire issue a joke.  They had substance behind their humor.

Tow #10 - Here’s What Your Part Of America Eats On Thanksgiving

In his article “Here’s What Your Part Of America Eats On Thanksgiving”, Walt Hickey employs the rhetorical devices of humor and statistics in order to achieve his purpose of explaining a recent poll to his audience.  In this article, Hickey tells his audience about a recent poll that explained the different types of Thanksgiving foods that are eaten around the country and how they differ from region to region.  This was merely an informative, light-hearted read that was meant to be almost like a fun fact; there is no deeper life meaning to this article.  However, that doesn’t mean that Hickey didn’t utilize rhetorical devices to help achieve his purpose.

Hickey creates a funny article to establish a light-hearted tone and make the audience laugh since this is a piece about the holidays and he doesn’t want to burden his audience with dry, boring, or melancholy tones.  Hickey’s humor is mostly just concerned with a few short sentences that make the reader laugh.  He writes, “Meanwhile, New England is losing its mind over squash, with 56 percent demanding it on their table, compared with only 18 percent of the nation as a whole. This is, by far, the most confusing finding of this whole pursuit. Did Gronk endorse squash or something?” (Hickey 1).  This allusion to the NFL and a pop culture icon in Gronk makes the reader chuckle to themselves.  Another example is when he says, “Still, after dessert, the nation unites around that most American of traditions: buying shit” (Hickey 2).  The use of blunt and unexpected language makes the reader laugh out loud after reading this sentence.  Again, the use of humor is designed to simply keep a light tone in the article and have some fun.

One a more serous note, Hickey uses statistics to convey his point.  Since his article is centered around a recent poll, it is obvious that he uses statistics from this poll in his article.  BY incorporating specific stats, he creates credibility in his work as well as allows the stats to speak for themselves.  The numbers tell the story, and Hickey simply puts in a few words here and there to make it cohesive and attractive.

 

TOW #9 - A Kenyan Runner Maps His Way Home

Kenya is a country in East Africa plagued with corruption, poverty, and misfortune.  But out of this dust, stories of success has been created.  In his article “A Kenyan Runner Maps His Way Home,” Dan Barry explores one of such stories.  He writes about Kelvin Serem, a 21 year old student athlete at Lafayette University.  Serem is a good track runner- not an Olympic quality athlete like we come to expect from Kenya, but certainly an impressive runner.  He was born and raised in a small Kenyan village that had no electricity, plumbing, Wi-Fi, or modern appliances.  Barry recounts Serem’s story from poverty to a prestigious school in Iten, Kenya, to a prestigious American high school, and finally to Lafayette University.  Serem is now part of an international organization, named in his honor, dedicated to building schools in Kenya.

Barry’s purpose in writing this article is rather simple; this isn’t a call to action, or an ideological argument for or against something, but rather simply a narrative of a success story from Kenya.  Barry utilizes direct quotes in his article for two reasons. First of all, by including quotes, Barry establishes ethos since he directly quotes Serem.  This makes for a believable and reliable article.  Secondly, this creates a personal relationship between Barry’s subject, Serem, and his audience, the readers.  If the audience can, in a sense, get to know Serem, his story is much more enthralling and appealing.  For example, Barry writes, “‘Why Serem?’ he says. ‘I had never been to a city. I had almost lost hope in life. Why, why, why?’” (Barry 2).  This quote appeals to pathos for the audience, but it is extremely effective because it doesn’t come from the author, it comes directly from the source.  It is much more powerful than Barry simply writing “Serem had lost hope.” 

*This is the second installment of my project of exploring Dan Barry’s writing.  Barry is, of course, a reliable source.  He is columnist for the New York Times and he writes about sports and how they affect our lives.

IRB Intro Post #2

For my second IRB, I have chosen to read How Soccer Explains the World: an Unlikely Theory of Globalization by Franklin Foer.  I found this book by accident- I was bored and simply looking through a bookshelf in my homeroom and this caught my eye.  I love soccer, and ideas about global interaction interest me.  Ergo, I decided to read the introduction to this book and found it delightful.  The book primarily uses soccer as a metaphor to discuss the idea of globalization.  I think I will thoroughly enjoy this book since it is about two of my favorite subjects.

TOW #8 - Deep (second half)

I recently finished the book Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and what the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor.  As I wrote about in my previous blog post, this book is fantastic.  The second half of the book was just as good, if not better than the first half.  This section expanded upon the ideas brought up in the first half of the book.  Nestor chronicles his adventures with free divers and unconventional scientists while also giving the reader an in-depth understanding of the marine biology.  Interestingly enough, this book is just as much about the state of research on the deep sea as it is about the research itself.  Nestor works primarily with renegade scientists- people who aren’t necessarily associated with a University or governmental organization.  These are the people who are getting actually into the water and taking videos and listening to audio clips and running experiments and doing work in the field rather than having to deal with all of the bureaucracy and logistics in the nightmare that is organized research.  Because of his extensive work with renegade scientists, Nestor is a clearly biased author.  This book is not simply a research textbook, but rather an argumentative piece that creates a clear and logical argument through the use of anecdotes and expert testimony. 

One of the best things about this novel is the use of quotations from experts.  However, these quotations are things the experts have said to Nestor in the flesh- they combine aspects of anecdotes with the testimony.  For example, Nestor writes about when he and an expert free diver/whale scientist were swimming with enormous Sperm Whales.  He writes:

“You can never chase down a whale,” Prinsloo explains as she yanks off the sheet and grabs her fins.  “They always needs to choose to come to you.”  If we move slowly in predictable motions, just in front of the whales’ path, they can easily echolocate the boat and get comfortable with our presence.  If they’re disturbed by us, they’ll take a deep breath and disappear beneath the surface.  We’ll never see them again. (Nestor 184).

In this excerpt, one can clearly see elements of narrative, anecdotal writing, expert testimony, and scientific logic.  This exemplifies how Nestor crafts this book to be entertaining, through the use of narrative and anecdotes, and also informative, through the use of expert testimony and logical scientific fact.  This joining of the two worlds is key in Nestor’s book.  It creates not only an enjoyable read but also a useful one.

I recommend this book to anyone, regardless of interests or preconceived notions.  I had not though I was interested in the science part of this novel (I read it for the free diving aspect), but as I read it I found myself getting more and more immersed in the science.  This is a wonderful book- a must-read for everyone. 

TOW #7- On a Trip to Fenway

If I say peanut butter, the first word that comes to your mind is jelly.  If I say flotsam, the first word that comes to your mind is jetsam.  If I say ALS, the first phrase that comes to your mind is Lou Gehrig’s disease.  The two have become completely synonymous- what started out as a simple way to remember what this disease was has become so ingrained in our culture that it is used a medical term by professionals.  This is simply a matter of semantics to most Americans; however, for Bill Malinowski, it extends beyond.  Bill is a diehard Red Sox fan (and thus a diehard Yankees hater), who also happens to have ALS.  The unfortunate irony is that what will one day take his life is named after a ball player who was on a team he hates more than anything else in the world. 

This week, I read an article called “On a Trip to Fenway, Only the Game Was Meaningless” by Dan Barry.  I plan on reading a couple more articles by Dan Barry in the coming weeks as a part of my GIEP goal of exploring the different types of rhetoric used by famous journalists.  Dan Barry is currently a journalist for the New York Times.  This article is about Barry’s dear friend Bill, and his fight against ALS.  Barry recounts a recent summer night when he and Bill went to a meaningless Red Sox game.  This article included baseball, but it was about so much more.  Barry used elements of narrative and the rhetorical device of short sentences in order to achieve his purpose of showing how baseball can help someone dealing with something much greater than a sport. 

This entire article is basically a narrative, since Barry is recounting his experience with Bill.  He characterizes Bill in such a way that the audience begins to somewhat understand this man.  He inserts text messages that Bill has sent him in the past:

May 4: “Doc says I have ALS.”

May 20: “Great joy! The Skanks have lost 8 of 11 & the Sox are pitching well.”

June 2: “I despise A-Fraud. The ultimate jerk.”

June 18: “I despise the Yankees, the most hated team in pro sports.”

June 28: “Just got a leg brace on Thursday @ Mass General. It helps stabilize my walking.”

July 27: “Just took the Detroit series!”

Sept. 8: “I can go with you to a night game...Just scheduled an appointment at Johns Hopkins...”

By including these different texts, the audience can begin to understand Bill’s priorities and the thought process that he makes.  This makes helps Barry’s purpose by allowing the audience to get a deeper understanding of his subject.

Barry also uses short sentences for dramatic effect.  After spending much of the first half of the article talking about Bill’s history and ALS, he brings us back into the present by talking about the baseball game they are attending.  As a transition, he simple uses, “Baseball” (Barry 2).  In a paragraph unto itself, this simple word changes the entire tone and completion of the text.  It helps Barry achieve his purpose by relating baseball and ALS in a way that fits his needs.

TOW #6 - Lugano

Rich, pure, smooth, famous Swiss chocolate.  From Tobler to Lindt to a small brand called Teuscher, Switzerland has always been known for their chocolate expertise.  In the advertisement above, E. Marinella, one of the most coveted necktie brands in the world, takes advantage of this general knowledge.  E. Marinella is an Italian brand, so the logical question to ask would be, “why is this brand referencing Switzerland?”  Well, the connection becomes clear once the audience realizes what Lugano means.  Lugano is a city in Switzerland that lies within the Ticino region, an Italian-speaking territory.  Now, the connection between the Italian brand and Swiss chocolate makes sense.  This advertisement is a very simple one, relying on color contrast, symbolism, and a very specific audience to convey its message.  This advertisement uses color contrast in order to immediately catch the eye of potential any potential customers.  The bright white background contrasted with the dark tones of the chocolate bar is quite eye-catching.  That, compounded with the simply yet bold lettering above the subject, achieves the first step of the advertising process.  Now that the company has caught the attention of the public, the next step is to make a meaningful sales pitch.  E. Marinella makes this effectively with the use of the chocolate bar/tie combination.  The end of the tie comes out of the chocolate bar, indicating that the tie itself is made of pure chocolate.  The sentence at the bottom of the poster adds to this effect.  It reads, “Since 1914, the taste of elegance.”  Since nearly everybody loves a rich, high-quality chocolate bar, E. Marinella relates its product to a universally appreciated one in order to establish a connection.  Now when people think of E. Marinella ties, they also think of beautiful, elegant chocolate.  The final aspect of this visual text is the very specific target audience.  E. Marinella is a luxury brand: they are expensive, lavish, and have brand name value.  Because of this, the company is trying to target the very upper class who can afford to buy the neckties.  This upper class is the same market that expensive chocolatiers appeal to.  Since there is a shared market, E. Marinella taps in to this similarity and in essence uses all of the chocolatiers advertisements the came before them.  In effect, E. Marinella accesses and entire catalog of past advertisements in their single poster ad.  This renders the visual text a very effective one.

Tow #5 - Chat: How Much Damage Has The Email Scandal Done To Hillary Clinton

This week, I read “Chat: How Much Damage Has The Email Scandal Done To Hillary Clinton?” which is a text found of the website www.fivethirtyeight.com.  This is somewhat of a unique text because it is not an article or an essay in the traditional sense.  It is what the name implies, a chat.  Four FiveThirtyEight staff members (Micah Cohen, politics editor; Nate Silver, editor in chief; Harry Enten, senior political writer; and Farai Chideya, senior writer) engage in a back and forth dialogue with the ebb and flow of a normal, real life conversation.  FiveThirtyEight is a very reputable source that deals with statistical analysis of politics, sports, and nearly every facet of modern life.  This chat was based on the question “How much damage has the email scandal done to Hillary Clinton?”  In the dialogue, the writers conversed about the different ways in which this scandal has affected Clinton and could potentially affect Clinton.  The general consensus was that it is very difficult to predict how Clinton would have done without this scandal.  However, the media is playing this scandal up to be a huge deal and, in actually, it is probably not as important as the media make it out to be.  With that said, if the scandal intensifies with more allegations, or another scandal involving Clinton breaks, then the results could be devastating for Clinton.  At this point in time, it is impossible to predict with any certainty whether another scandal will come to light.  If the member had to bet, they would agree that this scandal has not hurt Clinton as much as is perceived, but they could not find a definitive answer for just how much damage the scandal has done.

            Since this text was a chat (I am not sure whether this was a live, in person chat or a chat over the internet), the rhetorical devices used by the authors are much different than the devices generally used in essays or articles.  There was a back and forth to this conversation, which added a fresh, interesting dynamic to a normal essay.  Writers had the opportunity to rebut against other writers and speak directly to disagreements.  Throughout this chat, logos was appealed to often and effectively, not surprising since this is a statistical analysis website.  Polling numbers, favorability numbers, and other impressive statistics were utilized in order to argue points.  In one message, Harry Enten writes, “Let’s just look at the fact that Gallup has her net favorable at +53 among Democrats. That’s better than it was eight years ago in Gallup polling (+50). We obviously don’t know how it would look without the email scandal. But in terms of primary voters’ perceptions of her, she’s doing just as well. Which shouldn’t be surprising given that she is pretty much universally known” (Enten 2).  Simply saying that Clinton’s favorable rating is higher than it was eight years ago without any specific data to back it up means absolutely nothing in this world of advanced statistics.  Enten can only be taken seriously if he backs his theory with fact, and he does so effectively.  Another device that was used was the use of counter argument.  Farai Chideya uses this device in an attempt to change the perspective of the reader.  She writes, “Devil’s advocate: Couldn’t you say the sound bite is “Hillary Rodham Clinton kept classified information improperly.” Well, that’s not sexy either but … it’s an argument” (Chideya 4).  This comes right after Nate Silver wrote that this scandal cannot be reduced into a one sentence soundbite that appeals to the general public.  Chideya may not necessarily believe in what she wrote, but she recognizes that there is value to the opposite side of the story.  This is what made this chat so engaging to read.  The writers all attempted to broaden the horizon and perspective of the reader by noting interesting connections and ideas that would not have fit into a normal essay.  This style of text was much deeper than a normal essay because it allowed for the flexibility of authors to go off on tangents without any repercussions.  Because of that, I believe the authors were successful in exploring how the scandal affected Clinton.

TOW #4 - Deep (first half)

I have just completed reading half of Deep: Freediving, renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor.  If I had to describe this book in one word, I would say it is phenomenal.  Everything about this book, from the writing style to the content to the anecdotes to the pictures (I’ll get into later) is so amazing.  This book is about the sport of freediving.  James Nestor is a reporter who was supposed to cover the freediving world championships in 2011.  He then got hooked on the idea of freediving and decided to pursue this sport.  However, he soon found out that he hated competitive freediving.  It is too egotistical, he says, and eliminated any love for the ocean, which is how freediving started.  Nestor was much more interested in the idea of freediving as a meditative activity, and the great research about marine life that can come as a result of freediving.  He writes:

After the horrors of Nitsch’s dive in Santorini, David King’s near drowning, and Michael Risian almost getting lost at sea, I swore off watching any more competitive freediving.  Sure, the human body could dive deeper than scientists thought possible, but it also had limits.  We all saw those limits.  And I had gotten tired of seeing the bloody and blue faces of those who went beyond them.

     In freediving, the ego is a deadly goad.  It’s also something of a blinder.  Most of the competitive divers I met seemed to have little interest in exploring the deep ocean that they had painstakingly trained their bodies to enter.  They dived with their eyes closed; nitrogen narcosis struck them dumb; they forgot where they were and why they were there.  The deepest divers lolled themselves into a catatonic state that removed any sense of actually being in the water.  The aim: Hitting a number on a rope.  Beating your opponent.  Winning a medal.  Bragging rights.

     Yes, they were swimming where no human had before.  But this struck me as maddening, like an explorer arriving in previously undiscovered wilderness and focusing only on his GPS coordinates (Nestor 88).

The writing style of Nestor is very engaging, in my opinion.  He uses somewhat casual language, and does not let the jargon of the freediving world confuse the reader.  At the same time, he does not dumb down all of the information so that it no longer has scientific value.  Nestor uses narrative a lot in this book.  He uses anecdotes about his experiences with the freediving community to convey his point.  His anecdotes are interesting and very fun to read, in part because of his great use of metaphorical language.  His simile in the final paragraph of the passage above was brilliant.  It truly demonstrated the idea that Nestor wanted to convey in a clear manner.  It relates his struggle with freediving to something much less alien that all readers will be able to comprehend.

            Another aspect of this book that I love is the pictures.  No, this is not a picture book, but rather a book with pictures.  In around the middle of the book, there is a series of 12 pictures that encapsulates the ideas of the book.  I think this is an extremely important aspect of the book because it gives an image to the stories that Nestor tells.  Most of what Nestor talks about is foreign to readers, so these pictures make the concepts much more down to earth and believable.  This appeals to both the ethos because it proves existence of some creatures and logos because it provides concrete, legitimate pictures of the ideas Nestor explores.

            I’m only half way in to the book, but I surely recommend it to any reader.

TOW #3 - Protector Pope

This is a political cartoon, drawn by Steve Sack, which was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.  Steve Sack is a liberal leaning political cartoonist who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2013 for his cartoons.  This cartoon depicts the Pope sheltering a family labeled immigrants from the storm around them.  This is a reference to the Pope’s policy and thoughts on immigration.  He is one of the most liberal Popes, if not the most, of all time, and his views on immigration reflect this.  The Pope is much more sympathetic to immigrants than many previous Popes and members of the Catholic Church.  His lenient views on immigration policy have been well documented and occasionally disputed by many, often times republicans.  The context of this cartoon is essential in order to understand it.  The Pope just gave a speech to a joint meeting of Congress and mentioned immigration.  He said, “We must not be taken aback by their numbers, but rather view them as persons, seeing their faces and listening to their stories, trying to respond as best we can to their situation, to respond in a way which is always humane, just and fraternal. We need to avoid a common temptation nowadays: to discard whatever proves troublesome.”  This makes the idea behind the cartoon justified and relevant.  Since, Sack is a liberal leaning cartoonist, it can be assumed that the he agrees with the Pope’s stance on immigration.  This is made ever clearer by the rhetorical strategy of juxtaposition between the bright whiteness of the Pope and the dark, black color of the storm surrounding him.  Sack purposefully uses the two opposite colors in order to show the contrast between the Pope’s views and the views of the Catholic Church more generally.  He makes the Pope’s aesthetic white, since white is generally considered a symbol of goodness and hope.  White is also historically symbolic of Heaven, which makes sense since the Pope is the leader of the Catholic Church.  Because of his use of contrasting colors, I believe Sack achieves his purpose.  Not only does Sack shed light on the policies of the Pope, but he also makes the argument that the Pope is correct in his views and his call for immigration leniency is right.