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.

Tow #2 - To Infinity and Beyond

            This week I read “To Infinity and Beyond!” by Christen Press.  Christen Press is a star soccer player for the Chicago Red Stars and the US Women’s national team- not your typical author.  For what credibility she lacks from a professional stand point, she more than makes up for in life experience.  She has overcome many obstacles in order to be where she is today; she had to play soccer in Sweden for a few years, learn a new language and culture, because the US women’s soccer league folded.  Her path to greatness, her journey, is reflected in her writing.  This specific article was found on her blog (footballschristenpress.blogspot.com) and is about the idea of being elite.  I read this article a few months ago and it has stayed with me since then.  I reread the essay, and I remember why it is so powerful: the rhetoric used by Press.  Press writes a compelling essay about how she attempts to pursue greatness.  She uses many rhetorical devices to argue her essay.  Press writes:

“I have a weakness. I never feel like I’m good enough. 

I’ve set tangible goals throughout my career. And I have attained a lot of them. Still, I’m sure that achieving will never satisfy my hunger to achieve. 
Last month, Clint Bruce -- former NFL quarterback and Navy Seal Commander -- spoke to the USWNT about what he calls “pursuing elite.” Among the tokens of wisdom and experience he offered, one thing really hit home for me. “Elite is this land that is fit only for the restless,” he told us.

While I don’t know if I exist in the land of the elite, I’m definitely on the battlefield with restlessness. My restlessness leaves my mind racing as I try to wind down at the end of mandatory recovery day. It keeps me tossing after poor performances. And if I played well, well…playing well makes me itch to play better; there is always room for improvement. This process can be exhausting.

I have a strength. I never feel like I’m good enough.”

She uses similar sentences structure at the beginning and end of this passage.  This use of parallelism is incredibly impactful on the reader.  The reader has one impression early before reading the middle two paragraphs and a completely different impression afterwards.  She juxtaposes the two different aspects of never feeling as though she is good enough and provides the pros and cons to each.  This comparison is powerful because it in some ways inspires the reader; Press takes the reader on an emotional roller coaster, starting with a weakness and ending with a strength.  This organization causes the entire paragraph to end on a high note and become inspirational.  If Press had talked about the strength before the weakness, the reader would have been left with a sour taste in his or her mouth and not the inspiration that was intended.  Press appeals to pathos of the reader with inspirational paragraphs like these.  Because of the emotional connection she establishes with her audience, I believe Press is successful in her writing.

TOW #1 - A Blurry Line Between Bar and Restaurant

For this first TOW, I decided I wanted to read something the truly interests me.  For me, the two most interesting things in life are sports and food.  So I began the hunt to find a great article about either sports or food.  I ended up deciding on an article called A Blurry Line Between Bar and Restaurant by Pete Wells, which was written for the New York Times.  Wells has been the restaurant critic for the New York Times since 2011, and has received five James Beard Foundation Journalism Awards for his work.  This article was about the recent trend in the food industry of bars serving high quality restaurant food yet retaining the bar atmosphere.  Wells wrote this piece as part informative reporting and part argument.  His first and foremost goal was to inform the general public (specifically those in middle to high income households who can afford going out to eat on a regular basis) about this interesting trend.  He also argues for the validity of this bar-restaurant hybrid.  Wells believes that this new trend combines the great food of a restaurant with the great atmosphere of a bar.  He plugs for this type of bar, mentioning many specific bars and describing their food in great detail.  This detailed description is one of the many rhetoric devices that Wells uses.  For instance, he writes, “There may be tiny, tender and nearly gamy chops; or pork loin wrapped in a purplish and very flavorful pancetta made on site; or an odd-looking but tender cut of dry-aged steak.  A cook tosses the meat on a plancha as the air fills with the aroma of sizzling fat” (Wells 2).  This description helps his purpose because he makes this bar food sound so utterly delectable that the reader finds him/herself dying to attend one of these bars.  After reading this article, I learned much about these kinds of bars, and also wanted to try one.  Wells rhetoric and success in describing the bar food allowed his article to accomplish the purpose he desired.

IRB Intro Post #1

For my first IRB, I plan on reading Deep: Freediving, Renegade Science, and What the Ocean Tells Us about Ourselves by James Nestor.  This book is about one reporter's exploration of freediving- both the physical aspects of the sport, and the mental and physcological conclusions he can draw from his experiences.  I heard an interview with the author a while ago about this book, and I had been hoping to actually read the book for some time now.  I read a New York Times book review of it and the review was glowing.  I am fairly confident I will enjoy this book because I love learning about crazy sports like freediving, and the author seems like a person I can certainly relate to.