A tragic mistake, not a crime

I think this is the saddest thing I have read since we first started this whole blogging thing. It's sad because, while it describes a single instance of a horrible tragedy, it also mentions that it happens under similar circumstances 15-30 times each year. The tragedy, in this case, is when a parent accidentally kills their own child by leaving them in the car on a hot day. I understand how people would feel angry at the parents the first time they hear it, but when you think about it, this makes no sense. The author began the article with a quick story. She went to work, under a lot of stress, and a little blip in her memory caused her to forget to drop her 2-year-old daughter off at day care. When she arrived at work, her daughter woke up and reminded her to take her to day care. If someone heard this story, the could hardly call the mother a monster. Even with very important things, everyone has a little memory slip-up occasionally. And if it happens to result in a terrible tragedy, the mother is no more terrible of a person than the one whose child woke up and stopped her. However, this article was specifically about the legal results of such a crime. Throughout the article, I was thinking that the only real reason to punish someone for a crime is to stop them from committing it again and set an example for future offenders. Obviously, neither of these things are valid in this case. Nobody chooses to avoid killing their child because they are afraid of legal consequences, and if there is anyone who we can guarantee will not do this in the future, it is the parents who have already done it once. At the end of the article, the author basically repeated exactly what I was thinking, but added in the possible motive of punishment. However, I think the guilt of killing your own child is more than enough punishment than anyone should have to go through. Honestly, I can hardly believe this is a moral debate. Calling these parents murderers and locking them could not possibly accomplish anything. The mother in the story, who killed her 2-year-old son, is a successful veterinarian who runs her own hospital. Taking her off the streets would harm society, not help it. I totally agree with this article, and it a very strong appeal to pathos and logos. I can't imagine how anybody could read this article without feeling angry at what happens to these families, and guilty for any judgement they have made of parents who have made this terrible mistake.

Saddled with college debt

This article was a depressingly realistic view on paying for college. I wonder how much of this is still true today, but I think it would be naive to hope that things have changed. The author of this article was misled in her childhood when her parents told her that she could go to any college and be anything she wanted, because she would receive loans and financial aid. This really hit home for me, because I don't hear this stuff just from my parents, but from colleges themselves as well. Every college I have been to has told me that they do not see your financial situation until after you are accepted, and then you are guaranteed 100% of your needs covered. Whether this meant loans or grants (and most of the money was always supposed to be grants), it sounded like a nice deal. Plus, I always thought you could work through college if necessary. Basically, I was pretty convinced that even though it might be difficult, it was possible for just about anybody to afford college if they could get in.
Unfortunately, this article makes me question how true that is. The girl who wrote it claims to have gotten straight As and taken AP classes in high school. She wanted to go to a college in New England, and she took out loans and received, in addition to working up to four jobs in the same month throughout college. Yet when she graduated, she had over $100,000 in debt. That's an incredibly staggering number, since I believe that would be at least half the cost of college for most schools. Now she has to do 10 years of service to work of her debt. Maybe that's better than going to jail or whatever, but what is the point of college if you have to work for ten years before you're just out of debt? College is supposed to set you up for a career, and the whole idea of going to a better college, at least for many people, is to get a better education and ultimately make more money. Obviously, this girl now regrets not sticking to a much lower ranked college in her own state. Her better education certainly isn't getting her anywhere.
Most of this is a sad personal story, but at the end the author reveals why this piece is so timely. She is in favor of the Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012, and her purpose is to use her story to convince voters to agree. My guess is that people who read this article will be convinced. She appeals heavily to ethos, logos, and pathos in this article. It is fairly safe to assume, I think, that there are thousands of similar cases out there. People who see this article will no longer be able to say that it is easy to pay for college without getting into debt, and once they lose that argument, it is much harder to fight against the bill.

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A Chicken Without Guilt

Occasionally, I like to read news articles that actually have some positive news, and this one seemed pretty great. Basically, it's about new advancements in "fake" meat that will hopefully replace real meat in the future. Now, the whole idea of eating "fake" meat kind of freaks me out, but when people say "fake" I automatically think of over-processed and very unhealthy foods. The article, however, assures me that this meat is healthier than real meat. If that's true, then I share all of the author's hopes that artificial, plant-based meats will replace real meat or at least significantly reduce the amount of real meat consumed.
I've always been disgusted by the way that animals are treated by major meat industries. I think most people have, at some point in their lives, seen some of those horrible videos or read the terrifying stories about it. However, the idea of being a vegetarian never really appealed to me, since I don't think the number of vegetarians will ever be enough to cause a change in the way animals are treated. I was more willing to go for the meat raised by companies who treated their animals well, but the higher cost of such products made it seem unlikely that they would ever gain enough popularity. However, this solution seems perfect. Nobody has to sacrifice anything- the meat, supposedly, will cost less, taste the same, and be healthier for you. If this is all true, then I really hope that restaurants and other companies start using these fake meats instead of real meat. It will solve a problem that has always bothered me, but I never saw a real solution to. And for those animal-rights vegetarians out there- perhaps you would help your cause more if you ate fake meat and spread the word to your acquaintances. 
The article was full of pathos and logos. Even ethos was included, since the author mentioned that she "does this for a living." Mostly, her arguments were very convincing (although I found it a little funny when she said "I don’t believe chickens have souls..."). She used statistics to show that meat consumption is very high, animals are treated poorly, and current protests are having little effect. She frequently reminded readers that was no downside whatsoever, and no argument against eating the new, fake meat. And, of course, she appealed to everyone's humanity when she described the suffering of animals in factories. Overall, I thought it was a great article, and I sincerely hope that it works out as easily and well as she suggests.


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The small, sexist joke that became a big deal

This article told me how horrible it was that this label appeared on a pair of pants:

Interestingly enough, half the article was dedicated to the fact that many people will say this isn't a big deal, and the author of the article is a humorless feminist. And that is exactly what I was thinking when I read this article. She certainly addressed the issue- many people shrug off slightly feminist jokes and say that they aren't anything to throw a fit (or write an entire article) about. However, the fact that she nailed the nature of the issue on the head does not mean that she was persuasive, because she didn't change my mind at all, even though I fit exactly into the category of people she seemed to be pleading with. A man wearing these pants does not mean he's sexist. A company selling these pants does not necessarily believe that all men have women who ought to do their laundry. What I'm saying, I guess, is that a sexist joke doesn't matter as long as isn't meant in earnest. If a company was putting out flyers encouraging men to avoid all housework and dump it on their automatically inferior lives, then maybe I'd be worried. Not about the propaganda necessarily, but about the fact that many people still think that way. Sure, I think it's horrible that in some countries women are treated as possessions, but I don't care if an average company makes a joke on pants that will probably go to average American men who have average opinions. No one is going to look at these pants and say, "Wow! To think I've been doing all these chores myself. I should of realized that my wife's responsibility is to serve me and do housework all day." People's opinions won't change. At most, they'll laugh and go back to their normal lives. Maybe some men will agree with the label, but they were probably sexist idiots in the first place. Towards the end of the article, the author explains why something like this is a big deal, saying "But if you want to know why it matters, look no further than the comments to Barnett’s own story (or, I’ll wager, in about 10 minutes, on this one). The crass “Oh, shut up.” The blowjob jokes. The surprise that the writer is neither an “idiotic teenaged girl” nor “horse-faced schoolmarm.” The exasperated “For God’s sake, grow up” and “Calm down, dear.” And the accusations, again and again, of that notoriously humorless feminism." So, interestingly enough, I seem to have just proved that this situation is a big deal by doing exactly what she said people would do. Although I don't see how such comments transform something into a big deal. The author used pathos, basically giving an angry rant about sexist jerks who would make horrible, disgusting jokes such as this one. She tried to use logos, but I honestly didn't think her logic made much sense. 

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Rush Limbaugh the uniter

So looking through the opinion articles, it was one of those times where the same story kept popping up, so I figured I ought to write something about it. In this case, I saw many articles discussing comments that Rush Limbaugh made about a Georgetown law student named Sandra Fluke. I think the whole situation is a little funny, assuming that Fluke's feelings haven't been hurt, which I don't believe they have. Limbaugh thought that the new contraceptive law was equivalent to paying women to have sex, making any woman who supports the law a prostitute and a slut. Now, it seems a little out of touch with reality to act as though a women who wants contraception in college is some sort of exception. Limbaugh even said, "So, Miss Fluke, and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal. If we are going to pay for your contraceptives . . . we want something for it. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.” That seems like an incredibly stupid thing to say if you're trying to make some sort of moral argument. I seriously wonder whether he was trying to be funny or trying to make an actual point. Because if he is seriously against this law, then he is incredibly stupid, since this just makes his argument look absolutely ridiculous. I would like to know how many supporters this guy has, because I can't possibly conceive of any modern day humans being that crazy.
I liked the way that the author approached the topic. She called the article "Rush Limbaugh the uniter" and introduced it by saying that he managed to unite opposing sides by saying things vulgar enough to embarrass everyone, including his fellow conservatives. She used a lot of logos, describing all the reasons why Limbaugh is an idiot who made his own position look bad in a number of ways. She relied on pathos by including quotes that would certainly make feminists very angry. She also included humor- "It is entirely possible that Limbaugh himself never needed contraception in college, but virtue in the absence of opportunity is hardly a moral triumph." Overall, the article was funny and I think the author did a very good job in writing it.


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Phobias: Things to Fear and Loathe

This article caught my attention because it seemed to be about weird phobias, which are generally interesting to read about. A few things in the article were interesting. There were people who were afraid of mascots, stuffed animals, honey-comb shaped objects, etc., and the author herself was afraid of objects arranged in clusters. Unfortunately, though, I found the article quite boring. I thought the author would use more humor, but instead she relied almost entirely on logos. She described different psychological ideas behind phobias. She also used some ethos in describing her particular phobias. In the end, I was not very interested or entertained.
She hardly had an argument. Perhaps she was arguing against people who do not take the phobias of others seriously, but that was only briefly mentioned. She did not seem to take sides one way or another on the different theories she described. She did suggest, at one point, that we should face our fears and get over them, so maybe that was her argument. My point, I guess, is that this hardly seemed to be an opinion piece, which makes it very difficult for me to assess her rhetorical strategies, since she didn't have a purpose to achieve.

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Regulating Our Sugar Habit

I think this article was written by a crazy man. Let me sum it for you. There isn't enough government regulation in our daily lives, so the government should start controlling how much sugar we eat. Soda should be illegal for anyone under seventeen. Sugar is hurting us, blah blah blah, public health crisis, etc. I was absolutely shocked.
Rhetorically, this guy doesn't make much sense to me. He starts off describing why everyone hates Rhonda Storms, an activist who has been fighting to limit the consumption of unhealthy foods. What possible reason would he have by describing why she is so hated? I sure don't know. There is a little bit of rational reasoning when he talks about food stamps; if people are wasting their food stamps on candy, they aren't starving, and that government money would be better spent helping people who need it rather than hurting those who don't. The rest is nonsense, and this guy isn't hitting the question where it would be controversial. We all know that sugar is bad for us. We all know that we would have longer, healthier lives if we ate better foods. We aren't eating junk because we're uneducated, we're eating it because we don't care enough about our health to eat any better than we do. And that's none of the government's business, thank you very much. This guy didn't mention the moral implications of regulating our everyday lives like this. He only talked about health, which isn't really the issue here. Overall, I can't imagine why anyone would be persuaded by this article. There was some logic in the food stamp part, but that argument would have been more effective if the author hadn't filled the article with craziness and cited politicians whom everyone hates.

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