TOW #9 One Conspiracy That Could Be True by Thom Patterson

            On November 22, 1963 the States of America was rocked with the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. The events of the shooting that took place by that grassy knoll have never been clear to the American public and has led way to many conspiracy theories ranging from realistic to all out crazy. Thom

Patterson from CNN wrote the article One Conspiracy Theory That Could Be True to review several conspiracy theories that have turned up over time with opinions from Dave Perry; 70-year-old retired man who has dedicated a large portion of his life to looking into the events surrounding the assassination. The purpose of the article is to revisit and debunk some of the most popular conspiracy theories while speculating that the CIA conspiracy theory may hold ground. Patterson wrote this article to appeal to the people who have an interest in the assassination, but have no firm belief in any theories themselves. The organization that Patterson uses assists in achieving the purpose. It has been nearly fifty years since the assassination, so it has been a while since the story has made headlines so Patterson first writes a brief explanation of what theories have come up since the shooting. Patterson introduces his main source, Dave Perry, who makes the whole article more credible since Patterson himself does not have much of a background in the assassination. The article ends with enumerating top conspiracy theories and having Perry way in on each. The last point being the CIA may have had something to do with the killing, Perry states that during his research he has not found anything to show that this conspiracy is false while supplying evidence that all the others do not have much truth to them, The whole article is easy to follow and for this reason I believe that the purpose was achieved. I fall into the intended audience for this article. I came in with background information, but have not spent much time theorizing what may have happened. After the article I was left with some new information about the assassination, but despite all the realistic points we, as an American public, still have no one answer as to what happened nearly fifty years ago. 

IRB Intro:2

     For my second Independent reading book this year I have chosen to read Tina Fey’s autobiography entitled Bossypants. Tina Fey is extremely successful with her time writing/being a cast member on SNL, and also with her creation with the popular show 30 Rock, which was one of my favorite shows. The previous book I read was a more historical genre of non-fiction so I decided to shift gears and read an autobiography. I have always been a fan of Tina Fey so reading about her life is something I look forward to. 

Post #8 IRB Post 2: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

            I finished the book Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. A main part of the book was attempting to answer Yali’s essential question “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own” (15). After finishing

the book I can definitely say that Diamond answered this question and achieved his purpose of purpose to prove that history is the way it is because of differences of peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences. I think that the intended audience is people who really have a large interest in all forms of history. I learned so many interesting facts about history that I would have probably never learned without this book. While reading, it was clear a highly intelligent individual wrote it because the context demonstrated a deep understanding of many different areas of history. It makes sense that Diamond is currently a professor of geography at the University of California, but has spent his entire life as an author, physiologist and geologist. One of my favorite aspects of this book was Diamond’s use of real life examples to get a better understanding of the points he was making. In one on the most interesting chapters about how livestock was the reason for such an evolution of deadly disease the topic of how microbes evolve to live and propagate. The example of syphilis is used when it was first recorded in Europe in 1495 its victims only lived for a few months and experienced serious symptoms such as flesh falling off the face. By 1546 syphilis evolved into pretty much what it is today, which allows the victims to live longer and thus able to transmit the disease to other people. The use of the real life example makes the topic so much easier to understand. I believe that Diamond was able to achieve his purpose, because I know that for me I left this book with a whole new understanding as why history turned out the way it did. In terms of racism I now see that the people who believe this just have zero understanding of how the world works.

TOW #7 Volkswagen Commercial

     A number of people, such as myself, look forward to the super bowl not for the football, but for the guaranteed top notch commercials. Featured in the last super bowl was a commercial for a new Volkswagen car, which showed a little boy who was dressed as Darth Vader walking around attempting to use the force. The commercial was made in an effort to appeal the Volkswagen car to young families, and to ultimately make families buy the brand of cars. The commercial used the allusion to the movie franchise Star Wars to appeal to the potential audience. There are not a lot of people who have not seen any Star Wars films, and do not have an emotional connection to the franchise. When the commercial showed the little boy in a Darth Vader costume the emotions that the audience members get from seeing the movies gets translated into the Volkswagen brand. Young families were the intended targets to the commercial, because they are in the process of introducing Star Wars to their children, and are also in the process of finding a suitable car for their new lifestyle. Volkswagen is a brand of cars that has been around for a long time. In order for the company to get the particular car in the commercial on the market they had to put it through numerous safety test, which proves that the car is the best choice for young families. I personally believe that the commercial achieved its purpose. I am not the intended audience so I do not want to buy the car for myself, but I can definitely see a young family wanting to look into buying the car after this commercial aired. It caught my attention, and was probably my favorite commercial from the Super Bowl. 

TOW #6 Is True Happiness Possible without Gluten by Jeffrey Steingarten

            Gluten is a large part of the human diet, found in nearly every food all around the world. Around 1% of the populations suffer from celiac disease meaning that they cannot eat gluten for risk of serious illness, or even death. Currently around 30% of the American population avoids eating gluten in their everyday life. Jeffrey Steingarten investigates the reason for avoiding gluten and just what is in gluten in his article Is true happiness possible without gluten?. Steingarten is a food critic for Vogue magazine, and has won countless awards for his monthly articles for the magazine. The article was written for the vogue magazine audience, which is something that I found peculiar. When I think of Vogue I think of people who are incredibly into fashion and the latest trends, and one of the latest trends is to eat a gluten free diet. I found it interesting that Steingarten would write an article that primarily bashes gluten-free diets in a magazine where most of the audience is probably involves in the gluten free diets. The purpose of the article was for Steinberg to give his own opinion on the Gluten free diet culture. Steingarten attempts to achieve his purpose was through the use of a counterargument. He writes about one time when he tried a gluten free treat and admitted it was “all in all scrumptious” but he then proposes that it was most due to the fact that  “the original never contained much flour anyway” this effective counter-argument lets the reader know that some gluten free food are probably tasty, but in most cases it is because it was never a high glutinous food to begin with. I believe that Steingarten kind of missed the mark on his purpose. He failed to acknowledge all of the people who might chose a gluten free lifestyle instead he just groups them all as ‘Food phobic” this is reason enough for me to believe that he failed in really capturing the gluten free lifestyle choice.

link to article:  
http://www.vogue.com/magazine/article/is-true-happiness-possible-without-gluten/#1

TOW #5 Upside Down by Tina Rosenburg

            I had no idea that there were other ways to run a school besides the traditional way of teaching in the classroom and doing work at home. In the article Turning Education Upside Down by Tina Rosenburg I found out about a new way to run a school called a flipped school. In a flipped school environment teachers upload videos of their lessons that students watch at home, and then in class they apply the lessons. The purpose of the article is to educate the audience about beneficial effects flipped schools. Rosenburg is an established author who has written three books, written for several magazines and is a Pulitzer Prize winner for general non-fiction. She also grew up in Lansing, Michigan; which is located near the first ever flipped school, Chiltondale High School. The audience to this particular article is older people who had no prior knowledge to the new flipped school system, but are in some way connected to the education system. To achieve her purpose Rosenburg uses statistical facts to get the further understanding from the reader. In the article Rosenburg writes the statistical finding from Chiltondale “the failure rate in English went from 52 percent to 19 percent; in math, it dropped from 44 percent to 19 percent.” The information that is provided by the statistical information furthers the understanding of the reader, which then assists in showing the beneficial factors of the new way of schooling. I personally believe that Rosenburg only partially achieves her purpose. I did learn about this new form of education that I had no idea even existed, which does support part of her purpose. Rosenburg; however, fails to fully show that the new school system is entirely beneficial. She lacks some essential facts about the school; such as how the students feel about it, ways in which the system does not work and much more information that is needed in order to see that flipped schools are beneficial.      

TOW #4 IRB Post 1 : Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

Jared Diamond

                        One day while living in New Guinea Jared Diamond was asked a question by a man named Yali, native of island, and it was “Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own” (15). Jared Diamond is currently a professor of geography at the University of California, but has spent his entire life as an author, physiologist and geologist. In the book Guns, Germs, and Steel the author makes an attempt to answer Yali’s question. Diamond’s book with the purpose to prove that history is the way it is because of differences of peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences. The audience is people who have an interest in geography, because the book is pretty dense with historical content that is not intended for those who cannot bear to read about history. When proving that differences in history are based off of environmental differences, rather than biological differences Diamond uses the rhetorical device of a counter-argument to further emphasize his point. In the beginning of the book when first introducing the topic of the book Diamond introduces a theory that pretty much supports racism Diamond then counteracts this argument by saying “The objection to such racist explanations is not just that they are loathsome, but also that they are wrong. Sound evidence for the existence of human differences in intelligence that parallel human differences in technology is lacking” (19).  The counter-argument allows the reader to see the other side of what Diamond is trying to prove but then he just shuts down the argument. I have not finished reading the book, but so far I believe that the author is doing a very good job at achieving his purpose. I think that there have been some points in the book so far that have been a little dry, but that may just be because the author is at a far more intellectual level of writing than I am used to. I was already on Diamond’s side before picking up the book, but he has provided me up some really solid arguments that answer Yali’s question.