Did You Really Think You Are Safe?

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Casino...Buy Them Today (Cigarettes Commercial)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIYevXIEcdg&feature=youtu.be

A Haitian Boy’s Needless Death From Diabetes

       Jean Paul was 12 when he died unnecessarily. Even though he was a diabetic, he might well have lived if not for a tragically simple problem, common in rural Haiti: the glucose test strips available did not match the only glucometer available in the undeveloped district hospital.

       Jean Paul could have easily survived if not for the money hungry diabetes testing supply companies. Glucose test strips are a major source of the profit for these companies. Conglomerates like Roche, the leader of the $8 billion a year diabetes testing industry, have made these strips proprietary (each strip fits only into a specific machine). While glucose test strips cost pennies to make, they sell for 50 cents to one dollar per strip, and diabetics use several strips per day. I urge you to help fight for the solution by making more people aware.

     

 It is important because the needs of the many should outweigh the wants of the few. Companies should avoid being greedy and maximizing profits because this is killing many. The solution is simple: Create universal test strips that will work in any available glucometer machine, in the same manner that USB cables can link all brands of computers and devices. Universal test strips would lead to cheaper strips and increased availability. This would ensure that people (like Jean Paul) in rural areas can measure their sugar levels before it is too late. ARTICLE

Legen--wait for it--RHETORIC

       After carefully analyzing an episode of NBC´s How I Met Your Mother, I noticed that there is much more to it than just plain laughter. It is filled with many figures that are mentioned in Heinrichs´ book. It is these play on words and techniques which are the root to the show´s  hilariousness. According to Heinrichs, rhetoric figures of speech help you become more adept at word play, they make you sound clever and can also help persuade. 

       The first figure that I witnessed in the show was a cliché twist. This is when you take your opponents cliché and give the expression a twist by sticking a surprise ending to it. An example of this in the episode is when Marshall is blabbering non-stop about how his and Lilly´s (his wife) dreams were being destroyed (this idea is a cliché). So the women beside him who his annoyed and trying to get some sleep makes the cliché literal and says: "You are destroying a lot of dreams right now". This is a clever way to persuade Marshall to shut up and let her rest.

        Next, Ted Mosby makes a rhetorical fallacy in his attempt to convince Lilly that using driving gloves is important. He claims that "in 99.9% of highway accidents, the driver was not wearing gloves". This logic is just absurd and when Lilly catches onto it she says its stupid. Ted then retorts with a pun in another attempt to persuade "Then why is it called the glove compartment?".

       Once Daphne (the big women trying to sleep beside Marshall) has had enough of Marshall and his excessive talking, she asks the steward to move her to another seat. Unfortunately the flight is fully booked, so she says: "Hell I´ve been going to pilates, I can just hold on to the landing gear like this".."Well I´ve only signed up for pilates, I actually haven´t started going yet".."I haven´t signed up". This technique is called to edit yourself aloud, it consists of interrupting yourself to correct yourself. According to Heinrichs this makes your audience believe you have a passion for fairness and accuracy. These are just a few examples of rhetorical figures used in the show. 

Lionel "Good Boy" Messi

       There is no doubt that Lionel Messi is one of the greatest players of our time, but the real question is: Does he deserve all four Ballon d'Or? The answer is NO. Last year, Messi won the 2012 prize for his outstanding performance, yet his team did not win the league. It was Ronaldo who led Real Madrid to victory in "La Liga" during the 2011-2012 season. Messi did not even lead Barcelona to Champions league glory, Chelsea beat them in the final that year. Some fans argue that he deserved the award because he broke the goalscoring league record. However, when Cristiano Ronaldo broke that same record one year before, Messi had also been awarded the Ballon d'Or. So why is Messi worshipped so much? The answer lies in his decorum


       Everybody loves him and thinks of him as the poor guy who grew up with growth hormone deficiency. They think of kid who was given a once in a lifetime opportunity and signed his first contract on a napkin. The general audience feels empathy for him and his initial struggles in life. Messi is also, in the eyes of many (not me), a very humble player who cares for others.

There was a recent outrage in which even Sepp Blatter, the president of FIFA, favored Messi over Ronaldo. During an interview he was asked by a student to choose between Messi or Ronaldo, his response was actually quite expected. He said: "They are both exceptional players but they are totally different...Lionel Messi is a good boy who every mother and father would like to have at home." Here we begin to see why most people tend to prefer Messi. But wait, there is more. "he's a kind man, he's really good, he's a good boy. And that's what makes him so popular and naturally he will always get a lot of votes because he is this nice man"

AHA! This is the reason for his four Ballon d'Or. Messi has been crowned the best player beacuse of his popularity and because the media has began to overlook his flaws rather than putting his performance under a microscope. This just goes to prove the power of decorum and how it can persuade people.

Manipulation at its Best

       As I read Thank You For Arguing by Jay Heinrichs, I laughed at the memories of the many lies I have told. This is the first textbook which I do not dread reading thanks to its unique style and content. Because each of his argumentation points is so interesting and perfectly applicable to my life, it is hard to put the book down. The authors examples make me smirk at the slyness of the successful attempts of manipulation.

       I have gotten so into this book that I even used one of the tactics this week. My mom asked at what time I wanted to get picked up on Saturday night,  and I said 2:30 a.m (even though I wanted 1:30). After debating for a while we then agreed to 1:30, we were both happy, my mom because she thought she had won the argument, and me because I got what I desired.

       Argumentation plays an incredible role in our lives, it surrounds us, toys with our emotions, changes our attitude, and persuades us. It can be used to manipulate others to achieve your goals. If my parents knew that I was reading this book, they would not be very happy, because from now on I will be having things my way. 

Life Skills Video

life skills video

Junky

       Junky is the story of William S. Burroughs´s struggle with drug dependency. It all began in his "dirty apartment that opened onto a companionway and never got any sunlight. The wallpaper was flaking off because the radiator leaked steam when there was any steam to leak. I had the windows sealed shut against the cold with a caulking of newspapers. This place was full of roaches and occasionally I killed a bedbug" (pg. 1). Just by the description oh his fifteen dollar per week apartment, we can infer that he does not lead a good life. We can already deduct that he is probably a drug addict, however to my surprise, he was not.

       Norton, a thief and friend, arrived at his apartment with a stolen Tommy gun and some morphine. He wanted William to "get rid of it" (pg. 2) so he could earn some money. So Bill went to another thief and friend of his (Jack) who planned "set-ups that would make a stickup sound easy and sure of success" (pg. 3). From their, they go meet Roy and Herman to sell the morphine syrettes.  Jack knew that these two men were not good company and such a bad influence that he said: "You are going to want to forget this address" (pg. 3). However, William did not listen.

       We can see that Bill is surrounded by people who are always up to trouble. Due to this foreshadowing it is obvious that sooner or later he will be stuck in an unfavorable situation. A few nights after meeting Roy and Herman he made the huge mistake of shooting "junk" for the first time. His experience went as follows: "Morphine hits the backs of the legs first, then the back of the neck, a spreading wave of relaxation slackening the muscles away from the bones so that you seem to float without outlines, like lying in warm salt water. As this relaxing wave spread through my tissues, I experienced a strong feeling of fear "(pg. 6).

       Soon enough, Bill began to sell more and more. He even kept a few boxes with syrettes for himself instead of selling them. After using those up, he bought back what he had sold to Roy for almost twice the price (for personal usage). William is staring to become an addict and we see the habit growing. He and Herman begin to sell large amount of weed but stop after some complications.

      It got to a point where Will was "using stuff everyday, or often several times a day" (pg.18). By now we are certain that he had become an addict. He began going to doctors feigning diseases and asking for morphine prescriptions, those who wrote them were called "croakers". Each time it became harder to find these willing croakers because the police kept investigating them. Now that the police is involved we can deduce that things will get nasty.

Vocabulary:

1) affable - (adj.) friendly and easy to talk to

2) sullen - (adj.) used to describe an angry or unhappy person who does not want to talk, smile, etc.

3) caulking - (noun) a waterproof filler and sealant that is used in building and repair to make
watertight



4) garish - (adj.) Obtrusively bright and showy; lurid, colorful

Ignorance Is Bliss (Douglass Ch. 7 & 8)

       The lack of knowledge to a situation is bliss. Once the whole truth is revealed one realizes they were much happier being clueless. In my previous blog post I had mentioned how Education is the key to success. However, now we learn how Douglass is beginning to regret having knowledge, and at moments would rather be just as ignorant as the rest of the slaves. This idea of "the less you know the better" has a lot of truth to it, even in our lives.

       The documents he read (especially The Columbian Orator) enabled him to challenge the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery, but "while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful that the one of which I was relieved. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers." (pg. 51)

        We start to see how this is the spark of Douglass´s rebellion, he begins to truly notice how dreadful his life is. "I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my retched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out" (pg. 51). Frederick´s knowledge gives him sadness without cure to a better life. We can understand why he "envied his fellow slaves for their stupidity"; although they also live in horrid conditions, they have accepted it as their life. They don´t know any better, they have no idea why they are slaves, if slavery is wrong, or if there is any slight hope of freedom. Instead, Douglass knew it all, which turned out to be a huge burden for him.

       This saying "ignorance is bliss" can also be applied to us. When we were small children, we used to be so much happier. We watched cartoons on T.V all day and our biggest concern was that Tom might catch Jerry. However, whenever we turn on the T.V now, all we see is how many innocent kids died in the middle east and so many more tragic event. As we grow older we notice how messed up the world is and how there isn´t much we can do to change it.

       Douglass suffered a lot from this and decided it could not continue for ever. This is was the "danger" of learning according to Mr. Hugh. It is why "education and slavery were incompatible with each other" (pg.49). Now that he had knowledge, he found his condition to be unbearable. After the death of many of his slaveowners and being moved around as "property", Frederick is determined to eventually escape.

Roller-coaster of Emotions (Douglass Ch. 5 & 6)

       While reading these chapters one is served with a platter of different emotions, but most of all hope for change. There are a myriad of feelings we get from Frederick´s different situations. At first I was shocked and disgusted by the living conditions at Colonel Lloyd´s plantation. Although Douglass had his good share of leisure time he, "suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked--no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a coarse tow linen shirt, reaching only to my knees. I had no bed" ( pg. 39). This made me place myself in his shoes, we give ourselves so many luxuries and often do not appreciate the basic needs that we have while many do not. Another disheartening moment is when we find out that they are fed "like so many pigs"where they must fight for the mush and only few are left satisfied.

       Next I felt joy at the news of his departure from the Colonel Lloyd´s. It could not possibly get worse than the plantation. Because of the conditions he lived in, Douglass makes it seem as if Baltimore was heaven. "The thought of owning a pair of trousers was great indeed!" (pg. 40). Then again, this made me wonder, how can someone be so happy about such simple things? It only shows how those who don´t have appreciate the most, this evidence of the saying "hunger is the best seasoning". 

       "And here I saw what I had never seen before; it was a white face beaming with the most kindly emotions; it was the face of my new mistress, Sophia Auld. I wish I could describe the rapture that flashed through my soul as I beheld it. It was a new and strange sight to me, brightening up my pathway with the light of happiness." I was so eager and excited for this stage of his life, things finally start to go well for Douglass in Baltimore. I also look up to his religious views, he is so glad and thankful to God for giving him this opportunity, but we do not see him whining and blaming God for making him a slave. :;

       I felt so much hope when I realized Douglass actually had a chance. After Mrs. Auld´s attempt to teach Frederick, it is accidentally revealed by Mr. Auld that education is the Key to freedom. "If you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave" (pg. 45). This brought a smirk to my face just as much as it did to Douglass. He now knew the secret and was determined to learn.

       At the end of the chapter, I was brought back to sad reality. The sickening treatment of oppressive slave-owners was everywhere, not only in plantations.  Douglass tells us about Henrietta and Mary. " The head, neck, and shoulders of Mary were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and found it nearly covered with festering sores, caused by the lash of her cruel mistress" (pg. 47). This made me so angry that I could feel them lashing at my chest. How could anybody be so inhumane?

VOCABULARY:

1) ell: A former measure of length (equivalent to six hand breadths) used mainly for textiles, locally variable but typically about 45 inches.

2) mange: A skin disease of mammals caused by parasitic mites that causes severe itching, hair loss, and the formation of scabs and lesions.

3) galling: Annoying; humiliating; vexing