Analysis of Argument Spring 2012

http://www.mndaily.com/nuevo/nuevo/2012/04/30/potus-without-mostest

This opinion article has some pretty strong claims regarding the youth vote and Obama's reelect campaign. However, I feel that in terms of making an argument, it doesn't do a proper job of really analyzing the Obama administration in terms of what students should be looking for in this next election.

The author makes claims to state that the media has focused too much on what the Romney's have done with their private money, and not enough focus on what the Obama's have been doing with their public money.

Well, for one, Romney and President Obama are not the same, nor can they be judged currently on the same scale. Romney is a former governor and businessman, Obama is the current President, former lawyer and community organizer. To criticize the media for not treating them the same is preposterous, they are not the same.

The author also claims that when Obama garnered 68% of the youth vote in 2008, the youth has high hopes that Obama would help them, and according to the author, he has failed.

However, the author only pointed out controversial policies, such as Obamacare, and not actual student change that the Obama administration has actually achieved. Such as keeping Stafford interest rates at 3.4%, as well as cutting out the middle man in federal financial aid, which allows students more money directly from the government for their education, rather than a large corporate bank taking a share of the profits.

The author also claims that Obama is coming from an "anti-war party that is conjuring up fake wars, such as the war on women." However, he uses nothing to support this claim, and merely states that it's a fake war- but doesn't show how or why that is the truth. Maybe because it isn't actually a fake war, and maybe because the defunding of Planned Parenthood across the nation, most specifically in Texas and Wisconsin, isn't imaginary.

At any rate, the reader should be skeptical when reading this, as it does not delve properly into the achievements and missteps of the Obama administration, and it does nothing to scrutinize the other side. If a reader were to read this without critically thinking about the sources and the bias of the authors, they may be left with a wealth of misinformation.

-Jenna Peneueta-Snyder

This article was written for the Star Tribune, it is a movie review. The article argues that this movie is more than what it seems, and is therefore a good movie to go see. The athuor is trying to persuade the reader that this movie is good, he says "...a film that is exultant summer entertainment. For superhero fans, this is heaven without having to die and go there.' I think that he targeting 'superhero fans' with the sentence, but it is building credibility by saying that they are really really going to love so you will at least love it. The author even writes, "This film is stylish, intelligent and, one hopes, influential on the next generation of superhero movies; it should leave a lasting legacy." He doesn't offer much logos to support these claims, but I think his main argument is go see this film and then you will see the support for my argument. I think he is trying to draw on the pathos of the reader by trying to get them excitied by using words like, 'heaven', 'impeccable design sense', 'spectacular stunt technology'. He is building ethos by mentioning Marvel, and the writer/director Joss Whedon. Overall I think that this argument was effective even though it lacked some things to be a strong argument.
-Alex Mountain

In an article published by the Washington Post recently, author Juan Forero makes a claim that the booming economy and evolving middle class in the notoriously troubled country of Colombia have been radically transforming the way Colombians live and act. He provides several pieces of evidence to assert that Colombia is becoming a wonderful place to live and should be a tourist attraction for others in North America and the world. After the fall of the drug kingpin Pablo Escobar in the early 1990s, there has been much turmoil in the nation, with fears once running rampant that drug lords and militant rebels would take over the country. Many intellectuals and business owners fled the country for better chances at growth in safer countries like Brazil. But the author provides quotes from Finance Minister Juan Carlos Echeverry that depict the transforming country as the "Colombian Miracle," and statements like this are drawing people back into the country to invest in their promising future. Because of the reversal in trends in the past decade, the author argues that the economy will continue to grow in Colombia in the coming years, and this will provide a bright future for the once troubled nation.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/colombian-miracle-takes-off/2012/04/13/gIQAsnEdET_story.html

http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/150147625.html

This article, published in the Star Tribune and written by Brock Vergakis discusses a legal case that just went through a Virginia district court. Police force members were fired for liking the Facebook page of police chief opponent during the election. While the district court ruled that a "Like" is not protected speech, the attorney argues that this is inconsistent with rulings on symbolic, even puerile speech. If any meaning is to be evoked from the speech, it is to be protected.

The logos argument discusses in detail the legal aspects of the case and each attorney's argument. The kairos argument, however, was overlooked, and the situation of the election and what could have prompted these outcomes was highly relevant. There was also a lack of pathos here, as we don't know anything about each individual or their story. It is impossible to decide which of the folks discussed are credible, and which have what previous stances.

It is an interesting article, but for the case they were reporting on, they fell short.

The Los Angeles Coliseum has continuously been losing money since 2009. The coliseum was first made for Word War 1 veterans, but now it is the home to the University of Southern California. USC uses the coliseum for the home of their football team. The Trojans have been wanting to take over full control of the facility but they haven't had the luck. The coliseum has lost $7 million since 2009, and they continue to decrease. The claim made by the auditor is that the loss is because of 15 year old girl named Sasha Rodriguez who died at rave held by the coliseum do to an overdose. With the rapid loss of money there has been talk of them wanting to hand over the coliseum to USC by June. The problem is that the State does not have to approve of the coliseum being given to USC at any time. They can take as long as they need to make sure the deal goes accordingly. http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2012/05/troubled-la-memorial-coliseum-has-lost-7-million-since-2009-audit-says.html (Alex Davis)

This article was written for the Star Tribune 5/4 by Abby Simones and Larry Oakes. I thought that this was an important current events, with a lot of coverage given. I found that the article title was even an argument. It is stating that Amy Senser did in fact know she hit the man, and then adds jury finds at the end. This is there to provide evidence that if they found her guilty they thought she knew she hit someone. I believe that this article is an argument that she is in fact guilty and the paper is supporting her conviction.
I think this sentence is very interesting, "When the jurors filed into the courtroom, anyone who looked into their faces could guess that Amy Senser was in trouble.' This is an arguement that the author's could tell what the outcome would be even before they read it, and in fact everyone should have been able to tell that she was guilty. I think this is an arguement because it is making the reader think that they should have known she was guilty even before the verdict came back. They write that, "The convictions Thursday brought to a close eight months of media scrutiny and public speculation over the degree to which Senser would be held accountable for Phanthavong's death." This implys that there should have been a degree that she would be held responsible, which means that she definitely was somewhat responsible.

-Alex Mountain

This week there have been group presentations on visual arguments and so I would like to continue you that with a short analysis of this visual advertisement.
It is a BMW advertisement for a new model that is coming out. First of all, we as human beings desire sexuality and seeing that the man laying on top of the basically naked woman is more interested in the car than having his way with the beautiful girl beneath him is saying a lot about the value and importance of the car. The car is superior, in the man's eyes, in beauty, speed, and overall attraction than the woman.
Also, by having the man on top of the woman it shows that he is the one holding the power, he is the one who has makes the decisions when buying a new car. The woman does what he wants, like a car would do what he wants with the turn of the wheel and press of the pedal.
A visual advertisement is just an emphasis on the cliche that a picture is worth a thousand words. A picture can tell so much more than ten words or ten thousand words can in most cases.

http://www.google.com/imgres?q=visual+advertisement&hl=en&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&biw=1024&bih=584&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=iH5UnkdwyAJSkM:&imgrefurl=http://gr8sclassactivities.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/some-thoughts-increase-importance-of-visual-images-in-the-advertising-industry/&docid=EgTQsUDfRhrFcM&imgurl=http://gr8sclassactivities.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/bmw-ad.jpg&w=450&h=400&ei=GuijT5aECIOK8QTPqIDRCA&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=472&vpy=261&dur=3250&hovh=212&hovw=238&tx=120&ty=175&sig=113004065146951172316&page=2&tbnh=123&tbnw=138&start=16&ndsp=21&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:16,i:126

The lecture given by Global Poverty Project's team is very impressing. At the beginning, the speaker identified what means extreme poverty, the lack of fundamental possessions and money. The kairos is there are still 1.4 billion people in the world suffering extreme poverty, and that's why we should act. The speaker's main point is extreme poverty can be eliminated by everyone's effort. The logos is strong. There are lots of statistics, charts and examples. The statistics shows the percentage of extreme poverty people has dropped as time goes by. South Korea is given as an example to illustrate how a country can get rid of poverty and develop at a fast speed. The contrast of South Korea now and its past is very impressing. The pathos is aroused by visual arguments. The speaker showed several short videos, which interview people from poor area. There are pictures of extreme people, and those pictures of children arouse people's sympathy greatly. Another pathos aroused is anger and unfair. The speaker talked about corruption in the world, providing several cases with pictures of corrupted peoples' fancy houses. After analyzing the extreme poverty issue, it came to the policy claims, what we can do. We signed up our e-mail addresses to follow the project's information. The speaker said we could join in their project to act, such as volunteering and spreading the information among friends. As far as I am concerned, the policy claims are not specific enough. If the project's goal is to appeal to us to act, it should provide policy claims in regard to how to act, when to act and how effective or influential the act can be. But the policy claims are too general, for example, we can visit their website for more information.

In preparation for this fall's presidential election, the President and his campaign put together a group of people whose job it is to fact check many of his opponents ads, as well as ads put out by third party groups. This particular clip is in response to an ad put out by the Koch brothers, who made many baseless claims and spent 6.1 million dollars airing the ad around the country. The ad is an attempt by the Obama campaign to refute the claims made by the Koch brothers.
The video goes line by line from the original Koch brother's ad and refutes every single baseless claim made in the ad. The ad itself is visually simple, which in my opinion is a plus. There is only one woman speaking and directs her speech to everyday Americans who heard her message. The ad calls out every baseless fact claim made by the Koch brother's ad. One effective use of a visual aid was when proving money was spent in the United States and not in China, Mexico, or anywhere else, the viewer is shown a Google Maps image of the exact location that received government money. This use of visual media totally refutes the claims made in the original commercial and is a fantastic example of a visual rebuttal.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IkC4gM6QX4&feature=relmfu

I recently watched the documentary "Waiting for Superman", a documentary directed by Davis Guggenheim. The film is about the dire state of the United States' public school system and offers possible solutions. "Waiting for Superman" describes the many obstacles in the way of reforming our education system while also shining light on model schools.
The makers of this film used a wide variety of argument styles and tried to appeal to a large audience. The film successfully uses logos, pathos, ethos, and fact claims when demonstrating the severe flaws in our education system. One part in particular that caught my attention, was when they started talking about the strength of teacher's unions. The educators interviewed, described the lengthy process of terminating a tenured teacher. They interviewed a teacher of the year, as well as other prominent educators in order to establish credibility. When citing facts or describing practices such as "the lemon dance", the filmmakers chose to display it in a cartoon form, which in my opinion was to show how silly or animated our education system is and why it should change.
Overall the film used extremely prominent people to talk about the problems facing America's education system and successfully informed a viewing audience that was more than likely unaware of the dire situation in our classrooms.