Blog Post # 3

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24sun1.html

“The case for a climate bill” was an editorial published in The New York Times on January 23, 2010. The main claim of this editorial is to make people realize the importance of passing this bill. The editor looks at all the angles and eventually concludes that this bill will help the country and the world in the long run. One of the main reasons that he uses is the fact that the bill will produce more job opportunities. The editor supports this by providing different scenarios that must be fulfilled for this to work. He uses an outer reliable source such as “Congressional Budget Office” to back up and support his reason.

The editor also uses the acknowledgment and response rhetorical strategy. He effectively realizes and acknowledges the fact that this bill only has a slight chance of passing through the house and senate. Although he recognizes the opposite’s views, he gives his views to counter argue. The main audience in this editorial would be the people interested in global warming and politicians of the United States. He has to persuade the Senators and the House of Representatives that this bill would work and cure global warming. The occasion of this editorial was to let the public know about the bill that is being passed could effectively hurt or help the economy. Although there are many doubters and nonbelievers, he does his best to provide reasons and evidence to support his claim.

The author also uses Aristototle’s three rhetorical appeals. An example of him using logos would be when he is talking about how the bill “would create more jobs than it cost”. He uses evidence to support this by using ethos. He refers to President Obama and how he could help pass this bill. “President Obama can start to prove the conventional wisdom wrong by making a full-throated case for a climate bill in his State of the Union speech this week.” The last rhetorical appeal, logos, is crucial to help passing this bill. He talks about how limited our time is when it comes to fighting global warming. “The long-term trend in greenhouse gas emissions is up (the decade ending in 2009 was the warmest on record), and the sooner emissions decline, the better.” He appeals to the emotions here to make people realize the importance of this bill and how it can help prevent global warming.

Blog Post # 2

The three publications I looked at were The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Breeze. These three newspapers had many selections of opinions and editorials about the latest issues happening in the world. Most of the editorials in these newspapers focused around politics and controversial issues around the world. The natural disaster that struck Haiti has been a hot topic in all of these publications. The opinions in the editorials all focus around how America is continuing its tradition of helping other nations that are in need. There are also criticisms on the speed of America’s aid. Editorials that involve controversy and debate are the kinds of issues that interest me. The different viewpoints to these issues make it more interesting. Editorials that involve politics seem very uninteresting and boring to me. The issues involving around the economy and the job loss situation do not really interest me because those issues are very repetitive in all of these publications.

One issue I really want to learn more about is global warming and its effect around the world. This subject matter is very controversial because many people have different opinions on its existence. Global warming is slowly ruining the world we are living in and many people are still avoiding this reality. There are many scientific facts that back up and prove that global warming is happening right now and we need to act accordingly before it is too late. Many people don’t worry or even care about this because they do not fully realize the consequences if we don’t act now. They are all caught up in their busy lives to realize what is going on around them. Controversial issues like this really grabs my attention because they are opinionated and at the same time they are very important.

Arthur: A Childhood Reflection

When I was younger, I read many different kinds of children oriented texts. I admired reading and watching all of them but the one that really interested me was Marc Brown’s “Arthur”. The reason I loved this book so much was because it also had a TV series to go along with its book series. Arthur revolves around the lives of Arthur Read, the main character, his friends and family. Arthur is an eight year old aardvark who lives in a fictional town called Elwood City with his parents and his younger sister. The show basically dealt with the lives of young children and the difficulties they face in elementary school. The main reason I enjoyed watching and reading this series was because it related to my daily life as a young kid. The conflicts in the story interrelated with the same problems I was going through when I was in elementary school. The thing in the stories that appealed to me was the innocent character of Arthur and his frank personality. Arthur’s social life involved many different friends with a broad range of personalities. The author did a great job of adding different personalities such as bullies and nerds which gave the show a reality feel to it. I could relate it to my elementary school because I had the same kinds of friends.

As an adult, my perspective on this has changed vastly. When I was younger I only cared about the stories and the humorous personality of the characters but now I have a greater knowledge about what Marc Brown was trying to do with his books. The books have a great educational value and do a great job of trying to teach children about the right and the wrong. It puts an emphasis on the library and why it is important to read books and learn. As an adult, I truly understand why Marc Brown gave the characters a great relationship with their parents and friends. I believe even though I didn’t realize all this when I was a kid, it still gave me a great insight on what was right and what was wrong in society. I would recommend this book to any child who is looking for something fun and educational at the same time. I believe the reason I loved this book so much was because the author did a great job of giving the characters such a personality that all the readers could connect and relate to them.