Tow #22 :Doctors, psychologists battle over prescribing privileges

This editorial is in context of the Illinois Senate bill, passed last spring that would allow psychologists with advanced degrees and training to prescribe medication. This topic is highly debated and this editorial gives us the overview of two sides of the argument and from reading it, it can be gathered that many people do not think that psychologists have sufficient experience and clinical practice in order to prescribe medication.
This editorial is very informative, and the purpose is to show whether or not psychologists should have the right to prescribe medication or not. This is targeted at the whole public because this is a medical issue and can affect a lot of people.
This editorial gives a lot of testimonies to back up their information, "We don't doubt that both sides seek what they believe is best for patients.
State Rep. John Bradley, chief sponsor of the bill in the House, tells us that his constituents in southern Illinois too often lack access to mental health services. "I think there is an opportunity to expand care, but I also think we need to be careful about making sure the right safeguards are in place to make sure it is good-quality care." This shows the state representative's neutral perspective and I think that this is highly affective because it is making people think of both sides of the issue. Also this editorial has a lot of testimonies for doctors that are psychiatrists and what they think about psychologists being able to prescribe medication. I think that this is good that a psychiatrist's opinion is included because they do prescribe medication for mentally ill patients and this is their area of expertise so their testimonies are very accurate and valid. The argument is also affective in presenting an opposition because it talks about how the "Thresholds" (largest community in mental health in Illinois), opposed the bill and the "National Alliance on Mental Illness" did too. That kind of shows the perspective that not all of Illinois is neutral on the issue because there are a lot of risks involved with passing that kind of act so people want to be precautious
because after all this is patient safety.
I personally believe that this argument was very effective in that it kind of presented neutral sides of the argument at first introducing people to the issue, but then it kind of showed both sides to the argument. The most effective was the ethos because there was a lot of credibility and testimonies and facts to support this very interesting and informative editorial.

 

TOW #21: High Mortality From Alzheimer's Disease

With my new job at Marshall's being involved in donating money for Alzheimer's research, I came across a very informative article about Alzheimer's and how this disease causes more deaths than statistics actually show. The purpose of this article was to inform people about how highly deadly this disease is and with all the tolls that it costs, it should be "imperative" to enhance research to find treatments and cures.

The editorial gives many statistics, first starting out with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's estimations that Alzheimer's caused almost 84,000 deaths in the United States. After giving these statistics, the editors introduce a new study done by researchers at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, that states that Alzheimer's is really the underlying cause of more than 500,000 deaths in the United States. The editorial does a really good comparison showing the difference of the statistics and showing that intensive and continuous research can inform us more about the disease. The editorial also does a nice job in describing the way the study is conducted and how the researchers come about the high death toll that Alzheimer's cause.

This editorial really appeals to emotions because after reading this people are going to want to do something because of the statistics the article provides. For example, "Those numbers would catapult Alzheimer’s from the sixth-leading cause of death in the United States to the third, behind heart disease and cancer." This makes people want to invest in more research to find treatments and cures for Alzheimer's because it really affects a lot of people and has devastating affects.

The editors who wrote this seem to be very credible because they use a lot of studies and statistics, however, I feel that they should have had more examples and more than two studies to show the tolls Alzheimer's brings. I also feel like they could have included more about the costs and ways that people can contribute to fund the research for the cure. 

TOW #20: Visual Text: Minimum Wage Raise

Goals: I hope to pick out a challenging and intriguing cartoon as my visual text.

I want this cartoon to be controversial and have rhetorical devices that can help me identify the purpose.

I also want it to be on a topic that I am passionate about.

I want this TOW to flow and be more like a short essay rather than just a small blogpost.

I also don’t want to list the requirements for the TOW, but make them sound more natural.

Earlier this year, President Barack Obama gave the State of the Union Address. Typically, the President of the United States delivers this address annually. In his address, President Barack Obama announced that he would like to raise this minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. This has caused a lot of controversy, especially amongst the Republicans. In a current political cartoon, Khalil Bendib, an Algerian artist and political cartoonist, illustrates the Republican point of view on the proposed minimum wage raise in order to show America the Republican's view how ineffective raising the minimum wage would be. Bendib is trying to appeal to the American public in order to make them realize the negatives that the minimum wage boost would bring.

When looking at the cartoon, the first thing that catches the eye are the elephant in suits. All these elephants look distraught in order to symbolize how awful raising the minimum wage would be. The elephant is actually the Republican symbol and when looking closely, one of the elephants has the acronym "GOP" written on his pant leg. This stands for "Grand Old Party" which is otherwise known as the Republican party. All four of these elephant are bringing up issues with Obama advocating to raise the minimum wage. One of them talks about how raising the minimum wage has been done before and this immediately questions the intended affect of the minimum wage boost because if the minimum wage has been raised before and still there were problems in the economy, this makes the American Public question whether raising the minimum wage is really effective or not. 

The second elephant talks about how the minimum wage should be less, not more. This is appealing to the logic of the Republican point of view because they highly disagree with raising the minimum rage and if logically thinking, minimum wage really is less not more. This makes the American public realize yet another fault with the raise of the minimum wage.

The third elephant really hits close to home for a lot of America's people because it says that money isn't the reward, jobs are. This appeals to the emotions of the audience because a lot of people in the United States are currently unemployed and raising the minimum wage would actually cause unemployment to go up so looking at this cartoon, people are going to understand that raising the minimum wage is really not a good thing. 

Finally, the last elephant is just a racist attempt of the Republicans to target the President. This mainly has to do with the fact that they believe that he is not a good president and implementing the boost of the minimum wage is a horrible idea. 

When looking at the speech bubbles, one notices that some words are specifically bolded. I think that the author did this in order to show the strong contempt of the Republicans against raising the minimum wage. Also, I think this was done in order to highlight the issues that raising the minimum wage would bring.

Personally, I thought that this was a really effective cartoon not only from a biased point of view, but because it had a lot of symbolism, while also including the actual issues that raising the minimum wage would bring. It did not merely just list all of them, but they were short- paraphrased issues that could be clearly understood not just from the Republican point of view, but anyone in the American public can look at this cartoon and understand the downfall of raising the minimum wage. Raising the minimum wage is the product of a bad idea with good intentions. 

Tow #19: Lone Survivor

Lone Survivor, written by Marcus Luttrell is a heroic account of the Operation Redwing, that was carried out by the SEAL team 10. At the beginning of the book, Marcus Luttrell, starts out by introducing himself and more about the SEALS before he leads up to what had happened. I like the set up of the book a lot because personally, I do not know much about the rigors of being a SEAL and Luttrell does a good job leading into the story with a lot of description. I am not finished this book, but so far from what I am reading, Marcus Lutrell, writes this true inspiring story for people to remember those SEALS that fought hard to protect our country and lost their lives because of it. The context of this book was the War On Terror going on in the United States. I feel like this novel was written for the people in the United States to really appreciate the SEALS and understand what they do.
The way Marcus Luttrell writes is very interesting because he is telling his story and he knows better than anyone else what had happened there. The language in the book is very descriptive in terms of the setting and the feelings that the SEAlS are experiencing.
The descriptions and facts that Luttrell uses really spark a lot of mixed emotions while I read this. When he describes the Taliban and Afghanistan and how dangerous it is, this causes anger. However, as I have already seen this movie and know the ending, this book causes sorrow. Mostly, this memoir brings up feelings of appreciation for the SEALS and what they do for our country. Every time I read this memoir, I feel anxious and want to read more because this memoir is so intriguing I can't wait to see what happens next.
I honestly do like this book, except I feel as though that Marcus could have a bigger purpose in writing this piece. I feel as if Marcus feels guilty that he is the only "lone survivor" just by the way he talks about his "brothers," or the SEALS that died on this operation. However, I want to finish reading this book in order to see if that was Luttrell's intended purpose.

Tow #18: How to Help the Homeless

This article, How to Help the Homeless, was featured in the Economist and it is about Hungary's homeless problem. In Budapest, homeless people camp out in very public places, and they even use landmarks as their restrooms. This problem is getting very severe and the city council passed a regulation law which outlaws "habitual living" in public places. This is becoming very controversial because homeless people refuse to live in the public shelters because they do not want their belongings taken away from them. They say they would rather live on the street. The purpose of this article was to raise awareness of what is going on in Hungry and to call to action that something has to be done about the homeless people.
The context this was written is, is present day because this is going on right now. I think this was written for the government in Hungry for a call to action. And the authors of this editorial remain anonymous because according to the website, it allows for the many writers to "speak in a collaborative voice." I think this is really interesting because it adds credibility with this really famous magazine and a bunch of authors who's opinions coincide.
This article uses a lot of rhetorics, but the main one is imagery, "Homeless people pull down their trousers and underwear in full view of startled tourists before relieving themselves on the pavement near parliament." This descriptive picture of the situation in Budapest really trigger's the audience's emotions and tells that something needs to be done about this situation. Also this this article appeals a lot to emotions because of the brutal winters, "As winter bites, sympathy for the homeless is more widespread than might be expected." This makes the audience feel bad for the homeless and it makes them want to do something about their situation.
I think this article was very well written with a lot of emotion, and statistics and imagery to trigger the emotions and if I were the audience, I would definitely want to do something about the homeless situation.

IRB INTRO MARKING PERIOD 3

Lone Survivor, by Marcus Luttrell, is a personal recount of the Navy Seal team's mission in July 2005, when they went to investigate the activity of an al Qaeda leader who was rumored to have a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Only one seal, Marcus, made it out alive.

This book was really written to give an account of the war on terror and how dangerous it really was and how people literally risks their lives to protect our country and how grateful people should be to the military. I chose to read this book because I am typically not a fan of army books, and typically this isn't my area of interests, but this novel really seems fascinating to me and after reading it, I really hope to understand what it is that the Seals do and how dangerous their work really is.

 

Tow #17: Smoking is Worse Than You Thought

This article was about how much harm tobacco actually causes. Researchers are discovering new things that can cause harm to smokers and nonsmokers who are exposed to the "toxic fumes." People who smoke are subject to cancers, chronic pulmonary diseases, and plus they cost a lot of money in medicare. The purpose of this editorial was clearly to cause awareness of tobacco and encourage people to cut down on smoking.

This editorial is always going to be in context because people are constantly smoking and although they are aware of the effects smoking can cause, they still continue to do it. However, the journalists on the New York Times editorial board decided to inform people that smoking gives only bad side effects.

The editorial board is composed of a variety of journalists who do research on a variety of different things. They are very credible and this article is very credible because as it's main rhetoric it uses irrefutable data to support it's claim of how harmful smoking really is. "Most shocking, the report finds that today’s smokers have a much higher risk for lung cancer and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease than smokers in 1964, despite smoking fewer cigarettes." This irrefutable data really hits close to home for a lot of people because a lot of people know someone who smokes and this appeals to their emotions because they do not want anything happening to their loved ones. Also the report states facts about the cost that smoking brings, "The report estimates that smoking costs the United States between $289 billion and $333 billion a year for medical care and lost productivity, well above the previous estimate of $193." This appeals to the logic of the audience because they understand that they do not want to pay taxes for smokers who have bad health. This makes the community more aware, once again, of how bad smoking really is. For ethos, the article talks about the law that Congress has passed to regulate tobacco products. This really makes the editorial credible because it really shows that smoking is bad.

I personally believe that the journalists of this editorial really achieved their purpose because they really drove home the point of how terrible smoking really is and the fact that there is new and more evidence about how harmful it really is just shows that something needs to be done to cut it down.