The Aging Parent

The reason I read this article is because I can sort of relate to it in a sense. My father just had surgery a week before Thanksgiving. Nothing of too much concern, it was planned and went so smoothly that the doctors sent him home a day earlier than expected. Everything was fine, that is, until the operation sight started to bruise and bleed the day after Thanksgiving. So how did I spend my Black Friday? No, not shopping, but at the ER. From 2pm-11pm I was there with my father, waiting, demanding and hoping for some medical attention at the insanely overcrowded hospital. The article I read was about how the Baby Boomer generation is now imposing on their golden aged childrens' lives. Yes, I am not a 60 year old, but I can understand why the children might feel selfish in taking care of their parent. Did I want to spend my Friday night in the hospital? No. But out of concern for my parent I stayed there. And I would do it again next Friday night if that's what had to happen. Just like the Baby Boomer's children are forcing them to make tough choices that are affecting their lives greatly, whether that means taking the parent or parents into your own home, or financially straining oneself to get the parent some outside help.

This article had an interesting point of view, as it was written from a 87 year old woman who faces the same problem that the others of her generation are. Funnily enough, the article remains unbiased, and presents the sides of both the adult children and their parents. There's a lot of pathos in this article, as many people can relate to having concern for their parents at some point in their lives. There was also some logos in the form of statistics. When speaking about the adult child's responsibility to their parents now as compared to a century ago the author stated "Then, life expectancy at birth was just over 48 years; today, it’s close to 80. Then, so few lived to 65 that there is no record of life expectancy at that age. Today, if we make it to 65, we can expect to live another 20 years. And one-third of those over 65 need some help in managing their daily lives; by the time they reach 85 (the fastest-growing segment of our population today), that number jumps to well over one-half." This explains why this issue is becoming unique to modern day society, and as we live longer, it seems our responsibility to others grows as well.

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/26/the_no_win_situation_of_caring_for_mom_and_dad/

One Author's Real Life Horror Story

The title of this article "How my book became part of the “satanic sex stabbing”" caught my attention immediately. I was originally thinking about the type of horrible book would a person have to write to be involved in such an ordeal, but by the end of the article I just felt terribly for the author. His book The Werewolf’s Guide to Life: A Manual for the Newly Bitten looks really funny. The author himself says the book is a "humorous self-help book for werewolves". What happened is that two women lured a man to their apartment in promise of "...a kinky, possibly Satanic, threesome." He was then "...stabbed and slashed..." by the women 300 times. Fun story right? Well for Ritch Duncan, the co-author of The Werewolf's Guide... it gets even better when his book is found at the scene of the crime, and all the media outlets who ran the story mentioned the book. However, they said nothing about it being a humor book, and made it sound like it was a legitimate guide for Werewolves and the book pushed these girls along to do such a strange thing.The article explains this situation and then it turns more or less into a rant about what's wrong with the media of today. He was angered that nobody running the story took the time to actually look at what his book is about, and I can't blame him. The media today is like nothing of the past. They seem to have no respect for a person's privacy, and thrive on running negative stories that speak only of tragedy. It seems to be that you cannot turn on a 5 o'clock news on a regular day of the week and hear anything pleasant. It's always, "In a car accident today..." or "When this convenience store was robbed...." and best of all "Three perished today when.....". It's twisted that our society focuses so much on the negative parts of life. I don't watch the news anymore because of this. I just don't want to hear it.

The author used some logos and pathos in writing this article. He used a nice combination of these rhetoric devices in the last few lines of the article, saying "
Was this the story of two cold-blooded, evil satanists whose ritual of sex, blood and murder was thwarted by police? Or was it a case of two relatively harmless wannabe wiccans who hadn’t mastered the concept of a safe word? Likely, the truth lies somewhere in between. But if we don’t know the answer to that question, it is worth asking: How good was this story? Was it worth the treatment those young women received as story after story about them filled with lies and half-truths spread all over the world? Because that’s what these ghastly novelty articles look like to me — a grievous wounding, by hundreds of little cuts." One can only speculate on these moral things. The man who the women cut up is not pressing charges, and it was allegedly a consensual occurrence from all parties. Were these women actually bad and the press brought this to our attention or did the press make them bad?  

The article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/27/how_my_book_became_part_of_the_satanic_sex_stabbing/singleton/

Internet Censorship in the US?

The article at hand here talks about a new bill that would allow the government to crack down on the industry of illegal sharing of music and movies. It's called the Stop Online Piracy Act. And to me it sounds dangerous. Basically what the act will do is allow the government to force search engines to block websites it deems as infringing upon copyrighted material. The idea is that this will boost the economy because if all the illegal downloading is put to rest, people will be forced to purchase movies and music if they want to listen to or watch it. But I think that this is a widely open bill that could allow the government to censor the Internet. While I may or may not download illegal music, I don't really think it's right. I mean, when one does such a thing, in a way it's like stealing something. You are taking away someone's well earned money somewhere. But when movie tickets are generally close to $10, and the price of a popular song on iTunes has gone up to $1.29, it is easy to understand why someone might go for the illegal downloading path. It seriously adds up, especially with music. However, just because people are desperate, does not mean that the government should turn into a crazy overpowered machine. The article quoted Eric Schmidt of Google and he said the bill “would require ISPs to remove URLs from the Web, which is also known as censorship last time I checked." When did the US want to turn into China?

The author has a very general target audience, as anyone who is opposed to censorship would read this. The article also gave a lot of background info on the proposed law, as if to inform people who would not know about it. There was also quite the amount of logos in there. A decent amount of statistics was put into the article. The author also made a nice point by saying "In a tweet this week, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi wrote, “Need to find a better solution than #SOPA #DontBreakTheInternet.” Her nemesis, Darrell Issa, Republican from California and chair of the House Oversight Committee, retweeted Pelosi’s note, appending commentary of his own: “If even we can agree..."" Clearly if two very opposite people can agree that this bill is a bad idea, we can assume that it can only lead to bad things.

The Article: http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/congress_seeks_to_tame_the_internet/singleton/?mobile.html

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

The reason I chose this book in the first place was because I had been meaning to read Wilde's only novel ever since I read The Importance of Being Earnest freshman year and loved it. I was not disappointed by the novel in any way. It was masterfully written, the characters were splendid in a devilish sense and the protagonist the most captivating of them all. The protagonist's name is Dorian Gray, and the whole novel centers around a portrait done of Dorian, which ages instead of him. The portrait is what Dorian considers to be a visual expression of his soul, and as the story goes on and he ages the portrait becomes hideous, wrinkled and aged, with the bearings of his many "sins" engraved in the portrait.
The biggest theme in this story and also what made it so enjoyable were the philosophical musings of Wilde through the dialogue of the characters. Wilde used the character Lord Henry Wotton to express his ideas that "All art is quite useless." (Wilde 2) and the thought that beauty is the most important thing beyond anything else. "'Beauty is a form of Genius-is higher, indeed than Genius, as it needs no explanation. It is one of the great facts of the world, like sunlight,or the reflection in dark waters of that silver shell we call the moon. It cannot be questioned.'" (Wilde 24) Dorian's life is fuled by this thought, as all he cares about is the finer things in life, and how pleased he is by his youthfulness even when he goes into his late 30s. The relationship between all of the main male characters especially between Dorian and Basil Hallward, the man who painted the portrait, and Dorian and Lord Wotton subtly expresses the sexuality of Wilde. There is no explicit expression of homosexuality in the book, but at the time the book was written, it would have pushed the scandal of this book to a catacalystic point for Wilde.
I can see why this story would have been such a controversial one in the time when  it was written in 1891. The main characters are all kind of terrible people. Dorian commits murder, blackmail, and cares nothing for things beyond physical beauty. Anyone reading this would expect it to be a moral tale, and I won't say what happened in the end for fear of ruining the story, but I don't think he was punished in a proper way enough for the audience reading about his "sins".
I would recommend this book to anyone, as it was a great and fun read. It was a great way for Wilde to express his ideals without laying them out in boring terms. It's a shame he died because of his sexuality when he had so much more to offer the literary world.

The Funniest (and most Absurd) Gift I've Ever Seen

So I was on Salon.com, as usual, and I saw the most ridiculous article title ever
"A $5,200 present for Beyonce's baby". My first thought? Why would a baby need something that's $5,200?? Then I clicked on the link, and saw that the gift was a crystal encrusted bathtub. And I laughed. Then it had a link to the website that sold the tubs, and had some sample pictures of the baby-sized bathtub, and this is the way the company thought it most practical to advertise it with:

 Then I laughed some more. According to the bathtub company's website, not only is this bathtub perfect for "pampering your precious bundle of love from head to tiny toe...", it's also great for "...the pampered pet or filling with ice and chilling your beverages." The possibilities in the various ways to use this miniature bathtub are practically endless here people! Best luck to B and Jay with raising this precious bundle of love while dealing with the repercussions of spoiling her rotten, even when she will not care what her bathtub looks like.

The original article here.
In case you wish to purchase a bathtub/puppy bed/ice chiller.

20...21...22....Where Will it End Duggars?

I am going to go on a little rant about these people called the Duggar family. For those of you who do not know, the Duggars are a semi-famous family, and not famous for anything great, but they are famous because they have 19 kids, and one on the way. The family announced on Good Morning America last week that they are expecting their 20th child. Duggar family, why do feel that having 20 children is a necessary and healthy thing to do? Let me explain why I am so against this, and it's not just because I've been told that I'm "bad with kids". First off, think of all your other kids. Do you think that you honestly have enough time and patience to give each individual the attention and help that they all need while having to worry about 19 other people? No, I don't care how much you love your kids, there simply isn't enough time in the day to spend with each one. Secondly, there's this little thing called the world is over populated enough without you deciding that you need 20 children. The author of the article pointed out that the family is well off enough to provide for their family without any sort of outside help, but that shouldn't mean that you get to make a family as big as the mother's uterus will provide. Thirdly, Mother Duggar is 45. Most doctors agree that a pregnancy at 45 is a high risk to health, and during her last pregnancy, Michelle delivered the baby prematurely and Mother also caught preeclampsia. So what makes them think that because they don't believe in birth control of any sort, that they should put both Michelle and the baby at a high medical risk after the last borderline disaster pregnancy. They need to stop getting so excited all the time, or figure out that one of "God's miracles" might just kill someone.

The article I read was on the side of the Duggars. The author clearly sympathized with them, although she did make one crack at them saying "God, unfortunately, could not be reached for comment" when talking about how Michelle was happy about God giving them another child. So perhaps the author doesn't necessarily agree with them, but does think that people should leave them alone. The author also used pathos at the end of the article, saying "I have a friend expecting a baby she already knows has a heart condition and Down syndrome. She told me the other day, “People keep saying, ‘Maybe the doctors are wrong. Maybe there will be a miracle.’ Why can’t they understand that maybe this baby is the miracle, just as he is?” The Duggars are similarly holding steadfast to their belief that miracles don’t look the same to every set of eyes. And they see baby 20 as just as much of a blessing as No. 1 . The Duggars’ blessings aren’t yours or mine." While I think that it is convenient that the author doesn't mention how old her friend is, or if she has an excessive amount of children, so that's kind of irrelevant, she does make a nice point that these people just really love kids.

Andy Rooney

I grew up with Andy Rooney in my living room on Sunday nights, and I always was excited for his segments as I heard the tick-toc of the “60 Mintues” stopwatch. No, I never really understood as a little kid what he was saying or why it mattered, but I was always perplexed by his eyebrows, and his scratchy voice. Today, as I hear about his death, a pang of jealously runs through me. No, not because he is dead, but he essentially got to complain about everything for a living. I wish I could do that. I think I would be really spectacular at it. His death is a sad one though. Sunday nights won't be the same without the sound of his whining scratchy voice rattling on about airplane travel. But before this, Rooney had a long career of great journalism. For that I resepect him. He, as the article about him mentioned, openly opposed the Iraqi War when nobody else would. He also opposed the War in Vietnam, and held his integrity by leaving CBS when they wouldn't allow him to air it and going to PBS to do so, and then winning an award for it. And here I was thinking he was just a cranky old guy with some seriously awesome eyebrows.

The author of this article was honest and respectful, giving plain information about Rooney's life, although there were a few choice adjectives to describe him, including “cranky”, “angry”, and “blunt”. Rooney himself even called his personality “vindictive”, so I think he knew what he was. 

The Article:

http://entertainment.salon.com/2011/11/05/former_60_minutes_commentator_andy_rooney_dies/singleton/

And You Think You're Paranoid...

The title of this article is what attracted me to it. It really grabbed mine, and I'm sure that it would catch a lot of other people's attention. It's scary to think about the government asserting it's power in such a frivolous manner. I'm not saying that they shouldn't look out for potential Terrorists, but perhaps they should interview the person or do a better investigation of the suspect before they decide to do life altering things such as draining a person's bank account. The author, Jones, could have been evicted from her apartment, and been starving to death in the street from a month without any sort of income.

And the fact that she couldn't even find herself on the list of potential terrorists is also scary. It makes you think that the list could be fake, or exaggerated.

The author was hysterical throughout the whole article, remaining humongous about a very serious situation that happened to her. It brought a different type of perspective to the article. It made me laugh, many, many, many, times. For example: “Oh what? I wondered. OFAC. It rhymes with Oh-Tack, but you’ve got to watch how you pronounce it. Speak carelessly and the name sounds like just what you might say upon learning that you’ve been sucked into the ultimate top-secret bureaucratic sinkhole. It turns out, the bank informs me, that OFAC is a division of the U.S. Treasury Department that “reviews” transactions.” and also “Heidi [her landlord] is a Buddhist. I’m an atheist. Almost everybody on the list seems to be Muslim, including really dangerous-sounding guys like “Ahmed the Egyptian.” But I guess that to a truly committed and well-paid terrorist hunter, we must all look alike.” She has a great style of making things funny to make a point. The audience intended is a broad one, as she backs up everything with information to tell everyone whats going on. She uses short, sarcastic phrases to make the story, which is rather lengthy, move along at a nice pace. I think the main purpose of the article was really to inform the public about her experience with the overly paranoid government.

The Article:

http://www.www.99.salon.com/2011/11/03/when_the_government_decided_i_was_a_terrorist/singleton/