Response to Menzel Photos

I thought some of the pictures Menzel had on his website were slightly disturbing, but they brought up some good points about food availability in different areas.  Obviously places like the US and Europe have more food available because of the many different resources available to us. Places like Africa don't have as much food readily available, mostly because they are more underdevelped and lack the resources they need for farming and attaining food. What people eat obviously changes depending on where they live, and some places have more abundace than others, depenging on things like climate, farming, and other factors. I think Menzel is trying to prove that 'hunger' is relative.

'The Pleasures of Eating' Response

Here are some revised tips for 'dorm life' that target a more appropriate college audience, while still keeping with the main point Berry is trying to make to the reader:

1. Participate in food production to the extent that you can. Even if all you have in your room is a window, you can still utilize that small space to grow a small type of plant.  Try some sprouts or spices, like basil - something that can sit in the sun and doesn't need a whole lot of care. You will be fully responsible for any food that you grow for yourself, and you will know all about it. You will appreciate it fully, having known it all its life.

2. Try to prepare your own food at least once a week. This means cooking yourself, even if it's a simple meal. Utilize your stove or microwave and try to make it as healthy as possible, using just a few ingredients you bought.  Get other people in on it; everyone wants to have a 'normal' meal, and it'll make you realize that you are capable of providing for yourself. This should also enable you to eat more cheaply, and it will give you a measure of "quality control": you will have some reliable knowledge of what has been added to the food you eat.

3. Learn the origins of the food you buy, and try to buy the food that is produced closest to your home. The idea that every locality should be, as much as possible, the source of its own food makes several kinds of sense. The locally produced food supply is the most secure, freshest, and the easiest for local consumers to know about and to influence. In college, there are probably not many 'local' stands around- but you probably have a farmer's market somewhere near you. Try to walk there maybe once a week to pick up fresh fruits and vegetables to eat throughout the week.

4. Whenever possible, deal directly with a local farmer, gardener, or orchardist.  If you go to the grocery store, ask them where their meat or produce comes from, and only purchase what you deem 'safe'.  By such dealing you eliminate the whole pack of merchants, transporters, processors, packagers, and advertisers who thrive at the expense of both producers and consumers.

5. Learn, in self-defense, as much as you can of the economy and technology of industrial food production. What is added to the food that is not food, and what do you pay for those additions?

6. Learn what is involved in the best farming and gardening. In case you plan on eating more locally later in life, you might want to know how the best food is grown. For now, it could be helpful to know what is and is not good to eat.

7. Learn as much as you can, by direct observation and experience if possible, of the life histories of the food species.

'The Cooking Ape' Response

Wrangham discusses in this interview the links between our primitive ancestors and humans today, and how cooking and eating has evolved along with ourselves- ie the harnessing of fire power, our teeth and facial structure, etc. He says that cooking and meat eating are the two proposals for what transformed ape into human, aka what we are today.  Once we learned to harness fire, we could cook our meat instead of eating it raw, making it easier to eat.  Our food became more digestible, and we ate fewer calories, and our bodies became slightly smaller.  Changes in the food supply also changed how and what primates ate, according to Wrangham.  Foe example, chimpanzees must have fruit to survive, and gorillas don't need it. That effects how each looks and behaves. These are the main points Wrangham lays out to evidence his claim that cooking played a large part in the evolution of apes to humans.

Questions/Concerns for Rhetorical Analysis

A concern of mine pertainng to my first draft of my essay is that it might not flow as well as I wanted it to, and that my points are kind of disconnected. I had a bit of a hard time sorting out my ideas and organizing them.  For example, what could I flesh out more? And do my points all pertain well to my thesis?

Blakely uses a lot of anecdotal evidence to portray her own relationship with wrestling and who it's shaped her and her son's relationship.  For example, she tells the story of when he is rushed to the hospital with a broken arm.  Blakely is so distraught, she cannot even form a complete sentence.  She finally realizes that Ryan is okay, but he won't let the doctors cut off his 'captain' jacket.  The specific story ties in everything Blakely needs to illustrate how wrestling has developed them as a family. It displays the pathos of a mother coming to the rescue of her injured son, ethos of her son being the captain of his team and caring so much about his position of authority that he was willing ot sacrifice his arm because 'words matter.'

Outline

Title: A Wrestling Mom Response

Thesis: 'Blakely uses her relationship with her son versus her son's relationship with wrestling to develop a metaphor about understanding life and its values. She does this by heavily utilizing a pathos-and-ethos tactic to appeal to her specific audience and to relate with her readers, as well as plenty of anecdotal evidence to portray exactly her relationship with her son Ryan and how wrestling has shaped both of them. These rhetorical methods making her ending points more effective and her essay easy to follow.

I. Blakely starts out by providing details about herself and her family. ('feminist mother', 'adolescent son',), making it evident that she has a background of motherhood, making her appear automatically more credible (ethos). She goes on throughout the essay to tell personal anecdotes about her experience with wrestling, and how it has influenced the bond between her and her son.

     A. The fact that she is concerned about her son being a wrestler makes the reader more likely to relate to         her story and to understand where she comes from.
             1. She doesn't like his role model being Hulk Hogan (what mother would?- 'macho personas')
             2.  'The painful moments came when she hears her son issue a wolf whistle or talk about joining the
                  army."
     B. All of the concern she expresses from past experiences throughout the piece clearly demonstrates her attachment to her son, and his to his sport- this evokes a highly emotional art of any mother, and for that matter, anyone who may have played a sport and had loved it as much as he did.    
              1. She talks about his injuries (his ear and his arm) with a sort of pride, that she's overcome his wrestling, as if it were harder for her to endure than for him.
              2. "He suggested there were some truths men must learn that mothers cannot teach them. Ryan learned things in the company of his coaches and teammates that I could never have taught him. This recognition brought an element of pain, as separation invariably does.'"

II. Blakely goes from using a very vague claim about being a feminist mother with a typical adolescent son, to expressing exactly how much wrestling means to both her and her son, describing these 'semi-barbaric rituals to break our hearts and thrill our souls.'
             1. At the end, she discusses wrestling on a multi-racial team, and how 'you could never know a man better, be closer, understand more thoroughly...' and the hugs they give that were 'no formality, but full emotion.'
              2. At the beginning, she seems to have no attachment to wrestling. 'His passion for this sport would eventually engage me in a male culture for which I would never have imagined developing an affinity.'

III. The many stories Blakely tells provide many different examples of specific times where she has had to deal with problems from wrestling that relate to her life.  This expresses how far she's come in terms of wrestling and being comfortable with who her son has decided to be.
     A. She tells the story about when Ryan was rushed to the hospital with a broken arm.
     B. Sh tells about sitting in the stands with the other moms and screaming at their sons, ie how they have a special bond over their pride.
               

In class writing 9/13/11

I'm a little unsure of what Blakeley's exact thesis after reading her piece. However, I think it could be somewhere along the lines of the fact that motherhood isn't always about being a feminist, or even a mother, and that kids teach their parents the significant values of life sometimes.
Rhetorically, I think I could make a thesis that says 'Blakely uses her relationship with her son versus her son's relationship with wrestling to develop a metaphor about understanding life and its values. She does this by heavily utilizing her audience, and a strong ethos and pathos appeal to relate with her readers.'

Response to 'A Wrestling Mom'

Mary Kay Blakely 's piece about wrestling really touches on many important issues, such as motherhood and the bond between mother and son as son grows older. Her main claim is that mothers cannot teach their sons everything they need to know, and that children teach their own parents the values of life sometimes.
I found myself thinking that this piece would be easy to analyze because of its profoundness mostly. The author used the extreme bond between mother and son, to mother and teenager, to ease her way into the heads of every mother reader she will encounter. Obviously she can use the fact that she is a mother and has had experience to appeal to her ethos and give her credit. She uses a very logical structure, starting by explaining wrestling to the reader, then goes all the way to explaining why it's so important to both of them (the emotional appeal). I think I could appeal to this well because I can understand where the author is coming from, and because she uses a variety of rhetorical approaches in the rhetorical triangle, such as audience and reader to get her point across effectively.

Response to CR Texts

CR Piece #1: The Wreck of Time: Taking Our Century's Measure

Annie Dillard makes considerable points in her piece about the human population and the amount of people who have died in past years. Her basic claim is that 'while a single death may be considered a tragedy, a million is a statistic.'  She definitely enforces a pathos approach when referring to tragedies such as Ted Bundy's murders, and the 138,000 people who drowned in Bagladesh. This tactic points the reader towards a deeper thinking about the world and individualism. She asks the reader questions about certain events like 'Where were you when this happened?' and 'What did you feel in that moment?'
To expand her ethos appeal, she uses many different cases and examples to support her argument, like a quote by paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, or the many statistics she uses about human population. These things help appeal to her accreditation as an author and they help the reader grasp what she is trying to say.
I think I could analyze this piece rhetorically because Dillard uses so many rhetorical tactics: ethos, logos, pathos,  examples. Her language helps shape her argument because of the way she can relate her text to anyone who reads it. Her argument in itself is incredibly fascinating, and I think she does a really good job of carrying it out, making this piece a prime source of rhetoric.

SWA #6: Womb for Rent: For a Price

Goodman's point in the article is that surrogacy is a growing international economy that should not be taken lightly- in fact, it should be thought about in great context. She thinks surrogacy is probably unethical in most situations- depending on the situation, of course. She uses different point to illustrate her opinions, such as the fact that women in third-world countries are using surrogacy as a way to pay for their own lives, as well as the lives of their children,and that it's hardly ever 'a gift from one woman to another' anymore.  She says that surrogacy is the closest we can get to selling ourselves into slavery in this day and age, which is primarily true.

The author uses pathos to convince the reader that surrogacy should be considered precious both to the future mother and to the woman carrying the baby. She appeals to the feelings of the reader by talking about motherhood, mentioning Army wives, and asking 'What obligation does a family that simply contracted for a child have to its birth mother?' This question definitely hits the reader hard, because it refers to the bond between families. The appeals to family and feelings enhance her argument because anyone with a moral background can agree that having a baby should be a special thing, a bond between mother and child and family in general.

Something that really struck me as the reader in this argument was when the author asked 'what control should contractors have over their employees while incubating 'their' children?' And I agree with the point she's trying to make.  It is, in fact, strange to hire someone to carry your baby. The lines are blurred. Yes, the baby may have your genes, but it quite literally is someone else's baby. This question just made me wonder where to draw the line- does a contractor get full say authority over the employee and baby? Does the employee ever get too attached? The author has a lot of good points here that are worth discussing and that definitely made me think.

SWA #5: Lady Power

According to Bauer, the source of our 'age-old investment in norms of femininity and masculinity' is the media. What we see on TV and in the news is who we want and need to be- that's how it's always been. We need people telling us who to be and how to look and what to do.

The 'genius' of Lady Gaga is, in fact, the point she makes every day with every flamboyant outfit she dons and every controversial song she produces. Gaga is telling young girls that it's okay to be both yourself, and an object of sexual desire. It seems contradictory, but Gaga is doing something that women have been trying to do for years and years.  It tends to complicate natural views of feminism, because the principals of feminism are not to give in to the opposite sex. Femininity is questioned as well, because women like to think of themselves as feminine, and so does Lagy Gaga. But what they see when they look at Gaga is a girl in a meat suit, or dressed up as a man. Gaga is changing the rules, and people are getting confused.

When Bauer claims that 'women are still heavily rewarded pleasing men.....we get what we want, or at least what we thought we wanted.' Men will give women anything, as long as they get what they want, and women fall into this trap all the time.  Bauer references the age-old college 'hook-up hangover', which prompts a woman to do what a man wants her to, and still feel feminine and powerful. It's a vicious, confusing cycle. We think what we want is power, but what most women really want is respect. This point does a lot to advance her argument because it brings her claim full-circle, proving that in this day and age, sexuality and respect are coming closer together.

In Class Writing: Catherine Beecher

http://newman.baruch.cuny.edu/digital/2001/beecher/catherine.htm

After researching Catherine Beecher, her article on housekeeping makes a lot more sense. Learning that she grew up in the early 1800s makes me feel like her article was a lot less oppressive towards women, and more truthful in general. In that time, a woman's place really was in the home and no where else. Since women had so little options of where they could go and jobs they could have, it makes sense for Beecher to want to have some rules for creating the 'perfect home' under her cheerful tones and rules.  This 'cult of domesticity' was the main doctrine for women in that day. Her mother died when Catherine was young, so Catherine had a lot of practice taking care of her home. What I read explained a lot to me about her background, and it provided grounds for the arguments she tries to make about women and their respective 'niche.'

SWA #4

Based on this piece, I think that Beecher would want the reader to form a completely different definition for the word 'housekeeper'. My new opinion of the term after reading the essay would be someone who not only takes care of the house, but someone who nurtures the children, cares for the father, and puts everyone before herself while remaining to pertain a strong and dependable, yet still cheerful facade/ Beecher is very stern about the housekeeper having a 'equable and cheerful temper'. This is important according to Beecher because the housekeeper, mother, wife, etc. is the one ultimately steering the house. If she can't have a 'good' disposition, it affects everyone else. She is the glue that holds the house together, whether she receives that recognition or not.

The 'considerations that may aid in preparing a woman to meet her daily crosses with a cheerful temper' include regarding her duties in a household as dignified, important, and difficult, to be in such a state of preparation that the evil will not come unawares, to form all plans and arrangements in consistency with the means at command and the character of those around, that system, economy, and neatness are valuable only so far as they tend to promote the comfort and well-being of those affected, and that a woman can resolve that whatever happens she will not speak, till she can do it in a calm and gentle manner. Basically, she should complete her duties with a sunny disposition no matter what, and do so in a dignified manner that can please everyone in the household.

Beecher assumes that a wife and housekeeper and mistress are all the same, and all have the same duties to achieve. These assumptions complicate Beecher's implied definitions of 'woman' and 'housekeeper' because in this day and age, they are not the same at all.  You see these assumptions playing out in the chapter when she says things like 'A housekeeper should feel that she really has great difficulties to meet and overcome.' This doesn't have to be true: women have things to overcome, but so do men. Being in the house is hardly a challenge compared to what happens outside in the real world. Overall I think Beecher's piece was interesting, but I am in no agreement of her oppressive definitions of 'housekeeper.'