The Standing Ovation

You are in the commons sitting with your friends at one of the overcrowded tables basically yelling to try to be heard over the massive roar that the room seems to comprise of. More people keep piling into the room and the lines begin to look worse than they did when you waited three hours for your Lil Wayne ticket. Glancing down at the food that you now realized is significantly better than usual, you come to the revelation it an accepted students tour day. You share your newfound knowledge with your friends and together you examine the possibles standing in line, clutching their folders, making awkward small talk with one another while their parents look proudly and smugly around for their child has been accepted to Penn State.

The hearty atmosphere changes immediately when one of the tour students drops their drink glass. At the sound of the shattering glass, the dinning hall becomes instantly silent. Then, breaking the spell, one table breaks into a round of applause and rowdy cheers with more tables following suit. The movement gains momentum until most of the dinning hall is clapping and shouting with some even giving a standing ovation.  Eventually the movement dies down, the broken glass is cleared away, and the roar resumes.

This is a major kaiotic moment and honestly one I witness everytime there is a tour group. There is always some poor nervous or just plain accident-prone person (I am one of these people!) who drops something or shatters something and the student body of Penn State reverts to their elementary schools days to ridicule him/her. It is done out of necessity of the Penn State student body to show (and by that I mean humiliate) the accepted students that while they might be the big seniors now, they will be the underdog freshmen again next year.

kariotic survey

Today (Thursday) I had a major psychology exam. So, Wednesday night I found myself holed up in my floor’s study room going over my notecards and debating on whether or not to go get some sort of caffeinated drink from The Mix.  While considering this crucial choice, two girls came into the study room and asked if I had time to participate in a survey. In addition they did not tell me the subject of the survey.

Firstly, I must backtrack and must say they mentioned they were from the second floor of my building. This information is crucial to this “story”.

They asked me only three questions, but I feel if I knew the survey’s topic before I agreed to answer then I would have been better prepared. The questions were pretty close to (meaning might have been worded differently) 1) Are you a virgin? 2) Have you been more sexually active in college? 3) Do you think females are more sexually active in college?

Why I am posting this in a rhetoric blog is because it took advantage of a kariotic situation. This situation is completely full of karios because I live in one of the oldest dorms that is constantly falling apart.  For example one of the elevators is constantly broken (I live on the top floor) and we are always having the water turned off.  In addition, before spring break our building had construction done to some of the bathrooms and the entryway which along with a downed elevator caused major back-ups and dissatisfaction all around. So, when the girls said they were from the second floor and were doing a survey, but did not state the topic, I (like most people on my floor) automatically assumed it was about the building or the construction not sexuality.

Lester Bangs

Since my essay was about a public controversy, I thought it kind of fitting to write about a rhetoric idea from it that I did not cover in my paper. My essay was about Lester Bangs’ harsh announcement of Punk groupie Nancy Spungen’s death. In its duration I went over kairos, audience, and constraints, but did not explain the logos that made Bangs the ideal writer for this piece.

            Lester Bangs was a music journalist that is most known for writing for magazines like Rolling Stone or Creem (Punk Magazine).  When Spungen was killed, the Punk movement was still relatively new and had not developed a following outside of fellow Punks. (In a nutshell, a Punk is one who deviates from social norms). Thus, the public was not accepting of Punk music, Punk musicians, or the movement itself.

            Lester Bangs would have made for an ideal bridge between the two communities if only he had been able to remain impartial.  For he was known for his music savvy so therefore he could inform the populace, but was not a musician so therefore the mass public could relate to him.

            However, (as I mentioned in my paper) Lester Bangs ultimately chose career advancement over objectively informing the population and thus the tension between the Punks and their oppressors only intensified.

Remember the Titans generates rhetoric blog

Oh Davin, I thought you were kidding when you said some of the great rhetoric conversations were going to happen late at night just sitting around talking with friends.  Well, last night it finally happened to me on a variety of topics and I can say yes, you were right.

My friends and I were sitting around (I was of course diligently preparing my speech…aka having a minor freak out!) watching what can be debated one of the best football movies of all time Remember The Titans.  While watching the movie one of my friends brought up the point that she couldn’t imagine segregation especially in school settings.  This is when we told her that this is sadly what they are doing in schools all across the nation.

The school districts are not calling it segregation. No, that would be unethical and unconstitutional. Instead, they are saying by integrating students, the students lose the ability to learn about their culture and by separating them they are given that opportunity.  Well, congratulations we just managed to undermine the Civil Rights Movement. 

However this is unfair to students of all races.  Yes, I am aware there are schools where the racial ratio is severely skewed (many rural area are often predominantly Caucasian while many intercity schools or schools with Martin Luther King Jr. associated with their name are predominately African-American…brought up by another friend), but how does further enabling this solve the problem.

We kept debating on whether this was a real issue or not. One of my friends said they discussed this in her sociology class and whenever people would comment they would say, “Well, I’m not a racist, but…(insert bogus claim).”

            In addition, I am going to be a secondary high school educator (English Teacher Waaa-Hoooo!) and I think diversity is an important characteristic to a successful learning environment. You learn as much from your peers and environment as much as from your teacher/yourself, so if you’re in a class with students that are exactly the same as you what are you truly going to learn from them?

            I will not even pretend to know the secret to world peace, but I know that re-segregating the schools is going to cause more harm than good. 

snickers peanut butter squared + sharks

While I was searching the Internet, a commercial popped up for the new Snickers peanut butter squared bars.  (If you haven’t tried one yet, they are exactly what the name implies…a Snickers bar with peanut butter ...oh and they’re really good too!)  Anyway while I was watching it, I realized it would make a pretty good topic for my rhetoric blog because it held examples of what we’ve been going over in class (ethos, logos, and pathos).

            First of all, I believe I stated before that I am quite terrified of sharks, so when this commercial popped up I kind of felt it was like a sign. The creators of the commercial played upon sharks’ reputation of being bloodthirsty man-eaters when they put together this commercial. This appeals to ethos because with “real” sharks’ reputation and the “commercial” sharks’ dialog about preferring Steve because he tasted like Snickers and peanut butter, the audience felt that claim was credible because sometimes sharks do eat people.

            The logos appeal was in a humorous kind of twisted way. The market-researcher was gathering her information by asking which human (Lisa or Steve) tasted better.  The commercial setting was in a boardroom/conference room and the research was photos of the two people that had been eaten.

            Finally, like me, most people are afraid of getting eaten by sharks and by capitalizing on this fear the commercial creators are playing on the commercial’s pathos.  In addition, this commercial defies audience expectations.  The viewers don’t expect to see sharks essentially judging a candy bar by which person tasted better and are surprised when the man is pushed through the door to ultimately be sacrificed to the sharks.

Bon Jovi Concert

“OHHHHH WE’RE HALFWAY THERE OHHHHH LIVIN’ ON A PRAYER!” Oh yes I was at the Bon Jovi concert. I am a huge fan and lucked into getting pretty cheap tickets at the last minute. It was my first concert at the Bryce Jordan Center and in all honesty it was amazing.

Now you might be wondering how does a Bon Jovi concert might relate to rhetoric? Well, Jon Bon Jovi’s appearance and his speeches were rhetoric all the way.

First of all, Jon Bon Jovi had several outfit changes during the show. And when I say outfits, I mean shirts. He started out in a leather-like button shirt, then changed to a button dress shirt, then finished in a leather vest.  What these three “shirts” had in common were that they all showed a fair amount of skin for they were buttoned just one button too far. (yes even for Jon Bon Jovi the unspoken button rule exists) When his shirts kept gaping further open he began to look more and more messy (not rock-star) and he began to look his age.  In contrast when he emerged after a quick break when guitarist Richie Sambora sang a song, he had re-buttoned some of his shirt and looked more put together.

Secondly, the speeches and just the way Jon Bon Jovi talked between songs were pure rhetoric. He knew how and when to excite and to pump up the crowd. He also knew what to say when introducing a slower calmer song.  During the encore he gave a motivational speech that touched every audience members and made them feel like he was talking to them personally. He concluded his motivational speech by continually repeating “I can I will, I can I will, I can I will, I can I will…” So, not were the audience members blown away by the sheer awesomeness of the concert they had witnessed, but they were touched that he had taken the time to inspire them.

texting vs. calling

As mentioned in the chapter 5 reading, sometimes we do not choose the best option for our communication needs.  I, along with so many of my generation, am guilty of relying on text messaging as my primary source of communicating to others. Studies have shown that while our technology skills are increasing, our interpersonal skills are decreasing.  Also with this decrease in interpersonal skills, goes our ability to judge what we should say orally and what we instead type frantically away on our cell phones.  

            Most college students (and many high school students too) know and are contributors of www.textsfromlastnight.com. Texts from Last Night is a website that was founded in February 2009 with the intent of posting anonymous texts and parts of conversations from the previous night. They are often funny, sometimes crude, but always amusing.  

            How Texts from Last Night relates to the reading is when you read some of the texts posted on the site, you know if they had just called each other instead of texting, things would have gone much much smoother. An example of this is:

            “Im lying in the gutter can u come get me?”

            “Where r u?”

            “Under the stars!”

Person 1 clearly had no idea where they were and person 2 had no way to find person 1.  If they had called each other they might have been able to put together a general location for person 1.

            Sometimes texting is easier than calling someone, but you have to realize what is appropriate when the situation calls for it.