Penn State Priorities

Penn State Memes: Brandon Cwalina

I was on facebook the other day, casually looking through the Penn State Memes.  Some were hilarious.  Others were so true.  And then I came to this one.  WOW.  A picture is worth a thousand words, and this one says a lot.  10,686,924.83 actually.  Each dollar raised, each person involved, affects children.  Years down the road, this picture may not mean much.  But the creator, Brandon Cwalina, definitely seized on the kairos of this year to make a very powerful, emotional picture.

This picture could be interpreted in a couple different ways.  First off, that Penn State only cares about its football team.  That they don't care about anyone else.  Millions of dollars go into the football program every year, and some people may feel that the university allots more money to that rather than other, more worthy causes.  It also suggests that the students themselves only care about football.  However, THON proves these theories wrong.  $10 million collected, by students and staff, and given to cancer research.  This picture undermines all the nay-sayers.

That first interpretation could be understood by anyone throughout the years.  But another interpretation applies to this particular year.  Without explicitly stating it, this picture attacks the "outsiders" who have accused Penn State and Penn State's students throughout this whole Sandusky case.  When the riots happened, outsiders said that the students only cared about Joe Paterno and the football team.  They said that the students didn't care about those affect, all the children involved in the case.  This picture is a pun on those statements.  Because Penn State does care about the kids.  Penn State does care about children in bad situations.  Regardless of if it is child abuse or cancer, Penn State takes a stand.

Therefore, I enjoyed this picture a lot.  It seized the kairos of this year and created a picture that can apply to many different situations concerning Penn State.  Rhetorically, it had a lot to say, all of which I agree with.

Nicki Nightmare

Last Sunday, I - like many others - watched the Grammys.  I didn't catch the whole show, however I did watch Nicki Minaj's performance.  I am confident in saying that I am not the only one offended by her performance.  And I believe it sent a loud, rhetorical message to the religious - specifically Catholic - viewers.

Photo by: The Daily Truffle

The first offense was what she wore.  She dressed up in a red rendition of a nun's habit.  Worse, the man who accompanied her dressed like the pope!  Now, to some people, that may not mean anything.  But to many others, it is unthinkable.  The pope is the head of the Catholic Church.  As far as Catholics are concerned, he is the closest man to God, he is in the chosen line decended from Saint Peter, and frankly, he is not a man to mess with.  It really sent a message that Nicki and her companion wore these things.  The message was that she doesn't care about religion.  She does not honor other people's religious views, and instead finds that it is a joke.

Minaj did not stop there.  Her performance onstage had me clenching my hands in outrage.  She created a satire of the whole institution of the Catholic Church.  From the sacrament of Penitence to exorcizing those posessed by demons, Minaj made fun of much about this religion.  By doing this, she told the audience that Catholicism is a joke.  That the foundations of the Catholic Church are frivolous and unimportant.  She challenged the audience's beliefs.  They then must question their faith.  Would they be faithful to their religion (thus be angry over the act), or forgive her in the name of a Hollywood performance?  People who are not Catholics had just as strong of reactions to this.  I watched it with my friends.  As it was going on, one of them said, "Wow.  I'm not even Christian, and yet I even find this offensive!" 

In the end, Nicki Minaj undermined the whole institution of the Catholic Church.  Regardless of whether her performance was asthetically pleasing, it had disasterous effects.  At least personally, I lost a lot of respect for her.  I don't mind when people have views other than my own, especially regarding religion, but it is incredibly rude and immoral to make fun of others' beliefs.  Sorry Nicki, but your performance was an absolute nightmare. 

Against State Patty's Day

http://onwardstate.com/2012/02/02/residence-life-limits-overnight-guests-for-state-pattys-weekend/

I find it interesting that Penn State officials have gone to great efforts to restrict drinking for State Patty's Day.  This article really caught my eye for many reasons.  The first sentence describes that Residence Life has "joined the fight" against State Patty's Day.  Immediately it encourages negative emotions against this "holiday."  It goes further to describe the measures that Residence Life is taking against any drinking activities.

I think that Residence Life did not approach this subject correctly.  First and foremost, they said that on-campus residences all received this e-mail.  I, along with my friends on my floor, have never received said e-mail.  This creates an ethos of dishonesty to me.  How can I trust the rest of this article, or even the subject, if they error on their information?  They go on and describe how disciplinary action will be taken if residence's rooms have more than one guest over on the weekend of February 24-25.  This seems irrational and extreme to me.  Won't this cause roommates to fight over who can and who cannot have a guest?  In addition, this stipulation was never mentioned in the contract that residences agreed to.  The contract allowed more guests.  That being said, I cannot think of any practical, enforceable ways that Coordinators can punish students. 

I cannot think of a policy that could be less enforceable than limiting guests.  Unless RAs evaluate every single room multiple times, how can they truly figure out if more than one guest is going to stay over in any specific room?  All of these questions leave myself, and I am sure many others, very confused, which decreases the legitimacy and ethos of the policy. 

In the end, I believe that going to all of these great lengths has actually had ill effects on the university.  By recognizing this "holiday," they acknowledge that the student body drinks...excessively.  But the fact that they are taking precautions for this day alone, it shows one of two things: 1. they are naive about every other weekend or 2. they overlook the drinking that happens on the other weekends.  They allow parties on other weekends.  They disregard the excessive drinking on other days.  It destroys their ethos.  Students will not take them seriously.  They are claiming to try to cut down the drinking, yet are only focusing on one day.  What about the other 364?

Biased News

The Oreilly Factor: President Obama and your approval

I am sorry, I couldn't upload this video because it is copyrighted by Fox News. 

This week, I decided that I would write my rhetoric post on biased news.  I am not completely trying to bash the other party, simply showing the sometimes blatant, sometimes covert biases among the supposed impartial news coverage.  While I chose to use a Republican show as my example, I am not denying that the Democrats may do the same thing.

News stations are riddled with rhetoric.  Which news station you watch determines the view that you may get on an issue.  Some - such as CNN or MSNBC - are decidedly Democratic, while others - such as FOX News - are rather Republican.  The same concept applies to newspapers, websites, and any other kind of media.  They convey their message in a way that supports one of the parties while opposing the other.

I chose this news reel because I think it is a good example of using the media and your words to lead people to a certain conclusion.  Bill O'Reilly chooses the information that he displays very strategically.  He portrays President Obama as a president whom most people in our country disapproves of.  He shows the states that will be wildcards for the election, then makes sure that he mentions that Obama does not have the majority approval in any of them. 

Specifically, in the video, around 1:20-1:47, I noticed a contradiction in his speech.  He says "We are not in the business to promote any political candidate; you're smart enough to know who you want to vote for."  then he proceeds to specify which is the better candidate.  "If the Republicans can stay on message and Mr. Obama is incompetant in economic matters, the GOP has a better than even chance..."  Excuse me?  Does that sound like he is promoting one candidate, or rather one party, over the other?  Very sneaky...

I think it is interesting that this happens in the news.  Using our concepts, I may say that the reporters use descriptions, like "incompetant" to disenchant voters against a certain candidate.  They distort the data in order to inspire confidence in one party over the other.  In this, he stresses that Obama does not have a majority in certain states and that only 10 states have an approval rating over 50%.

One thing that I must give credit to Mr. O'Reilly for is when he mentions how Democrats will "unleash hell on Mitt Romney"  because of his wording.  He pokes fun at the fact that each political party uses what they say out of context.  Mitt Romney once said, "I'm not concerned about the very poor." within one of his comments.  O'Reilly says that the Democrats will use that phrase to destroy Romney's campaign.  But by bringing this up, O'Reilly sort of nips the problem in the bud before it can happen.  Now people will be on the look out for that sort of foul play. 

I think this is a good example of how news stations use rhetoric to push one political party on the viewers.  The way they say things, the examples they use, the facts they show; all of this effectively leads to one conclusion.  The same evidence could be put on a different news channel and the viewers could come to a completely different conclusion.  It's all about how they portray it.  It's all about the rhetoric.

I Believe In Skiing

I would like to point out that I know the pictures in the video are of myself wakeboarding rather than skiing, but I don't have any of myself skiing here with me.  Sorry!

http://www.personal.psu.edu/tam5454/blogs/ibelieveinskiing.mp3