Henderson shows the ridiculously backwards priorities of Detroit in his recent article of the elderly couple and their ordeal with their garbage can. He does this by primarily using sarcastic tone. When writing about being ticketed for leaving their garbage can out a day late he uses saracsm by saying, "The nerve! It was time to crack down." This was an obvious use of sarcasm when contrasted with his first few paragraphs about how upstanding they were as citizens. The reader can hear a sarcastic voice saying that sentence, and it contributes to the tone because the reader's feel how exasperated Henderson feels. Henderson also says that they were ticketed by "an over-eager pencil-pusher". Here, his choice of words show his sarcastic tone. He goes on to describe the condition of the neighborhood, and made a good point when he observed that the trees being trimmed but the garbage and abandoned houses not being tended to. His sarcastic tone shows his effectiveness because the reader feels his irritation about this story. This could have easily been a dry, boring, non-descriptive article, but instead he makes it engaging (by using sarcasm) and he also has a point in writing this. After reading this, the reader goes away knowing exactly what Henderson was trying to say and he did this by using the this story.

It is obvious to me why Darnell's article impacted Detroit reader's so much. It was raw, personal, well-written and true. His whole paper was an obvious use of pathos, and he does this by using diction and compare/contrast.

Mr. Gardner used excellent vocabulary throughout his paper but a few words struck me most and added to the strength of his paper. He begins by countering a previously stated argument. He foresees people saying he is a bigot (just like Kwame accused). He counters this by saying my words are drenched in tears -- for my people and my city." The word drenched shows the extent of his sadness. It has weight; it weighs on the heart. He could have simply said "I'm really sad about what's going on in Detroit", but instead he uses a much stronger word that supports the tone of the paper.

Then he says, "While Kilpatrick touts building up dilapidated neighborhoods and tearing down abandoned homes, I cringe as he fails to preserve what little beauty this city still has left." This is a great use of diction and compare/contrast, which I will discuss later. Tout is such a strong, proud word, and the word cringe gives a painful, uncomfortable connotation. Both entirely different words with different meanings. The contrast between Darnell's and Kwame's opinion is apparent.

He goes on to write about the poor education in Detroit and how it is evident that student's are not receiving enough education. He says that the teacher's have a difficult time grading papers because they are not legible. He says, "In fact, one of my peers asked me to proofread one of his essays, and I nearly began to sob halfway through it." He could have chose an alternative, weaker word, but sob has passion. It also shows the extent of his sadness. When he uses words like these, especially sob, it makes his paper so much more personal, which is the reason why his paper impacted so many.

He finishes by saying, "I am one of the many Detroiters who are pleading for Kilpatrick's resignation." If there was confusion about what his purpose was in writing this, he makes it obvious when he says that. He uses the word pleading which has just as much passion as the other uses of diction. Again, he could have used different words, like asking or begging, but those words do not have the same effect as pleading. They are weak words and although they would make sense in the context of the sentence, they would not have been effective. The reader can hear the emphasis on this word. It is not only a good choice of words but it has emotion behind it.

His paper was very powerful and showed that excellent students and writers still exsist in Detroit.

"But I did what many other Detroiters still do on a regular basis: try to uphold the image of our city. "

He definitely has.

I found Kym Worthy's speech very well written. She touched on a lot of things I think Detroit has been irritated about, and she said it perfectly. She also made it very clear that the case was not about the sex or the texts which was very important to point out.

After reading her speech I concluded that Kwame Kilpatrick and Christine Beatty are being charged for perjury, but I was confused when Mr. Brandt asked for the charges. So I looked it up and found that they are also being charged for charged for "obstruction and willful misconduct in the text-message scandal." Since I only realized they are being charged for perjury after reading the speech, I will focus on that.

When Worthy uses ethics she is speaking about the importance of witnesses and also giving a broad definition of an oath. She says that it is vital that witnesses only speak the truth because their lies could have a great impact on the results of the case. She also gave both a definition of what an oath is and what an oath is not to highlight the importance of truthfulness. Truthfulness is an important part of character and everyone understands what is expected of someone that is truthful. She appeals to the the ethics by discussing the importance of the truth and she does it very well.

Worthy uses logos when talking about the justice system and the importance of oaths. She says,

"The fundamental principles of the justice system are fairly simple – they
aren’t hard. We learned them all as children:

Tell the truth
Take responsibility for your actions
Admit when you are wrong
Be fair and play fair
Don’t take or use things that aren’t yours
There are consequences for bad behavior

Even children understand that lying is wrong."

By using the phrases fairly simple, learned them as children, even children know lying is wrong she shows how obvious the situation is. Using children as an example strengthens her speech because she shows the common sense behind her point. It can also be seen as a comparison. It is almost like she is saying, "Children already understand the justice system, why can't you?" This appeal to the common sense of the situation is ethos in this case.

She uses pathos directly after this when she talks about the outcome if witnesses lie and why it is such a crime if someone does. She says, "If a witness lies, innocent people can go to jail or prison, people can literally get away with murder." She then goes on to say that at the end of the witnesses have to go back to their daily lives and risk the consequences of their testimony. Some by going home and "risking their lives in drive-by shooting cases." Then she asks the question, "How can we look another witness in the eye and ask them to come in and do these things if we do not follow the law for witnesses who lie under oath?" This is a good use of pathos because it brings real people's lives into account both the witness and the suspects; she does this by using the phrase risking their lives. With pathos it is very easy to place oneself in the situation and that is why it does such a great job of impacting the listeners. They can imagine how they would feel if they or someone they loved was wrongly charged because someone lied. When reading this I could even imagine the inflection of her tone when talking about this and that is a sure sign of pathos.

Kwame uses a couple rhetorical strategies to try to win Detroiter's over. Of course the use of pathos and ethos in his speech does not work well enough to convince the majority of Detroit to feel bad for his situation, especially after everything he has done.


Kwame uses pathos when he brings up the safety and lack of respect for his wife, children, and the children on Detroit. He says, "I've heard these words before but I've never heard people say them about my wife and children. I have to say this because it's very personal to me. I don't believe that a Nielsen rating is worth the life of my children or your children." He tries to get people to relate to his situation by bringing up his family. Everyone has experienced the love between family members so this would have been a wise move to make if only people were still willing to side with him. He tries to make it so that this is not about himself, but about his family. It seems to me that this is just a front he puts up to appear to be a family oriented man and to win the pity of Detroit. Then he tries to get the listeners to relate to his situation by bringing up their own families. How a Neilsen rating would risk the lives of everyone else's children is unclear to me, but he desperately tries this one last attempt to get the listeners to relate to his situation.


Kwame also uses ethos to scold Detroiter's when he says, "In the past 30 days Ive been called a nigger more than anytime in my entire life. In the past three days I've received more death threats than I have in my entire administration." and "This unethical, illegal lynch mob mentality has to stop." By pointing out the obvious wrong doings of his opponents, he appeals to the ethos of the listeners. He does this especially by illustrating how people have recently called him the N-word and threatened him more than any other time he has been in office. He does this to make the listener side with him because of all these unfortunate events that have been happening to him.

In Larry Elder's article he points out the differences between the Liberal's and Conservative's points of view. He uses multiple "they say" arguements through out his article to mock the Liberal's perspective. The "they say" arguement that mocks the liberal's the most is this:

"In other words, six out of ten Americans on the far left found that no evil, heinous person in the world could be worthy of more hatred than Bush and Cheney. For a little perspective, the then alive Saddam Hussein recieved on average a score of 8 from all Americans."

The first sentence is humorous because he describes our current president and vice president as "evil and heinous" which is not what most readers would describe them as. Not because they are not, because I am sure in some people's opinion they are, but it is humorus because these are our nation's leaders. The second sentence is what really mocks the liberals. Saddam Hussein, a man whose murderd countless innocent people, scored higher that our nation's leaders. That simple comparison shows the debatable perspective of the liberal's.

In Jimmy Johnson's comic today, his characters discuss the idea of moving to a farm. The husband regrets that it did not work out, saying how living close to nature would have made life much more enjoyable. This reminds me of the idea of transcendentalism we have been talking about in class. We all experienced this first hand last week; we found that removing "modern distractions" from our lives made it much simpler. In some way, shape, or form it brought us calmness, and that's exactly what the husband in this comic is looking for. The idea of homemade wine and big parties seem attractive to many families. However his wife realizes that had they moved to a farm, their kids would've gone crazy because they would have nothing to do, and she would have had more work to do. The underlying message in this comic is that today's society heavily relies on electronics to keep them entertained.

The smug look on the husband's face shows his ignorance to the difficulties of living on a farm. The reader knows he has good intentions with his idea of living a simpler life, but he obviously had not thought it all out, especially in regard to his children's enjoyment. The last scene is the most revealing in the message though. The wife's sarcastic comment, "Oh I know" shows that she had thought about the realistic results of living on a farm which meant more work for her. The clothes line in the background shows how the lack of electronics would make simple tasks much harder. The look on the kid's faces and their actions show their lack of things to do, so they pester their mom instead. The mom's facial expression sums it all up. She looks worn out, tired, and irritated. Her husband obviously had not given a thought to how moving to a farm would effect his whole family.

In this column, Desiree Cooper writes about my new favorite movie "Juno". She gives a brief summary about the movie: sixteen year old gets pregnant and instead of aborting her baby she decides to give it up for adoption. Coopers says, "Juno" broadens the dialogue on teen sexuality by helping us peer into its devastating realities" and goes on to say that's a win for her.

Her point is summed up when she says, "too often, teenage mothers suffer the stigma and burden of raising a child, while the young fathers' lives stay on track". She writes about the lack of teen fathers and puts the pressure on them to step up and take responsibility. I mostly agree with her point, however I don't think she can stereotype all teen fathers into one mold. I'm sure there are plenty of them that took responsibility and helped their child's mother.

Cooper writes to an older adult audience, for example our parents. I think this because she says that the movie Juno showed her how some teens today handle unplanned pregnancies. If she were to write to our age group though, a few things would be changed. First of all, she should change this sentence: "it does a great job of deglamorizing what it's like to carry a child when you're a child yourself", because I don't think we, at sixteen, would like to be called children. We wouldn't want to relate to a column that makes us sound less mature than we might be. She would also have to change the way she described people, because she'd be writing to a different point of view. She calls the receptionist at the abortion clinic "a promiscuous twentysomething receptionist" and that's not how I would've described her having seen the movie. From my point of view and the point of view of my age group, I think she'd be seen as somewhat of a freak.