TOW #13- Being Smart About Your Child's Brain

Frank Bruni is an Op-Ed columnist for the New York Times. In his columns, he writes about sseveral different topics including American politics, higher education, violence in football, and gay rights. In his op-ed piece ‘Being Smart About Your Child’s Brain’, he discusses the problems circulating around school sports. Bruni believes that health should be prioritized in all sports, not simply football, because more and more injuries such as concussions and heat strokes have been occurring. Several times throughout his piece, Bruni turns to statistics in order to make his point. For example, he speaks of a scientist named Comstock, who supervises a national inventory of athletic injuries in high school students. Coomstock says “’I have 22 sports in my surveillance system, and concussions have been reported in all but one of them. That includes swimming,’” (Bruni para 13). Both hearing this from a scientist and through numbers, the reader puts the information together logically and allows them to come to their own conclusions. It also shows that this concern has proof behind it and is actually abundant enough to have concerns about. He also turns to several other scientists to prove his point, including information from Kevin Guskiewicz, Douglas Casa and more. This allows him to add ethos to his argument by turning to those who know more about the topic than he does. He also brings up current events that readers may be familiar with. He speaks of a sixteen year old in New York who developed heatstroke and ended up in the hospital with kidney damage during practice. The current event proves to the readers that this is still something that needs to be addressed and shows the drastic effects that this problem has on the high schoolers. I believe this was a rather effective piece, as he understood where he was standing in the audience’s eyes. As he was a writer and not a scientist, he knew how to properly back up the information, and to what extent so that it wouldn’t be overwhelming to the reader. It seems his audience are the parents, as he discusses a lot of parent’s questions at college conferences and their lack of focus on the sports.

TOW #12- The Lucifer Effect

As discussed in my previous IRB post, Philip Zimbardo looks to answer the question: “What makes good people good bad?” Delving into his book, he didn’t waste any time in preparation to tell us his thesis. Apparently, there are multiple, as he says “On thesis of his book is that most of us know ourselves only from our limited experiences in familiar situations that involve rules, laws, policies, and pressures that constrain us,” (Zimbardo 291). It’s a haunting proposal, to think that we do not understand who we really are until we are unrestrained and without limits. Zimbardo asks us to think of ourselves as we read this book, and consider what actions we think that we’d take versus what may actually happen with the wrong influences. He claims that this could happen to any of us. Even the best of us can become tainted. The most significant tools that he uses to draw his readers in are the allusions. The title itself is an allusion, referencing God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, who eventually fell from heaven and soon took his place in hell as the ruler. He also addresses a work that later became a bible of the Inquisition, The Witches, which he calls “the first documented sources of the widespread use of the dispositional view to understand evil and rid the world of its pernicious influence…” (Zimbardo 356). He goes on to speak of how the process of eliminating evil brought a new evil onto itself: the torture and massacre of ‘witches’. Initially, Zimbardo presents these as a way to distance ourselves from true evils. Whether you view biblical tales as fact or fiction, Zimbardo knows that the reader feels that they are too far from the story to be able to actually relate. However, when the reader is then pulled back into reality, when the reader finally comprehends that this could be them, it develops an overwhelming sense of anxiety, and the need to do exactly what Zimbardo asks of his book. The reader begins to analyze what they’d choose to do when Zimbardo proposes his interactive scenarios and his personal experiments. I believe that this was a brilliant way for the reader to become immersed into the story. Despite it not being based on anything religious, I still think that it could bring in the religious audience due to the title and the allusions within the book. As for people like me, who are here for the science, it brings a factual and analytical allure that any psychologist would look for.

TOW #11- Mothering My Dying Friend

Catherine Newman is the author of her memoir Waiting For Birdy and posts weekly to her blog Bringing Up Ben & Birdy. She is most popular on parenting websites, most of her posts being recollections of her parenthood. In her short story memoir, "Mothering My Dying Friend", she finds a relationship between her experience as a parent and her experience taking care of her friend of 44 years who was dying from cancer. Newman makes it clear to the reader that the beginning and end of our lives are nearly identical. Several times throughout the piece, Newman mentions children or infants. For example, she says "After I had my newborn, I was stunned by the basic fact of birth," (para 17). This, and many other statements like that, keeps bringing attention to the idea of children right after Newman discusses her interactions with her dying friend. This placement allows the reader to create a connection between the two stages of life, infancy and death. The author also sets the mood through her tone and word choice, using words such as 'excruciatingly', 'banal', and more. This creates a much darker, sadder atmosphere. This way, the reader can understand the pain that she and her friend went through while experiencing her inevitable fate. I believe that Newman did a great job with this piece, pouring all of her emotions into it. However, she knows to limit some of the pathos that is put in so that she can relate to the reader. Overall, she puts a more realistic perspective on death, the thing that we consider so out of our reach.