Tow #13 Why College Football Should be Banned

http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304743704577382292376194220

College students don't benefit from college football, in fact, all they get is a
higher tuition. 

May of 2012, Buzz Bissenger wrote an extremely bold yet thought-provoking article about why college football should be banned. His main reason? Well, to start, he says, "In more than 20 years I've spent studying the issue, I have yet to hear a convincing argument that college football has anything to do with what is presumably the primary purpose of higher education: academics." (Bussinger 1) Buzz Bissenger claims that college football steers away the students from what they are supposed to be doing at college, which is learning. He also makes the argument that the only people who benefit from college football are the alumni and the coaches that make absurd amounts of money. The students don't benefit. Even the players don't benefit because they're being "exploited by a system in which they don't receive a dime of compensation" (1). Last, Bussinger even begins to trash the concept of the game of football alone, and says that it causes injuries that don't need to happen, including sever head trauma. Although his arguments were legitimate, surprisingly, I did not find his article very effective. This article taught me how NOT to write an argumentative essay. The way he crafted the article was extremely sloppy. He would make one little argument, maybe say a sentence or two about it, and then scurry along to his next argument. This didn't allow his main arguments to stick out in my mind, but instead, it makes the article rather confusing. Something that did help his stance, though, was the example about the university in Baltimore, Maryland. He claims that the school cut 8 varsity sports to create a leaner athletic budget, so that crumbling basketball and football programs would get money, and track and swimming wouldn't. He then went on to explain just how much money the school spent on football, and the numbers blew my mind. A little statistic like that can change the whole meaning of the article, which was fascinating to me. During the timed essays, I'll make sure to use as much background knowledge as I can. The argument was an interesting one, and by the end of the article, I almost agreed with him, but not quite. His statistics helped, but it didn't completely gloss over the fact that the organization was sloppy. Note to self: organization has the same importance as content!

Tow #12 IRB Review

I'm in the midst of reading the book, Three Little Words, by Ashley Rhodes, and so far, I have learned about her childhood. Similar to previous IRB book, this one is about someone who had to overcome hardships. Rhodes uses imagery and dialogue to help the reader understand her difficult situations that she went through during her life. Using imagery, the reader can not only picture what is going on, but it allows us to interpret her dilemma in our own way. For example, Rhodes writes, "Our car always smelled of pickles and mustard from all the fast food we ate in it. I was enjoying my usual kids' meal in the backseat when my mother shouted, "Shit, shit!" A flashing red light made the car's windows glow rosy, and I liked the way my hands looked, as though they were on fire." (24) The way Rhodes uses two different senses, sense of smell and sight, encapsulates her experience in her mother's car. The audience can smell the fast food smell, whether it be McDonald's or Burger King. The reader can picture the glow that turns her hand as red as fire. The descriptors accentuate every action and every 

seemingly unimportant detail in the story, which  only makes it that much better.

      The dialogue has the same kind of effect. Rhodes uses dialogue several times through out her story. Whether it is her mother speaking or her brother or herself, the dialogue makes the story come to life. It puts voices and individuality on each of the characters. It gives every character a personality. Rhodes writes, "I remember the rush of joy as I fell into her arms after one of those interminable separations. 

'Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must listen to the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama. Never forget, I'm the only mama who will love you forever and ever.' She pledged that we would be together soon." (1) Although the readers don't exactly know who her mother is, we can infer that she was a kind-hearted woman, who maybe didn't have enough to support her child. Maybe she wasn't in a good environment to raise one. The fact that she sang that song and made those promises shows that maybe she couldn't pick and choose what happened to her child. It was probably what was best for Ashley. Her mother wasn't thinking for herself. She was selfless. 

       This book has moved me a bit form the beginning. Learning about the foster care process is very interesting, and I have made a connection to Rhodes as well. I can't wait to continue reading on. Rhodes's imagery and dialogue is extremely effective in getting the reader to understand the situation at hand, and I'm sure it will come more into play throughout the rest of the book as well. 

Tow #11: Patient by Rachel Reiderer

          One leg crushed under a tire, and the other wedged between the second tire and the cold, hard asphalt. And the bus that has mounted itself on top of you? Well, it's not moving. Rachel Reiderer has experienced this before, and wrote an essay on her time under the bus, and in the hospital. In her essay, called, "Patient", Reiderer uses personification and imagery to demonstrate to her audience that although things may be at the worst of times now, there is always a way to look toward the future.
          Reiderer uses personification multiple times throughout her essay, especially in reference to the different parts of her body that had been injured when she was caught under a bus. She writes, "My toes would have bent. My feet are pretty and obedient." (2) During the essay, Reiderer cannot bring herself to believe that the incident even occurred at all. Here, she states that her toes would have bent, even though, because of the accident, they could not. She then goes on to personify her feet, claiming that they are "obedient". In another part of the essay, she yells at her leg for hurting her. The audience can see that Reiderer is in extreme pain, and tends to take it out on her body or things besides herself. This is then resolved when she realizes that it is no one's fault that this has happened to her. Things just happen sometimes.
          In her essay, Reiderer also uses imagery. Although many of the images she provides are quite grotesque, they do give the reader a sense of the exact situation that she is in, and what she encounters on any given day when stuck in a hospital for almost a quarter of a year. She repeatedly describes her room as off-white wall-papered, giving a bland image for the eerie and lonesome hospital room in which she stays for so long. She gives in depth descriptions of how her leg looks and feels. She writes, "The skin is gone from most of the front and the side, and there is just a mess of red tissue about three inches across..." (6) This describes the brutality of what she deals with every day, and how she has to be positive in order to get through it.
        Reiderer is an extremely good writer, and this essay was, in my opinion, amazing. She used personification and imagery to especially emphasize her point that looking toward the future is imperative when in a situation like hers. Sitting in a hospital bed for nearly four months obviously isn't going to be easy, but she was patient.