TOW #10- Kim Kardashian's T-Mobile Super Bowl 2015 Commercial "Save the Data"

T-Mobile not only humors the audience while making fun of the famous Kim Kardashian but also persuades their audience that T-Mobile is some sort of moral cell phone provider that truly cares for the well-being of their precious data in the commercial that they played for Super Bowl XLIX.  They do this through the use of humor and allusion to other, more seriously emotional commercials.

They expertly make their audience of American football super bowl fans very protective of their cellular data, because without it, Kim brilliantly points out that they would not be able to see the posts about her "outfits, my vacations, and my outfits."  Even though the company is clearly making fun of the life of a Kardashian, it creates a sense among the audience that they would be missing out on the world without their data, even the parts of their world that include the Kardashian family.  This humor also allows the audience to view T-Mobile as a light-hearted, friendly company that is up to date with the world.  T-Mobile is more likely to be successful with their purpose of trying to get Americans to join T-Mobile when they use the device of humor.

This commercial is also extremely successful, because the entire time, the  T-Mobile is alluding to commercials such as the ASPCA commercial, commercials that would make your grandmother or little sister cry over the animals that so desperately need their love and support.  Playing sad, slow music in the background makes it even more humorous that the commercial is about cellular data and not something that the audience actually needs to save.  When Kim K walks across the completely white stage, saying the word "tragic" one can truly feel the emotions surging in the audience in sympathy for the data that is being lost due to cell companies that just ruthlessly take it back from their customers.

T-Mobile clearly proved that they were the one and only cell company that would save the data.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzQ6a2UKlGM

TOW #9- "Medical Research: The Dangers to the Human Subjects" by Marcia Angell

Dr. Herta Oberheuser being sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nazi Doctors’ Trial, Nuremberg, August 1947

Click here for article

Marcia Angell makes it very clear throughout her entire essay, "Medical Research: The Dangers to the Human Subjects," that she is completely against using humans for scientific research.  She does this to both educate her audience on human experimentation and to get them to start considering the topic themselves as an issue that still needs fixing.  By using examples of the acts of Nazi Germany, Angell shows the audience that even scientific research in recent years uses the same excuses as people like Dr. Herta Oberhauser (pictured on the left) to justify their use of humans in extremely unjust experimentation.

The fact that the NIH and the CDC were using subjects in sub-Saharan Africa to justify giving a placebo to a group of pregnant mother with HIV instead of the medicine that would reduce the risk of passing on the infection to their offspring completely goes against the rights any human should have while being a part of scientific research.  They said that since the subjects in the control group would not regularly have access to such medicine, because of where they lived, that they were not harming them by giving them a placebo instead.  Angell points out that  Nazi Germany also used a very similar excuse, saying that "their human subjects were condemned to death anyway" (Para. 15).

This comparison to Nazi Germany can both stun and bring realization to the audience.  As I read this comparison, I was shocked that such organizations as the NIH and CDC, that are still in place today, could do such a thing as radical utilitarians did in the early 1900s.  Since human experimentation is not often a topic of conversation in my life, I had no idea that there were barely any laws regulating human experimentation until recently.  Since Angell is writing this essay after this issue is fixed, it is clear that she wants to educate her audience on the topic and make sure that it does not happen again.  By comparing not-so distant events with Nazi Germany, she shows just how important this issue is, meanwhile emphasizing the importance of laws that can prevent it.

IRB Intro Post 2- Lincoln

The IRB that I read for last marking period was "The Professor and the Madman" a historical non-fiction text written by Simon Winchester.  Although I typically like that genre, I found it difficult to stay interested and I often found myself trying to cram as much reading as possible, so that I didn't have to read it more than I had to.  My dad has a small collection of books in his office, and I found the bibliography, Lincoln written by David Herbert Donald.  Abraham Lincoln is one of my favorite presidents to learn about, and he was involved in the Civil war, another one of the topics that I like to learn about.  Although it is lengthier than the IRB I just read, I think that I will still be capable of reading it, as I will most likely be more interested in it and read it over many nights before each blog post.

TOW #8- IRB "The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, And The Making of The Oxford English Dictionary"

Simon Winchester is not trying to examine the impact the The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) had on the English language, but rather he attempts to show the major impact the dictionary had on the people involved with it .  The purpose changes many times throughout the novel, but in the latter half, Winchester emphasizes how much it had helped both Doctor Minor and Murray.  Winchester uses contrast in character personalities from the beginning of the story to show the impact of the dictionary on the people's lives.  In the beginning, we can remember that Minor and Murray were two completely different people, living completely separate lives.  However, Winchester slowly builds throughout that they become more than simply beings on the same planet.  He writes that Murray says to Minor's doctor that, "...Minor was 'my friend,' and said later he was distressed at how frail he seemed, at how the light and energy that had marked him in his dictionary-busy days of the previous decade seemed now to have deserted him" (195).  Murray notices even before the doctor that Minor's condition is continuing to decline, since he hasn't been involved with the OED.  The dictionary had saved Minor for part of his life, someone who may even be considered to have life at its worst.  If Minor could be positively influenced by something as basic as thee dictionary, clearly it was not so basic of a thing.

Winchester continues to emphasize this friendship when the doctor continues to disregard Minor's signs of physical and mental failure.  When the doctor tried to brush them off, Winchester says "But neither Sir James nor Lady Murray was mollified: It was imperative, they said, that their scholar-genius friend now be allowed to go home to America..." (198).  This friendship would not have occurred if it were not for the OED.  The Murray family is fighting for Minor's well-being, since his family seems to not be there for him.  The dictionary created a family of sorts, all through the love of the English language.  Winchester effectively shows his audience by the end of the novel that The Oxford English Dictionary is much much more than a compilation of every English word ever known.