Cultural Rhetoric

Joe Ciresi, who is running for the position of state representative here in Pennsylvania, has received some negative publicity as of late. His tax policies in particular are being targeted by the opposition, particularly in one mail advertisement. It begins immediately with the statement, “His record proves it: Joe Ciresi will cost us too much.” It goes on to elaborate on the policies and tax laws he has supported in the past. For example, he has both voted in favor of a law that would result in a 30% increase on property taxes, and even supported politicians who were proposing a one billion dollar tax increase. In addition, he is currently teaming with other politicians to raise taxes once more, but send the money to schools in Philadelphia and not our own. Now, this may just seem like a lot of political bashing, but throughout the ad, one can spot multiple citations directly to the Pottstown Mercury, Ciresi’s campaign page on Facebook, and other sources. This helps to establish a l...

I remember, quite some time ago I was introduced to a Ted talk titled “Do Schools Kill Creativity?” It is still one of the most popular Ted talks ever published to date, and not without reason. The speech was by a man named Sir Ken Robinson, and he is, quite frankly, one of the most brilliant speakers I’ve heard in my life. He has an uproarious sense of humor, with a large helping of sarcasm, but at the same time, he can communicate a very serious message. His speech, as his title suggests, is about how the school system effectively educates society out of creativity. He walks onto the stage at the very beginning seeming rather awkward, even confused, and begins addressing the conference members about the events prior to his speech. It seems irrelevant at first, but he artfully brings it back to education, the topic of his speech. This seemingly clumsy opening gives a sense of exposure. It gives an impression that he is up-front, and not some genius that we can never live up to. T...

Just this past Monday in chapel, a man named Ty Fischer, came to speak at the school, and as he walked up he said, rather awkwardly, “Well…I see it says ‘Ty Fischer’ up there, and…that’s my name, so I guess it’s my turn to speak.” This was a rather awkward kickoff to an equally awkward presentation I was not particularly moved by. I understand that this could have been at least a mildly amusing joke to break the ice and establish ethos with us, the audience, but it was poorly executed, and ended up working against him. He continued on as normal, but he seemed very disorganized, cobbling together a bunch of common Bible messages that you hear frequently, then trying to make it more relatable to students by tying it in to homework, saying that we should be more motivated knowing what God has done for us. After he had finished, I found myself more baffled as to what his intended meaning was than contemplative of what he had said. I found his lack of organization distracting, and his fai...