Facebook Privacy

In this article the author brings up a hot topic from a couple of years ago. The central argument focuses on Facebook and some issues with personal privacy that was a significant issue at the time.   The author’s basic thesis is that if you are stupid enough to post things on Facebook that you really want to keep private, then that is your own problem.  Apparently there was a change in the terms of service slightly sometime during 2009.  Analysts believed this was an advance towards breaching our personal information, and overall privacy.  Her support is that anything that you don’t want on Facebook you can delete.   She also states that if there are any people you don’t know well enough you can get delete them as a friend or deny their friend request.  You have the option to use discretion when adding personal information because you should realize that it is exposed to your friends.  On the whole, it is our job to protect our own information because Facebook doesn’t have to. This topic hasn’t been as pressing since 2009.  It seems that most people agree with our author on this issue.  Facebook supplies you with the tools to protect yourself and you should be responsible for implementing those tools for your own use.  The author uses extreme sarcasm, at one point you could even call it paranoia.  However this does strengthen his argument because it gives the reader the impression that any other viewpoint is rather silly.  Overall the author expresses her view through sound logic and it is very well written.

Bailout Politics

In this article the author attacks the economic policies of the democratic legislation, especially as of late.  The author is well qualified as he is an economist and a Senior Fellow at Stanford University.  The article is caked full of different types of sarcasm and irony to further his points.  His sarcasm is easy to spot due to the fact that he puts quotation marks around his sarcasm. Doing so helps the reader find the parts that the author believes to be nonsense.  It effectively strengthens his argument. He speculates that the bailouts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were astronomical mistakes and that we now have opened the floodgates for all kinds of future bailouts to occur.  Overall, his basic argument is that if we bail out certain companies, then where do we stop?  Are we simply going to bailout any large company who is threatened to go out of business?  These are all questions that the author leaves for us to answer for ourselves.  We already saw similar things during the bailout of the large motor companies.  This is a classic debate among the American political system.  It’s always regulation versus freedom, and tariffs versus laissez-faire.  This paper is heavily on the side of the Republicans, and when reading it, you can tell that is rather one sided.   The article expresses only his opinion and fails to address the opposing side.  This doesn’t really weaken his argument, but rather sparks interest within the reader to go and further investigate on their own time. 

A Political Cartoon by Daryl Cagle Page 325

A human resources person is interviewing a candidate for a job. The caption says “how has high school prepared you for this job?” while the interviewee for the job is just seeing tests.

I think that this makes a very good statement; I understand where they are coming from.  The argument is that high school (and college) students are pushed too hard on testing. While this is a valid point, I believe that there is not a better way to test the students’ comprehension of any specific topic.  In a perfect world, we could all listen to our instructors and remember everything and absorb everything.  Sadly this is not a perfect world, so we must be tested on how well we retain information.  However, maybe students could be tested on how they comprehend in other ways than testing.  I personally have no clue how such a thing could be tested, but that’s not my job to figure out.  The interviewee seems to be portrayed to be a nimrod, this enforces the author’s point that high school graduates may be book smart, but overall they are unprepared and essentially useless to the business world of the 21^st century.  I don’t believe this is quite as blatant as the author makes it out to seem.  Most cartoons and cartoonists tend to overstate things to get their point across more effectively.  Although these students may be prepared for each of their tests, which does not necessarily mean that they are prepared for life as useful people in the business world.

Why The Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero

 

This article goes in depth on the animosity the music industry holds against the Guitar Hero series.   The writer addresses several points and makes the argument that the music industry may be experiencing troubles with the digitization of modern music.  For example instead of going out and buying a cd, people are downloading illegally or making copies and giving them to friends.  From what I read, the writer urges the music industry executives to not lump Guitar Hero in with these other things.  The author states that the establishment and insane popularity of Guitar Hero and other similar games are actually contributing to the recent success of certain music groups.  The writer uses various elements of  sarcasm and analogies.  The author uses very well thought out logic and has strategically thought out the placement of their rebuttals of counterpoints while still addressing the defense of their own topic.  There is a very delicate balance between poking holes in others opinions and stating you’re own, and this author seems to have kept it in equilibrium.  This article effectively pulls analogies between this digitization and evolution of music to the invention of VCR’s.  It may have been seen as futile at the time, but I think we can all agree that it was a very useful change.   I think the main point to be made here isn’t that one side has been wronged; the point to be made is that these two superpowers shouldn’t bicker and just coexist without all the drama.