Amusing Ourselves to death

Postman tells us that people are "laughing instead of thinking, but they did not know why." This only proves Postman's point in the book that entertainment all the time is bad for us. Entertainment takes over our lives, and we can no longer think for ourselves, instead the ability to think is eliminated. Because it is eliminated we think everything should then be entertaining for us, and give up if it is not.

Frustrating myself to death

To put it simply, Friday was extremely frustrating. A big thing that happened was that I had a doctors appointment, but the receptionist scheduled it at the wrong time. Upon arriving back at school, my friends then asked me how it went. But how could I tell them what happened just by drawings and actions? Of course, I soon realized that about 5 minutes later after looking like an idiot when I finally gave up. Just like Postman stated that you cannot do philosophy with smoke signals, I could not convey a complex idea with the few simple resources I had to communicate, it never worked, nor will it ever work.

Conserve, Reuse, Recycle

Semrau makes his point when he says, “have you figured out yet that I’m going as a cadaver, an anatomical gift?”  His whole article leads up to this point, to show how he is helping the environment.

I definitely think that because Semrau keeps information, the reader is more interested in what he has to say.  The intent is to convince others to reduce, reuse, and recycle, a saying everyone knows well. He does this by showing the world what he is doing to help out the environment.  However, he also beats around the busy and rambles a bit about his life as an engineer.  When he talks about going to Harvard at such an old age, I was definitely interested in how that was possible, Harvard is very difficult to get into, and most likely impossible when you are so old.  When Semrau gets to his point, it suddenly all made much more sense to me. I thought more about going green, and about the little things I could do to help out the world around me. If right away Semrau had said, “I’m going to Harvard as a cadaver, I would have lost interest in what he was saying very quickly.  By making his point later, he can use the earlier portions of the article to explain his passion for helping the earth, and then show how he accomplishes this later. It definitely interested me!

Savior of the Nations, Come!

Luther’s hymn, Savior of the Nations, Come talks about the unusual birth of Christ in the first three verses. Luther also speaks about Christ’s death and resurrection, how the victory has been won over the devil. The final verses are related to us, that we should keep our faith “bright” and rooted in Christ, and finally that God deserves our praise because of what he has done. Pathos is one of the language tools that Luther uses, the lines” Praise to God the Spirit be
Ever and eternally,” are one example, but the entire verse could definitely be considered pathos. “Captive leading death and hell--High the song of triumph swell!” is another example Luther uses. Christ has overcome death, and we can rejoice because we are saved. Another tool used is throughout the verses, description.” From the Father forth He came And returneth to the same,” sums up the entirety of what Jesus did for us, he died and rose for our sins.  Later on Luther goes back to the birth of Christ and describes the reverent scene, “Brightly doth Thy manger shine,
Glorious is its light divine.” Throughout the Christmas season may we be like Luther, always focused on Christ.

Sermon Diagnostic

Reverend Borghardt uses some form of Christ 29 times, but only has Christ as doing the actions  16 times. The verbs include slain(4 times), makes(2 times), reigns (2 times), dies (2 times), lives (2 times), is the lamb, will show us, sees, and is on our forehead.

Reverend Borghardt's sermon and Jonathan Edwards' sermon are exact opposites. Edwards speaks about Hell, fire and brimstone. He also preaches about the importance of repenting of our sins, but neglects to tell about God's grace and forgiveness. Repeatedly are pictures of how small we are to how great the wrath of God is. However, we also need to hear that God loves his children and forgives them, so that we will no longer go to Hell, which is Reverend Borghardt's sermon. He speaks about how we are saved because of God's grace, because of what Christ has done for us.

It's illegal?

This article talks about lifting the ban on hanging various items from your rearview mirror that do not obstruct the view of the road for the driver. A reason people want it lifted is that although it is illegal, it is not enforced.

"Richard Pentecost Sr. of Detroit said he has driven for 30 years with a rosary hanging from his rearview mirror and has never been stopped or ticketed for it -- even when police pulled him over for other infractions." This quote is definitely my favorite. It's illegal and nobody pays attention to it, so theres not much point for the law. I definitely see how fuzzy dice can obstruct a view of the road, but not something like an air freshener or a graduation tassel.

I disagree with the ban. I had no idea that something hanging from the rearview mirror is illegal. Getting rid of the ban would not make much of a difference, since no one pays attention to it anyways. To be honest either way there are definitely going to be cars with something hanging from the rearview mirror.

Somehow, race always seems to be the issue

In his article, Mitch Albom points out that when the going gets tough, the tough find someone to blame. LeBron James could have said something about his big ego, but instead after he is asked about race being an issue chooses to use that as a way out because, as Albom states, "The moment you suggest someone is motivated by a prejudice, you can never prove it wrong, and you can always attack the accuser." 

I agree with Albom wholeheatedly. The race issue seems to be everywhere these days. It seems much easier to blame race than to admit if you have done something wrong. The race issue also, seems to come into play when people aren't at their peak, but a low point in their career.

Albom's best point is that when Leo is put in for LeBron, the ego really seems to show. Now, there is no question of race, because it is a fictional person of sorts, their race is not known. Yes, the fictional name is exactly what LeBron did, but take away race and all that's left is ego, that's all there is to it.