My New Ride!

This last weekend was the last time I had to spend with my Green Ford Explorer Sport Trac. I traded it in for a 2007 Chevy Cobalt. My Sport Trac was a very good vehicle for me. I purchased it 18 months ago from the Country Ford dealership in my hometown of Imperial. The dealership I purchased the new Cobalt from is Copple Chevrolet in Louisville Nebraska, which is about 30 minutes east of here. I decided to change vehicles for two reasons; the first being for gas mileage and the second is because I already own a pickup that is sitting at my house back home. Rising gas prices made me really want to find a more eco-friendly vehicle with better gas mileage. This new car gets approximately 34 miles per gallon and the Sport Trac only got 18 miles per gallon. I contemplated this change for a long time, but I thought that the amount of money that I would save on gas was pretty close to the difference in the car payments. It was definitely worth the change.

My new car is very comfortable to drive. It is an all around smooth ride. There is not a lot of space in the back of the car for many people, but two people could still comfortable ride in the back. There is a lot of trunk space despite how small the car is. It will be a little difficult to make this transition from a truck to a car, but I think that the transition has gone smoothly so far and that things will work out for the best.

New Ride

April 12, 2008 is the last day I spent with my Ford Explorer Sport Trac, but was the first day I was able to spend with my new Chevy Cobalt.

Fuel Fix

There are many strong visual arguments used in cartoons today that try to prove a point or give an opinion. This cartoon has strong arguments that show how “America is addicted to foreign oil”. The artist uses many rhetorical strategies in these cartoons to prove their point, some of those strategies include: cause and effect, analogy, and the use of ethos. All of these strategies and appeals put together give a strong argument as to whether America is really addicted to oil.
The cartoonists did this piece of work using the gray and black colors. It seems like it implies that America is in sort of bad times, and by that I mean with the fuel problems. It also kind of goes along with the look of the Statue of Liberty and that look is not good.
In this cartoon there are dark clouds of smoke in the background that seem to be representing burning oil pumps in Iraq. In the front of the image you have the Statue of Liberty lying on the ground next to a fuel pump injecting the fuel into her arm. The Statue of Liberty is really the focal point of this cartoon, but the burning oil pumps in the background just kind of give the cartoon a setting and that setting being the desert of Iraq.
In this illustration, you see that America is addicted to oil. In the top left hand corner the cartoonist put a quote from President Bush that says just that, “America is addicted to oil”. In the picture you also see the statue of liberty injecting fuel into her arm from a gas pump that you would see at a gas station, which this looks like what one might inject them if they were doing drugs. People do not usually incorporate drugs and fuel together, but in this cartoon, that is what it looks like the artist is doing exactly that. This is a form of analogy that argues that American’s use fuel like a drug addict uses drugs.
A good example of ethos stands out when talking about the appearance of the Statue of Liberty. She is really a symbol of America. She represents what America is and that is a truly free county. But the look of the Statue of Liberty is really quite bad in this picture; Her face looks horrible, she has spots all over her body from the injections, her teeth look bad, her eyes make her look like she is really high and even her crown is all broken. This is really the look of some people who are addicted to drugs. This cartoon is really implying that we as American’s are so dependant on oil that we will do almost anything to get it. We get the feeling that we need that fuel fix to get through our day, just as a drug addict has to light up a joint or snort a line of crack to get through the day.

The overall appearance is just implying that America is in really bad shape and that it will take a lot of work to get back to good health. This cartoon plays with your emotions in a way that you never really thought that America could become so addicted to oil that we risk people’s lives in order to get what we want. But this cartoon is implying just that. As you can see in the middle of the fuel pump, the fuel that the Statue of Liberty is injecting into herself is fuel from Iraq and the numbers on the pump that would usually show the amount of fuel you are putting in and the amount in which you are pay. But in this cartoon the numbers that you are seeing above may represent the number of people that have died in the recent “war on terrorism” so that we can get our fuel. That also relates to the words that are in the box in the middle of the cartoon; they are saying that “the price of a fix keeps going up”. But if you break that down it is easier to interpret. The price in which they are talking about is the rising death toll of American Soldiers and even Iraqi citizens; the fix is the fuel and oil that we are consuming, and when it says that the price keeps going up is trying to say that we do not know how many more people will die just so that we as American’s can have our fuel fix. If you think about it a little more, you are paying in the $3.30 range for a gallon of gas and add that up if your tank is on empty, you are paying about $50 to fill up on fuel. Some people will go through a tank of gas every week or two. So in essence every American that purchases fuel is paying money for those deaths that are compiling on that fuel pump in the picture.
The cause and effect strategy is also used in this cartoon. As mentioned before about the price of a fix and the number of deaths, this is also cause and effect. The cause is that America needs their “fix” on fuel and the effect is that more people have to die in order to get that fix. The number of deaths is not really specified for Iraq, but it seems as if the illustrator is trying to say that it is just too great of a number and more are still dying over this.
Overall, this cartoon had strong arguments using different rhetorical strategies and appeals. The strongest strategy used in this cartoon was the analogy strategy. It was well represented throughout the cartoon. These strategies helped the illustrator to argue that America is addicted to oil and that it may take a long time for us American’s to realize that we have this problem.

McCain

Just another presidential candidates website, but what does all this stuff on their site mean. Most of it is a strategy trying to persuade you to vote for them, another part of it is bashing the other candidates in the race and the other part they are just trying to take your money.
When you first come to John McCains website, there are pictures of him smiling, links to go deeper into his website for more information on some of his main issues that he is focusing on, and even in a big red box there is a spot where you can join his campaign group and a spot where you can donate. This area on the page is probably the area in which McCain wants the majority of the people to go to. The thought that if he gets more people to donate and join his campaign group the better the shot he has at winning the election. But for people to go to these links, they will most likely go to the links that discuss his issues, his stand on certain issues and what he promises to do if he is elected president. This is a great example of definition, what the candidate feels about certain topics.

This all leads you into another rhetorical strategy used in this website, cause and effect. That is, the page on his website that tells what it is he will do if elected president. The cause is him being elected president of the U.S. and the effect is all of the positive things he promises to do afterwards.

Of course there is always that part of a candidates campaign that talks about the other candidates in the race for the presidency. It seems like there is more focus on what the other candidates are doing and what they have done in past. Money is another things that is becoming more of an issue. Like I said earlier, it seems as if they are trying to lure you into donating with the big red box on the right asking for your money, and even the box below that that is a link to a page where you can buy McCain apparell.

More and more rhetorical strategies are being used in the presidential campaigns every year, and millions of dollars are being spent to find out ways to utilize these strategies.