TOW 30

I’m going to start off with a bombshell.  APELC is not actually that difficult.  In terms of actual amount of work, there is just as much as any other English class.  Over the course of the year we only wrote two out of class essays.  We also read a handful of difficult passages.  Other than that the only legitimate work we had was the tons of in class essays that we wrote.  The thing is that we did benefit from this because this it was a good proxy for the AP exam. Even though the actual workload may not be that heavy the actual grading is very strict.  This may seem like a pain when you get your grades back but it is beneficial in the end.  This is because, after Mr. Yost’s grading, the grading on the AP exam seems very lenient.   Over the course of the year it only benefits you to put in the extra work.  To be honest I did not put too much effort into my TOWs but I somewhat regret it.  I suggest that you actually try for your TOWs and write them in the style of a timed essay.  If you do that you will actually gain something out of the work you do and it will be helpful.  If not than there is no gain from it.  I would also say to put in a maximum amount of work in the beginning.  The first marking period is a make or break time.  It is when Mr. Yost grades the hardest, and it is also when you pretty much lock in your grade.  It is not to hard to come back from a single letter grade drop, but if you drop the ball in the first marking period it makes it almost impossible to get an A, and can even make it a challenge to get a B.  The last thing that I want to say is that Mr. Yost is a reasonable guy.  If you have a problem or need something go talk to him because he is willing to bend a bit and help you out so at least go and talk to him.

TOW 29

The documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? was an piece about why the electric car did not thrive after one of its initial pushes into the market in California in the ‘90s.  I can say that I agree with many of its assertions in the fact that they were many of the important reasons, but I feel like it would have been much easier to present.  The documentary was long, well over an hour, and said little more then I can explain in the next three sentences.  The people who killed the electric car were the direct producers of the car because they did not see it as profitable as a gasoline-powered car.  This profitability laid not in the actual demand, which would have likely been similar to gasoline powered cars, but in all of the after market products from engine parts to maintenance to even the gas to power it.  With all of this money as stake not many companies who are well invested in the way things are are willing to make a change because they will result in losses, and so these companies instead invest in the limiting of change through lobbying and PR.  Essentially what I said in the last three sentences are all that the documentary had to say as a whole to get their point across.  From there I just believe that it was a strongly spirited and emotionally tied team making this movie and think that they tried to make this show.  I believe that this documentary could have easily been slipped into 30 minutes but in an attempt to make their rhetoric more convincing and their back story more full the crew added a lot of essentially unnecessary fluff, which may have made the piece better, but detracted from the abruptness in attaining their initial point.

TOW 28 Who Killed the Electric Car

Who Killed the Electric Car is a documentary by Chris Paine about the disappearance of the electric car from the American marketplace.  The film references a time, in the ‘90s, mainly in California, where electric cars started to be sold.  Although this technology may seem advanced even now, the film claims that it was a viable technology in the 20^th century and that, if not for some suspects, it could have truly thrived.  This film documents the failures of some parties and the sabotage of others over the years on EV model cars.  The film is meant to be a way to create awareness for the ability of the electric car while at the same time criticizing those who limited its advances.  It does this mainly through the use of expert and first hand point of views along with the dehumanization of the other side to prompt a similar reaction by their audience.

            One of the main contributors to the author’s perspective is that of others.  The filmmakers picked many likeminded and expert speakers on the topic and used them to influence viewers.  Through these people, many of whom drove or had some direct involvement with electric cars, Paine tries to paint the picture that the electric car was a commonly beloved piece of technology and that there was great support for it.  He tries to stir his audience and get their emotional response to side with these electric car sympathizers, and to rally them against those against the electric car.  Paine also varies his speakers using celebrities, government personnel and even simply average people.  This allows for a more diverse appeal.  This means that he can hit his audience from many different angles.  From the lenses of the driver to the legislator to the scientist to the celebrity the viewer gets everyone’s point of view and everyone seems to be in favor of the electric car.  The only people who seem not to be represented are those from the car and oil companies.

            One strategy that the director uses to dehumanize the companies is essentially a form of metonymy.  Instead of directly referencing people or having people as those being condemned in the death of the electric car the filmmakers tactically blame people larger organizations such as GM and the US government.  This pawns off the blame and nullifies the human feel and the sympathy that more specific blame may have garnered.  This allows makes it harder for the audience to see these bodies as something that could have had a positive intent because they are not portrayed like the sympathizers as people with feelings and opinions, but as money hungry companies that do not care what they do unless it turns a profit. 

            In all the human aspect plays a large role in this film.  The majority of the film is drawn from the testimonials of people who have direct relations to the topic, and what isn’t is mainly the narration of synthesis of what those first hand accounts are saying.  As a drastically different take as compared to the portrayal of the opposing side, the human aspect of the electric car is a much more openly absorbed idea than that of the dehumanized picture of the murderer of the electric car.

TOW 27

For the first two marking periods my TOWs were subpar.  I think this is due to the fact that I would simply write them to get them done and not for the purpose of practicing them.  At first I tried to follow the guidelines that you handed out.  I would write a TOW while going down the list checking off what I did.  Then, when I started to realize you were not as thorough with your checking of our TOWs my work started to sag even more.  I tried to write posts which barely covered the word restrictions and had little skill involved.  I just threw as many words on the page as possible and had little point behind them.  Since the third marking period however I have improved.  The threat of having one pulled and looked at made me actually try lest one of my poor attempts be pulled.  Also, at that point I realized what you wanted.  I realized that you wanted an actual mini essay and I tried to do that.  Since we did fairly little TOWs after that point I did not really grow.  Doing TOWs did help me master the ability of finding a rhetorical device from nothing, but there are still many areas where I am lacking.  I still barely know the rhetorical devices and my essays are often formulaic.  To be honest I really did not benefit from these assignments but that is not from the assignments but from my personal work ethic.  I think though it may be beneficial to students to make them due less often and to actually grade them more.  This would make them seem like less of a tedious task to just get done and more of an actual task to get better.  Also the threat of grading some of them may spur more students to put in the work to get a good grade.

TOW 27

One of the most famous paintings of all time might have gotten even better. Turns out, according to an article by the Daily Mail, the Mona Lisa may have been Da Vinci’s try at 3-D art.  The Mona Lisa has a much less known cousin housed in a Spanish museum.  In fact an article by Kieran Corcoran and Sophie Jane Evans tells the details of how Da Vinci may have gone so far as to have hid in technology that would not be invented for many centuries under everyone’s noses.  In their article Corcoran and Evans uses some specific techniques to get their points across.  One of the stronger was the ethos they tried to convey.  There were a couple of tactics that went into this objective.  The first of which was the usage of quotes.  Throughout their article Evans and Corcoran sprinkle in many small quotes as a way of making them sound more official and knowledgeable while at the same time cutting straight to the chase.  These quotes offer up many positives, from the fact that it leads them in the right direction with their articles to the fact that it offers a little separation between them and the opinion.  A second technique, which they used, which was helpful was the assistance of pictures.  The writers added in some pictures of both paintings along with some diagrams.  The pictures helped to emphasize the ideas that they were promoting, the fat that the pictures made each other look deeper and more 3-D like.  Also the writers used diagrams with legos.  This helped for the audience’s understanding but lowered the ethos of the story.  With all of those specialized techniques combined it is easy to understand what the article is trying to explain.  The Mona Lisa may have been an attempt at 3-D but even if not it’s still the Mona Lisa

TOW 26

The King Can No Longer Afford Queens is an article about the rapidly changing real estate market in queens.  This article comments on how Queens has gone from a working class, predominantly white area, to a pricey land of the rich, and the article uses pop culture references and numbers to help convince their readers of this idea.  This article uses references from such shows as The King of Queens to show the type of stature queens has previously carried.  The King of Queens is a show less than a decade from its finale about a working class American family who lives in queens.  This is synonymous with Queens’s public image and plays off of it for the story line.  This also reflects the fact that not only was this idea true but it was so commonly thought that it would be the perfect background for this story.  Not only did this show flow with the profile of Queens, but it also strengthened it.  With a viewership of about 9 million weekly viewers it likely changed opinions and people who knew nothing about Queens believed it was just like the show.  The author needed more to show the change so they started to pull out statistics.  The author, Ginia Bellafante started to pick out figures for real estate sold in Queens.  Massive numbers in the multimillion categories started to come out and the image of Queens started to change in the readers mind.  This addition of statistics did something that little telling could, it showed the reader that Queens real estate really was getting expensive.  Further, these numbers help to convince readers because they give specific facts and the readers can judge for themselves how high end they think Queens is.  With a little extra prodding, Bellafante pushes the reader in her direction by comparing Queens to other high-end areas.  All of these techniques help in the end to illustrate the change in the real estate market in Queens.

TOW 25

One of the longest lasting ad campaigns is the Dos Equis most interesting man campaign.  These commercials contain an older man, who is identical the punchline of the commercials' jokes.  A lot of the jokes are similar to Chuck Norris or The Stig jokes.  These jokes are often things that are ironic and masculine at the same time and try to make the "most interesting man" a figure wanted to be replicated. After this they use his classic catchphrase "I don't normally drink beer but when I do I drink dos equis," as a way of bolstering the companies appearence.  These commercials utilize a couple of strategies to effectively get their point across.  The first if these is humor.  The commercials issually start with a joke something like "He once had an awkward moment just to see how it feels."  These jokes do two things. First off they're interesting to the watcher and keep them engaged and entertained.  This means that they get their point across better and also keep the watcher thinking about their product.  Second off this increases the ethos of the worlds mos interesting man by making him sound more manly and more like the type of person men (the main drinkers of beer) would like to mimick.  The commercial tries to target a highly male audience yo make them feel as if manly people are drinking dos Equis and hope that they will take the Jim and believe that drinking dos Equis would make them seem and feel more masquline.  That connection is used because of the strength of male pride.  Men like to feel manly and beer and manliness oh hand in hand, so making beer seem manly would be an effective tactic, which it has proven to e as dos dos equis's sales have risen even when most beer companies have fell.

IRB Intro Post: Into the Wild

Into the Wild is the story of the last two years of Christopher McCandelless's life.  Starting at his college graduation, the story tells of how he hiked cross country trying to throw away his identity inspired by such idols as Henry David Thoroue. Along his way he stopped in many places and learned many things.  He enjoyed the company of many people and worked as he went, even for a period of time stopping to work at a grain elevator in South Dakota.  Eventually he did make it to Alaska as he sought to do.  From there it ends where he did.  McCandelless was found dead two years after he went off the grid in a bus in Alaska.  That is the story of Into the Wild.

TOW 24

A Walk in the Woods is a memoir written by Bill Bryson about his time hiking the Appalachian trail.  At the same time it also offers up a lot of information on the subject.  It teeters between telling the story of the author, Bill Bryson, and his friend, Stephen Katz, on their attempt at the Appalachian Trail, and a book on facts about the ecology and simply general facts about the area.  Bryson employs several tactics based on his target audience.  Bryson targets an audience, which is not made up of avid hikers, but regular people.  It is meant to be a somewhat informational book but is more for the readers enjoyment.  For that reason he uses things such as humor and first person to get his point across.  Using first person makes it easier for Bryson as he can simply tell his story, and at the same time it makes the reader feel as if they are there.  It also helps as he can use it to describe things more in depth.  As he is an observer of the landscape along the way he can comment on it.  In this way it is less like you are building a landscape off of what he is saying but off of what he is actually seeing.  Bryson also employs humor in his writing as, understanding his audience, he assumes the text would be lacking without it.  This aspect adds a kid of personality to the text that makes it feel more alive.  It feels more concrete because not only did he actually do this but also he makes the readers feel like they are getting a direct commentary from someone who is directly talking from their experiences.  It feels as if there is no bumper and is also more entertaining for the audience.

TOW 23

For as long as there have been politics there have been people criticizing the moves of politicians.  One way in which people do this is through the use of cartoons.  Gary Varvel has crafted this technique through his 40 years of experience and uses it in criticism of the minimum wage hike.  His cartoon depicts three people in fast-food styled uniforms.  Above them is the caption, “2 out 3 like a minimum wage hike.”  The then has each employee with a speech bubble.  2 of the characters say that they got a raise where as the third is saying that he lost his job to pay for the other two people’s raises.  This cartoon comments on a touchy issue and presents an idea without seeming too harsh.  That is the strength of political cartoons.  Political cartoons are able to poke fun and open the holes in ideas with out seeming as if they are too strong in criticism. They are strong because they are casual enough that they do not force people to become defensive, and instead lull them with humor.  Varvel’s cartoon also works with implied logic.  Without fully saying his point he allows his audience to see the cartoon and analyze it for themselves.  This further distances him from the topic and makes it even safer for him to talk about.  Lastly, the cartoon conveys what words could not.  In showing the audience the failures of an idea it is not thinking hypothetically.  Whereas when someone may say the same idea others could deny it or simply say that it does not make sense.  Varvel’s style of pushing this idea on his audience makes it much more clear and easy to understand for his audience and that is what makes it truly effective in its purpose.

TOW 22

            With so many colleges across the country there is not much to set one apart from another.  Why then would the amount of applications to one school skyrocket going up by 30%?  According to Ashley Schaeffer, a writer for Total Frat Move, it is because of the legalization of cannabis.  Schaeffer claims that it only makes sense that prospective college students would flock to something that they enjoy.  That college students would flock to the legality of weed as they would any school on a top party school list.  He argues this point by constantly citing a Fox article on the same issue.  This proves to both strengthen and weaken his argument at the same time.  The reason it strengthens his argument is quite clear, because citing almost anything increases his ethos and makes him sound more professional.  Also it means that he can use their cited speakers to his advantage without having to go out of his way to find people to comment on the issue.  It is all in one place for his choosing.  If one reads into the actual cited article it comes from more of an un-opinionated angle and takes more of the side of the fact that marijuana is not bringing young people to apply to Coloradan colleges.  This could harm Schaeffer’s ethos because he is using an article that argues against his point to argue for it, but it could also be more effective depending on his audience.  Considering Total Frat Move’s audience of young college students, most people don’t check the source, but for those that do, they could believe that its different opinion shows an openness for ideas by the author because he is willing to use an article that disagrees with his opinion to bolster his.  All in all Schaeffer’s article is effective in transferring his opinion on the situation to his audience with the help of citations from an opposing Fox report.

TOW 21

Seth Rogan is most noted for his roles in comedy movies such as Knocked Up and Pineapple Express, but recently he did something much more mature.  Rogan sat at a congressional hearing and testified on the topic of Alzheimer’s disease.  It seems an odd position for Rogan as he is normally portrayed as a marijuana smoking actor with little care for society, but he actually used this role to further his speech.  Rogan, knowing his commonly thought of persona, made jokes about it.  This and the other humor he showed during the speech helped to hold the audience’s attention and also gain more attention at later points.  For example, it has over 6 million views on youtube.  The problem with this humor is that it harms his ethos.  He seems a bit off base making jokes about how he, “realizes it is not a hearing for the legalization of marijuana.”  Some of his jokes flowed well with his speech, whereas others made it sound like he was joking too much when talking about something as serious as Alzheimer’s.   For that reason it is difficult to understand whether this technique was effective or not.  While it captivated the audience, and at some points strengthened his argument, his persona as a whole with the help of the humor may have done a lot more to weaken his testimony.  His use of a personal story really helped what he was saying though.  Rogan told the story of how his mother in law had very bad Alzheimer’s and that was what caused him to be there.  This heart-wrenching story appealed to pathos and made the crowd feel sad and understand the extent to which the disease can cause pain.  This aspect was a definite help in his speech and was one of the strongest carriers.  It also lessened the strain of the jokes as having a connection to the disease made it feel okay.  As a whole though his testimony was good.  It gripped the audience and helped in his purpose of bringing attention to the issue.

TOW 20

            A Walk in the Woods is an odd book to say the least.  It walks the line between a lighthearted memoir and a serious factual book.  It teeters between telling the story of the author, Bill Bryson, and his friend, Stephen Katz, on their attempt at the Appalachian Trail, and a book on facts about the ecology and simply general facts about the area.  This structure though is a very beneficial style of writing for what Bryson is trying to do.  His book is meant to be a pleasure book, something you can pick up and read for fun.  Now a trip backpacking on the Appalachian Trail is not to exciting, at least to someone listening.  It is mainly the same thing day in and day out, wake up, eat, hike, eat, hike more, set up camp, eat, sleep, repeat.  Even with a few stories sprinkled in it is not the makings of a very interesting book simply because it is repetitive and would get boring after a while.  This is where Bryson’s interesting structure comes in.  Bryson mixes up the story telling by adding in commentary and facts about things such as the American forestry services, the history of the trail, ecological facts and other things that fit in the context.  These offer him a chance to stray from the mundane repetitive story and spice it up a little.  This then makes the story much more interesting.  With this technique of mixing up the styles and almost completely the topic of the book Bryson keeps the reader active.  The reader no longer is just paying attention to a flowing story but a split up one.  The reader must remember where it left off and where it will go and this makes a mundane story much more interesting.  For that reason Bryson’s odd styling proves quiet effective for this book.

TOW 19

            After so much money has flowed into China due to their cheap labor costs some of it is finally coming back.  In “Choose me! No, me!” The Economist, a prominent financial magazine with a mainly educated, older audience, paints a picture of how small town American politicians are looking towards Chinese investors as a way of supplying jobs.  One strategy that helps get the essays point across is the way in which it is structured.  The article starts out by talking about a specific Alabaman mayor, Sheldon Day.  Day is spotlighted because he has visited China a few times all in an effort to bring back jobs, and has even done so through his convincing of one company to build its first factory on U.S. soil.  From this specific example zooms out wide to talk about the topic on a nation wide scale talking about such things as China’s direct investments in America raising by about 71% a year between 2008 and 2012.  After this it cites a few more specific examples only spending about a sentence or two on each.  From there it moves more to the controversy of the topic, talking about how some people are reluctant to let their mayors spend their tax money on expensive trips to China, and if it’s really something that they should be doing.  The last thing the article does is leave it on a controversy, that an Alabaman business delegation said that they would love to gain investments from a Chinese company, Huawei, which has been accused of cyber spying by people in Washington.  It uses this to come full circle saying that Mayor Day would not go that far.  This structuring worked well because it showed a little bit of everything and flowed well.  It talked about specifics and the overall, positives and the negatives and the extent to which it would go.  In all the way this essay was written furthered the points they were trying to get across effectively.

TOW 18

With the raise of minimum wage being an important part of President Obama’s plans the editorial board of the New York Times decided to weigh in.  With the Times being a liberal based group the opinions of the piece match suit.  The opinion of the piece was that the raise of the minimum wage would be a positive move, and the authors tried to structure the piece to make it clear.  The essay uses a structure in which they state a question frequently asked about minimum wage in general and then they answer said question.  The structure is often effective as it allows the author to logically answer the question while also focusing the readers’ thoughts.  In this case however this strategy was not as effective.  This was because the answers were weakly defended.  Answering questions that you get to hand pick should be simple enough and also easy to back up, but that is where this essay fails.  It answers the questions with an ideological outlook that does not delve deeper into issues and that does not consider the greater consequences of any choice.  One of the greatest examples of this is in the last section.  The last section deals with whether or not it cuts jobs to equate the money spent in the pay hikes.  They answer that it doesn’t kill jobs because, “Instead, they pay up out of savings from reduced labor turnover, by slower wage increases higher up the scale, modest price increases or other adjustments.”  So, it doesn’t kill jobs because they will find a way to pay for them.  This is one of the many logical fallacies that harm the essays ethos and cause it to gain less effect through its well set up structure.  If it was to take out these fallacies and was to be written with more thorough answering of the questions it’s asking it could be an effective paper, but in its current state the structure serves no benefit.

TOW 17

How can you get someone’s attention in under a minute and make it worth a few million dollars.  That is the question that many companies ask when they make their commercials for the Super Bowl.  As they are investing millions simply for the airtime for a single commercial, companies have to make every second count.  Companies have been making jokes about the commercials themselves and have used multiple coordinated commercials to get the point across.  One example where both of these are used well was in the Wonderful Pistachios commercials.  The commercials by Wonderful Pistachios were a series of two commercials.  The first one was like most of their commercials, a joke by a celebrity endorsing pistachios.  Stephan Colbert was the center figure accompanied by a matching bald eagle in an American looking room.  They then stared out by making a basic joke, “I’m wonderful, they’re wonderful,” and that was about it.  Thirty seconds later however the commercial was vastly different.  The conservative commercial was replaced by a heavily endorsed commercial filled with as many logos as possible including Stephan Colbert wearing a suit that was covered with the brands name and was finished with Colbert splitting his head and having a pistachio inside.  This commercial utilized humor as a hooking factor.  The humor works well for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, the humor causes people to pay attention.  Secondly, because Wonderful Pistachios knows there is no real logos or ethos that they can use to get people to buy their product they have to use pathos.  Because of this they choose humor to get their point across because it is really their only possible method.  They then use a celebrity sponsor because it allows them to have a divers group of jokes.  This utilization of humor works well and captures the audience’s attention and although, “sales of pistachios have not skyrocketed,” the commercial still accomplishes its purpose through humor.

IRB 3

For my third IRB I am going down a different route.  My first two books were based around ideas and were concepts.  This marking period however, I am going with a book that is based purely on real events.  This marking period I am going to read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.  I chose this book because I enjoy the outdoors and I like things like hiking and backpacking.  Also, since the Appalachian trail is so close to home I have thought of hiking long segments of it and so I’d like to see what he says about it to see a first hand perspective.  I have also heard that it is a humorous interesting book and it might be a good way to change up what I have been reading so far.

TOW 16

In the second half of his book Dale Carnegie writes on two separate subjects.  The first of these is how to bring people to your way of thinking, and the second is how to be a good leader.  He starts out with how to get people to think your way, and one of the most crucial things that he brings up is that you will never truly win with an argument.  Carnegie brings up the idea that arguments only create bad feelings, and that even if you win an argument, all you are doing is hurting the other person’s ego, and they will resent you for that.  Furthermore, Carnegie talks about thinking about things from others point of view.  Carnegie says that if we were in their place we would probably be in the situation they got themselves into and so we should not judge them for that.  Carnegie later goes into depth about how to be a good leader.  He says that the important part is to be a good figure and not demoralize people, and to simply make them want to do things for you.  Carnegie follows a very psychological mindset.  He believes that if you can lower their barriers then they will come over to your side and agree with your opinions and that is what he centers his book around.  Who could doubt Carnegie’s ideas?  They have clearly worked for him in the business world and in his course he has helped many people be successful using these techniques.  Not only that but he does a good job of laying them out.  The way Carnegie sets up his book is by telling the idea, giving many examples of how it works from his students to famous philosophers and presidents.  He then wraps up all of his stories with a final point to ground his idea in a statement.  This may make the reading repetitive but it keeps the reader interested and also is an effective way of getting his point across.

TOW 15

This political cartoon depicts a man packed as if he is ready to go on vacation with a woman, presumably his wife, inquiring if he was really going to Colorado to ski.  Some characteristics of the man include him wearing a Grateful Dead shirt and carrying snack foods, things that are synonymous with marijuana smokers.  The joke is meant to have the reader infer that the man is not really going to ski but is instead going because of the legality of marijuana in Colorado.  The reason skiing is brought up is because that is really the only draw to Colorado.  If someone were to say they were going to Florida or California the assumption would be that you were going for the beach.  If they were to say New York the assumption would be to visit the city.  For Colorado the normal assumption is that people are going to ski.  The joke is now there is another reason to go to Colorado and that “skiing” may really just be an excuse for something else.  Jeff Koterba, a prominent cartoonist who drawls about 6 a week for the Omaha World-News, drew this cartoon as a way of poking fun at the fact that the legalization of marijuana may bring about other changes in Colorado inadvertently.  Although there was the obvious source of revenue to the state through the taxation of the controlled substance a newer emerging result is higher likelihood for people to travel to Colorado.  It is even creating a mini-industry for marijuana minded tourists.  This joke is seen through his humor and one joke, which comments on a much bigger topic.  His brazenness in his image also helps his cause.  Having the man be so obviously following pot smoker stereotypes it is easy to make the assumption that he is not going to ski and makes the cartoon funny.

TOW 14

The article Marijuana Overdoses Kill 37 in Colorado On First Day of Legislation is written as satire by the website The Daily Current.  Although not mentioned in the article, the website says that all of its articles are fictional, and hints at it with its many jokes.  This article was written as a way of highlighting the safety of marijuana.  Even though 37 deaths du to alcohol poisoning may go un noticed, the same with marijuana would be a big deal.  A couple of hints are thrown in that a layman could realize.  There are two references to fictional characters as Dr. Jack Sheppard, a character from Lost, was quoted, and the story a Jesse Pinkman, a character from Breaking Bad, was told.  Other jokes, like citing the Rocky Mountain News, a paper that has gone out of business, require more regional knowledge, and others are even tougher to notice unless you have a medical background.  The authors seized the opportunity of the start to legal marijuana sale as a chance to make a joke about the matter.  It was also an opportunity to share their pro-marijuana views via their satirical jokes.  The one issue with this article is their jokes.  Although this is the method to get their idea across they almost fail.  This article has come up often because many people believe it.  Even though they try to sprits in some blatant jokes they are not completely obvious and if a reader did believe it was possible to overdose on marijuana then they would believe the article as truth.  Although the website states that it is fictional this would only be found if you were actually looking in depth on their website, and as many of their readers come from social media, many people do not realize this.  This means that they failed in the whole goal of the article showing the failures in their rhetoric.