Babies Make the World Go 'Round

My sister had a baby girl on June 19th. Her name is Maren Virginia Kershisnik Blake and in addition to having a name like a law firm, she is the cutest baby in the entire world. Just so you know, I have only been married for about a month and a week now and I have absolutely no desire to have children of my own yet. In fact, while my sister was pregnant, I had horrible nightmares about myself being pregnant and having to get an epidural, etc. Oddly enough there was never a Dad, it was always just me facing the needle alone, but anyway that is off topic.
Through little Maren I have come to appreciate how amazing it is to watch a little person grow. She is only three months old but it is incredible how much more control she has over her body and facial expressions and even her voicebox. Babies are so interesting to watch. They look all everywhere all the time and they are so overwhelmed by the world around them that the sensory overload that results from constantly surveying the world around them sends them into a coma every hour or so, enabling them to process all the information they just took in.
I always thought it would be so cool if we could remember what is was like to be a baby and be able to relive learning who are parents are, how to talk, how to walk and all those other developmental milestones that help us enter the "real world". Because I think I might want to go back a few steps so that I could enjoy the sleep, eat, burp lifestyle again.
This wish for degeneration does not stem from inherent laziness or my life-long obsession with footy pajamas, instead it is the reuslt of admiration. Babies are so amazed by everything and so interested in what's going on around them. Also, everything they do is cute and praiseworthy; I can't think of the last time an adult was lauded for going number 2. In addition, anything that distresses a baby becomes priority one and even if an infant keeps their parents up all night crying, the baby is not kicked out of the house or given a citation for being loud and unruly at ungodly hours of the morning.
I know that the point of this life is progression and that wishing to be more like a baby is futile, but I think childrens's curiosity and fascination with the world is worthy of emulation as is their ability to be totally satisfied with life as long as they are held and fed.

Rhetorical Analysis: Work of Art

"The Rescue"
By Brian Kershisnik

1. Identify the Argument
The argument of this painting is that the small boy and his shovel are powerless to save the man from the beast.
2. Identify the Target Audience
I think the target audience is anyone that has felt powerless to stop anything in their own life whether it be a disease, a specific trial they are going through, or anything else causing them distress. I think that it can be applied also to anyone who is watching someone they love fight in vain against the things I mentioned as well.
3. How is the Argument Made
Ethos - I think the credibility of the artist to make this argument is inherent in the fact that he chose to make a painting concerning this subject at all. Art is an emotive medium for some and so one can assume that the artist has gone through what the small boy with the shovel is experiencing in the painting because he felt he had enough experience with what the boy is feeling to portray it visually.
Pathos - The appeal to emotion is obvious in the boy's pathetic, albeit heroic, attempt to save his father or friend or whoever from the beast that is devouring him. He would not risk his life with such a silly weapon if he did not care about the man being eaten very much. And so the audience can see themselves in the little boy and think of someone that they love enough that they would be willing to take on a monster with shovel to save them. They also can see in the dying man someone they have lost or are losing.
Logos - The logic in this painting is seen through the boys illogical use of a small shovel against a huge monster. The audience can deduce that such a tiny weapon will do very little damage against the beast. They also can conclude that because they boy is behaving so irrationally, he must care very much for the man being eaten.
4. Was is Effective? Why?
I think this is a somewhat effective argument mostly because a lot of people don't think a lot about art. I can see people looking at this painting and thinking it's kind of weird and gruesome, but those who really stop and think about what is happening in the painting have a better chance of seeing its real meaning. I think for those who take the time to think about the painting would clearly see and understand the argument that the artist is making and so it would be very effective because of the violent nature of the painting, the bright colors that almost alert the viewers to danger and the smallness of the boy and his shovel in comparison to the beast that is attacking his loved one. The action and immediacy of the danger that the half-eaten man is experiencing makes the argument all the more effective because we come in while the horrible scene is taking place and all the emotions are at their peak.

I Made My Family Disappear

Sometimes when a professor gives me an assignment and says, "Do whatever you want," I feel like Kevin McCallister in "Home Alone" when he wakes up to find he is devoid of relatives and his declaration of "I made my family disappear," is saturated with panic and disbelief, but then an immature smile of fiendish understanding crosses his 9-year-old face and this time he says, "I made my family disappear," in a way that let's the viewers know that he is going to live it up, just because he can.
I'm not saying that my "free form" blogs are going to be intentionally useless wastes of time, but rather that, I, like Kevin, have come to understand and appreciate what it means to have the ultimate power of being able to do, or write about, whatever I want.
So I think my first blog will be about my birthday last week.
Although my birthday, and the pitiful excuse of not yet having Internet at my apartment are partly to blame for my forgetting to do blog posts last week, trying to weasel my way out of that assignment by shamelessly playing the birthday/poor, persecuted student with no Internet card will not be the subject of my post.
Now I have only been 22 for 6 days and I know that is still quite young, but whenever I get on campus I feel like a senior citizen. This year more than any other I look at my fellow BYU co-eds and think, "Oh my gosh! That kid looks like a baby." I can see them in their state of wide-eyed inexperience and know all the things that they will have to go through in order to become "ancient and wise" like myself. But then I realize, I am not ancient, and I am most definitely not wise, so why am I still cruising around BYU mingling with infants? Well it all comes down to one word, well one acronym actually; ADHD. Yep, whether you believe it's real or not, those 4 letter have been a blessing and curse to me all 22 years of my short, yet often painstaking life . . . and scene.
- More to follow next week.

Honda Pilot Nudist Commercial

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tcqWk4je3U

First of all I just want to say that my favorite Honda Pilot commercial is the one with the Bison, but that one wasn't available online anymore so I had to settle for the Nudist commercial, which is funny, but not as funny as the Bison one.
The argument of this ad is buy a Honda Pilot.
I think the audience for this commercial is young to middle -aged parents. Although the ad has a goofy humor which is often indicative of ads aimed at younger target markets, the driver of the car is a parent, assuming the person in the passenger seat is his son. Also the ad highlights a specific feature of the Honda Pilot that adults would be interested in- a rear view camera - something that would prevent them from running over their child's bike, the neighbor's cat, or even save them from having to turn around and try to concentrate on the road with a bunch of nudists in the back seat (see the commercial).
This argument is made mostly through the use of pathos. There is some ethos involved, considering that the ad is put out by Honda, which is in and of itself a trusted and therefore credible source. But the humor of the ad - using the rear camera instead of turning around to back up because of all the nudists in the backseats - is an appeal to pathos. The emotion of the ad is not only inherent in the humor, but the feeling that such a feature would make driving safer - something that everyone wants. Although I think the appeal to logic plays a minimal role in the commercial, the viewer does have to logical conclude that having a rear view camera would keep them safer because they have a wider scope of vision/fewer blind spots, etc.
I think this ad is effective because although it targets adults, younger people can appreciate the humor as well and in a market where tweens and teens are playing an increasingly important role in decided what families purchase, the fact that it appeals to them with humor, and to their parents by providing information about the car is a winning combination.