Response to David R. Dow: Lessons from death row inmates TED-Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYzrdn7YLCM

After watching David R. Dow's ted talk, it changed my view about death row inmate cases. Dow used first person to describe a story and connect personally with the audience. He started by explaining one of his own cases as a attorney, which involved a young boy in a murder case. He used visual representation to show the steps on how a death penalty case would go. Interestingly he used this diagram and then extended the diagram to show how he could prevent death penalty cases when the prisoners are younger, since most of them have a previous past in the judicial system. He used graphs to compel the audience with hard statistical data which swayed his argument.  Dow had a very bold tone, which I would guess he picked up in law school, which captured the audiences view. Additionally he stayed away from monotone and told his first person experience as he was telling a story. His projection and pronunciation was perfect as he was ready for the speech and of course the speaker system helped the speech. His body language was perfect always holding his hands and moving his hands above the waist, which draws the attention to the upper body. Throughout his speech he would correlate his hands with his speech, which made the reader follow the speech easier. Dow had a very slow pace which let the audience understand his speech, as since it was slow we could follow what he was saying. I couldn't really find anything ineffective besides the fact he kind of talked down to the audience but for a good reason, to teach percentages about Texas. Overall I believe his argument is very convincing and I even acknowledged his call of action.

Detroit vs. Everybody Blog

"Detriot vs. Everybody." Blog - Rembert Browne's "Detriot vs. Everybody" hit the reader very hard by describing, a once sprawling city, as a ruin-filled deserted city. He starts his article off as a adventure journal and describing what he sees in modern day Detroit.  He tried to present an honest portrait of the place by taking pictures and showing what he actually saw when he traveled throughout Detroit. He went in with a different mindset than normal Detroit visitors, a positive mindset. Browne tried to stray away from normal visitor spots and traveled into the deep Detroit areas that might be portrayed as dangerous/abandoned. He took pictures of once sprawling parks/ plazas that are now abandoned but also steps back to reflect how beautiful this city once was. He used the example for Heidelberg Project, which artist Tyree Guyton created using different material to decorate suburban houses. The fact that one house was destroyed by arson is kind of disturbing showing another nature that Detroit harbors.The reality of his trip is that Detroit is a deserted place where it seems like a third world country, as it was portrayed by Browne himself. I saw that public areas weren't sprawling but what do you expect from years of negative mass media produced about the city. With shows like Low Winter Sun, depicting a very bad and dangerous city to live in, it hard to believe this city is about to rebound from bankruptcy.

“My Bodies of the Year” by Wesley Morris stated that, throughout all of the pop culture the United States of America has produced this year, being sexy sells and this year definitely showed us the importance of how somebodies body can provoke big little things. Morris used various examples showing how famous people bodies compelled different responses either through music or theater. He used one big little thing in pop culture to show how Miley became an icon after her famous twerking and being nude in wrecking ball, especially in today’s society when most people are self-conscious about their own weight. Other examples from this year would be Victoria secrets fashion show, where all super models come together to show off the next big fashion in Victoria secret. In today’s society body matters to an extent and, with mass media spreading healthier trends, it harder for people to accept their own body if it doesn’t match the model in any magazine or on national television. When I flip to MTV all I see between episodes are either proactive or hydroxycut, which both are for the body. Not to mention most shows on the network recruit better looking people and continued the trend before I was even born. I believe that bodies mattered just as much as they did now as they did 10 years ago. We’re just experiencing it on our own, since make up has gone back before the death of Jesus. I believe that Morris used ethos, pathos, and logos appropriately throughout his essay. The cultural appeal through Miley Cyrus connected the reader as it was a current event, which for most it’s probably one of the biggest events. How he used his mother as an emotional appeal and evoked sadness from the reader and how he spent most of his time with her as she was dying from cancer. He used logical appeal correctly as he explained that sex sold and even in movies bodies become an important factor, when choosing a main role. I think his use of his personal story with his mother was nice and explained that he had more to worry about this year but it wasn’t needed, but I’ve already heard this argument from many others. I enjoyed the input and I am glad to see someone is sharing their thoughts about how sex is incorporated in our media.