The following is, again, my responses to my homework:
1) For this question, I am to survey a variety of magazines and newspapers and select a handful of articles on a given issue. I will choose what is taking over the news so much today: Sarah Palin's 17-year old daughter is pregnant. Now, I'm supposed to look for examples of kairos, or space and/or time. Most of the articles I have read show kairos by explaining when the news was first learned by both McCain and Palin, and when they broke it to the rest of the nation. Also, kairos is represented by how many months along in the pregnancy the daughter is.
The relevance of this article is surprising, at least to me. I would not have thought that the nation was so interested in the children of a presidential candidate; yes, I understood that we were curious, but not curious enough to being conspiracy theories about who was pregnant and who was lying. This issue is pertinent in that we need to know as much as possible about a presidential, or in this case, a vice-presidential candidate.
The writers and/or speakers in these articles "change the subject" so that the attention is put back on McCain and Palin as a team, or on Obama by himself. The writer in the DA especially exhasperated me in that he had to turn the topic to Obama--one reason I hate politics is that both sides, or however many there are, are biased to their side. It's only natural, but it bugs me to death--if the person is going to spend a lot of time talking about one person, I feel that the writer should speak an equally lengthy time talking about the other person in the argument or debate. (By changing the subject, I do believe I exhibited kairos.) The "change of subject" done by most writers and speakers is to focus the attention back on the issue in relation to a bigger issue. In this case, the bigger issue is who are we trying to elect?
4) For this question, I need to choose an issue and compose an opening paragraph that shows how the issue matters for people I may be addressing. My issue will be the topic I discussed above. I'm so original, I know... I might show a bit of a slant from what I was saying above. It might turn out to be something totally different, too. My audience, I believe, is the conservative female in the United States. I will no doubt use many facts that I did not find out myself; since this story has been a headliner for at least two days, and I have read many articles, I know that I have been influenced by what I have read. Anyways...ahem...
The fact of Sarah Palin's 17-year old daughter's pregnancy will most likely not come as a shock to most of you that read the newspaper or watch CNN. But how many of you have gone through an issue such as this while also trying to manage a state, then having to prove to the American people that you are ready to be vice-president? Not knowing the background of most readers, I would still venture to say that not many of you have experienced this. I believe that Sarah Palin deserves a lot of credit for taking on all these negative comments and conspiracy theories and not cracking under the pressure of it all. True, this woman has not been in this position for many days, but imagine all the mental preparation she must have done. Think about her family; her husband and children must be quite proud of her, but they, too, are going to be carried through the mud. Why? Because this is politics; messy, messy politics. I believe that we should support her, not because she's a woman and we are for "girl power" (a phrase I highly dislike), but because she is a mother and she is trying to provide the best for her children and family. She is trying to make this nation one where she is not afraid of letting her children go to school and learn, or having her son go off to war without the support of the people he is protecting. I realize that being a mother is also being a woman, but the drive here is not toward that. It is toward a better United States; one where we can finally be proud of our nation for doing and being the right thing.
Yeah, so...freewriting...I hope I didn't lose you. If I did, apologies are being cast. Anyways...to class!
