Newtown, CT School Shooting: Morgan Freeman's Take

There's something about Morgan Freeman that just demands respect. It's probably his deep, secure voice, coupled with his intense portrayal of everyone from God to Batman's technological supervisor Lucius Fox. Nevertheless, his words regarding the recent tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut really struck a chord with me, even though it may not have been Morgan Freeman who actually gave the statement. Like the image I posted about last week, this statement is meant to grab the audience's attention about a topic they might not have considered before, and in this case, to do something about the problem being discussed.

Crediting this quote to Morgan Freeman may or may not have been an attempt to gain credibility (ethos), but each and every sentence has a rhetorical purpose as well. For example, the use of rhetorical questions is prevalent throughout the relatively short piece, in order to have the audience gain awareness about their own knowledge/ignorance and stir up emotion towards the cause. The statement is incredibly emotional, which reflects the intense emotion of the tragedy itself, and ends with a sarcastic remark regarding media coverage of the school shooting.

This statement affected me so much that I have included some of the victims' names and faces, as well as the original statement, in order to spread the message to any of my readers. Please take the time to honor the victims of the shooting and their devastated families.


"You want to know why. This may sound cynical, but here's why.

It's because of the way the media reports it. Flip on the news and watch how we treat the Batman theater shooter and the Oregon mall shooter like celebrities. Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris are household names, but do you know the name of a single *victim* of Columbine? Disturbed
people who would otherwise just off themselves in their basements see the news and want to top it by doing something worse, and going out in a memorable way. Why a grade school? Why children? Because he'll be remembered as a horrible monster, instead of a sad nobody.

CNN's article says that if the body count "holds up", this will rank as the second deadliest shooting behind Virginia Tech, as if statistics somehow make one shooting worse than another. Then they post a video interview of third-graders for all the details of what they saw and heard while the shootings were happening. Fox News has plastered the k!ller's face on all their reports for hours. Any articles or news stories yet that focus on the victims and ignore the k!ller's identity? None that I've seen yet. Because they don't sell. So congratulations, sensationalist media, you've just lit the fire for someone to top this and knock off a day care center or a maternity ward next.

You can help by forgetting you ever read this man's name, and remembering the name of at least one victim. You can help by donating to mental health research instead of pointing to gun control as the problem. You can help by turning off the news."

http://abcnews.go.com/US/newtown-connecticut-school-shooting-victims/story?id=17984685#1

Noah Pozner, 6

Emily Parker, 6

Jesse Lewis, 6

Victoria Soto, 27

Grace Audrey McDonnell, 7

Catherine Hubbard, 6

 

Humans Aren't The Only Victims of War

I always seem to get more choked up over the death of a dog than the death of a human. There must be something in their innocence and unyielding loyalty that makes me linger on images like this every single time. While iwastesomuchtime.com (I know, but it's addicting) typically displays funny internet memes, statuses, and comics, sometimes a meaningful image like this appears and makes me stop for a minute. Sometimes that's all rhetors really want from their audience: a moment of thought and appreciation towards the topic displayed.

Just like in O'Brien's How To Tell A True War Story, I think the death of animals is used to draw emotion from the audience, especially because the death of soldiers unfortunately faces apathy from the general public in today's world. The composition of this photo draws the audience down the soldier's arm to the sweet dog below, then pulls our attention to the memorial that the subjects are looking at as well. Here we see a memorial for 25 dogs that have given their lives, perhaps unknowingly so, for the noble pursuit of freedom. The man and dog staring at the memorial are paying their respects, (even if the dog doesn't understand the significance of the memorial) and the man is taking a moment to show his best friend his love.This makes the audience aware and grateful for the jobs of dogs in the military that perform jobs humans are incapable of doing.

This image is meant to catch the audience attention and maintain it long enough for them to appreciate the value of dogs in the military and all that they do as man's loyal best friend.

Never Mind Talent: Practice, practice, practice

Karen Rile urges parents to engage their kids in rigorous pursuits that require a large amount of practice early on in this week's Philadelphia Inquirer. She uses her own experience with daughters and their love of playing violin to make her case, which establishes some knowledge of the topic, but she fails to incorporate any statistics or evidence from true "experts" to further the credentials of her argument. Her own intellect, as a professor of creative writing at Ivy League school University of Pennsylvania, and her experience in the matter make up for this flaw almost entirely.

I think one of the most compelling parts to Karen Rile's argument is her casual tone, which makes me feel like I know her as a loving mother of one of my friends. She uses first-person point-of-view, and immidately begins the article by stating, "Me, I want to be a natural...But I'm usually that class dunce, or at least that's what it feels like as I struggle to keep up after the going gets tough" (D2). Rile becomes familiar and quickly gets the audience on her side, as she takes them through her life of Suzuki violin lessons and the lessons her daughters learned about "the habit of patient practice that has seen them through the long, slow development of mastery" (D2). Demonstrating her own realization of the power of practice, (which she notes is better than having natural talent in any field) Rile effectively convinces her audience to follow her conclusions and disregard the pressure to be a prodigy.

I think this article was extremely effective in proving the benefits to introducing kids to practice and hard work at an early age, but I would've liked seeing a variety of different activities incorporated. Is Suzuki better than pee-wee soccer? Perhaps I would need to read another article from a different author to find out...

Nickel and Dimed (IRB)

Barbara Ehrenreich began this New York Times Bestseller with an anecodote about being assigned "the old-fashioned kind of journalism—you know, go out there and try it [your]self" (1). The "it" in question began with the simple task of making it in America as an underpaid, low-skilled worker. And that's exactly what Barbara did. Although some critics question the authenticity of her project, (Barbara even notes herself that her "rules" and "limits" are luxuries that none of the workers around her have, and thus could be considered cheating) her work still manages to truly open the eyes of middle and upper class workers who rarely take the time to recognize the difficulties of being a waitress or maid in America.

Although the statistics referenced and analysis of the cost of living even in a trailer park are very effective in demonstrating the plights of poverty, Ehrenreich's best rhetorical strategy is the emotional component to her story. She introduces us to several heroes and heroines that stay in "flophouses," their vans, trailers, hotels, and even boats, as well as the antagonistic corporate workers who demand workers to be on their feet for 10 or more hour shifts without even bathroom breaks. In this chapter, "Serving in Florida," Barbara talks about a Czech immigrant who was fired for stealing what Barbara guessed to be "some Saltines or a can of cherry pie mix and that the motive for taking it was hunger" (41). Anybody can be stunned by some facts about the percentage of the working force that is homeless or the number of hours low-class workers end up working per week, but to read these heart-wrenching, yet also at times funny and touching, stories really changed they way I perceive the poor. There are few words that I could use to describe Nickel and Dimed, but one of them would be: unforgettable.

Las Meninas

This seventeenth century Spanish painting, entitled "Las Meninas" (The Maids of Honor) is perhaps one of the most influential and highly analyzed paintings in the world. Diego Velazquez, who is shown in the painting, is one of the most famous Spanish painters ever. This painting captures a single moment in time, which would've been exceedingly difficult to do without cameras, and interacts with the audience, who take the role as the subjects of the painting being painted.

Las Meninas is a very confusing and intense painting, with "Inception" ideas portrayed hundreds of years before Leonardo di Caprio was even born. Several of the subjects of the painting look outward to the audience, which is being painted by the portrait of Velazquez. This portrait is reflected in a mirror in the background, and the audience can see that they have taken the role of the King and Queen of Spain in this situation. Other characters include the Infanta Margarita (the focal point of the painting) and a curious man running away in the background. In other words, the painter is asking the artistic question, "how do you know what you know?"

This painting is one of the most self-conscious images images in Western art, and therefore deliberately uses several rhetorical devices in order to challenge the viewer on the certainty of their perspective. One of the main rhetorical devices is the inclusion of otherwise unrelated characters, such as the self-portrait, the man running away in the background, and the dwarf handmaidens waiting on the princess. While the Infanta Margarita is prominently displayed, with her central location and the lightening of the painting drawing the viewer's eyes to her, the King and Queen, the subjects of the portrait, are merely seen in the reflection of the painting-within-the-painting in the background. Thus, Velazquez creates a chaotic scene that challenged many of the artistic normalities of the time period.

If the goal of this painting was to challenge the viewer to question the very idea of it, Velazquez certainly did an effective job in doing so. From the moment I looked at this painting, I began questioning what was going on, and was surprised with the lack of answers to some of my questions. I still do not know why the handmaidens are portrayed in this painting, or why the man running away is doing so. I wonder why Velazquez used only the bottom half of the canvas for his subjects, while most of the upper half remains dark and empty. I puzzle over the logistics of portraying this perspective of the scene, if Velazquez was painting the canvas as shown. Most interestingly, why did Velazquez leave the audience to fill the shoes of royalty?

New York City Hurricane Sandy

With the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy concerning men and women across the Atlantic seaboard, New York City seems to have quite the clean-up, according to Lisa Foderaro. Her article, Storm Inflicted Beating on Trees In New York City, cites incredible numbers of collapsed trees and tree limbs, and the massive amount of work needed to clear them from roads and the roofs of destroyed buildings. The New York Times reporter is writing to her American audience to inform them on the damage, but the comments the article received argued that more needed to be done to ensure the trees lost, and perhaps even more than those lost, are replaced.


One rhetorical device Foderaro used was the incorporation of personal stories from New York City citizens affected by downed trees, in order to draw on the audience's emotions. She writes,

"Frederick Quint, 49, who grew up in the house, at Midland Parkway and Henley Road, treated the workers to a couple of pizzas as a token of his thanks. The trees, each measuring 40 inches in diameter, had fallen at 8 o’clock that Monday night as the hurricane tore through the city. The trees hit two others on Mr. Quint’s property, and together they smashed a parapet over the sunroom, as well as windows, gutters and roof tiles.

'It was a loud thud,” he said, describing the impact on the three-bedroom house. Watching from his front door as the loader hoisted what remained of the pin oaks, he said: “There they go. It’s distressing. I grew up with those trees.'"(1). Without this interview, the article would have felt dry and emotionless, because it would merely cite facts of the number of trees that have collapsed within the city. Using Mr. Quint's story, the article effectively conveys not just the physical damage of Hurricane Sandy, but the emotional as well. Furthermore, one story combined with a fact about the number of trees that have collapsed allows the audience to comprehend the problem without becoming overwhelmed.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/12/nyregion/hurricane-sandy-inflicted-a-beating-on-new-york-city-trees.html?_r=0

Blink: Concluding Chapter

For my second TOW regarding my IRB Blink, I am focusing on Malcolm Gladwell's concluding chapter to his bestseller. The chapter, entitled Listening with Your Eyes, details the story of a woman trombonist in 1980 who applied for a job at with a German orchestra. At the blind auditions, she "floored" the committee, but the moment they realized "he" was actually a she, their prejudice began damaging their image of her as a trombonist, which is an instrument typically played by a man. Gladwell argues that these blind auditions are the perfect "Blink" moment—the music played is the first impression of the committee, who can thus filter out any additional information to focus on the true ability of the musicians that audition for them. Malcolm Gladwell, a noted author of four bestselling novels and writer for the New York Times, made some incredible insights on the world of expert judgment and thin-slicing throughout his book, and this conclusion served as a great wrap-up and application of his thoughts to the lives of his readers.

The story of Abbie Conant, the woman trombonist, used the rhetorical appeal pathos to gain the sympathy of readers when she was judged for her gender, and even more so when she was demoted within the orchestra and received less pay than her male co-workers for the same or perhaps better ability. The readers instantly side with Conant as Gladwell describes her struggles to be recognized, and eventually as she takes her case to court. Thus, we realize the harmful effects of stereotyping to making good judgements in the musical world and in the more general sense as well.

Blink opened me to new and exciting possibilities for our natural capacity to judge a situation within an instant, and to judge a situation using very little information. From Gladwell's assertion that humans naturally try to decipher the emotions of others by reading their facial expression to his research focusing on pschological "priming," this book has influenced my perception of my very own abilities greatly. This concluding chapter helped me recognize the power of determining the really important information from the potentially harmful information, and with this in mind I will try to apply Gladwell's theory to my own life, which makes the book extremely effective.

Wissahickon Support Staff Strike Averted

This week there has been quite a bit of turmoil regarding the support staff strike that was scheduled for Monday the 29th, but cancelled this Friday, as the Board and the Wissahickon support staff group WEA agreed to continue to negotiate. This article gave some of the details behind the decisions of both sides to continue negotiations. Leann Pettit, the editor of Patch.com, which g updates on Montgomery County news, has worked at a small Phoenixvilla, PA newspaper as well as her current job at the Patch.

The Patch prides itself on "report[ing] the facts as objectively as possible and otherwise adher[ing] to the principles of good journalism." However, this article seemed slightly biased towards the opinions of the Board against the increased salaries and benefits, and did not quote any of the WEA leaders or the support staff themselves.

The article, which comes almost directly from the school district, uses logos as its prime appeal in an otherwise mostly informative report. Pettit quotes chief negotiator Jeffrey Sultanik, "The union continues to push for a plan which provides full-time benefits to employees who only work 4-hours a day. It is an incredibly costly plan that Wissahickon and its taxpayers cannot entertain." By not offering the opinions of the support staff, the article subtly persuades its readers towards the School Board's side in the situation. 

Before reading this article, I was in complete support of the support staff's fight to gain better living conditions and benefits. This article, however, offered me the opposing side's position on the matter, and made me realize that almost no conflict has a "right" and "wrong" side. The balance is probably somewhere in the middle. 

Philadelphia Inquirer Article

Amidst the turmoil and drama of this season's presidential election, Karen Heller pits women against Romney in her article, An unconvincing pitch for female voters. Karen Heller has been a renowned Philadelphia Inquirer journalist for nearly 20 years, during which time she has covered everything from Miss America pageants to political conventions, and was even a finalist for the 2001 Pulitzer Prize in commentary. Her own personal political views against Romney strongly affected this piece. The article focused on "women's issues," but the article argues that these issues, such as equal pay in the workforce, are also issues for men and for middle-class families in general. Heller's argument therefore not only targeted Philadelphian women voters, but their husbands and families as well.

As most rhetors do, Heller effectively used logos, ethos, and pathos to persuade her readers not to vote for Romney, in an area of swing voters. She states facts like, "[Romney] hasn't supported the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which ensures equal pay," then follows it up with "It is astonishing that we still require such legislation, that many women still make less than men performing the same work, and that any candidate would take issue with this basic civil right," demonstrating her own ethical perspective. (A2).

One of the more unique rhetorical devices Heller utilizes is her repetition of an allusion to #bindersfullofwomen, an Internet trend that has sprung from an awkward comment Romney made recently. The cultural memory Heller expected of her audience was beyond me, so I found an article explaining the reference, and an example of the new trend. http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/ . Karen Heller references the "binders full of women" comment multiple times in her article, although she easily forgives Romney for his relatively minor slip-up. She does, however, effectively use the allusion as an effective full-circle ending, to unify and signal a sense of closure to the article

This article informed me on the open ends still left in many political issues today, such as pay differences in the workforce and the effect of Romneycare vs. Obamacare on the health of women with breast or ovarian cancer, and, although I can't vote, furthered my pre-existing preference towards Obama in the upcoming election.

Red Bull Stratos

Red Bull Stratos was a live broadcast about a man named Felix Baumgartner and his mission to jump from a capsule suspended 128,000 feet above the Earth. The narrator of this Red-Bull-sponsored record-setter chronicled the event live as Felix attempted to break the speed of sound. Red Bull Stratos is a scientifically driven project by a committee of previous world-record jumpers like United States Air Force Colonel Joseph Kittinger, sky-diving consultants, and aerospace engineers. Felix's freefall, which successfully surpassed the speed of sound and therefore made him "supersonic," will provide data for future pilots and astronauts, and perhaps support "the development of sub-orbital bailout procedures that don't currently exist" (http://www.redbullstratos.com/science/speed-of-sound). Needless to say, today marked a large step for the scientific community.

Felix Baumgarter has spent the last 5 years preparing for the jump, which required an advanced capsule that could deal with the intense sub-zero temperatures, virtual vacuum atmosphere, and limited supply of oxygen associated with the height of the initial jump, which was over 24 miles above sea level. Even with the advanced technology and training, it was still very likely that Felix would die due to the likelihood that he would start spinning out of control during his descent. If his suit had been ripped, he would've been exposed to temperatures so low his blood would begin boiling. The video paid tribute to his bravery and commended the hard work that goes into pulling off such an accomplishment.

The main rhetorical device shown in the video was the use of repetition to build suspense. Much like Ryan Seacrest on American Idol results shows, the narrator continued to explain what was going on and the numerous records Felix would be breaking, so that any audience just tuning in could catch up quickly, and because there was over two and a half hours to fill of the capsule ascending into space. It was a little boring to listen to, but by the time Felix was stepping out of his capsule, slowly but surely, I was itching to see the jump, so clearly the device worked well.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (Chapter 2: The Locked Door)

Blink is a book about the power of snap decisions and the power of instinct, summed up by the idea of "thin slicing." Each chapter of Malcolm Gladwell's book details the effects of thin slicing in various aspects of human life, such as gambling, sports performance and analysis, movies, predicting a couple's chances of getting divorced, or simply reading someone's body language. This chapter was about an extraordinary man's ability to simply know when tennis players will make a rare mistake called a "double fault," and the mystery of how humans can know things without being able to explain why. It delves into this idea of "priming," in which the human subconscious can become aware of an environment and affect our reaction to the environment without our awareness of doing so. Malcolm Gladwell is a writer for The New Yorker and has published four books that deal with the potential effects of current social and psychological findings. He has been named one of Time Magazine's Top 100 Most Influential People, and all of his books have been national bestsellers. Blink is based on the subject of mental processes that influence judgment and decision making unconsciously, with the purpose of informing the audience on the power of snap judgements and how people can use this power to make better choices.  Blink addresses the general public. It's primary rhetorical mode is exemplification, as Gladwell is simply trying to support his theories on the unconscious mind by presenting anomalies and scientific studies to the audience. Gladwell uses many examples of well-founded research, complete with statements from the scientists themselves, to make his argument more credible (an example of ethos). His writing style seems pretty casual, as he addresses the audience multiple times when transitioning to a new topic.

Personally, I think the stories and information presenting was extremely compelling, especially when Gladwell offered a mock test for the audience and stated afterward that this test would've made me walk slower (had I been leaving an "office" after taking the test). I was aggravated that Gladwell did not offer up any profound insight into how the subconcious works, but his purpose was to assure his audience that maybe knowing the "whys" and "hows" isn't for the best. I will be on the lookout for my own gut instincts and snap decisions, and perhaps even begin trusting them without a defined justification for doing so.

Infographic: Spending for Higher Education vs. Prisons

This week I found an infographic that juxtaposed the state of California's budget for supporting prisons versus supporting students seeking a higher education. It demonstrates the injudiciousness of spending nearly seven times as much money per inmate as per student. This infographic comes from Fast Co Design company, a news industry based largely in images rather than words. Most articles are grounded in an infographic or artistic experiment, accompanied by a short article, in this case written by senior editor Suzanne Labarre. This infographic was originally found at publicadministration.net, an online resource for people looking to study public administration and the implementation of government policy. The statistics are well-supported by a list of sources below, although one statistic is said to be taken (and adjusted for infiltration) from 1979, so it may not be as credible as the others. The current economic recession is making finding jobs increasingly harder, and many students are graduating college with large debts and few opportunities. It seems counter intuitive that America is still focusing on the incarceration of nearly 1 in 100 Americans, largely for nonviolent crimes. The purpose of most infographics is to simply convey a large amount of data in a much shorter time than large bodies of text, and for that data to be presented in an interesting and relevant way to capture the audience's attention. This infographic, however, does not simply relay the data, but also gives a brief analysis at the bottom by saying, "We must re-prioritize our values as a society. Fund colleges, not prisons." The purpose is therefore to get the audience, mainly American tax-payers or students, educated on the issue and motivated enough by the injustice to actively seek change.
Infographics are known for their thoughtful design, which usually include charts, keys and symbols, color coordination, and a logical difference in the sizing of various pieces of data. Here, we see that the infographic has 2 main sections, one that ranks California amongst the other states for its prison funding and higher educational funding. The lower section demonstrates the negative outcomes that result from imprisoning such a large percentage of the population, almost like a cause and effect structure. This infographic uses color coordination by putting prison-related data in a yellow color, and graduate-related information in a more pleasing blue, and left other images dark to indicate the bleakness of the facts presented. Perhaps most obviously, places titles in very large font, numbers and statistics in the next largest font, and explanations in small fonts, so that audiences are drawn in by the most interesting parts immediately.
I have always thought that state governments spend too much money on keeping criminals locked up, especially for non-violent crimes, and that this money could be used for more constructive purposes, such as programs for ex-convicts to start their new lives. In the overcrowded prisons of California, this is especially true.  However, the thought of releasing too many of these convicts is also a scary thought, and this infographic does little to solve that problem. It merely points out a flaw in the spending of our government, and urges the audience to change the situation, without specifying how.

The Kony 2012 Scam And Why You Should STOP Supporting ‘Invisible Children’

This Text of the Week is called "The KONY 2012 Scam and Why You Should STOP Supporting 'Invisible Children,'" and that's exactly what it was about. The article, which has no known author and therefore cannot be trusted entirely, points out the many flaws in logic that surround the KONY 2012 viral video that was so popular earlier this year, including the sketchiness of the military that Invisible Children (the organization behind the video) supports and how much (or little) of the money donated actually supports the cause. KONY 2012 is a 30 minute video that started a fad of people emailing links and posting pictures of Joesph Kony all over the Internet and streets of America, and this article sought to shed some light on many of its gross exaggerations, and to point out the ignorance of assuming that simply finding and killing Kony will solve the problem of the LRA and children soldiers. It's pretty clear that this article is directed at the same people the original video was created for—mainly young people familiar with Internet trends. This is made clear by the two "memes" at the top and bottom of the article, which point out how gullible YouTube viewers can be via sarcasm and the iconic font on the top and bottom of the images. KeepItTrill.com makes a solid argument by using statistics and logical reasoning such as, "By IC’s own admission, only 31% of all the funds they receive go toward actually helping anyone" (1). It also pulls on the heart strings of the Americans who had responded to the tales of rape and abuse in the LRA seen in the KONY 2012 video by stating that the Ugandan military, which INvisible Children Inc. supports, has been accused of rape and looting themselves. Organizationally, the article has two main parts: a "quick rundown" and an in-depth look. This allows readers to learn some fundamental facts that the video ignored, and hopefully get them interested into looking further into the article. If they are not interested beyond this point, hopefully the article has given them enough information to think twice before donating to Invisible Children Inc., thus accomplishing the purpose of the article. 
Before reading this article, I already knew about KONY 2012 and some of the criticisms about the organizations and how shady it really was. If I did not already know some of these things, this article would have informed me and made me think twice about which charities I give money to. It really opens the audience's eyes about the complexities of foreign affairs, and how most of the time, there's no true superman for every villain out there. 

Is Algebra Necessary?

Is Algebra Necessary? is a New York Times article published this summer, which makes the argument that advanced math courses should be optional in high school curriculum. Andrew Hacker argues that forcing kids to undergo calculus and trigonometry when they are clearly meant for language-based careers hinders the country's ability to discover young talent, encourages kids to drop out, and may not even help develop the skills needed for the current technology and science-based job market. Hacker has taught at Cornell, and currently is a professor of political science at Queens College. He has co-written a book (Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids — and What We Can Do About It) and contributes to the New York Times frequently. In a country that has seen a drastic decline of the education of its young people, and an increasingly competitive worldwide market for high-level jobs, most politicians and educators are advocating the development and expansion of mathematics in high schools and colleges. But Hacker does a remarkable job at persuading the American public that not only is algebra useless to kids looking to pursue jobs in psychology and the like, but it can actually hurt these kids if failing math becomes the reason they drop out.  Hacker appeals to his readers mainly through the use of logos, such as when he writes, "To our nation’s shame, one in four ninth graders fail to finish high school. In South Carolina, 34 percent fell away in 2008-9, according to national data released last year; for Nevada, it was 45 percent. Most of the educators I’ve talked with cite algebra as the major academic reason" (SR1). He also uses "They Say/I Say" throughout the article.
When I first started reading this article, I was largely biased towards the necessity of advanced math in high schools and colleges, because I've grown up hearing about Americans needing to be more proficient in math and science to keep up with the kids in China, Canada, and other countries.  I have always been pretty strong in math, but I also have friends that are just clearly not meant for that path, and I've always felt sympathetic for their struggles with algebra. After reading the article, though, I think kids and their parents should be able to make informed decisions about whether or not math beyond a standard level (such as Geometry) is right for them. Since I was persuaded toward Hacker's strong opinion, I would say he has accomplished his purpose very effectively.