Martin Luther King, Jr.

In his letter from Birmingham Jail, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. writes with poise, logic, and limited, but powerful, emotional appeal. He begins his message with ethos by addressing it to his “fellow clergymen” and therefore points out his own credentials as a clergyman. This automatically places him in rank with his audience and forces them to realize he is of the same position as they are. He goes on to elevate his audience further by stating he believes that they “are men of genuine goodwill and [their] criticisms are sincerely set forth.” Here, King is making a conscious point to start off cordially so they will take his letter seriously and not blow it off as merely an angry message.

Continuing on, King uses logos to disprove the clergymen’s statement that he is an outsider. He states that the “local affiliate” of an organization that he is involved with “invited [him] here” and he has “basic organizational ties here.” He then pulls a little bit of pathos into it by appealing to religion by comparing his efforts to those of the Apostle Paul. He states that “injustice is here” and he feels “compelled to carry the gospel of freedom” as Paul did. This appeal also speaks for King’s ethos as it portrays him as a devout Christian man, which is what the clergymen claim to be.

In Kings “I Have a Dream” speech, however, he immediately launches into pathos using strong, poetic phrases like “seared in the flames of withering justice,” “crippled by the manacles of segregation,” and “languishing in the corners of American society.” King clearly wants to inspire passion and movement in his audience, and he appeals to ethos as he includes himself with the audience by saying “we stand” rather than “you stand.”

Although King puts himself on the same level of his audience in both cases, he does it to make very different points. In the letter to the clergymen, King uses ethos to remind them that he is not to be looked down upon as he is a clergyman on their level. While in his speech, however, he uses ethos to show the masses that he does not consider himself better than them, but rather on their level. In the first instance he pulls himself up, while in the second he shows that he is not above standing with the common man.

The bulk of King’s letter from Birmingham Jail is fraught with appeals to logic and occasional emotional appeals interspersed. King probably does this in an effort to sound like his emotions have not taken over him; he knows that his privileged white audience would not understand many of the things that the black citizens had been through, and dwelling too much on experiences and not enough on logic would simply lead the clergymen to further disagree with him. For this reason, King always explains things in logical terms before appealing to the audience’s pathos.

For example, when he brings up the clergymen’s argument that his actions were “untimely,” he explains to them the logical planning and thoughts that went into his march. He tells them of the many times the march was postponed because a more timely opportunity presented itself in the future, but then he explains that people cannot constantly keep “waiting” for a better time. He goes on to say that he has never been involved in a “direct action movement that was ‘well timed’” for the majority. Finally, after explaining that the word “wait” nearly always becomes the word “never,” King slip in an emotional appeal and explains the horrible things he has seen happen to people and why it is so difficult to “wait.” After understanding it from a logical point of view, the clergymen are more inclined to be touched by the descriptive images of “vicious mobs lynch[ing] your mothers and fathers at will and drown[ing] your sisters and brothers at whim.”

King’s speech, however, is highly focused on pathos the entire time. His goal here is to encourage his audience to never give up. He says that they “can never be satisfied” until they have achieved equality. King preaches that they must “refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt.” He knows that he must inspire people to join the effort toward freedom, and the logical part and plan can come later. His goal is to remind these black citizens that they deserve freedom, they are entitled to it, and they cannot give up. This is why he reminds them that every American is “guaranteed the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” His audience understands that joining him in his pursuit of freedom will be quite dangerous, so in order to put themselves in such personal danger they must a) believe they deserve to have such rights and b) trust that King is equally involved and invested. This is why he focuses so much on their entitlements and includes himself when talking to them by always saying “we.”

Ethos is also used throughout King’s letter to remind people of his place as he continually refers to his audience as his “fellow clergymen,” and to show respect to their credentials as he constantly refers them as “sirs.” At some parts of this letter, whole pages are left simply appealing to logic while ignoring emotional appeals completely. This helps King build his personal respect with the clergymen and allows him room at the end of the letter to leave logic out entirely and purely make emotional appeals. King makes the clergymen listen with logic and then them feel with emotion.

In King’s speech, although he uses emotional appeals the entire way through, he begins to appeal even more to pathos as he gets closer to the end. His words become even more poignant and poetic, and he starts using repetition by saying “I have a dream” over and over again. Each time this phrase is repeated its meaning crescendos, and it sits continually deeper with the audience. This is the first part where King uses first person and shows his investment in the movement and his plan. He then uses repetition again with the phrase, “Let freedom ring.” This leaves his audience with resounding thoughts of dreams and freedom. King paints images in his audience’s mind that are so vivid they feel inclined to join his effort so that one day those pictures may become realities.

In both cases, King ends with more intense pathos than he begins with. Although his audiences are quite different, he was able to speak to both of them with powerful words and amazing convincingness. He truly was an amazing man, and his pacifist tactics were seen and heard.

The Snuggie...fallacies!

This infomercial is full of fallacies! First it presents a hasty generalization when it says, "You want to keep warm when you are feeling chilled, but you don't want to raise your heating bill." It is not safe to assume that everyone wants to "keep warm" when they feel "chilled." Some people might like feeling chilled, especially if they have been burning up in the hot outside temperatures. Also, they might not care about raising the heating bill if they are not the ones responsible for paying it. The infomercial goes on to make another hasty generalization by saying that when "you" use a blanket and "need to reach for something, your hands are trapped inside." One cannot assume that all people would have their hands "trapped inside" or, for that matter, that all people even have hands. Therefore using a blanket would not necessarily serve as an inconvenience and that is not proper grounds to sell the Snuggie on. Another fallacy is committed when the announcer says, "The Snuggie is machine washable so you will get years of warmth and comfort." Does anyone know what fallacy category that would fall under? I'm not sure, but I'm sure it is a fallacy.

The newspaper industry is dying, and although people appear to be smarter when the read the newspaper, that has not been enough of a draw for me to join them. I get my news online. My computer has a box in the corner that constantly streams live feed from the MSNBC website. This box displays four titles at a time that constantly refresh, and if I am interested in one of them I will click it and read the paragraph summary that is displayed. If I am interested further, I will then click on the link which takes people to the MSNBC website and displays the full text article. This is really convinient because the titles are there all the time and if something shocking happens I am bound to see it. However, I do not have to sort through a bunch of space-filler stories when the news is dead--I can simply chose not to read those. News via the internet is quite convenient and much easier than sifting through a newspaper. Those things are so large I can barely hold them open, and when it comes to closing it, just forget it. It's a miserable experience for someone as OCD as I am--all of those pages bent unevenly and not fitting back into the bag the way they were intended to drives me nuts! In my opinion newspapers should be reserved for papier-mâché, not reading. Why else should we waste so much paper when the news can be read online?

Extra Credit fallacy assignment #1

According to dictionary.com, ad hominem is "attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument." Or, in other words, saying that person A would not be good for doing job X because there is something wrong with his character that does not even relate to job X.


In this video, the Obama administration attacks McCain using an Ad Hominen fallacy. It basically says that because John McCain owns seven houses, he would not be a good president. It says America can not "afford" for him to live in the White House, but in reality, him owning seven houses reflects nothing on whether or not he would have been a good president.

The video can be seen here:

Why we need Harry

There should be a Harry Potter museum because it's one of the cultural phenomena of the 21st century. It's just one of those things that people will always talk about, refer back to, or allude to even in day to day discussion. One must have an understanding of what Harry Potter is or he will not understand many things and be highly confused about why so many people speak so highly of what appears to be a simple children's book about magic. Also, this museum should be built because museums are supposed to be fun, and kids should be able to connect to the subject matter while the parents enjoy it as well.




Today, museums are often used as a place where teachers bring their students and force them to pay attention outside of class. The problem with this lies in the fact that children take this to mean that all museums are boring.

This is a growing problem as Americans are getting fatter and lazier, and the world is becoming more and more technological. People are slowly starting to choose not to go to museums because they can either find what they are looking for online, or be entertained simply by staying at home and watching tv while not having to pay an admission fee. A Harry Potter museum would be a great experience for a child, and lead them to understand that many other museums are fun as well. It is important for today's children to think this way or else the entire museum business will die out.

California Natural History Museum

The first week back to class after spring break, I visited the Natural History Museum with my ceramics class. Outside of the museum there is a giant statue of two dinosaurs with flowers all around. Upon entering the museum, one can see into the gift shop while standing in line to get a ticket. This is very strategically placed as the gift shop will bring in a lot of money and start the kids off with excitement. Immediately past the ticket podium, the skeletons of the two dinosaurs portrayed in the statue outside are on display in the same towering way. Once inside, my class went up the stairs past some weird Africa things and walked around a display of variously sized sea shells. Then we walked up another stair case and took a left into the ancient ceramic/stone/metal artifact room. The room was dimply lit and appropriately decorated. We saw these amazing pieces which had been crafted without tools or kilns thousands of years ago. A woman gave us a presentation about how many of the ceramic vessels made sound. They acted as whistles. There was also a projector/computer in the room that you could pull up images on of which ever piece you wanted to look at more closely from all angles. The museum was separated by exhibits and had some interesting things in it, however it did not seem very hands on.

The Effect of an Apology

Denny's, in many ways did apologize. Mainly it apologized in actions that showed respect to minority groups and in a way took on a form of affirmative action. They boosted the number of minority managers and increased the number of minority franchise owners. Before the big discrimination cases there was only on African-American franchise owner, and this number was quickly boosted. In this case an apology, or certainly apologetic actions, are certainly helpful and necessary. The question of who makes the apology poses an interesting problem. As Denny's has many different franchise owners, it is somewhat difficult to control all of the employees or know which franchise dropped the ball. This is why Jerry Richardson, one of the main components that got Denny's to become such a succcessful business, took it upon himself to write a letter to the customers, make a contract for the employees, and ensure that this discrimination crisis died down.

His actions were very effective and now Denny's is seen in a more more positive light. Many people believe that Denny's has now buried its old image of being racist and has come to be one of the better companies on the basis of equality and fairness.