Skewing the Rhetorical Situation

I would like to apologize in advance for my bias, but this is a topic in which I am very biased. Therefore, if you like Sarah Palin, I suggest that you do not read my following post.

 Video referenced in my post:

Religion Takes Center Stage in GOP Race (NBC Today Show) 

 In a recent video that I watched on the news, Sarah Palin made a few comments about religion and speaking during politics. While she was trying to use the rhetorical situation (Obama had recently made a speech at a conference), she did not delve into the details of the place where he was giving the speech enough to make a truthful argument. She decided to say that he was being hypocritical by talking about how the republicans should not talk about religion at places that did not involve it, such as during public speeches or other such events. She then stated that he had used just such a tactic at the conference that he had attended- which seems like it would be a reasonable argument. After all, she was able to look at the rhetorical situation that he created and make an effective argument as a response, right?

Wrong. The one thing about Sarah Palin that I have noticed when I have seen her on the media (I try to watch her as little as necessary, because it hurts my ears and makes me sad about the state of politics when I hear what comes out of her mouth…but I digress) is that she either does not do all of her homework, or she “accidentally” leaves out part of the background information so that her statement seems to be a valid argument. After all, if you do not provide all of the facts about the rhetorical situation and use that information to form a good remark based on that, then it works.

That is, until someone takes a look at the situation and realizes just how stupid… I mean, incorrect… that argument is. After all, she forgot to mention the fact that Obama spoke words regarding religion at the national prayer breakfast. Yes, because quoting the book of Luke is definitely taboo here. Obviously he is a hypocrite for trying to talk religion with Christians, right? I think that while the statement would have been alright if he had done this at any other sort of political place, but he was completely justified in making these quotes at the prayer breakfast. She shows that if you do not take the entire rhetorical situation into account, your words and response to the situation become meaningless (along with making people question your intelligence, but that is a story for another day).

Advertisement Spoof

holytaco.com

While I was looking for the advertisement that I wanted for my analysis, I came across this interesting spoof of a Slim-Fast ad. The ad is not endorsed or produced by the company, but it does raise a specific point, which I will also hope to address in regards to plans like Nutrisystem and Jenny Craig: how truthful are diet programs really being in an advertisement? After all, the people in the commercials all state that they lost this many pounds just by doing the program. So why shouldn’t this be enough?

I want to take a personal look at some of these programs, sa my mother tried a few when she was taching junior high school. She went through Weight Watchers, and after six months of sucking up her money and roughly twenty pounds later, she decided to give up going to the meetings and to just keep track of the number of points she ate. She also exercised while she was taking the plan, but when she was too busy to make it to the gym after she got off work at 7:30 after being there for twelve hours, she would normally come home and just keep track of the points. When she stopped working out, regardless of the points, she gained weight again.

Last year she started using Slim-Fast, either eating that or a small breakfast, or substituting lunch for a Slim-Fast shake or bar. She also works on fixing up the house (replacing cabinets and putting in new flooring, etc.). However, she has not been able to lose much weight. This raised two big questions with me. First, are these even safe for you. After all, they fill you up, but then you don’t eat your meal and miss out on ingesting some of the things that your body needs the most (carbs, protein, vitamins, minerals, and fat). Can we really say that it’s healthy for us to use? The other thing is how truthful are the advertisements? After all, most of the people on these ads are celebrities, and I highly doubt that they are only changing their dietary habits. Thay probably also have a personal trainer, and possibly even the time to work out more than the normal person. My big question is how ethical are these advertisements, and how truthful are they?