TOW #27 - Onward and Upward

This political cartoon is titled Onward and Upward which was illustrated by Bill Crawford.  This cartoon was created in 1967, at a time of great conflict during the Vietnam War.  Lyndon B. Johnson was president at the time, where he introduced the idea of the Great Society, which followed the pattern of the New Deal by FDR.  This “great society” was a set of domestic programs which aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice. But, these domestic required lots of spending, but the US had also gotten themselves involved in the Vietnam War which required lots of spending as well. LBJ was judged by not keeping in mind the required balance spending for both domestic and foreign affairs. So in this cartoon, the author utilizes colloquialism, and symbolism in order to portray the very conflict that LBJ was facing.

The use of symbolism is very prevalent in this piece. There are two Lyndon B. Johnsons, one titled the great society, and the other titled foreign policy.  The foreign policy is attached to the great society by rope, but the foreign policy is falling off a cliff, almost dragging the great society down the cliff too. This shows LBJ’s plan for the Great Society is being pulled and greatly affected by foreign policy, in reference the spending. This can conclude that maybe the United States is not able to support both the Vietnam War and the Great Society. The face on the foreign policy character is very sad and distraught, but the face on the great society is much more happier and more positive.  This reveals that President Johnson is clearly happier with the Great Society than he is with his own foreign policy.

The use of colloquialism is evident in the title of the cartoon, “Onward and Upward”.  This phrase or common saying is used to usually encourage someone to forget an unpleasant experience or failure and to think about the future instead.  This meaning is quite important to add to the meaning of this cartoon. This shows the author is trying to make a statement about how President Johnson dealt with this issue of foreign affairs versus domestic affairs.  Clearly Johnson cares more about the Great Society (domestic) which represents the future, while he is upset and frustrated with his failure of foreign policy.  

I believe that the author, Bill Crawford, successfully proved a point about a major point in Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency. Although I felt positively about LBJ as a president, I do agree with this author of the cartoon.  This point of his presidency was probably the weakest point for him, and some could say what caused him to be disliked by many politicians and Americans.

TOW #26 - The Utter Uselessness of Job Interviews

On April 8th, 2017, the New York Times published an article written by Jason Dana, an assistant professor of management and marketing at Yale, about the importance of a pre-job interview in today’s society. Having much knowledge about management and the interview process due to his profession, Dana speaks out about interviews, claiming that they are not necessary to the hiring process and should no longer be used. In order to establish this point, Dana employs bold diction and researched information from lab studies.

Towards the beginning of the article, Dana begins to outline how the interview process leaves an impression on those that are hiring. He goes on to add that “Research that my colleagues and I have conducted shows that the problem with interviews is worse than irrelevance: They can be harmful, undercutting the impact of other, more valuable information about interviewees.” (Dana 5). The powerful words that Dana uses in this section of his article supply a reaction to the reader from his very bold claim. This causes the reader be brought in more to what he has to say, ultimately causing some to be more open to the ideas of the author. This overall allows for Dana to spread his message to more readers. He continues to build strength by adding in information from studies like the one previously mentioned.

Dana speaks about one of the more recent studies that he had partaken in, in which reporters were asked to conduct interviews that were random rather than the typical rigidly structured interview that some companies stick to. He asserts the results writing, “Strikingly, not one interviewer reported noticing that he or she was conducting a random interview. More striking still, the students who conducted random interviews rated the degree to which they “got to know” the interviewee slightly higher on average than those who conducted honest interviews.” (Dana 10). With this information, the author is able to further bolster their ethos through the providing of researched information that supports the earlier bold claim of the uselessness of formulaic job interviews. This is also able to strengthen ethos since this was a study that the author himself worked on, and did not just receive the info from another source. Through this, Dana is able to create an argument that is more convincing to a reader.

Overall, I do believe that Dana was able to effectively show that job interviews, as they exist today, are more of a hassle than they are useful. They do not seem to provide interviewers with the correct information on an interviewee and often undercut the qualifications that a person may have.

IRB Intro #4 - When Breath Becomes Air

For my fourth independent reading book of the year, I have chosen the book titled When Breath Becomes Air, an autobiography written by Paul Kalanithi. This book is about his life and illness, battling stage IV metastatic lung cancer while trying to be a surgeon.  My mom is in a book club, and they actually chose this as one of their books and loved it, so it seemed interesting to me to choose this as my last IRB! Although I am not one for very sad stories, my mom highly recommended it so I hope I enjoy it!