Agree or Disagree

Kevin Alexander wrote a piece titled “MySpace Not Responsible for Predators” in which he strongly opposes those who claim that MySpace should be responsible for the actions of its users. In this piece he talks about a court case where a mother of a 14 year old who allegedly got raped filed suit against the company. Alexander’s response to this case and the families’ remarks is that “MySpace is a business and one that has never advertised itself as an online babysitting service” (119). Continuing to talk about how most youth crimes can be pinned back to bad parenting.  Kevin mentions that MySpace has taking precautions to cases like this, however they are still damaging to the internet. He claims that people will see cases like these and bring other lawsuits against any site on the net. Kevin finishes the piece with a cold statement saying who is more dangerous the predators or the victims out there.

In his essay “MySpace Not Responsible for Predators”, Kevin Alexander writes that websites shouldn’t be responsible for the actions of its users. However, I think that the websites should take in mind that the internet for the most part is free to use and is used by many. So they should prepare the site for those who lack the mental capacity to protect themselves. Like the 14 year old who not only didn’t recognize the dangers and the mom who failed to stop this from happening. While I agree in most part with Kevin his essay lacks enough good evidence. I believe that the evidence isn’t sound enough while I can look up MySpace’s user policy everything else could have been easily fabricated.  He could of quoted someone from the company rather than quoting some officer who we don’t know. Overall a good piece but just lacking the sound evidence for a stronger argument.
Kevin Alexander. "MySpace Not Responsible for Predators".
         New York: Morrow, 1985. Rpt. in Elements of Argument: A Text and Reader.
         Annette T. Rottenberg and Donna Haisty Winchell. 9th ed. Boston:
         Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009. 119-120

Disecting Advertisments: Good enough to lose your legs?

 

 1. Analyzing the picture:When you first look at the picture you notice the landscape, a man laying on the ground missing his legs busy playing a game and a sign in front of him that says danger mines. Nintendo appropriately placed in the top right corner ever so small to make sure they dont draw you from the big picture. Which in this case is the claim they are trying to make

The claim here is one of value I would say. The value here is that the Nintendo Game Boy Advance is such an amazing hand held gaming platform that you will fail to notice your surroundings. If you did happen to notice your dangerous surroundings you wouldn't even care. This happened to be the case for this poor fellow who was so engulfed by the game system he failed to realize he walked into a dangerous mine field. Further he failed to realize he stepped on one of the minds blowing off both of his legs.

While obviously over exaggerated the ad does do a good job to support this claim. The words "Danger Mines" with the o so familiar skull and cross bones does a good job of letting us know whats going on in the picture. The poor man failed to realize he walked into the mind field getting serious injured. However does he care? No he keeps on playing. So Nintendo is kind of saying the game boy advance is so good you wont even realize your legs are blown off. The game system being so amazing you fail to realize a fatal injury must be something worth buying of course? The audience this ad is aimed at is obviously gamers who would find this amazing or interesting at least. Definitely not aimed at non-gamers who would find this appalling in its graphic nature. 

The Claim: The Game Boy Advance is amazing

The Support: The man who failed to realize hes surroundings because of the game, causing him to lose his legs and him not caring about it.

The Warrant:  The game boy advance is such an amazing system, not only will you fail to realize your surroundings, even if you did notice you wouldn't care. So go out and buy one. 

If this ad was successful or not is really a good question. Since its such an extreme case, maybe it did appeal to some intense gamers while it failed short to others. 

First Day First Blog

1.Hey everybody,  my name is Matthew W. Dimas. I'm a fellow Floridian who was born in Ft.myers which according to some means I dont have a life. But personally I think I have a great life of enjoying the nice summer days playing baseball and other sports. Even though sports are a big part of my life there is one thing I enjoy when im not on the diamond I like to sit down in a cold movie theater and enjoy a good movie.  There is nothing better than after a long week of practice than going out with a couple of friends to sit down and watch a good movie. Of course through all of the plot twist you find in movies it is not uncommon for my friends and me to get into some kind of debate about details in a movie. 

2. That clip  is from "The Book of Eli" which was a pretty good movie if you haven't seen it. However at the end of the movie there is a part which kind of leads you on to think that Eli is blind. So of course my friends and me got in an argument if he was blind or not. Gathering evidence and details from the movie just to see who is right and who is wrong. We go back and forth constantly trying to prove the other party wrong. In the end that never happens. Each group including myself sticks to what they thought in the first place. This is one example however of the constant arguments we get into over the small things in movies. However we all agree if a movies good or bad.  So watch a movie or two, look at the small details and see if you can come up with a sturdy case of your own.