Oh Westboro, just shutup.

This week, the little bubble of State College Pennsylvania was shaken up. We lost a legend this week and while I can go on about the many things he has done for the school, that is not what I wanted to focus on today. Being in this aforementioned bubble, I happened to run across the news that Westboro Baptist “Church” would once again be visiting the happiest of valleys. Even though I come from a big city, one abundant with homosexuality, sexual acts before marriage and many other forms of debauchery which this particular “church” would consider the devil’s work, I have never come in contact with this entity. Being as though they were returning to Penn State and have been pretty prevalent in the media I decided to get some background on this “church”.

Before I focus on WBC’s rhetoric- or lack thereof- I would like to first say that they disgust me.  How someone could follow the word “God” with “hates” is just incomprehensible to me. It makes me sick to think that they would bring their messages of hate to funerals or other places of mourning a fact which results in disgrace and sympathy for the future of the human race.

Ok. I know I went a bit over the edge there but I had to get that out. Now, for their attempt at rhetoric.

The thing that frustrates me most about this group of people is that their approach to persuasion is to yell hate slurs such as “God hates fags”, “You’re going to hell” “God hates America” essentially  God hates everyone. While these are good ethos (What God says is right seems to be an ethical truth) and pathos (emotional tug realizing God hates you) examples, they are not very good in convincing people. WBC’s tactics are judgmental and hurtful and makes you (or at least me) want to throw rocks at their heads. They also take a stab at logos by providing excerpts from scriptures that can be twisted in any way. This fails, however, because anyone who knows the slightest about any holy reading understands that the sole purpose is that God loves everyone and forgives sinners point blank.

 These people yell and scream instead of approaching the situation rationally then finish with laughing at your demise. How welcoming. I must say I can never understand how this brainwashed bunch can live a life full of hate, which is probably the one thing God actually hates.

Could You Pass the Artificial Cheese Flavoring?

Being a freshman and having the new found responsibility of buying all the food I intake; I must say this is a bit bombarding. All of the labels just attack with exclamation points and fancy terms. Made with 50% less plastic! No artificial colors or flavors! No preservatives! And my favorite : Made with REAL cheese!( … Oh.. well what was that on my cheezypuffs the other day?) This doesn’t even include the organic everything which is what should have been sold in the first place. You can only imagine my disbelief when I saw organic coconut water for sale in the grocery store.  I mean with all the coconuts in the world why there really inorganic coconut water for sale? Guess they really do find a way to add chemicals to everything.  

Anyway back to the labels. These marketing buffs really have the ethos logos and pathos thing down. They have the green foods which are supposedly making the world a better place appealing to ethos.  Every item must come with a heart-warming story about how families love our real, organic, naturally flavored, great-tasting food item with ingredients from family farms which covers pathos. They definitely hit the marketing goals out the park with logos based ads. This is natural/organic/made with real ingredients so clearly it must be better!

 As with any business, the main goal of these companies is to make the most profit. They have clearly found the way to do it. How many people buy that naturally flavored item without even reading the ingredients? Yeah I’m guilty too.  But even when I do read them I can barely understand or pronounce some of the words. First there’s words like Guanylate or Annatto which instantly gives me a headache. Then, after all the big words it just says “natural flavor”… Ok natural flavor of what? So since being ignorant to these things is not the way to go I decided to do a bit of research and it turns out that the Code of Federal Regulation defines “natural flavor” as “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22). That’s a lot of flavoring for my Vegetable Crisps. Food companies, as stated before, know how to make the most money for themselves. They take consumers down a path of big words and even bigger smiles hoping that no one will ask further questions. Furthermore, when questions are asked they just lead to more questions without specific answers and all you want is a snack to go with your movie. So you drop your thinking cap and go with the one that tastes the best.