The Shame of College Sports Summary from image-mapping notes

     The Shame of College Sports, by Taylor Branch, reveals the corrupt and malicious underside to the guiding forces of modern-day higher educational athletics.  It started by divulging the massive financial numbers supporting the media and corporations involved—and how the NCAA, the ‘mastermind’ behind the crooked foundations, generated 40-80 million dollars in revenue in recent years, along with the endorsement of multimillion-dollar-salaried coaches; the whole system thrives on “tribal” stakes.  Then it disintegrated some of the well-known founding myths, such as the transition to safer conduct out of concern for the athletes, or the idea that the success backing the sports industry in America is based off of its face-value of being a “Darwinian Struggle”, and not because of the exploitation and excessive use of loopholes by its captains.  Branch delved into the history of the NCAA’s evolution, from the later-regretted ideals of master manipulator and college drop-out Walter Byers and the early power granted to NCAA to pick and choose all the sports available on television, to the initiation of the “Restitution” law and the term “Student-Athlete”—both of which used fear, bureaucracy, and bribery to claim the majority of college athletic programs’ profits for of the NCAA.  The Student-Athlete “myth” used cyclical logic to state that even though an athlete didn’t have to be completely academically competent if they were just attending college for sports, they would still receive no compensation in the case of injury or death since they were just a student; on the other hand, the Restitution rule dictated that a student athlete was not allowed to have advisors—it stretched so far that most educational bodies were afraid to even communicate with those under investigation by the NCAA as if for fear of contamination. It was even later uncovered that the creation of these rules was for the sole purpose of the NCAA avoiding due process.  As the NCAA began to lose power through endorsement, it began to exploit the names and likenesses of popular college athletes, while simultaneously instating ludicrous rules that said athletes were not only not allowed to make any profit off of their identity, but were not even allowed to accept discounts or gifts on account of their popularity: those who did so were suspended from their respective sport. This made it so the NCAA could cultivate all the money it desired off of the identities of athletes under its jurisdiction, while the athletes would be punished for trying to make any profit at all—called the “Plantation Mentality”, a defense against its injustice was manned by Sonny Vaccaro, a former employee of the NCAA, and Michael Hausfeld, a lawyer, derived from several cases in which the NCAA was indirectly made legally untouchable while several student-athletes, the very ones responsible for the  NCAA’s inherent wealth, and their supporters were branded as troublemakers or law-breakers because of violations against the association’s conquest for greed.

Jane McGonigal's Speech: Gaming can make a better world

    Being a suitably dubbed "virtuoso gamer" myself, and the proud bearer of the "epic win face" on just about a daily basis, I found that I could connect easily to the speaker's sentiments--whether one agrees on the majority of the issues discussed or not, the main point that stuck out for me, since it seemed relatively universal, was the labeling of gamers as a "vast human resource"; it's truly a remarkable thought to ponder upon that there are around half a billion people worldwide that are honing this skill, even if the skills' worth is debatable.  McGonigal's breakdown of the four key components of the life skills adapted through online game-play was just about dead on, showing that there are social (the social fabric), philosophical (urgent optimism and epic meaning), and economic (blissful productivity) tributaries of gaming talents being accumulated world-wide, without the need of peers, teachers, or elders breathing down the necks of the youth to get these "epic wins" accomplished.  These are all reflections of real-life skills; the only difference is that they're not being invested into real life.  Whether one looks at gamers as hard-working, passionate virtuosos or lazy, good-for-nothing hooligans, it is without question that it would pay to try to adapt a way to redirect the intense interest that the individuals have in these fantasy worlds and project it onto the real world, potentially cultivating a whole new generation of human advancement.

Rhetorical Précis on Good Reasons Chapter 1

          In “Reading and Discovering Arguments”, Chapter 1 of Good Reasons, Fifth Edition (2012), Lester Faigley and Jack Selzer predicate that there are certain measures that can be taken to make argumentative writing more affective, informative, and credible, regardless of the purpose or conjecture of the content.  The authors reinforce their assertions by exploring different aspects of productive argumentation, initially by defining an argument in respect to writing, along with their role in college education and the expectations of college students in writing argumentative work, followed by how one can argue tactfully, responsibly, and respectfully, accompanied by an alternative way to subjectively view a written argument and how to establish credibility and the self-image desired of one’s readers.  Faigley and Selzer intend to summarize the elements of calculated argumentative writing in order to prepare the reader for college assignments that supplicate responsible and persuasive rhetorical elements, in order for the student to garner professionalism and technique in their written work.  There is an underlying yet potent intonation that the content of the chapter is intended for those enrolled in courses that center on the skills and concepts established, giving examples, lists and charts that break down the information into very textbook, direct portions that are easy to access and understand.

Birth of my blog (aka my first post): Another blog I found interesting 1/21/2012

     So the only way to browse other blogs on here, as far as I'm aware, is to click on an interest on your own profile and then pick through a haystack of other people that have similar interests. I assumed it wouldn't be an overly burdensome task to root out a blog that spoke to me if I followed the chemistry interest from my profile, although assumptions are rarely accurate. Through most of my browsing I saw nothing but blogs with strange and erratic names like "blog bot betty" or "the fantastic egg yolk man". I guess everyone is trying to be an individual; that may, after all, be the point of a blog. Actually, even including my blog of choice in the link below, I never actually saw a single blog about chemistry in any way... ah, well. The first profile to actually catch my eye was just named "Jeff". Simple. Straight to the point. I clicked it, and I found myself in the world of a self-proclaimed "neurotic screenwriter", who had one blog that was dedicated to a very casually written account of the end of the world.

     Pretty cool stuff.

Jeff's blog: http://iknowhowtheworldends.blogspot.com/?zx=612b593fe45708b