Radio Stations and Copyrighted Music

An editorial listed in the Chicago Tribune, “Radio: Pay the band” discussed the issue of how performers such as, Aretha Franklin, do not got paid when their songs broadcast on the radio, while the songwriters do. The author argues that the performers should get paid as well as the songwriters because it is their work as well. The article acknowledged the opposition by stating that if the broadcast stations pay both the performers and the song writers for their work, the stations may go out of business, or play less music, which would provide less advertising for the songs themselves. However, the author disagreed with this claim stating that, “That’s the risk musicians will take by pushing for this.”
By arguing that performers should get paid for their work, the author uses the pathos and logos approaches. Because the author does not provide his or her name or background, it cannot be argued that the ethos approach was used at all. However because the author provides many facts and reasons as to why performers should be paid, the logos approach was clearly used. In addition, at the end of the editorial the author mentions that performers should get paid for their work, which can be identified as an emotional appeal, therefore the author also used the pathos approach. This argument seems to be very successful because it uses many pieces of evidence as to why the performers should be paid, as well as using two of the three argument methods. By the end of the article I agreed with the author in that broadcasting stations should not be able to play copyrighted music unless the performer and songwriter are paid for their efforts.

Gender and Race is Dominating the Election!

In August 2008, John McCain choose Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential nominee. Since that date, I have heard several theories on his reasoning for choosing the female governor of Alaska. Most of these theories consist of people claiming that McCain picked Palin to win over the people who would have otherwise voted for Hilary Clinton. The more I thought about these claims, the more I wondered about what gender had to do with the election at all. I did some research on this topic, and found that chicagotribune.com claims that the only similarity between Palin and Clinton is their gender. Despite their lack of similarities, the website states that since McCain’s choice, the majority of white women are now voting for McCain, arguably because of Palin. Then I thought about the actual issues and how Obama’s views on politics are much more similar to Hilary’s than Palin’s because of the fact that they are both democrats, and Palin is a republican. So the clear explanation for this rapid female vote gain on McCain’s side is the fact that Hilary and Sarah are both women. In a campaign driven by diversity, Obama being African-American, and Palin being female, this number gain on McCain’s side leads me to wonder whether people are voting for candidates of the same race, or gender as themselves or whether people are voting for candidates with the same views as themselves. I think that despite race or gender, people should vote for others based on the candidate’s ideas, and not outer appearances.

A Change Must Be Made in Political Speeches

In watching the presidential candidate conventions of both parties over the past few weeks, I noticed one factor that remained the same in both parties. This is the fact that both the democrats and republicans ridiculed each other’s campaigns. Obama encouraged the democrats not to vote for McCain. He did so by claiming that McCain in office will resemble the past eight years of President Bush, a president who Obama clearly does not agree with in term of politics. Palin, running for the position of vice-president alongside McCain, claims that people should not vote for Obama because when all his well-presented speeches are through and done, Obama does not have “good” plans for the country. One interesting thing I noticed from their speeches is that each time they did say something bad about their opponent, the crowd would roar much louder than when the candidate presented an actual idea. After all the conventions were over, I reflected upon the ideas that each candidate presented, and found that they were overshadowed by all of the comments that each candidate said about their opponent.
Although “trash-talking” an opponent seems to be a normal thing in present day politics, I don’t think it should be. I think each candidate should focus on solely their own issues or ideas, and not try to gather more votes by making the opposing candidate somehow look under qualified. If each candidate does this rather than speaking poorly about their opponent, than the people of the United States will have a better understanding of what each candidate’s ideas are. However, based on the reaction of the crowd, it seems that the general public of people may like it when the candidates speak badly about their opponents. So, I am left with one question, is this a good strategy to have in politics, or is it overshadowing the ideas that each candidate has for the country?

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