16. Man Pulls Gun On Black Friday Line Cutter

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/23/man_pulls_gun_on_balck_friday_line_cutter/

On November 23, the Associated Press published on the Salon about one more polemic black friday story. The articles begins in the form of an anecdote, quickly getting into the subject of how a man pulled out a gun at a San Antonio shopping mall because another shopper punched him as they were in line, waiting to come in at a Sears store. The author goes on and tells how it caused a turmoil and how the police got involved. He also provides a flashback on the story, explaining how earlier people were arguing and cutting line in fron of them. The article ends by stating the man had permission to carry the gun and won't be charged of anything, as he didn't commit any crimes.

The purpose of the article is to purely inform the reader of another black friday issue. He uses the anecdote form to keep the reader interested and also keeps the story short, going straight to the point. He achieves his purpose by quickly informing the reader about the incedent and keeping him focused on the main aspects of the story.

17.Capitalism’s grossest win: The final triumph of Black Friday

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/23/capitalisms_grossest_win_the_final_triumph_of_black_friday/

In Andrew Leonard's article, "From Plymouth Rock to Thanksgiving at Best Buy: The Puritan ethic went spectacularly astray, all for an iPad mini"; written on November 3rd, Leonard talks about how people are becoming so obsessed with low prices on things, even though sometimes the black friday prices are not always the lowest of the year. He begins his article by explaining to readers that the time that the door opens to the consumers was irrelevant, because they where already submersed in shopping mania. Leonard also says that some people say that it is the part of our culture, but in reality this metastasizing control over the their culture has only shown how they are in a poor economy, he also says that if this went true, people would`t what days and days in line just to buy something they really want. Leonard explains that the name "Best Buy" is very "American" because it already says everything an american want to hear; BEST BUY. Also he states something very shocking, how Black Friday  shows how people can have either thrift to greed; he talks about a 19 year old girl who took off from work for a whole week to be the first in line, because she didn't want to take risk of being second like last year. Leonard also says its wrong to criticize these stores who open their door every year for consumers, because despite the angry mob outside their doors who are just waiting for the door to swing open, those same people show up every time. "we're locked in a mutual embrace and neither side is willing to let go."

Leonard purpose of in this article is to show how people are beginning to forget thanksgiving and giving up their whole week and holiday to stay in a line instead of with their family members. He uses very stung diction to emphasize that its not only the store owners fault for the chaos but also the consumers. Leonard uses analogy to show that if people are willing to let go of everything to stay in a line and be close to an andy mob just to shop at their store, they are also willing to get their doors open every year. He ends his article with a very sarcastic tone when he states "Who needs a mom to bring over the mashed potatoes, when the market it more than ready to provide?"

17. Goodbye Black Friday, Hello Black Thursday? Does it Even Matter?

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2012/11/23/black_thursday_replacing_black_friday_as_retailers_compete_for_shoppers.html

In Daniel Politi's article, "Goodbye Black Friday, Hello Black Thursday? Does it Even Matter?," he discusses about the results of stores opening their stores on thanksgiving other than on the actual day, black friday.  He starts his essay by showing the problem: stores opening earlier than normal. Politi reveals that this change was actually quite successful and brought any customers and a larger number of sales. At the same time, the author reveals that black friday does not bring benefit only to the customers, but as well as the reporters and writers who receives good news and stories about customers. Black friday brings a lot of profit to many of the stores and is have become a huge success. Shoppers storm the stores throughout the two-day affair, buying everything they need.

Politi's purpose in writing this essay is to reveal Black Friday's change in this year. He also wants to show the rise of sales due to the early opening of stores on Thanksgiving. Politi's audience can be anyone who is interested about black friday and is in search of an interesting story to read. The author shows how the change was a success and the possibility of this event happening in the future years. 

17. Don’t shop at Wal-Mart on Friday!

http://www.salon.com/2012/11/21/dont_shop_at_wal_mart_on_friday/

On November 21st, Robert Reich posted an article about how today’s largest private-sector employers pay very small wages to their workers compared to before and the working conditions are also poor. Reich opens by comparing average hourly wages earned by employees who worked for GM 50 years ago with today’s hourly wages earned by Wal-Mart employees. He points out several reasons such as globalization and technological changes but the main reason is the decline of labor unions. “As a result, the typical American worker no longer has the bargaining clout to get a sizeable share of corporate profits” while all of it is divided among a few people only. Reich says that the workers have organized strikes especially on Black Friday and Wal-Mart has been trying to fight against them to avoid he strikes. One solution given by the author was to increase the wages paid to the company’s employees, even though it would cost a large sum of money it is a small percentage compared to its total earning and will help bring thousands out of poverty while also increasing retail sales since the workers would be able to buy more.

The author’s purpose in writing this article was not primarily to tell readers why not to buy at Wal-Mart, but to make them aware of the problems that exist in large companies especially the low wages. Robert Reich uses the title and the example of Wal-Mart to attract the reader’s attention since it is a well known retail corporation. Reich used comparison to show how the wages have decreased drastically and supplies reasons for this decrease. The main strategy used to persuade his readers to agree with his suggested solution was the usage of statistics. They helped show that an increase in wages would help many people and would not have a huge effect on the company’s earnings despite the apparently large number.

17. What Do Anonymous and MTV Have in Common?

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/bulle/2012/11/anonymous_and_mtv_trying_to_protect_kids_online.html

Emily Bazelon posted an article on Slate Magazine on November 20th about cyberbullying. Her article started with an attention grabbing story of a young teenage girl Kylie who was about to commit suicide after receiving hate comments like “I think i just made someone cut herself yayayyyy” and “We hate you just die…” through Twitter. Two internet groups known as Anonymous and Rustle League appeared and stood up against cyberbullying against Kylie, as well as threatened to reveal the bullies' names. The organization of the article was progressive, starting with the problem, moving on the the action taken, and the solution and results. Next, Bazelon introduced MTV's app "Over the Line?" and showed how this one too, was in favor of protecting kids online. The article had examples from MTV's app and from New York Times of kids struggling to reveal themselves in fear of being bullied or rejected by others. Her conclusion connected both MTV's app and Kylie's case together, giving a strong closing to the article.

The author's purpose in this article was to both inform and bring awareness about bullying that does not only occur in schools, but also through the internet. The author's diction was formal, but not very hard to understand, which probably made the article directed to teenagers who could relate their lives with Kylie's, and parents who could be aware of this kind of problem. The fifth paragraph explicitly revealed Bazelon's stand regarding the situation, and this was evident in phrases such as "I find it utterly dismaying and weird—why on earth would anyone court that kind of danger?" and "I agree with Laura Beck at Jezebel that it would have been nice to see some of Kylie’s peers step up to defend her, but in their absence, I’ll take the adults who showed up this time to police the Internet." In addition, she portrayed the hacktivist group Anonymous as people who did good - fought against bullying - which clearly showed she praised the group for such action.

17. "Seeking a Better Way to Find Web Images"

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/20/science/for-web-images-creating-new-technology-to-seek-and-find.html?ref=technology

On November 19, 2012 John Markoff wrote an artile on ways you can better find the image you are looking for. Now, you find an image through search engines and the only images that pop up is what matches what you typed in the search box with the picture caption. So many times it is hard to find the exact image you are searching for. Therefore scientists will create a new generation of visual search technologies before the interent goes "dark" as scientist Fei-Fei Li said. With the help of many scientists, Dr. Li created the world´s largest visual database with over 14 million objects. Humans wrote the lables but now the machines can recognize and make good assumptions as to what object it is. It has been tested, known as Imagenet, and worked very well. This is a big site not only for Google but also many scientists. Dr. Li´s goal is to build a vision system the way a human´s brain works. The interent is about to explode with all the imagens and videos we are uploading in it. Dr. Li found out that the Mechanical Turk was a perfect way to gather her database. Every year Imagenet provides images for 20,000 to 30,000 people. A normal worker can indentify 250 images in 5 minutes. The futhur up in the caterogy you go, the less error you will find. They are looking to getting better and better as time goes.

The purpose of this article to show the reader another option in which you can search an image that you want and it will pop up. Markoff gives a good explaination as to what Imagenet does and how much better or accurate the search is compared to other search engines. Markoff provides us with many well said quotes on how it works and why it is better than anything else out there right now.

17. Out of the Shelter: How One Homeless Teenage Mother Built a Life of Her Own

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/out-of-the-shelter-how-one-homeless-teenage-mother-built-a-life-of-her-own/265110/

In the article, "Out of the Shelter: How One Homeless Teenage Mother Built a Life of Her Own," Kevin Ryan, the president and CEO of Covenant House International, and Tina Kelley, a former New York Times reporter, conveys the story of a young girl working her way up in life across many difficult circumstances. The article starts off by involving the reader in a hypothetical situation similar to the girl in the article, providing statistics of "nearly 750,000 American teenage girls..., a third of them under 18 and almost 90 percent unmarried" who gets pregnant and decides to have the baby. From these young girls, those who are alone are faced with the impossible calculations requiring to work 20 hours a day just to earn enough to afford a  small apartment, putting aside the problem of finding a childcare which "costs more than a year in a state college" in a year. Creionna, in addition to such extreme challenges, was faced with the remains of the devastation of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Her mother died when she was two and her father was soon arrested for selling drugs, leaving her to her grandmother. After the hurricane, she came to live with her aunt whose house was "a base camp for various relatives with drug problems." There, she met a young man next door named Rashad and she became "with child." She spent her time of pregnancy in great hardship without any support from her family members of Rashad and was later left without a home to return to. Even through all the difficulties, she found aid from the Covenant House and managed to graduate high school, get accepted to Southern University, Shreveport--she was "heading from homelessness to higher education in eight months." Creionna has got a job at a health clinic affiliated with Tulane and lives with her three-year-old son in a small, simple and hopeful home of her own.

Kevin Ryan and Tina Kelley presents this article in acknowledgement of Creionna's persistency and courage to get off the streets and go to college even with a child and many obstacles. Their purpose also aims to encourage any readers to regain confidence of achieving their goals, because Creionna did it even through all the imaginable difficulties. The article especially stands as another inspiring, hopeful story to young people faced with troubles, seemingly blocking them from becoming the adults they hope to be.