https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JNCBcRjgKseCDv73YneybRKsKmU6KFW-o2kmcR-f9xY/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yMGxj9-KLmX3eJ4vYFmqwXR4RW9f8IPFh3D9rzSXkpA/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NwOM1De4aydk5tI3WkDT4DPc_t-wQnWOneEbAz-d5MM/edit?usp=sharing

Everyone knows what McDonald’s is, but as silly as it sounds, not everyone knows a lot about McDonald’s. This worldwide fast food chain started off as a restaurant in 1940, operated by both Richard and Maurice McDonald in San Bernardino, California, United States. It is crazy to believe that the company started out as a burger stand because of how big of an influence on the world it has nowadays. McDonald’s continued to grow and their logo, the Golden Arches, were introduced in a restaurant in 1955 in Phoenix, Arizona. It was growing so much in fact that it caught the attention of a certain businessman, Ray Kroc. Kroc joined the company as an agent, however he did not stop there, he eventually bought the franchise from the brothers and took it to even greater heights.

McDonald’s is the largest ever growing food chain, having restaurants all over the world in 120 countries. It is estimated that McDonald’s serves over 68 million customers daily, this just goes to show how far an idea can go and how many people can be affected by it. McDonald’s was one of the first companies to come up with and integrate the idea of “drive-thu dining”. This idea absolutely took off and it shows, nearly every fast food joint has a form of drive-thru, for McDonald’s, drive-thru’s make up at least 70 percent of their sales.

 McDonald’s main marketing scheme is to target a younger demographic, and it shows. It is made very apparent with its frequent use of “happy meals” and built-in playgrounds on the establishments, even the commercials on T.V. are targeted for a younger audience. You will also very frequently see a bin for donations to certain charities that are being supported by McDonald’s whenever you order something.

In regards to how McDonald’s sources their ingredients, the company uses eggs from battery cage facilities which is not only bad for the chickens, but is also bad for the quality of the eggs. However, McDonald’s pledged to stop using these facilities in 2015 and they plan for these facilities to stop being used by 2025. This is a good change, however, the company will still source their pork from gestation crates, however they have also pledged to phase these out in 2012.

    The company has also tried out different variations of the classic restaurant/drive-thru style. They have tried out McDrive’s, which are primarily drive-thru, and they have also done McCafé’s, that are styled around traditional “café styled” establishments. It is really interesting to see that even after all of this company’s long-lived commercial success, they are not entirely out of ideas yet.

    It is always really fun to look back at the history of things that are ginormous in market value, and to see that they came from somewhat humble beginnings. It gives people hope that if they have an idea for something, they should not just give up on it, try it out and see if you can make it work, and if it does, then you are in business.

    In the section that I was assigned to, it talked a lot about how powerful the people are as a whole. It says in the book, “democracy is more powerful than bloated companies and politicians”. I agree with this immensely because the people have the power to change the opinions of others by pure peer pressure alone. It is a truly fascinating thing to see when there is a giant crowd of people who are fighting (not physically) for what they think is right. 

    There are tons of examples of people gathering to start or stop something for the greater good. For example, there was a company that was trying to cut down the trees on a land that was sacred to a Native American tribe. The tribe and even locals who were not associated with the tribe, helped to speak out to stop this from happening. Eventually, after many hours of protest, the company gave up and the trees were no longer at risk of being chopped down.

    “Peer pressure obviates the need for police, lawyers, judges, and prisons.” This is what the author said when talking about the power of peer pressure. Peer pressure is as powerful as it is dangerous. When used for the right reasons it is very good in enacting change, but when it is used for the wrong reasons it can be devastating. For some reason we as humans are much more easily convinced to do something when there are others that are doing it, hence the term, “All the cool kids are doing it”.

I found it very interesting that the foreword has nothing to do with the next seventy pages but that is not relevant, what is relevant is how much the author cares about the amount of changes that are happening to our planet. He brings up on many occasions how we as humans are basically disrespecting the earth by causing global warming and pollution. We need to take care of our planet if we are to stay here for long because at the rate that it is going now, our future as a civilization is not going to be pretty. 

    What I think is the most important thing right now is global warming and as the author said in the foreword, we are about to go past the “point of no return”. If we do not do anything to drastically change our situation, then things on earth are going to get very hot. So hot in fact, that the climate alone is going to melt the polar ice caps completely and flood over some major cities on the coasts of multiple countries.

    It’s very cool to see how connected the author seems to be. He talks a lot about how much he loves being a mountain climber and how much he loves the outdoors. When he was younger he even joined a falconry club where they learned how to teach falcons how to hunt. It was very interesting learning about the sheer amount of things that the author did when he was younger.

My meme originates from the fact that some people just preach all this stuff about climate change and what others should do to prevent this catastrophe, then they end up doing none of the things that they initially preached about, it makes the people who say these things seem like hypocrites. It becomes very apparent with just the sheer number of global warming adverts with none of those people who posted those adverts doing anything about it.

    I had some trouble trying to figure out which group of people would be the ones throwing the scroll but I felt like “millennials” worked well because they are the main ones that do nothing but complain and never do anything to follow up on it. In order to engender change, you have to be the example that shows the change, and this is what I think everybody is missing.

    I understand that global climate change is really a problem, this is why this is so important to me. Climate Change has been (as of late) a really big problem. It’s a shame that we aren’t talking about it as much as we should be, and the fact that some people who do not believe in climate change is downright unacceptable. There are too many false facts floating around that have been generated by people and companies who benefit from oil sales, it is a shame that people would prefer to just get a quick penny rather than save the world for our future generations.

1. I’ve learned that Rhetoric is not only something to learn, but also something that you can use in daily life. For example, you can use your knowledge of Rhetoric in arguments and discussions by identifying when the arguer is trying to abuse Rhetoric to swing the audience to their side. Learning Rhetoric lets you look more critically into the things that we just take for face value.

2. Rhetoric relates to critical thinking and reading especially well because it gives you a broad new scope on how to view certain things, it lets you “see” what you couldn’t see before.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HOfJR-3Mlfp5uGXQnCsSmcK0EvchaVaVaQ-ZawUqHY0/edit?usp=sharing

This article talks about how common rhetorical analysis is to everyone in their everyday life and how no one even notices it. It really is astonishing to see something that is so common to people but they do not quite know how to describe it. It’s like the part of the shoelace that nobody knows, the aglet, it is just so common that nobody even bothers to know anything about it. However with rhetoric, you can go much deeper than just knowing it, you can use it and abuse it in everyday life. You can use it in conversations and you can start to see it in advertisements and in the media, rhetoric is just everywhere. When you see someone walk in the room and you start to infer what that person is going to be like and how they are going to act, you are using rhetorical analysis without even knowing it.

There are three common types of rhetoric used in media; Ethos, Pathos, and Logos. These rhetorical devices are all used in the media in order to persuade the audience into either believing something or wanting something. It is one thing to understand rhetoric, and another to actually know how to use it. Those that know how to use rhetoric succeed in persuading their audience, whether it be another person or an entire crowd. Even in politics do we see these kinds of rhetorical techniques. In presidential debates, the candidates are most often seen arguing back and forth, but if you pay attention, you can actually see that they are using rhetoric to draw the audience onto their side.