TOW 13 (Written text)- "Howard Zinn, Historian, Is Dead at 87" by Michael Powell

This obituary reflects on the life of the late historian, Howard Zinn. Author Michael Powell describes Zinn's remarkable journey from a low-wage worker in a shipyard struggling to his family's pay bills to a famed and best-selling historian and author. As a young man, Zinn read about Karl Marx and the Communist regime, compelling him to join the US Army during World War II to fight the fascists. Upon returning home, Zinn decided to go back to school, getting his bachelor’s degree at New York University and his master’s and doctoral degrees at Columbia University. Shortly after, he began his career are a historian working in the history department at Spellman College. Zinn, who played a large role in the African American civil rights movement, later got into a conflict with his boss at Spellman over his involvement in the movement. This conflict led Zinn to take a job in the history department at Boston University. In 1980, Zinn published “A People’s History of the United States,” which miraculously has sold over two million copies. Essentially a US history textbook, “A People’s History of the United States” is unlike any American textbook that came before it. All previous textbooks were greatly biased and solely focused on the positive aspects of American history. Zinn recognized that over the course of US history many groups of people have suffered immensely, so throughout the textbook he explains events such as the Native American genocide, slavery, and the many revolutionary struggles.

Michael Powell directs this obituary to a broad range of people. His revolutionary writing has in some way influenced almost every American in today’s world as it set a precedent for historical writing and drastically changed American history classes. Through the obituary, Powell’s main purpose is to reflect and honor the life of Howard Zinn, a great American historian. In order to effectively achieve this purpose, Powell uses multiple anecdotes to highlight the major points of Zinn’s life. According to Powell, “He waged a war of attrition with Boston University’s president at the time, John Silber, a political conservative. Mr. Zinn twice organized faculty votes to oust Mr. Silber, and Mr. Silber returned the favor, saying the professor was a sterling example of those who would ‘poison the well of academe.’” As a reader, I found it very strange that twice in his career, Zinn has fought and argued with both the president at Boston University and Spellman College. Through such anecdotes, Powell is attempting to show readers that such conflicts reflect his revolutionary writing. Although, I feel that Powell did a poor job with his analysis because he does not connect the anecdotes to the larger idea, which is the overall affect of Zinn’s historical writing.

TOW #12 (IRB)- "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis

Through the first five chapters of Moneyball, Michael Lewis describes Billy Beane's adequate professional baseball career, and, later, his very successful run as manager of the Oakland Athletics. Despite being a highly touted prospect, Beane performed to the level scouts expected him to as a professional. During the 1980’s, he was signed by multiple teams, and constantly moved up and down from the minor leagues, never making an impact in the major leagues. Although, after retiring, Beane became the manager of the Oakland A’s, one of the poorest teams in the MLB. With such a low payroll, he was forced to take a completely different outlook for the upcoming 2002 draft than that of much richer teams, such as the New York Yankees. In chapter 4, Beane recalls reading a book written by statistician Bill James about the idea of sabermetrics. Using the complex statistical process invented by James, Beane and his assistant Paul DePodesta predicted the best players to draft based on player’s history and specific attributes, not on their future (most scouts choose players based on potential rather than their current skill). Thus far, Lewis’ main purpose for writing Moneyball is to inform readers of the memorable story of Billy Beane from a sub-par baseball player to a legendary manager. He directs this great story towards fans of all sports, as well as those intrigued by the world of statistics. In order to effectively convey this great story to readers, Lewis enables the use of a unique chapter structure that goes back and forth between a span of twenty years and provides narration on Beane’s life. In the first chapter, Lewis describes what Beane went through during the scouting process as he looked to be drafted by a major league team. Then, in the second chapter, Lewis analyzes how these events in his own career later influenced his decisions as a manager of the A’s. Once again in chapter three, Lewis goes back twenty years to when Beane was playing professionally for different teams. Finally, in chapters four and five, Lewis explains how Beane realized his inability to produce at a major league level and later uses this information and applies it to sabremetrics and the 2002 draft. Overall, I felt this odd structure is very effective as it allows the reader to thoroughly understand how Billy Beane was able to become a top manger with such a small payroll.

TOW #11 (written text)- "Keeping Shareholders in the Dark" by NY Times Editorial Board

Across the United States, millions of people invest and buy shares in public companies on Wall Street. Over the past few years, much debate has risen throughout the financial world on public companies ability keep spending reports private, disclosing them to their major shareholders. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has been reviewing this demanding topic since 2010. In a surprising action to many investors, SEC chairwomen Mary Jo White dismissed this topic regarding the spending of public companies from the SEC agenda last week. This dismissal has caused great concern among investors, as many people fear that the stock market may slow if people do not have faith in the companies they invest in. Investors spend thousands and sometimes even millions of dollars buying shares in companies, so they want to know where their money goes. In this editorial, the NY Times main purpose is to urge Mrs. White to put the disclosure of corporate spending back on the SEC's agenda, in hopes that investors will finally be able to obtain this valuable information. The primary audience of the editorial is the SEC, specifically Mrs. White, but the extended audience includes investors across the country. In order to support the purpose, the editorial board includes statistics in their writing to convince the SEC and other readers that losing the faith of investors, could drastically impact the stock market. According to a petition delivered to the SEC in 2011, “ a letter of support from some Democrats in Congress and one from institutional investors who together manage nearly $700 billion.” This statistic appeals to both logos and pathos in fact that $700 billion dollars is certainly a lot of money. This rhetorical element does an effective job of supporting the purpose because the SEC will soon realize that if public companies begin to lose hundreds of billions of dollars from investors, the market will plummet. Therefore, such statistics provide the SEC and Mrs. White with an ultimatum: either place the disclosure of public companies’ spending back on the SEC agenda or else the economy will face severe repercussions. Overall, the writers that contributed to this editorial do a very good job of accomplishing their purpose, and, in my opinion, this could very well have an impact on investors and the SEC in the near future.