The New Yorker: Becoming Them

It is strange to think of that one breaking point where one transitions from child to adult. What is that defined by? James Wood redefines the beginning of his adulthood with the realization that he is becoming his own father. James Wood achieves this definition through many different rhetorical techniques that create a tone of reflection.
James Wood opens his piece with an effective anecdote. Imagery helps to paint a peaceful and ideal lifestyle that he misses from his childhood. He writes, "When I was growing up, Sunday morning...could almost have been the eighteen-seventies." The imagery builds the memory of the audience to help them to understand why becoming more like your parents are ideal and what a child tends to do. This helps him to achieve his purpose because he defines becoming your father is when you become an adult, and you have matured once this is realized.
To further create a tone of reflection, Wood uses repetition to ponder aloud. Wood writes, "Perhaps he is too busy....perhaps this is just my fear projected onto him." This pondering allows for him to show that he is reflecting on the connection between us past and present and builds a transition for his future. He transitions from pondering and thoughts to rhetorical questions. The act of rhetorical questions asked to the audience show that he is confused and engages the audience. This gives the idea that his worrying for his parents' role in his future as being a universal concern by engaging the audience.
Wood's self-reflection is effective because it allows for him to redefine his present and future by looking at his familial past. Its caused for me to be able to realize that as humans we naturally accumulate off of our experiences in the past to establish a universal idea of the ideal. Wood's idealization of his father is a purpose that applies to not only familial life, but the societal role of role models in general and their positive effect on the development of wholesome individuals.

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans (Premonition of Civil War)

Art throughout history has tended to romanticize war instead of portraying the true diplomatic, moral, and social consequences of war. Evolving immensely from the times of painting grand pictures of our European generals and leaders like Napoleon, art didn't have much of a voice against humanity's innate flaw of being unable to compromise effectively. Six months before the Spanish Civil War, surrealist artist Salvador Dali took a critical look at his country's state of civility, and created a critical piece against the human condition of selfishness, and how that innate human flaw leads to a fragile and tentative state of "peace," and ironically his critical evaluation of the human condition was proven right with the start of the Spanish Civil War.
Dali is able to create a sense of peril in the audience through the placement of figures in the painting. The placement of the terrorized at the top of the painting indicates that even in the top rungs of society and diplomatic success and power, humanity still seeks to destroy itself in its greed. The construction of a perilous structure through body parts emphasize the selfishness of humanity because many different lives are wasted in the pursuit of power.
Dali is able to further his argument with the use of colors. The bright colors modernize the painting  contrasting it to war paintings of the past. War paintings of the past usually consisted of dark, monochromatic and pale colors that were rustic in nature. Dali is able to distinguish his pieces to the audience because by contrasting it to the past, it makes the audience aware of the context of the message being in the present day. This furthers his criticism of his own society because it allows the audience to be aware of the magnitude of the importance of proper communication and compromise rather than war.
In being able to express his ideal society in which people can establish a stable foundation for civility without the destruction of desperate grabs for power. Art has taken a huge responsbility in contemporary times in being able to critique the world in a way that audiences can easily be able to understand the emotional depth of the innate flaws in society itself.

Continuing Resolution, Continuing Dysfunction

The founding fathers left the country with a warning against the formation of political parties. They felt that political parties would be the death of the country, because instead of working for the good of the public, they continue to work for factional self-interest and deepen the ideological divides between two separate parties. Despite that, political parties took a strong root in the way that our entire government works, separating the bodies of Congress, the Senate, and presidential campaigns into Republican and Democratic parties. In recent light of events and failures for economic and social reform that was the responsibility of the government, David Firestone, writer for the New York Times, informs readers on the current standstill in the fiscal year and how the divide between political parties have prevented any substantial change. Firestone develops an effectively impatient tone to emphasize the lack of progress that Congress and the Senate have made.
Firestone is able to solicit the feeling of impatience in the audience because of the diction that he employs. Firestone writes, "Lawmakers - mostly Republicans - are using the legislation as an opportunity to score ideological points rather than simply do their basic jobs...don't expect anything but more disappointing C.R.'s..." The use of the words "rather than" combined with "simply" and "basic" alarm the readers of the politicians ineptitude. This is further built on by the author engaging the audience through sarcasm not to expect any real economic development and reform. The sarcasm he uses against both the progress in the bodies of government and against the politicians himself help to develop the impatient tone because he seems that he is angry and bitter that he has been expecting and waiting for Congress to get over their own ideological interests and do their part in fixing the economic crises  from even 2010 that continue to haunt America's fiscal policies.
Firestone also successfully expresses his impatience through his effective arrangement. Firestone juxtaposes different controversies and congressional response to them. For example, he lists all of the economic reforms that need to be done and then ridicules Paul Ryan for trying to undo the spending on Health Care reform rather than helping out other avenues of government spending. This continuing contrast between the need that the audience becomes aware of for real change and the politicians inability to recognize that helps for Firestone to express his impatience because he exemplifies social progress going out of control while political reform is at a standstill.
Firestone has effectively expressed to the audience that politicians these days are too concerned with their own parties interests rather than the fiscal and social reform that we have so long required. Firestone's ability to show to the audience the needs for cuts and budgeting and fiscal strategy will properly inform the audience of what flaws in congress they need to fix in the upcoming congressional election.