Hard Topics, Harder Writes

Many times, writers have a difficult time drawing their readers in because the topic is obtuse or odious or just flat boring: medicine, economics, legal issues. Sometimes issues can be touchy. Sometimes the writer has to tread carefully, hoping not to step on toes. Religion is the key culprit here, but truly, it could be any topic depending on the audience and region in which the piece is to be published in and for. And sometimes topics are simply difficult to write about due to the exorbitant amount of facts related to them.

Writers have to know the facts. Hard topics can make the writer feel ignorant because the facts may be convoluted or it's not the writer's niche. Understanding of the topic is necessary for the writer to connect with his audience and understanding takes research and, most importantly, time, something most writers are severely short of.

Here are some op-ed pieces that do a good job in engaging the reader and making him care about the material, pieces that up and coming writers can learn a little something from.These articles present easily digestible facts.

I do not disagree or agree with all of the following pieces and some I partially agree or disagree with. I simply believe these to be pertinent examples of good, persuasive writing.

Economics: Panic, Debt, and Unemployment

Legal Issues: Delaying health benefits is a big risk

International Affairs: The not-so-safe Euro zone

Arts and Culture: Conan O' Brian made the smart move

Medicine and Health: Calorie counters

Religion: Sack the pro-life quarterback? (most of these step on toes no matter the subject. If interested, check the multitude of op-ed dissentions found in the On Faith section in which this piece was found. These could also fall under legal issues, but they more directly address ethical issues rather than legislative issues.)

Sports: Payton's clutch moves, Peyton's biggest loss, More snap judgments

Electronic Relationships

Social networking has become something more than classmate searching, something more than friend finding, something more than chatting and finding those people with common interests. Social networking has become a way to infiltrate the business world, among other things, and a way to make multitudes of connections in almost every professional field. Social networking has become a tool to keep up with the faced paced nature of modern world.

Everyone from schools, organizations, and businesses tp activists and other groups are all in one spot, vying for a piece of the attention-pie. Advertisements and comments and updates and alerts keep the social networker in the know, keep him plugged in to the now and the important ( more likely, the deemed-important). Everything is connected, seemingly.

But are we really connected? It does seem as such, doesn't it? Long-lost friends contact one another after decades, running into each other through the "you might know this person" feature on Facebook or Myspace. Classmates keep up with each other well after high school and college friends make sure everyone made it home from the party. Your status tells everyone you got that much battled for promotion or that you finally popped the question - maybe you even asked that special someone through a comment or message (it isn't far fetched).  
And that's the thing - for all of its perks and aid to connectivity, social networking has computerized our interpersonal relationships. Can we really understand each other simply through message - do messages really convey everything we say both explicitly and implicitly?

Roommates wake in the morning, one in the kitchen, one in the bedroom. One has his laptop and the other has his iPhone - they say good morning through Facebook or Myspace chat, maybe physically interacting or speaking to one another briefly the rest of the day.

Electronic conversations are so much easier than physical, face-to-face discourse. These binary conversations allow the individuals involved more time to process information and formulate answers. In real-world interactions, conversations are fast paced and often short and usually leave only a small window for conciseness.

And it feels like people, in general, are losing, to a certain extent, real, interpersonal contact with one another. Everyone's plugged in and connected to one another through the intermediaries that are computers. A great majority of people aren't getting together and expressing their views and ideas and participating in human interaction. But, perhaps, that is an archaic form of communication - the letter, the telegraph, the telephone, the interactive group.

Of course, people get together because they have to - professors issue group work, bosses call meetings. But how often do we get together to discuss our ideas as a cohesive group, a group where body language can be read and inflection and tone can be heard?

But some would argue these points are not necessary for the growth and initiation of relationships. Some would argue that many relationships/friendships have blossomed on social networking sites and that these sites were created for that application - friend making plain and simple. And they would be right on the latter point.

But the growth of a relationship, no matter where it begins and ends, relies on interpersonal contact - individuals have to meet at some point to really know each other.

U.S History - The Marshall Plan

In 1947, the world was reeling from the devastation wrought by the Second World War. The capitals of Europe still smoldered even in the midst of reconstruction and the futures of their people swayed in limbo.

A substantial amount of the estimated 60 million WWII casualties were residents of mainland Europe. Of those who struggled through the conflict and found themselves breathing at its end found themselves in dire straits.Infrastructures lied in ruin - roads, bridges, railways, and airstrips were devastated by air strikes and demolitions leaving many villages, towns, and cities economically isolated.

By contrast, the economy of the United States found itself in the midst of an economic and consumer spending boom. Throughout the war, U.S. factories had not only supplied the United States war effort, but the war effort of its allies as well.

Post-war reconstruction frameworks were discussed at both the Yalta Conference in February 1945 and the Potsdam Conference from July 17 - August 2 1945. Only the Potsdam Conference yielded a feasible plan - the Morgenthau Plan - but by 1947, problems with the Morgenthau plan became roadblocks to progression and a new plan was adopted, one that would ultimately be of the greatest aid to the people or Europe and, especially, divided Germany.

Officially dubbed the European Recovery Program (ERP), the Marshall Plan was the blueprint of western European re-construction laid out in late 1947 by former general, then Secretary of State, George C. Marshall. The plan laid out some $13 billion to all European nations directly effected by the war - i.e. the countries devastated the most. The Marshall plan was a blue-print for true Western European reconstruction, true Western European economic revitalization and a plan that aimed to defend Western Europe from the outreached fingers of Communism.

From the late stages of the war to the time the Marshall Plan was moving into its infantile stages of implementation, the Soviets condensed the territories ceded to them by Germany into what became known as the Eastern Bloc. This area included Soviet controlled East Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, other Balkan states, and countries bordering Russia-proper. This area included vast areas of Europe's most fertile land and was cut off from the Allies and Eastern Europe. Precious food supplies, along with other resources such as coal, were hidden from the Allies behind the Iron Curtain.

But aside from strictly stimulating the economies of Europe and injecting the necessary grease into the machines of industry and agriculture to supply the people of Europe with necessities, the Marshall Plan, most emphatically, stemmed the growth of communism into states beyond the Eastern Bloc.

The Marshall Plan brought about the Truman Doctrine and the ideology of containment. The Marshall Plan forced the Soviets to cordon Berlin in the Berlin Blockade and it forced the responsive Berlin Airlift that brought some 2.3 million tons of supplies into Soviet controlled Berlin. The Marshall Plan fired the first shots of the Cold War and shaped U.S. foreign policy for the next four decades. 

States Going Green

The United States, as a whole, has lagged far behind other nations in regards to global warming and taking measures to reduce emissions. Of the 141 nations bound by the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the United States is not included. Mostly, the United States has left the global warming discussion in the hands of individual states, but not entirely.

There are many states which, to combat global warming, enact legislation within their borders that affects only their residents and the state itself. These regulations, such as California's A.B. 1493 and California Health and Safety Code 43018.5, routinely attempt to curb motor vehicle emissions or those being produced by power plants and other industrial businesses.

Yet these internal codes and regulations are sometimes met by corporate and, more likely, federal opposition (California, under the Clean Air Act, is allowed to impose stricter emission standards, but even California has been challenged on the forcefulness of its legislation).

"The Clean Air Act specifically prohibits a state from creating its own emission standard except that the Act does permit a state to adopt standards that are identical to California's," (Mahoney, 2006). This is curious because even California has met resistance by auto makers and the federal government when it comes to emission standards imposed by the state. Most of the standards were preempted by the federal government on grounds that the standards were found to be in contradiction to the Clean Air Act, the very Act giving California the permission to enact more stringent emission standards.  

Many states have created, and been allowed to create, internal agencies that aid in regulating greenhouse gas emission within the state. There are many differing ideas and concepts through which states go about curbing emissions and many of these agencies and their policies have not been questioned or ridiculed by the federal government. It is when states attempt to encompass bigger state emission standards, those that step on the toes of big corporations or the federal government that things becomes harried. When this happens the states appear in court. And courts favor federal agencies.

"Like a great number of environmental cases, most of the cases advanced on this issue have been dismissed due to jurisdictional problems such as political questions or standing. Other traditional problems also arise such as causation in the case of common law claims. Legal challenges against the Environmental Protection Agency and other administrative bodies have the additional challenge that courts give agencies a great deal of discretion to these entities," (Mahoney, 2006).

States have pressed for greater cooperation by the EPA on global warming. No federal statutes specifically acknowledge global warming as a problem, so these attempts are to bring greater attention to global warming through EPA regulations on emissions. "The focus of these attempts has been on reducing emissions from mobile sources through federal action," (Mahoney, 2006).


But even as these roadblocks impede state regulations on a certain level and an overall national statute on emissions, more and more states are banding together for the cause of global warming sending a message of growing concern. So far, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Montana, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, California, Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Wisconsin, Maine, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Iowa, Illinois, have taken to the cause.

"Despite the fact that the more aggressive measures taken by states have been impeded, the federal government will need to be accountable to its citizens," (Mahoney, 2006).

Source: Urban Lawyer; Summer2006, Vol. 38 Issue 3, p585-591, 7p

Lights Out on Liberty: A piece by Mark Steyn

In an op-ed piece written for Imprimis, a publication sponsored by Hillsdale College, Mark Steyn makes a powerful argument against the growing comfortableness of the western world when it comes to regulation of the press and free speech. He fears the western world has become complacent, has allowed, in some cases, rights of one group to be usurped by another.

I an quote that summarizes Steyn's entire argument he states, "thus we see that today’s multicultural societies tolerate the explicitly intolerant and avowedly unicultural, while refusing to tolerate anyone pointing out that intolerance."

The piece is vigorous in its stance, but not overbearing. The point is clearly stated through obvious research and a logical rhetorical writing style that engages the reader and piques his interest.

At what point does tolerance arrogate liberty?

Writing with Emphasis

The power of emphasis is paramount for any persuasive writing. Whether it be writing in a journal, blog writing, or writing for a big-time publication, emphatically diverse sentences and writing strategies make the most bland material powerful and robust. Editorials are all about emphasizing points. Emphasis wins arguments if used correctly.

As stated by the Harbrace College Handbook, a writer can stress points without being particularly wordy. Here, we will discuss some of those points.

Keep important words first or last; keep unemphatic phrases out in the cold. Add stress to sentence endings by using semicolons and hyphens. Words following such punctuations are, typically, main points of the author.

Example (Harbrace): Unemphatic: In his book, Murrow argued against capital punishment, it seemed to me.

Example (Harbrace): Emphatic: Morrow argued against capital punishment.

The first example contains far more words than needed in conjunction with a tacked-on and unnecessary attribution. The point is punched home in the second example - the reader is not bogged down in language.

The cumulative sentence and the periodic sentence stress ideas with their very construction. A cumulative sentence stresses main ideas first with lesser details following. Periodic sentences give lesser information first, leaving the stressed points for last. Both are quite effective, yet the cumulative form is far more common. Try the periodic form though, periodically, as it carries far greater emphatic power.

Example (Harbrace): Cumulative: The old Dunkard preacher and his wife came into the country is 1856, their wagon full of what they had imagined in Indiana they would need in the new land.

Example (Harbrace): Periodic: Suffering from malnutrition and neglect and who knows what mental agonies, Phillis Wheatley died.

The periodic sentence emphasizes through suspense and tease. The cumulative through directness.

Repetition is a great tool to establish patterns, a great tool for argument, a great tool of emphasis. Readers look for patterns in writing as patterns allude to overall themes and messages. Moreover, as the first sentence of this paragraph shows, arranging ideas in an ascending order of climax is also a powerful tool that stresses important points.


The writer must rely, in most cases, on the active voice as well. The active voice engages the reader, lending a sense of immediacy to the material presented. As the active voice stresses the subject or doer of the sentence, the active voice presents ideas and thoughts in a strong, direct manner. Why waste time running in circles, padding your writing with useless words, when the point may be reached in a paragraph or single sentence?

Another rule to keep in mind is the rule regarding forms of have or be. Whenever we use these verb forms the power of our sentences seems to be drained. The real action often lies in a verbal phrase or in an object or complement (Harbrace).

Example: (Harbrace): Unemphatic: Our college is always the winner of the conference.

Example: (Harbrace): Emphatic: Our college always wins the conference.

The second example showcases the real action where as the first hints at the real action. It is always better to simply state the real action instead of having readers infer the real action. The second example also gets straight to the point and in less words.

There are more examples and ways in which our writing can be more emphatic, but these aforementioned examples cover the main concepts. Sentence length and variation are other good tools used in emphatic writing.

Unemphatic sentence composition isn't always a bad thing because the use of emphatic sentence structure can become stale and boring to a reader. So mix it up. Use a variation of sentence structures to keep your writing fresh and unpredictable as much as possible - predictability can be both good and bad; it depends on the situation and overall theme of writing and audience.

Obama's First Year

When President Barack Obama took the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2009, he was a breathe of fresh air, a new swooning, oratory voice in a crowd of haggard and dated "re-election-centric" politicians. Americans, especially young Americans who were new to the game of politics, were captivated by his personality, his ambition, his truthfulness.

And then he was thrust into a political maelstrom, one that many believed he would quickly succumb to. Many voiced his lack of experience would do this, his choice of friends that, to many, seemed radical and would make Obama unpopular, or that he would break under the nit-picky microscope cast upon him by the American people. Many said he would never survive in politically polarized Washington, a place that is characterized by "insider culture" and crooked deals.

It didn't help that the second Bush Administration had completely dismantled the economy and left what the Clinton Administration had done to bolster the economy in shambles. It didn't help that Obama was left with the wreckage. It also didn't help that Obama brandished the yoke of war upon his shoulders as he stood atop the nation's capitol a year ago.

In a world where the image of president has been crafted into a celebrity instead of commander-in-chief, instead of policy-maker, instead of politician, Obama faces heat from all sides - the media in particular with its short-sighted lectures on the Obama of right now, his rights and wrongs of right this moment, not the Obama who is striving for a better America in the long run. In the modern political world we, as Americans, have to realize that partisan-ism has become the moniker of the day, it has become selfish and ego-centric, it has become synonymous with the bottom line. Modern partisan-ism has become banal and a rigor-mortis to many positive policies of the Obama Administration.

Obama has revitalized the economy. True, the economy may not be where it was before Bush wrangled it, but strides are being made and progress noticed. A new faith has been found in the stock market and Americans are beginning to buy homes again.

Obama has re-focused our military efforts on al-Qaeda and al-Qaeda's allies within Afghanistan and given a timetable for our exit from Iraq. He has made strides in foreign relations and made diplomacy a central theme throughout his presidency making it evident that future wars will be avoided unless absolutely necessary for the protection of the American or any oppressed peoples. Obama has re-extended America's hand to the world and redefined the war on terror to mean something more than simple wholesale conflict with those who hold different ideologies than us. He has provided something fresh in this aspect: we will hold discourse with our enemies not just our allies.


It is too early to judge Obama's health reform immediately. It is too early to judge if Obama has failed in foreign politics or excelled - we can only go by the positives currently given to us. It is too early to determine if Obama has completely failed in bi-partisan politics or simply encountered a road block. But we cannot place the full burden of failure, if any, truly, is to be had, on one man. And the same can be said of his aforementioned accomplishments.

It is not about one man. It is about an administration and the government as a whole.

Yes, the commander-in-chief holds much power, but Obama could not do much of what he has done without the aid of Congress. Moreover, Congress is what stands in the way of health-care reform. When the Republicans don't play ball, or Democrats if the situation permits, nothing can be accomplished.

I'll close with this quote given by President Obama in an article discussing the tribulations of the Health Care Reform bill.

"The classic example being me heading over to meet with the House Republican caucus to discuss the stimulus," the President said, "and finding out that [minority leader John] Boehner had already released a statement saying, We're going to vote against the bill before we've even had a chance to exchange ideas."

Let's give the administration a chance. Let's remember how President Obama first captivated us and promised the Administration would try to crack the mold of Wallstreet politics (Although some would say the stimulus played right into the hands of corporations looking for an easy handout, I'm waiting a while before I make that judgment). Let's take the Administration out from underneath the microscope and let it breathe a little. Let's give another year a chance, another year to see if its policies truly work, another year for bi-partisanship, another year until we truly judge it as a whole.

U.S History

A 93 year old Japanese man survived both Fat Man and Little Boy, the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

He was a businessman working at the docks in Hiroshima the day the bomb was dropped. He suffered minor burns and was otherwise all right.

He decided to visit his family in Nagasaki the next day when the following bomb was dropped. He survived. He became a man that survived two of the most devastating attacks in history and died an old man. That is remarkable.

I also learned that the United States had, unbeknown-st to me, a sitting emperor in the 1860s by the name of Joshua Abraham Norton.