ThunderReaders

My Times post for today involves a writer whose style is markedly different from Maureen Dowd, who in a previous post  I celebrated in for her wit, word play, and irreverent humor.  Bob Herbert’s persuasiveness comes from a different set of tools:  direct evidence, appeals to reliable authority, straightforward reasoning.  Even with this concreteness, perhaps because of it, there is still an eloquence to Herbert’s style.

I need to warn you that this link, responding to recent Congressional hearings on the government’s use of torture, has graphic and potentially upsetting images.  The ideas are probably even more upsetting.  But this essay is a model of professional argument, with embedded research, clear logic, and powerful evidence.  Maureen Down helps me think by making me laugh; Bob Herbert helps me think by helping me see. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/28/opinion/28herbert.html?ref=opinion

I’m sure that any of you checking out our blog is well underway in exploring the Opinion page of the New York Times.  I’m going to start posting my favorite piece of the day, just to start commenting on some of the distinctive “moves” busted by some of these distinguished writers.

You’re welcome to comment on the piece if you’ve read it or to post some of your own “WoDs.”

Today, hands down, is Jerry Seinfeld’s guest contribution about the great stand up comedian George Carlin, who died this week.  Carlin is undoubtedly one of the patron saints of our course on language and rhetoric, right up there with Cicero, Petrarch, Shakespeare, and the rest.  You’ll see why when we study euphemism. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/opinion/24seinfeld.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

Here’s my favorite line of Seinfeld’s praise for Carlin:  “And he didn’t just “do” it. He worked over an idea like a diamond cutter with facets and angles and refractions of light. ” Hopefully, we’ll be learning to do with varieties of language a little bit of what George Carlin was able to do with his analyses of language, life, and ideas.