Woman Is Burned Alive in an Elevator in Brooklyn

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/18/nyregion/woman-burned-alive-in-brooklyn-elevator.html?src=ISMR_AP_LO_MST_FB

Recently, on December 17, 2011, a woman was burned alive in an elevator in Brooklyn. According to the article, a man in his 40s sprayed a woman in her 60s in an elevator with a type of liquid, thought to be an accelerant. He first cornered his victim and then ignites a molotov cocktail, a wine bottle with accelerant and a rag stuffed in its neck and retreats, then comes back to spray more accelerant on the woman. The victim, Doris Gillespie, a postal worker, was pronounced dead at the scene. The man has serious burn wounds on his hand and face, so the police began to search nearby hospitals. He has yet to be found, and police are still on the investigation.
The author of this article are Sarah Maslin Nir and Al baker. Though Sarah was not referenced, Al Baker has written over 2000 articles for the NYT, which proves his credibility. The ethos of the article was also much improved due to the photo and the first hand accounts of neighbors and pictures and testimonies as well. The context of this argument is the event, and the article seeks to explain what the current situation is and how everything occurred. The structure of the article starts with the picture, and describing what is happening in the picture. Then, it delves into exactly what happened, what is occurring now, and then ends with testimonies who knew the victim. pathos was also addressed in a way due to the use of personal testimonials, and by describing their emotions and reactions, as well as their own depiction of the event, the reader may gain sympathy for the testimonial givers, or anger towards the one who did wrong to the old postal worker who was burned alive. Hopefully, the man will get arrested and justice be done to him.

Pick a Card, Any Card

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204826704577074501731476934.html

This article was about the Mathematics that plays into card magic. The author starts the article off by saying that any number of shuffles below 7 is inadequate and may still have an order to it, and only after 7 can the deck be truly mixed, though it may require more. The article covers many mathematical aspects and some suprising facts that relate to card shuffling, such as the connection between binary numbers and card shuffling, and the dealer can get the card they want by using the binary number of the position, and perform the number of binary with a series of in and out faro shuffles. He was even able to relate card shuffling to physics and juggling. Also the quick mention of the story of Mr. Diaconis was very interesting, being able to run away to study card magic for 10 years, then coming back at age 24 to major in Mathematics on a full ride at Harvard. He is one of the Authors of the book, Magical Mathematics, with Ron Graham. 

The entire article was written in sort of as a brief overview of the new book. The book itself must use the facts, and the writer of the article, Alex Stone, most likely used it for his article, by using the phrase, "Throughout the book..." Alex Stone has written 4 articles for the Wall Street Journal, where this article was found. As for rhetoric, he does a good job supporting each concept with an example, which he ultimately relates back to the authors of the book. Therefore, he is quoting the authors, while making use of his own understandings to enhance his ethos. He also says at points that one can try this with a deck of cards, further pushing his pathos and also logos in a sense. The audience for this article may be for interested card magicians, but also for ordinary people with an interest. There are also a lot of background information the author goes to explain, such as what a faro shuffle is, which means that the article is for all to read.

History of God: pages 1 - 60

      A History of God: The 4,000 Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam was written by Karen Armstrong, who has written 12 books about religion. She was a nun before questioning, 'what is god?' and answering with memorized sentences. She had trouble visualizing what part god played in her life, and became very prominent after this book was written, which was the first book she wrote, and became an international best  seller.
      The first section holds how she was raised as a nun, but left as she couldn't really see how god affected her. Then she talks about the three big monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. She starts way back to start her long explanation of the history behind religion, and how at first, the idea of god was so exulted that the idea could have disappeared due to the lack of temples or priests to remind the people. Then it goes into how religion evolves, covering civilizations such as the Babylonians as well as famous philosophers covered in class such as Platos and Aristotle.
     The piece at first was a history lesson, covering what happened and why it happened that way, using quotes from other books as well as religious works. The audience is people curious about the history of religion, or even what it is. However, as an atheist, I have trouble deciphering the text as I get deeper in, almost as if i should keep a journal of all the terms defined next to me as I read, which may signify that the book is meant for more religious eyes.
     The book uses a lot of punctuation and grammar to hold the book together. The book itself has many sentences that go for 3 lines, and the punctuation such as semicolons and hyphens helps the reader to understand the flow of the book and the sentence. It is much needed, and helps with my understanding (though I did a lot of research and only about 13 pages in do i really understand exactly what is going on, names of people and languages, etc.) very much. The author uses many religious sources to show her understanding of the unraveling of history to find and understand religion, and in some ways, this backs her argument, but she states most of the actions as fact or cause and effect.
     I think she did an effective job of describing how religion grew, but I need to understand all of her references to have a clear grasp at what she really is trying to convey by narrating the history of religion.