It's All About The Three R's: Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle

Waldemar R. Semrau's point of the article is revealed in 

"Reuse provides maximum function for given material and energy input."

 In this article Semrau compares the saying "Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle" with his career choices during his lifetime.  Semrau's technique for writing leaves out the facts about himself that would turn this into more a biography than that of an article.  The facts about his life are necessary to get his point across but great details about them are not.  He illustrates himself as a young child aspiring to be a surgeon. This strategy of using childhood dreams allows many readers to relate to him and the article.  It grasps the reader’s attention into the article. But like many, he abandons that dream and does what he needs to survive in the real world. He becomes an engineer; after many years and close to retirement he decides to make some changes in his life.  He knows that his death is approaching so he decides to reuse his talents in another way. Just like recycling can turn a pop-can into something else. He knows that by doing so he can also give back to the earth and those living here. He may be able to help someone in his life. So he decides to try and fulfill his childhood fantasies to be a surgeon.

"Savior of the nations, come"

In "Savior of the Nations, Come," Luther illustrates the birth of the Lord our Savior.  And how he was born of the virgin Mary.  He was not only just Mary's son, he was also they Lord's.  Luther also tells us that when returning to his Heavenly home, Jesus overcomes death and hell.  At the end of the hymn, Luther glorifies God the Father, Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  This hymn is so strong because of the diction Luther chooses.  By using "Though by all the world disowned, Still to be in heaven enthroned." Luther strengthens the hymn.  It makes us think about how everyone disowned Christ, even the closest of his friends.  Using other words such as left, ignored would not have portrayed the same feeling of being abandoned.  Yet God the Father was always with him and waited for him to return to heaven.  Another strong point in the hymn is verse five. "Thou, the Father's only Son, Hast o'er sin the victory won. Boundless shall Thy kingdom be; When shall we its glories see?" It is important because it informs us on the relationship between God and Jesus and about Jesus' victory over our sin.  This gives us the joy that we will not suffer eternal death because of our sin. 

Sermon Diagnostic

1) 23 mentions of Christ.

2) Some of the verbs: slain, died, rose, makes holy, took sin, is lamb, makes pure, slows, makes blessings, rose.

3) In Edward's sermon, the main topic is about eternal judgment and the wraths of hell.  He describes hell as a burning furnace to scare many of the believers to stay in the faith.  His sermon barely mentions Christ.  Yet Borghardt's sermon is the total opposite from Edward’s.  Borghardt uses Christ very much and when he uses Christ, he uses him as the subject of all the verbs.  His sermon tells us about God’s grace and how great he truly is.  This allows people to see God’s mercy and choose to come to the faith, instead of scaring them into it.

Air Freshener Law Changed?

In Matt Helm's article, Fuzzy Dice, he writes about banning objects that hang from your rear view mirror.  There has been a request to change the law since no one obeys it. 

"Unless it's large and an obvious obstruction, it's just silly for police to pull somebody over for that. People aren't hurting anybody and they're not causing any danger."

 I like this quote because it plainly sums up the entire article.  It is contemptible for cops to pull someone over because they have an air freshener hanging from the rear view mirror.  Unless it blocks like half of the window what's the harm?  So yes I agree with changing the law to only restricting objects that are too big to be hanging from the mirror.  But having a air freshener or rosary hanging from a person's mirror is perfectly fine.  Everyone does it, and cops don't fully enforce the law so why even have it.  Obviously many police officers even believe that it is pointless or else they would be pulling over everyone who has something hanging like they do if a car speeds through a red light.  So in the end, almost everyone agrees that the law is absurd and should be changed.

Mitch Albom's Blog

In Mitch Albom's article, "It's not race, LeBron James, but it might be you" he talks about Lebron James' big ego.  He takes his skill for granted and thinks that everyone loves him because he is just so great.  He was at one time the MVP of basketball, until he broad casted "The Decision" over live television.  This clearly lost many of his fans as they saw the real Lebron.  And I agree with Albom, Lebron James was indeed very conceited when he made the statement, "I'm gonna take my talents to South Beach." Everyone, not just blacks or just whites, saw how huge his ego was and discontinued cheering for him.  Yet Lebron does still shift the blame from his huge ego to racism.  But how could it be racism when even those of the same color think you are conceited? 
Albom's statement of how "LeBron now has a boundless ego, he has surrounded himself with people who tell him his feet don't touch the ground, and he can't possibly be at fault for anything."  is completely true.  He needs those kind of people to counteract all the insults he recieves from others since they learned about his huge ego.