http://www.theonion.com/articles/malaysian-airlines-expands-investigation-to-includ,35524/
This article written by the onion is using satire to show how little has been accomplished in the search for missing Malaysian Airlines Flight 370. The title of the article states that the search area will be widened to also include time and space. This is obviously impossible, but the article is provoking the thought that the search for the vanished Boeing 777 has not been going so well. The location where ships and helicopters have been searching for the plane has been changed many times due to the lack of solid information on where exactly the plane ended up. The article also comments on the fact that no experts know exactly what happened to the plane. In the first paragraph, the article lists a number of proposed reasons of what really happened to the plane and then finally lists the illogical one they came up with, “representatives from the Kuala Lumpur–based carrier acknowledged they had widened their investigation into the vanished Boeing 777 aircraft today to encompass not only the possibilities of mechanical failure, pilot error, terrorist activity, or a botched hijacking, but also the overarching scope of space, time, and humankind’s place in the universe.” The article successfully uses satire to try and evoke an angry response from the reader at these so called search efforts. There were 239 passengers aboard the flight when it disappeared and that is 239 families wondering where their loved ones are.
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/433407/march-03-2014/caitlin-flanagan
In the video clip above Stephen Colbert is interviewing writer Caitlin Flanagan who recently wrote an article titled “The Fraternity Problem”. Colbert was in a fraternity himself and uses satire and sarcasm to disassemble Flanagan’s argument on why fraternities are bad.
Colbert starts out by asking Flanagan questions about why she thinks fraternities are so horrible and then says the worst thing he did while pledging was “pass a grease 45 record from ass-cheek to ass-cheek”. This is something that most people would consider horrible hazing but the tone that Colbert says it in makes it seem funny and not that big of a deal at all. Colbert then uses logos and statistics that 85% of fortune 500 company owners and Supreme Court Justice’s were fraternity members. For his grand finale Colbert forces Flanagan to drink a cup of beer with him that came from a mini keg that was on the set. This is poking fun of the fact that Flanagan said one of the bad things about fraternities was the “violent hazing”. By jokingly having her chug a cup of cold beer with him Colbert is showing that it is all in good fun and fraternities cannot possibly be a problem in any way.
http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html
I read “A modest Proposal” by Jonathan Swift back in high. While reading it I was shocked and really had no idea what Swift was trying to say. The concept of eating babies is a little gross to imagine in your head, don’t you think? Through this obscure and illogical idea, Swift creates a satire that serves to criticize the current state of Ireland at the time and the people living in it.
Swift uses the appalling thought of proposing to consume babies to bring up discussion of the horrors in Irish society. Swift uses his satire to shift blame towards many people including not only the wealthy and the English but also the Irish themselves. He shocks the reader in a way that makes them think critically about the policies currently in place in Ireland.
Swift does a very good job of using such an extreme and horrible idea to his advantage, and successfully get his point across.