ethical argument draft

Erik Arndt

Prof. Brown

English 1B

April 17, 2013

Obesity: Jumbo sizing America

            Obesity. Just let the word sink in. We have all heard about the growing epidemic that the developed world is facing, and yet we have done little to stop it. These problems aren't yours, they're for someone else to worry about, or are they? Just look around and notice if this disease has spread into your daily life. Perhaps some friends or coworkers have put a little weight on, maybe your kids are a little huskier than you remember, or maybe even you have gained some extra weight? To beat the evil of obesity you must first know what that evil is "Obesity is defined as having a body mass index (BMI) above 30. Overweight means a BMI of 25 to 29.9. BMI is calculated by taking weight in pounds and dividing it by the square of height in inches, and multiplying the result by 703."( Landau). Do you or a loved one fit into this category? Seeing the definition helps to understand how people (even yourself) can be classified or thought of as obese. Many people have slowly become obese over the years and more and more are joining the ranks overtime. This is because people are changing their habits, basically people are eating unhealthy food and living sedentary lives. People need to reform their daily lives and be healthier/ more active if they want to save themselves from high costs of medical bills and help our children live healthier lives.

            The cost of obesity is more than just you or someone being overweight. People need to look to the future cost of what it is to be obese. "Between 2010 and 2020, new cases of Type 2 diabetes could increase tenfold; so could stroke, coronary heart disease, hypertension and arthritis. The number of cases could double again by 2030..." (Begley). People who are already prone to heart dieses and other genetic or family dieses should pay more attention to this information. The simple cost of your own medical bills should make you realize that being obese is not cheap and the dieses mentioned before were not only expensive but also could lead to your death. These reasons are truly important and relevant to our children's lives. "But there is hope, if adults across America would reduce their body mass index, the report said. If the average body mass index were lowered by 5% by 2030, states could save billions of dollars while helping many people. That's the equivalent of a 200-pound, 6-foot-tall person losing 10 pounds." (Landau). See hope and knowing how to beat obesity can happen, we just need to take some baby steps first. The biggest Issue of obesity is children. So many children are overweight and more are sure to follow. Parents are not enforcing their children to eat well, play outside or even exercising at all. How do people not see that children are the future (literally) and that they need to be educated on how to live a healthy life. "A successful approach to reducing obesity and its comorbidities must also embrace understanding of community-level factors including the social, built, and natural environments. These environmental influences interact with a child's diet, physical activity, genetic makeup, and metabolism..." ( Brogan and Partners).

            Most people will say that obesity is a problem but it's not my problem. Well it may not be your problem now but it might be in a few years or even to someone who is close to you. Well obesity is a rising problem but it's a problem we can get ahead of, we just need to take the reins and slow it down. Well People should just buy better foods and stop eating out. Well that would be one big step in helping to reduce obesity but money can become an issue. People can and do live off fast food and because it is so cheap people can spend less than going to a supermarket and buying healthy food. What about working out? I go to the gym everyday and I'm not obese, why can't people do that too? Well not everyone wants to go the gym. Also people can not always afford to go to the gym. This also brings up how people who can afford to go to the gym but don't know how to work out but cant afford a personal trainer to teach them how to work out correctly. We can sit here all day and poke holes in why obesity exists but the real argument is people need to change, Change is scary and people don't like scary. So why would we want change then? Well look at the facts and just see if change is scarier than the really awful realities of obesity.

            To sum it all up for you, obesity is a growing problem and it will lead to higher costs to both you and your family, and this will affect your children's  future and may lead to even bigger issues. The big picture to look at is what will this epidemic bring about? Will this affect me or to someone who I love? Or will this growing problem really make it impossible to have medical care in the future simply because all the medical practices will be busy with all the obese people? Basically look at how will the this epidemic will affect our country as a whole. Will we have a population of people to weak to defend ourselves? Will we be too fat to get out of bed and even clothe ourselves? If that is the case then who will take care of the new generation or will there even be a new generation to be taken care of?

Citation

Begley, Sharon. "Fat and Getting Fatter: U.S. Obesity Rates to Soar by 2030." Reuters. Thomson Reuters, 18 Sept. 2012. Web. 17 Apr. 2013. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/18/us-obesity-us-idUSBRE88H0RA20120918

Environment and Obesity in the National Children's Study

Leonardo Trasande, Chris Cronk, Maureen Durkin, Marianne Weiss, Dale A. Schoeller, Elizabeth A. Gall, Jeanne B. Hewitt, Aaron L. Carrel, Philip J. Landrigan and Matthew W. Gillman

Environmental Health Perspectives , Vol. 117, No. 2 (Feb., 2009), pp. 159-166

Published by: Brogan & Partners

Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25434919

Landau, Elizabeth. "Health Care Costs to Bulge along with U.S. Waistlines." CNN. Cable News Network, 01 Jan. 1970. Web. 17 Apr. 2013http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/health/us-obesity.

Do I exist or Do I need to exist?

1. If the author thinks that we need to change how we think, does that make his self needs more important than that of society's needs?
2.Does culture/ society affect one's true inner self?
3. Will the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many ( will the needs of poor people be dominated by the rich )?

Honestly I can't write just about one since this is such a juicy topic. First This might be the first article I have read in this class that got me actually excited. Now to attempt to answer the second one first; does culture/ society affect one's inner self? I'm going to say no. Yes they do really make a person who they are but not what they are. People are animals with animal instincts. No matter what we think about our selves or what other people think, we will do what we need to do to survive. People can go around this and have gone around this but Why have they gone around it? that's the real question, is the true inner self, the primal man being altered by society even existing? Are people's instincts being bred out and becoming civilized through long exposure to society? All I know is that when it comes down to it people are willing to let them selves die for their kids, families, and or anyone "connected to their survival. I don't care what this guy is saying since I believe that any society pushed far enough will revert back to our "original " selves, or true inner selves.

Next Will the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many? I'm going to say yes. People are selfish and despite all this talk on people needing to conserve our resources, or saving mother earth were going to fail. We as a society have changed from back when men chosen by a god, ruled over all of us and now we are free thinking people who only think about our selves. Now everyone is vying for power and we don't care who we have to step on to get ahead. This thinking (and it's not just in the western world) will destroy us and  the world. And who cares? Well that's someones problem in the future. Who cares if I destroy the world in the process, its all about me. Power will corrupt and as we have seen the rich have a lot of power. So will the needs of the poor get ahead of the rich? No simply because their "self" worth has more strength behind it and that will change the "needs" of the poor. and done with this subject.

Lastly to answer the first question, I just love that this guy talked about "Self" and kept referring to himself or how it made him feel. Does he think he has all the answers? Or how about his "needs"  compared to others? I think he should have addressed his own self image in this paper, and that's all.

Vivesection AGAIN

1. Scientist or Christian is there really a difference?
2. What are the long term effect of vivesection?
3. Does morality actually apply when it comes to animals?

I will do this blog on the first question. And as a side note, this will be my second post since I'm doing this all on my phone since my modem fried and this is my only option.

Well is there any difference between scientists and Christians when it comes down to vivesection? I'm going to say no. I generally believe scientists more then Christians simply because they try to deal on facts and I'm just generally against organized religion. But for this issue they are on the same level. Both think that it's okay it just comes down to "morals" and when's a soul actuall exists. Well where does a soul exist? Do humans even have one? Well when I learned anatomy we didn't learn about a certain par of the body that held the soul. So both Christians and scoenttists  are in the dark on this. But does that give them the right to say that animals don't have a soul? I don't think so. I thought this argument was a comets joke and the writer was trying to poke some fun at a certain group of people. Well I think it made both groups look bad and gave basi ally Christians/ scientists an equal footing ( which is why/where both groups are the same ) they thinks they are superior to others. Whether it be with other people or trying to show mans dominence of the earth or god's choi e that we are superior to his other creations. Basically there is no difference, people are people and were are all Terrible. Vivesection is just another exams that shows that no matter what people morally believe, we're all the same cruel kind of being At the center.

Vivesection.

Test blog on vivesection.

Reflection for paper #2

These are the changes that I did to my critique paper from its original draft. First I made sure to hit around the minimum amount of words/ pages to make it a full paper. I also went and changed some much needed grammar changes (mostly quotes and page numbers). I also went back and tried to make the arguments as solid as possible because they were a little to vague before. Basically I used quotes to give details of what I wanted to show and added more emotion to the argument to make it seem more like a critique. Basically I took the comments from Professor Brown and just fixed the problems that he pointed out, I expanded on things that he brought up, or I just deleted/ shortened anything that needed to fixed.

commentary on Essay #2

First off good job on the intro because it drew me in. The summary was very descriptive and it did its job perfectly.  At the end of the summary you asked two questions: "what can we constitute as a torture method? What other method can we use that would be not only a fast and quick method, but also at the most least painful way?". These are good questions but which one is your thesis? Next the paragraph about drowning is very good and puts people in the situation of drowning. The next paragraph is a great continuation of the first and makes for a compelling argument. You seem to be on the right track but you need to add more to the essay. Make it longer and hit about 1200 words (what we have to do basically). Good job so far man. 

eng paper #2 draft

Erik Arndt

Professor Brown

English 1B

March 25, 2013

A Rhetorical Critique of “Is Google Making Us Stupid?" by Nicholas Carr

            The internet, one of man's best inventions of all time or is it? People use the internet every day for everything. This handy new tool we have created can help us with anything like how to get directions to a friend's house or even help with writing a paper. Sure people had information at their disposal through books for hundreds of years but the internet is so convenient. With this new technology will we see changes in people, Not only in people's behavior but also the way we think and compute data?

            Nicholas Carr an author of a few books and writer for many magazines simply asks his readers "Is Google making us stupid"?  Yes the name of the article and question are one and the same, but he also seems to ask a bigger question "if the internet is changing the way we think all together". In this article he has asked many of his enlightened friends if reading is same as it once was, or can they sit down and deeply think about what they are reading or simply pay attention long enough to even read a book, not just skim it (which is probably what you are doing now). He brings up Historical ideas from Socrates to HAL from "2001, A space odyssey" on how technology makes people think. The biggest part of this article is when Google/ the internet is brought up and how it will change over time to serve us. This all leads up to how/what our new technology will do to us.

            Nicholas Carr brings up many questions about the internet and how it affects us on not only day to day but our actual way of thinking in the long term. He brings up many arguments about how people are changing and has many fine examples from friends/ other intellectuals discussing their own experiences about the subject. Carr is unable to give us facts and only just tidbits of historical data on events that deal in the same realm that he is trying to show us. With his personal experience, interviews/ comments from other writers or people in the academic world and historical remnants Carr has shed the first real light on a growing problem in the world today.

            Carr is a man who has a background in writing, but more specifically he has written about our new age and the technology it brings concerning people. He is the right man to bring the evidence forward and get ahead of this soon to be epidemic. He did a great job showing Ethos in his article by adding words from his friends/ associates whom are dealing with the same problem as he is (whether it is personal or professionally). He uses it because it gives him creditability and this seems to be a subject that few people have really looked into (thus the reason to bring it to light).  “When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences… Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media, recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader…What happened?” (pg. 2). This is a good quote and from a very good source. He used his connections to demonstrate how someone who works online has been affected, and he was a big reader and Literature major in college too. This was a good strategy and he used ethos.

            To really bring this idea from simply a feeling to an actual fact (via scientific research), Carr presented evidence to strengthen his argument: “But a recently published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars from University College London… As part of the five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites, one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and other sources of written information. They found that people using the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site.” (pg. 3). He used Logos in this last quote. The idea that an actual scientific experiment showed that people have changed their reading habits is only the tip of the iceberg. His strategy was perfect in this by giving actual proof of a problem. It was very effective and gave a little background as how long this problem has been building.

            Lastly Carr takes a personal approach at the encroaching problem, by telling us how it makes him feel and how it affects his personal life: “I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not thinking the way I used to think. “(pg. 2). This is pure Pathos, his strategy here is plain and simple: get people to relate to how he feels. Yes he does write for some magazines that are for the more “thought provoking mind” but his quote can be felt by everyone. His strategy was effective in my opinion simply because he brought thoughts and feelings to his side.

            The article “Is Google making us stupid?” is a thought provoking and makes people rethink how and what they do online. Yes his argument is flawed simply because of the lack of data but this is just the beginning to introduce people to a new problem. Did people believe the first reports on smoking? No they did not, but look at how we view smoking now (not so good now). You might ask if he is qualified to write such a piece, well he is a writer with a unique perspective on this subject, he has written several books about technology and people. This is better than most people and it’s a new idea with this new techno age were in. Lastly He has put personal stake into this issue (as seen in the last paragraph) and basically made this issue known.