Monday, April 22, 2013

Exploration 11 Revision


I chose to do a revision on this exploration because it was one of my favorite topics. This is because this exploration topic is still happening and it hits home to a lot of people. The War in Afghanistan has been a war that has many mixed feelings from every spectrum and every side. This is also a war that has many factors to it and choosing one said or the other might be difficult but, some are sometimes stronger than others. This is obviously that the Afghanistan war should end.   
            War on its own is wrong and should be avoided totally. So allowing war because it might increase something will not benefit society as a whole in the end of the day. The war is not only hurting the soldiers in America, but there are innocent civilians in Afghanistan. For example, it has been reported that there were acid attacks happening to innocent people that don’t deserve to be in that kind of situation.  “It's the latest cruel tactic in the Pakistani Taliban's battle to stop girls and women from getting an education: acid thrown in their faces to scar them for life and deter others from following in their footsteps” (Khan). Tactics for this type of horrible treatment is getting more cruel and unethical; little is being done to stop this. Unless the war does not end, mindless and useless behavior like this will continue.
            Even though there are two sides to every story, what is happening in Afghanistan can only have one outcome. Some people might have good reasons for supporting the war, and hoopoes my very strong thoughts against the war. For example, they might say that this war is beginning to the end on terrorism. But is war the only way to end things? The obvious answer is no to the common man. If anyone in their right mind would know that there are multiple and peaceful ways to resolve a crisis. To support the war, you would to support the killing of hundreds and thousands of innocent civilians. Some may say that this war is like any other war. But why would we want it to be like every other war? Why don’t we want to bring to it to an end? The people all around the world should realize that it is time for change to happen, not war.
            All in all, I believe that any war is wrong. The war in Afghanistan is especially wrong because of all the torturing that is happening to the innocent civilians and the soldiers of ours.  People in America should realize that nothing is worth going to war over, especially money and gaining power; which is problem and one of the main reasons in this world. Power gain and greed could not amount to all the tragedies brought on by this war. 

Exploration 10 Revision


"LOST SLEEP CAN LEAD TO WEIGHT GAIN"


http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/03/18/lost-sleep-can-lead-to-weight-gain/

This article was very interesting to me.  Mostly because sleep is something that I've always struggled with, and weight gain is something I always keep in the back of my mind.  This article talk about a study that 16 healthy men and women participated and were watched closely by doctors.  They were put in a room where their metabolism could be watched closely.

For these scientists, "The goal was to determine how inadequate sleep over just one week — similar to what might occur when students cram for exams or when office workers stay up late to meet a looming deadline — affects a person’s weight, behavior and physiology (Parker-Pope.)"   From this study, researchers found that" light sleepers ended up eating far more than those who got nine hours of sleep, and by the end of the first week the sleep-deprived subjects had gained an average of about two pounds." After this, the groups were switched, and the ones who slept, were deprived sleep and gained weight, and those who had gained weight from being deprived, slept and almost lost the weight they had originally gained. In conclusion, research showed that sleep deprived people will consume 6% more calories during the day then people who get fully rested.


This article was perfect because, I am a college student, and late nights are almost always a necessity. It also goes on to talk about jet-lag, and other common problems that interfere  with sleep commonly throughout people.  The overall conclusion of the article, is that your metabolism is overall healthier when you are getting fully rested at night. You eat more healthy when your body gets the proper amount of sleep and your metabolism is much more functional, along with other bodily functions.

Exploration 7 revision

    
The story that stood out to me the most from the last stories we read was "The lives of the dead."  The reason this stood out to me more than the other stories was because it seemed like it had much more meaning than the other stories. O'Brien writes about his love for Linda and you can really feel the emotion that seems to bleed out of the pages. the biggest impact that this story had on the reader was the way O'Brien showed his love for Linda and how unique it was. the main theme in this story was that O'Brien trys to show how you can keep someone alive through storytelling. he shows how he tells stories about Linda and he almost feels like she is alive during the story. This is a reoccuring motif throughout the story; the characters tell stories about their fallen comrads to, in a way, keep them alive. Its the only way to bring them back to life. This story told a lot about human nature and how humans cope with the harsh reality of war. The soldiers would sometimes make light of death to make it seem less terrible. "they were scared to die but they were even more scared to show it." This means that the thing that scared them most was showing their fear of death and looking like a coward, so they would make light of it. Every mans worst fear is being a coward no matter how much they would like to just shoot a toe off and go home, they would never risk looking like a coward. The thing that I will take away from this book is how powerful writing can be. Writing has the power to temporarily bring people back to life in a way, it can help people cope with war and express their true feelings about it. This book makes me really apreciate the fact that there are men and women that protect this country so that I can enjoy the freedoms that I have. The men and women may only surve for a few years of their lif but the psycological affects can last a lifetime. They sacrifice their wellbeing for my freedom and that deserves the highest level of respect.

exploration 10 (make up)

“There will be a moment in time when whole genome sequencing becomes ubiquitous throughout health care,” said Peter Tonellato, director of the Harvard personalized medicine lab and a clinical investigator in pathology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston. “Let’s say we figure out all the individuals who might have a cancer, and we can predict that with a relatively high level of accuracy. Then presumably we can take steps to avoid those, let’s say, decades of treatment.”

I did exploration ten on a very interesting subject that involves gene maping to better help treat cancer patients. what struck me as most important is that the advancement in technology allows us to do these kind of things with medicen. I think it is crazy that we have come so far with technology that soon we will be able to predict who will develop cancer when they are older so that we can start proactive treatment over decades to help prevent the cancer that is almost surley going to grow. This bit of information is very valuble and important to me because I had a friend when I was a little kid who died of cancer in the fifth grade. His name was Andrew and he was one of the most amazing kids I have ever met. If there is anything that our society can do to prevent cancer than I think we should keep progressing towards that goal so that we can prevent cancer in amazing young kids like Andrew.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/health/patients-genes-seen-as-future-of-cancer-care.html?src=me

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/how-therapy-can-help-in-the-golden-years/?ref=science

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/22/how-therapy-can-help-in-the-golden-years/?ref=science

exploration 2 revision


For exploration 2 we were instructed to write about someone who is influential in your life.  One person that I spend a lot of time with and is very influential to me is my girlfriend.  We have been together for somewhere around 2 years she probably knows the exact day and time but I don’t.  I wrote the poem about our two favorite activities together that we always do and that is kayaking then going to taco bell.
My Belle
Driving,
Further and further,
Only to stop and walk.
Down to the water where we drive a new vehicle.
Under the bridge, under the road called Howard.
She’s quiet and determined,
Yet she laughs at all my stupid jokes.
We paddle our kayaks like turtles to the shore,
Only to have to turn around.
Lunch.
The usual.
Taco Bell.
As always 2 number 7 meals,
Don’t forget the locos tacos.
She always tells me she loves me,
And I can’t help but smile.
When I see her again,
There’s only one thing I need to say.
I love you.

exploration 2 revision


For exploration 2 we were instructed to write about someone who is influential in your life.  One person that I spend a lot of time with and is very influential to me is my girlfriend.  We have been together for somewhere around 2 years she probably knows the exact day and time but I don’t.  I wrote the poem about our two favorite activities together that we always do and that is kayaking then going to taco bell.
My Belle
Driving,
Further and further,
Only to stop and walk.
Down to the water where we drive a new vehicle.
Under the bridge, under the road called Howard.
She’s quiet and determined,
Yet she laughs at all my stupid jokes.
We paddle our kayaks like turtles to the shore,
Only to have to turn around.
Lunch.
The usual.
Taco Bell.
As always 2 number 7 meals,
Don’t forget the locos tacos.
She always tells me she loves me,
And I can’t help but smile.
When I see her again,
There’s only one thing I need to say.
I love you.

Exploration 9 Revision



Jordan Dunlea
English 1110
Mike Lohre
3/8/13
Fresh Analysis (Exploration 9 Revision)
            This film intrigued me.  I noticed a lot of similarities with another film I have seen called Food Inc.  In Food Inc. the focus was more on the negative aspects of commercial farming.  What I liked about the film Fresh was that it didn’t just point out the flaws of the current commercial farming system, but it also presented a solution in the form of a more natural farming system that includes localized farming.  The most important theme of the film was to steer people away from the non-sustainable commercial farming seen today, and instead promote the healthier more natural method of farming explained by Joel Salatin.  Salatin made some really convincing points but what felt the most important was that in the long haul it will be more cost efficient, healthier, and more safe to farm in a natural way like him than in a commercial system that focuses solely on mass production.  In essence, Salatin’s way of farming is better in every way and the evidence is most convincing when he gives a tour of his farm showing just how optimal the whole system runs.  After both Salatin’s and Will Allens testimonies defending natural farming I am left with little doubt that it is the way to go.  Now it is just up to us, the citizens of the USA, to begin promoting a more natural farming system by consuming more natural products and reducing the amount of commercial farm products we consume.


Revisions: I noticed that some of what I said during my presentation wasn’t clearly explained in the writing so I clarified that a bit.  I also added in the parts where I discuss Salatin’s influence because I liked what I said about him in my presentation and thought it should be revised into the writing because he was so influential on my view of modern farming and the way our society should be conducting our agriculture. I also fixed the header so that there was no space between my name, class, your name, and date, per the instructions on our formatting sheet you gave us at the beginning of the semester.    

Final revised exploration


Exploration 10 (Revision)
            I chose to revise and read out my Exploration 10. When looking back at all of my other explorations, this one really stood out to me. In this one where we had to find an interesting article online and write about it. I just remember this article being very appealing and relatable to me.
Scrolling through the website I discovered, "The Stories That Bind Us". I found it under the ‘most emailed stories’ section. I thought it was a really important article and was really useful for families today. The author, Bruce Feiler, spoke about how he could see his family was falling apart all around him. He decided to look into why. He found an emerging theme that families need to develop a strong family narrative. He got the idea from Marshall Duke, a psychologist at Emory University. They discovered that if children know about their family and their history than they will be more confident and able to handle tough situations. They decided to look deeper into this. They developed a serious of 20 questions to ask kids. The questions would be, ‘where did your grandparents grow up’ or ‘where did your mom and dad go to high school’? Honestly, I thought it was pretty funny, because I tried to answer these questions and I could not answer most of them. I thought this is probably true with a lot of kids these days. Nowadays, society is moving so fast, everyone is so focused on himself or herself, that I do not think kids sit down and learn about their families. Dr. Duke said, “The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones.” This knowledge is valuable for one to have. The more kids know, the better they are at facing challenges.

Final exploration

                   I have chosen to do this assignment on exploration four. I chose to do this exploration because I really enjoyed this chapter on the Civil Rights Movement. It was nice to learn about the movement more and learn about Looby's contributions to the movement.       
                  Z. Alexander Looby devoted a lot of his life to the civil rights movement. He was born in the British West Indies in the year of 1899. After the death of his father in 1914, he immigrated to the United States. Looby received a degree in law at Columbia University. In 1926, he was offered a job at Fisk University in Nashville. In 1946, Looby teamed up with Thurgood Marshall and defended twenty three African Americans who were being accused of murder after riots in Tennessee! The two were able to get all 23 found not guilty. This was a big moment for Looby. Just a short six years later, Looby was elected to Nashville's city council, becoming the first African American to serve since 1911. In 1960, he was the head of the twelve member defense team, sponsored by NAACP to represent the students participating in the "sit-ins." Just a few weeks after Looby arranged the release of 100 student protesters, his home was blasted by dynamite and destroyed. He was not harmed but later died in 1972 of a prolonged illness.
I found it super cool that Looby was just a small lawyer and ended up becoming apart of the city council! It is evident that Looby was a supporter of the civil right movements! He wanted to support these students and protestors no matter what happened. Even if it cost him his life.

Revision of Exploration 10: The Danger of the Syrian Chemical Weapons

This Middle Eastern issue is a substantial common issue that’s affecting the rest of the region, which I thought a few number of the world countries is actually involved on how to find the best solution without a military use. But I really think that countries such as China, USA, and other European countries need to take part of finding the solution to this ongoing issue. It is now two years plus that the Syrian rebels are fighting Bashar Al-Assad’s military regime. And of course where there is war there are definitely deaths and casualties in the both sides who are fighting, and more likely civilians.The Humanitarian Groups (the UN) estimated that more than 120,000 deaths and almost 250,000 were injured in total in a period of two years. In addition to the 2.5-3 million internally displaced, and 1.2 million refugees. This sounds like a typical result of the most common conflicts, but there is really more to that. The Syrian Military Has a chemical weapons which is prohibited to be used. In my point of view, the use of these weapons could result a larger conflict or in other words a regional war.It has been confirmed that the Syrian regime already used these weapons but in an indirect way. The world already experienced the outcomes of this problem. In both World War II, and in the first Gulf War in 1990. So we need to take more strong steps on how to resolve and eliminate these kinds of weapons. Also to stop them from falling into the hands of the wrong people.