Research Paper Assignment

“A Call to Action: Regulate Use of Cell Phones on the Road” emphasizes greatly the risks of cell phone use while driving and advocates strongly for laws regulating and punishing cell phone use on the road. It starts off with three stories of innocent people killed by irresponsible drivers who were on their cell phones. The paper cites many attempts by state governments to pass legislation regarding cell phone use on the road, but no successful attempts. The writer says that twenty other countries have already passed strict laws about driving while on a cell phone, as early as 2000. However, as the paper goes on to say, road safety is left up to states to legislate, and many of them are not doing their job to protect people against such reckless driving. The author of the paper demands a push to pass such legislation, and soon, to make people realize that what they are doing is wrong.

 

This paper is very effective in providing information about the use of cell phones while driving. It starts out with some pathos-evoking stories of people whose lives have been compromised by this problem. The writer then provides statistics, such as this one: “Between 450 and 1000 accidents a year are caused by cell phones.” These statistics are a reality check for readers who might not have imagined such damage from what many people see as such a small offense. Then the writer moves on to legislation and uses a lot of logos to communicate how ineffective traffic laws are at enforcing cell phone use. She also uses ethos by citing quotes from important people, such as a spokesperson for Verizon wireless. All in all, this paper is very effective in getting its point across and inspiring guilt in any person who has looked down at their phone while driving. It inspires me to action, and even though I don’t have a strong say in legislation, I can do my part by not engaging in my cell phone while on the road…unless I’m in the passenger’s seat.

Mr. Rogers

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/wayoflife/07/28/mf.mrrogers.neighbor/index.html

I just read an article comprised of a list of fifteen things that make Mr. Rogers “the best neighbor ever.” This includes many anecdotes about his personal life and his ideology, as well as interesting facts. For instance, Mr. Rogers saved television and VCR by going to Congress and presenting a five minute appeal about “how TV had the potential to give kids hope and create more productive citizens.” He also stopped them from outlawing the recording of television shows because he maintained that recording shows and saving them for later was effective in making families sit down and watch shows together. Furthermore, he personally composed every song on his show. Every single sweater he wore on the show was hand-knitted by his grandmother. He reported his car as stolen once, and the media got ahold of the information and told everyone, and two hours later his car was parked in the same spot with an apology note from the thieves, saying they would never have taken it if they had known it was his.

This article is obviously high in pathos, creating great feelings of love for Mr. Rogers and his work, but it also has a surprising amount of ethos. The list is comprised mostly of real accounts from real people. To prove his niceness to human beings, #6 includes a story of a time that he was driven in a limo with his wife to a fancy party at the PBS executive’s house. When he realized that the limo driver would have to sit outside and wait for him for two hours, he invited him into the party. On the way back, he sat up front and talked to the driver, learning that they were just about to pass his home. Mr. Rogers asked to driver to stop so that he could meet his family, and he stayed for a long enchanting evening, getting to know the family and playing jazz piano for them. The limo driver said it was the best night of his life. Mr. Rogers stayed in correspondence with the driver for the rest of his life. This is a highly pathos-ethos combined story that proves Mr. Rogers’s kindness and his compassion for other human beings. The article is delicately comprised of pathos, ethos, and logos to make Mr. Rogers out to be a deeply good person.

Controversy Within Occupy Wall Street

http://news.salon.com/2011/11/01/security_problems_grow_at_occupy_wall_street/

 

Homeless people and derelicts are growing in numbers within the occupy wall street (Zuccotti) park. One woman said that they only show up for food and company, and that they have no concern for the cause at all. One woman said that many of them are clearly mentally deranged and could use some real help elsewhere. However, at the moment, the vast homeless population of NYC are eating up resources such as food, sleeping bags, and tents, without really being committed to the cause. This seems to annoy lots of the dedicated protesters who have been out there, marching every day and sleeping in the cold at night.

 

I think it is their right to be indignant that people are squatting and slowing the protesters down. We have institutions in this country that are supposed to take care of unfortunate people like this. However, there was a rumor going around that the NYPD has been encouraging homeless people from all over the city to flock to Zuccotti, assuring them that there is food and warmth there. This article has a strong undertone of anger and ambivalence. The protesters are angry because the uninvited guests are impeding upon their activism. I assume they are also very ambivalent as well, because the homeless are people that we share a lot in common with and who could also benefit from this protest. They just don’t have the fervor that the “middle class” citizens do because they have hit rock bottom and things never got better  for them. Could there be a way for the middle class and the impoverished to unite for their rights? As this article suggests, no such thing is happening soon. One might even say that we are seeing a different type of class conflict, not between upper and middle, but between middle and lowest.

Serbian Mental Institutions

 

According to recent reports, Serbian mental institutions are being run inhumanely. Mental patients are not seen as important members of society and are extremely mistreated. There is no therapy in Serbian mental institutions, just medication. Children are tied to their cribs for years, most of them developing growth deficiencies. A twenty-one year old man was tied to his metal crib for eleven years, which makes him appear to be a weak young child. This is due to his lack of movement for most of his life. Some 17,200 children and adults receive this kind of torture in mental hospitals across Serbia. Many of the patients have spent their whole lives in the institutions. The worst part of it is, after the war in 1999, Serbia acquired foreign aid to help build these institutions. So these are clean, new buildings that are basically used as torture chambers.

 

This article has a lot of logos and pathos. Detailed descriptions of the environment enlighten us and horrify us. Serbia wishes to become part of the European Union, and as EU reviews these cases, they cannot help but deny this membership. The state of affairs in Serbian mental hospitals is enough to take away the country’s credibility. It will be long until the effects of these hospitals are overturned, and long before Serbia is inducted into the union. This is the kind of expository headline that nobody knew about until the information was made public. Not even the executive ruler of Serbia knew what lay behind the walls of all of these mental institutions. The information, or “logos” is enough to inspire a strong feeling of pathos in the audience.

A Vaccine Against Drug Addiction

A professor at the Scripps Research Institute has dedicated the better part of his life to an incredible project that many have not even imagined. For thirty-seven years Kim Janda has been working on a vaccine for drug addicts that might someday free a substance abuser from their drug of choice. This doctor calls the process “simplistically stupid,” because it works a lot like other vaccines: a small amount of the foreign substance is introduced into the blood stream, which causes antibodies to go after it. However, the molecules of substances like nicotine and meth-amphetamines are too small for the bloodstream to detect, so he attaches the substance to a “larger protein that acts as a platform.” The last part of the vaccine is called an “adjuvant,” which is a cocktail of chemicals designed to attract attention, making antibodies go after a substance that usually would pass unnoticed. In the end, the main purpose is to blunt the effects of the drug so that it doesn’t have the same effect. For instance, a coke user, after receiving the vaccine, might say that the coke they are doing is “dirty” or “not worth their money,” because it ceases to have the same effect.

However, the article did introduce a number of ethical problems that I need to address. For instance, the vaccine is supposed to be administered to those already suffering from drug addiction, but what if it were used as a preventative? If you were a kid about to be sent off to college, how would you respond to your parents deciding to get you a drug vaccine? Also, the platforms in the vaccine are detectable for up to three months after it is administered, but the drug itself only stays in the system for a few days. So, conceivably your work could test for those platforms to see if you are a recovering drug addict, and possibly not hire you. Another thing that the doctor touched lightly upon is that even if this is someday developed and it works, it is not necessarily a cure for addiction. People who are addicted will look for any kind of high, so who is to say that if one drug stops working for them, they won’t try another? Addiction may end up being a much more complicated puzzle than we thought, and deadening the effects of one drug may not help.

 

 

“Why we can never escape our siblings”

“Why we can never escape our siblings”

http://www.salon.com/life/children/index.html?story=/mwt/feature/2011/09/10/siblings_interview
An article by Mandy Van Deven based on a book written by  scientist Jeffrey Kluger (“The Sibling Effect”)

The article starts out by making the point that sibling relationships are more unique than any other kind of relationship in that siblings stay with you through the entire span of your life. Since parents leave too soon and children
come along too late, they are the people who will “know you when you are in your most inchoate form.”

This notion grabbed my attention because I have a little sister and the fact that you would sustain a relationship with your sibling throughout your entirelife seems obvious to me. I mean, you basically occupy the same chunk of humanity as your brother or sister. But I think we overlook the importance of this particular relationship in our  lives. So I read on.

The author continues on to talk about how different sexes, birth order, and aquired step-siblings might affect the development of siblings, depending on what role they fulfill. For instance, it is said that girls who grew up with brothers are more likely to lack seriousness and grimness, while boys who grew up with sisters are more likely to have a greater degree of sensitivity and listening skills than boys with brothers or only children. From a functional worldview, this makes sense. Having a strong ongoing sibling relationship with someone of the opposite sex helps one understand the mind of the opposite sex more aptly.

Another factor that shapes us is birth order. The article says that “older children get more total-immersion mentoring with their parents” before younger siblings come along. However, the advantages of being a younger child include developing ability to use “low-power strategies,” such as intuition and charm.

The relationship between older and younger siblings helps us acquire traits that we wouldn’t have otherwise have acquired. For instance: if an older sibling has a habit of aggressiveness, the younger sibling will learn coping skills to deal with conflict. On the flip side, younger siblings require nuturing from the older siblings, so the older siblings have to develop stronger foundations of empathy and nurturing skills that they might not have developed if they had not had to play the “older sibling” role. I certainly feel this way about my role as an older sister.

According to this article, in blended families, step siblings have more territorial issues at first, but can actually form ties as strong as biological siblings in about six years.

In addition to talking about step-siblings, the article reaches a little bit into the development of single children. It is a common myth that single children are less altruistic and more self-involved. However, this is not necessarily true. They often have better academic skills and a better ability to keep friends because they were forced to go out into the world and learn social skills rather than learning them at home with a sibling.

However, this article makes a good point: that relationships between siblings are important and not to be squandered, because they are perhaps the only relationship that you keep throughout your whole life.

Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds.

This is an article that my dad emailed to me a few weeks ago. I thought it was so interesting that I re-read it for this assignment.

Hemingway, Hounded by the Feds Summary and Reaction

by Lauren Groves

For the last few years of his life, Ernest Hemingway suffered from mental afflictions and was diagnosed with depression and paranoia. According to a close friend (A.E. Hotchner), he believed that his car, his room and his phone were being bugged and that his mail was being intercepted. Friends were supportive but worried about his obsession that someone was watching him. It made him lack fervor for life and, at times, lose the will to live completely.

He was soon transported to the psychiatric section of St. Mary’s hospital on November 30^th, 1960. In December he received eleven electric shock treatments. The whole time he was there, he remained convinced that his room in the ward was bugged, and that the phone outside his room was tapped. He also expected one of the interns at the hospital was a fed.

He was released for a short while, but the strife created by his “paranoid delusions” led him to attempt suicide two more times. On a flight to the Mayo Clinic, “though heavily sedated, he tried to jump from the plane. When it stopped in Casper, Wyoming for repairs, he tried to walk into the moving propeller.”

Years after he tragically managed to take his own life at the barrel of a shotgun, the truth was made known. The F.B.I. released its Hemingway File, which reveals that beginning in the 1940’s J. Edgar Hoover had placed Hemingway under surveillance because he was suspicious of Ernest’s frequent visits to Cuba. So now we come to grips with the realization that his crazy behavior in the last year of his life was highly justified. In fact, around the time his paranoia set in, he had already been under surveillance for almost twenty years.

This once again raises the constitutional debate over privacy that has been going on for hundreds of years in America. When the constitution was written, our forefathers listed our rights to life, liberty, and property. However, they neglected to mention anything about privacy. The closest we citizens get to privacy is in the contents of the ninth and tenth amendments. Even though it doesn’t say anything about personal privacy, it does provide that “The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” (9^th amendment) and that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution…are reserved…to the people” (10^th Amendment.) When analyzing these two amendments in unison, it is clear to me that there is a right to privacy. Because the government isn’t specifically given the power to violate the people’s privacy, it is reserved as a people’s right.

Hemingway lived a wonderful life to its fullest. It was only when his right to privacy was unconstitutionally revoked, that things went wrong. A brilliant literary mind was wasted away to nothing with shock treatments that were ordered by doctors on account of his “paranoid” condition. If his constitutional rights had not been violated, I believe he could have lived on well into his golden years. He could have retained the concentration that was needed to finish his aesthetically pleasing book about Paris, “A Moveable Feast,” and many more masterpieces. Ernest’s tragic end is an excellent example of how unconstitutional surveillance can ruin a vibrant and beautifully-lived life.

Hello world!

Welcome to WordPress.com. After you read this, you should delete and write your own post, with a new title above. Or hit Add New on the left (of the admin dashboard) to start a fresh post.

Here are some suggestions for your first post.

1. You can find new ideas for what to blog about by reading the Daily Post.
2. Add PressThis to your browser. It creates a new blog post for you about any interesting  page you read on the web.
3. Make some changes to this page, and then hit preview on the right. You can always preview any post or edit it before you share it to the world.