Well, the title just about says it all. I may have found the essay to be of some essence, like a look into the past, but the style of which she wrote it made the essay impossible to understand. The biggest problem was definitely the amount of unrecognizable words that she used on each page. Over half of my vocab list, and probable other students as well, came from this single 19 page essay, with huge excess of words that I didn't include. She also made numerous references to other women's rights writers such as Milton and Rousseau that I of course couldn't relate to.
The way she organized her essay as well was a hinder. I don't really have any grasp of what point she was trying to make in any part of her essay. It was not organized in an understandable fashion. She would be talking about women's education then jump to the pursuit of virtue then to the ignorance of men and right back to education. Her whole essay, in essence was a giant rant about how the world, in her time, was against women.
Not only was this a problem in her essay, but the content as well. Although her purpose was to fight for the rights of women, at times she would make comments that make it seem she though she was inferior to men. Such as she did on the first page when she said, "Men complain, and with reason, of the follies and caprices of our sex..." She seems to point out that men have reason to act the ways they do. On page four,she referred to women as helpmates as well. She didn't seem to do a very good job of standing up for women.
I also think this essay was very hard to relate to because all of her complaints were so out of date.She may have had some valid points in her essay, such as comparing women of her time to soldiers, much these points were all lost and inadequately supported in her con jumbled mess that she called an essay.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
the Ominivore's Dilemma
For my AP Comp book, I read The Omnivore's Dilemma. This book was a real eye opener to exactly where my food comes from. It is based on the dilemma that us human's now face in the world today. Since we don't hunt and gather our own food, we have become disconnected from our food to the point where we no longer know what is healthy and unhealthy to eat. In the book, while he didn't really explain what exactly was healthy and not, he did go through which chains where the best not only for us to eat, but best for the government and farmers. Lets just say there is no surprise that so many people became vegetarians after reading this book. It was a honest peek into not only how animals are treated, but the different crops as well. The author, Michael Pollan, went through the three different food chains: industrial, organic, and hunter-gather.
The industrial food chain is where most of our food comes from today. This are the big industries that mass produce all of our food to make a big profit for themselves, but not for the farmers. These are the companies that make oreos, chips, and most other processed food as well as others. In the industrial farms, many fertilizers, chemicals, and genetically engineered plant seed to ensure the most possible growth of crop for the least amount of money. They also raise their animals in the same way. They try to make the most meat out of each animal in the least amount of time and money. To do this, they over stuff the living places of these animals and feed them corn, which is not natural for them to eat, in order to make them fatten up as much as possible. These animals live in horrible conditions and are treated as meat machines.
The organic food chain proves to be about the exact same as the industrial, just with more government regulations. In order to call their food organic, these farms aren't allowed to use certain chemicals and require certain conditions of the animals. Even though these foods are healthier for us, most of their produce is treated nearly the same as industrial food.
The final chain of food he went through was the hunter-gatherer, where we gather our food ourselves.This was obviously the most healthy way for us to get our food, but clearly the most unrealistic.
I found these book to be very educational for me in many ways. Not only do I seem to look at my own food in a different light, but how food may be impacting the future of America. It is no wonder why our generation will be the first to be predicted to not outlive our parents just from looking at how our food is processed. What animals are being fed is not only affecting their health, but ours as well. All of the obesity and health problem spikes really are coming from our unhealthy processed food. Businesses are only looking to make money, and they are barely considering our health. Something really needs to be done about the way in which our food is processed and grown in general or else the future of our country may be at stake. Should it not be the responsibility of the government to ensure the health of Americans? Yet, the government funds the industrial food ways in many more ways than an actual healthy way of growing things. This book helped me to realize how big a problem food is becoming and what it may mean for the future. You can hear all of the ways that food is bad for you, but you don't really understand until you read where it comes from for yourself.
The industrial food chain is where most of our food comes from today. This are the big industries that mass produce all of our food to make a big profit for themselves, but not for the farmers. These are the companies that make oreos, chips, and most other processed food as well as others. In the industrial farms, many fertilizers, chemicals, and genetically engineered plant seed to ensure the most possible growth of crop for the least amount of money. They also raise their animals in the same way. They try to make the most meat out of each animal in the least amount of time and money. To do this, they over stuff the living places of these animals and feed them corn, which is not natural for them to eat, in order to make them fatten up as much as possible. These animals live in horrible conditions and are treated as meat machines.
The organic food chain proves to be about the exact same as the industrial, just with more government regulations. In order to call their food organic, these farms aren't allowed to use certain chemicals and require certain conditions of the animals. Even though these foods are healthier for us, most of their produce is treated nearly the same as industrial food.
The final chain of food he went through was the hunter-gatherer, where we gather our food ourselves.This was obviously the most healthy way for us to get our food, but clearly the most unrealistic.
I found these book to be very educational for me in many ways. Not only do I seem to look at my own food in a different light, but how food may be impacting the future of America. It is no wonder why our generation will be the first to be predicted to not outlive our parents just from looking at how our food is processed. What animals are being fed is not only affecting their health, but ours as well. All of the obesity and health problem spikes really are coming from our unhealthy processed food. Businesses are only looking to make money, and they are barely considering our health. Something really needs to be done about the way in which our food is processed and grown in general or else the future of our country may be at stake. Should it not be the responsibility of the government to ensure the health of Americans? Yet, the government funds the industrial food ways in many more ways than an actual healthy way of growing things. This book helped me to realize how big a problem food is becoming and what it may mean for the future. You can hear all of the ways that food is bad for you, but you don't really understand until you read where it comes from for yourself.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Google is making me Smarter
I highly disagree with the article that google is making us stupid. I do think that it is possibly changing the way we think, but is that overall a bad thing? New technology is being invented everyday that changes the way people live, and there is no use to try and stop it. In fact, being stuck in the past puts you at a great disadvantage for life in the every changing world. I know this from personal experience.
I don't have a cell phone, facebook, cable, my own lab-top, and even high speed internet for the longest time. It seems that I am left behind in the whole picture of things. Everyone else seems to just assume that you have the common luxury that everyone else seems to have and don't adjust their ways to fit your disadvantages. In a world where the majority of social communications happens through cell phones and facebook, it makes a huge social impact when you have neither. Everything is shared on facebook and I often feel left out of the circle in many ways. I don't get the latest low down of things which ultimately excludes me from multiple conversations and social events. But in a way, its my own fault for being stuck in the past. Even if google is changing the way we think and the life we live, there is no use trying to fight it and try to live in a world that ultimately no longer exists.
Plus, I don't think that any of the change is bad. Google has made life so much easier and convenient. Just think, you have a whole world of information just a click away. It opens up a world of opportunities. Don't know where to find scholarships or if you should see the doctor? No trouble, you google it. You could become a genius on a topic in a matter of minutes. The whole topic just reminds me of an episode of Scrubs called My Boss's Free Haircut, when an uncertain liposuction patient outsmarts the doctors on random topics and information. Actually, I just googled that, and doesn't it make me sound so much more legitimate?
Also, the author uses the example that google has made deep reading harder, but is that really Google's fault? I mean, whenever you google a topic, the majority of the time you don't have the intent to read whatever pops ups for hours on end. Isn't this a fault of our own? Google's purpose is to be convenient and fast, so maybe google has changed us, but it wasn't very difficult. We easily allowed the change. The author switched his deep reading for quick google searches. Maybe we need the change.The world is changing and we can't stop it, the best thing is to just go with the flow.
I don't have a cell phone, facebook, cable, my own lab-top, and even high speed internet for the longest time. It seems that I am left behind in the whole picture of things. Everyone else seems to just assume that you have the common luxury that everyone else seems to have and don't adjust their ways to fit your disadvantages. In a world where the majority of social communications happens through cell phones and facebook, it makes a huge social impact when you have neither. Everything is shared on facebook and I often feel left out of the circle in many ways. I don't get the latest low down of things which ultimately excludes me from multiple conversations and social events. But in a way, its my own fault for being stuck in the past. Even if google is changing the way we think and the life we live, there is no use trying to fight it and try to live in a world that ultimately no longer exists.
Plus, I don't think that any of the change is bad. Google has made life so much easier and convenient. Just think, you have a whole world of information just a click away. It opens up a world of opportunities. Don't know where to find scholarships or if you should see the doctor? No trouble, you google it. You could become a genius on a topic in a matter of minutes. The whole topic just reminds me of an episode of Scrubs called My Boss's Free Haircut, when an uncertain liposuction patient outsmarts the doctors on random topics and information. Actually, I just googled that, and doesn't it make me sound so much more legitimate?
Also, the author uses the example that google has made deep reading harder, but is that really Google's fault? I mean, whenever you google a topic, the majority of the time you don't have the intent to read whatever pops ups for hours on end. Isn't this a fault of our own? Google's purpose is to be convenient and fast, so maybe google has changed us, but it wasn't very difficult. We easily allowed the change. The author switched his deep reading for quick google searches. Maybe we need the change.The world is changing and we can't stop it, the best thing is to just go with the flow.
Tuesday, August 2, 2011
Skunk What?
I really have no idea what this article is about. Clearly, the women that wrote it is very intelligent, but she also seems slightly crazed. Did she ever explain why she was sleeping in a football field when she had a house of her own? I found the whole article to be a repetitive rambling of random scenes she sees or her thoughts. She seemed to spend entire pages rambling about one scene or her con jumbled life. This article literally took me this long to get through it! I couldn't ever bring myself to sit down and read it.
One part that I did like was at the end where she talks about how you need obstacles to have desires or to just grow in general. But she never explained it further and just randomly turned back to skunks and how if she were an animal, she would be a skunk. I felt like I got nothing out of reading this article besides a confusing look into some random thoughts of some random women.
One part that I did like was at the end where she talks about how you need obstacles to have desires or to just grow in general. But she never explained it further and just randomly turned back to skunks and how if she were an animal, she would be a skunk. I felt like I got nothing out of reading this article besides a confusing look into some random thoughts of some random women.
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