Revised Thesis

In it's current state fracking, a way to obtain natural gas, has it's ups and downs. The procedure is a step towards clean energy however, it leads to pollution and use of trillions of gallons of water.  With the right modifications to its procedure and fixing human mistakes, the energy industry may be able to turn it into a safe and reliable source of energy.

My subtopics will be about the cost of this procedure, problems with the current procedure, regulation of the industry, and the environmental pollution it is causing.

My claim is important because it focuses on how an industry is having negative effects on the environment and people. My subtopics will exactly what the problems are that make this procedure negative in certain areas.

Toward a Policy on Drugs

Narrow topic:

A policy to minimize drug abuse.

Thesis:

I do not think that either approach take sufficient account of the social realities of drug abuse...
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Expectations:

Discuss
a. Criminal justice system
b. Try a different approach to drugs
c. Refer to other countries situation and how they deal with it
d. Explanation of why our current policy doesn't work

Subtopics and sub points:

- Current status of war on drugs
a. Define usage
b. Define punishments
c. How war on drugs should work and why it doesn't
d. Showing the economic implications of our course of action

- Legalizing as a solution
a. Deregulation
b. Decriminalization
c. Medicinal drug trade

- Crime
a. Correlation between violence and crime
b. Arguing against correlation

Conclusion:

Before we offer a solution, we need to understand the problem better

BS

I think the primary claim in this episode of Bull Shit is that college is a flawed system because they're to concerned with diversity. It did a good and bad job at focusing on the different parts of college that they thought was Bull Shit. I liked how they focused how language codes were stifling the first amendment but I didn't like how they interviewed Noam Chomsky, they didn't include much of his responses to their questions.

Pop Quiz

1. Narrow topic, identify articles and authors, tentative thesis for the final paper

2. Article by article or point to point method.

3. Summarize they main points on both sides and explain how these points would affect the audiences decision.

Immigration Articles

Angels in America

In this essay the author touches on the topics of legal immigration, illegal immigration, immigration in history, immigrants on welfare, family, laws, and politicians. The message was that there are illegal immigrants who make a positive impact on society and that his situation is similar to many people's immigrant ancestors. He wrote this to get people to think about the topic of immigration in a different light, and I think the people he is targeting are the common people who are anti-immigrants or haven't picked a side in this debate. Through his writing Tierney comes across as a man who loves fairness and appreciates hard work. For example, he knows Angel is illegal but he acknowledges that he is a contributor to society and believes that he should be allowed citizenship. Another way he wrote the essay is to try and to appeal to the softer side of human nature when he talks about how Angel may have to leave his daughter behind if he gets deported.



Our Brave New World of Immigration

This essay talks about, immigration, politics, crime, and work. Hanson's message is that despite the benefit of cheap labor, immigrants pose a threat to American citizens. He also says that laws regarding immigration aren't strict enough or enforced as they should be. The purpose of the article is to to show Americans that if they become to relaxed about illegal immigration that it could become a serious problem. I believe his audience is the common people that don't know much about immigrants and or don't interact with them. His style of writing is to convince people by appealing to their fears of safety. He does this by bringing up the example of they car accident that resulted in 3 casualties and 8 injured people. He's pretty much saying this is what can happen if we become complacent on this topic.

Narrower topics

Broad topic: Forms of energy people use

Whats involved:
Energy companies
Lobbyists
Politicians
General population

Narrower topic: Energy companies affect politicians

Who's involved:
Politicians
Lobbyists
Energy companies

Question: How do politics affect our energy use

Question: How does media sway public opinion in terms of forms of energy

Idea: The political and personal ideas of people in charge of media may be expressed by what they write about or advertise. The media then affects what the general population thinks

Gossip Response

In the ted talk we watched in class the presenter focused mainly on how gossip is an important part of pop culture to day and in the past. Branching from that main point she talks about how it isn't enough to be good at something anymore, to make waves in society you have to make people talk about you. She also notes that it is ones form of communication that lasts for many years. While Lainey notes that gossip has a bad stigma, her main goal in the talk is to get people to realize that gossip is something normal and essential in life.

Poetry

To me poetry is putting words together that has a better flow than a book, but also is limited by various rules such as rhyming. I personally hate poetry because it isn't always straightforward. I don't like it when things are mostly metaphorical, and it feels like that's how most poems are. I appreciate things that don't dance around a topic, but instead have a structured plot. Such as books.

Masked Reality

One thing that many people are good at ignoring is how our actions effect the environment in places that we can't see ourselves. One particular example is how our use of machinery and factories increase global warming and even though there are ways to cut back on carbon dioxide emissions, we tend to ignore them. We could all do small things like biking instead of driving, but we are stubborn in our ways and not many will change their way of life.

http://blogs.blouinnews.com/blouinbeatsciencehealth/2015/02/23/red-zone-the-environment-and-climate-change/

1. Initially I see the outline of a bird. After looking closer at the picture I can see that the bird is made out of different colors and patterns. I think this symbolizes that things are made from many pieces and that the viewer may not understand all if any of those pieces.


2. I see a man wearing a suit falling from nothing in to nothing. It makes me think of the t.v. series Mad Men. The colors, the suit, and how the character is falling gives me a sense that what the ad represents is something bold like Mad Men


3. I see a malnourished and naked young black boy on a dry piece of land, and behind him is a vulture. To me the picture conveys that the poor and hungry are prey in the world who have other just waiting for them to drop.

The Wig associatons

1. In The Wig, when the dad is talking about how the wig fits like a football helmet it made me think of Manny from Modern Family. His son is doing something different and a bit strange but he doesn't seem to know that, or he just doesn't care.
I also associated comics with Calvin and Hobbes. It's what I used to read.


2. The thing I usually tell myself is to sit back and observe things before I get involved. Typically I don't get enough sleep during the week so I have to tell myself to stay awake during my earlier classes. At the gym I tell myself to push my body until I can't.

I think that if i was someone who was reading my paper that I would think that I needed a bit more details in my story. I also think that I would a little more to the middle paragraph to describe the person that I was talking about a bit more. I do believe my story needs a bit more explanation than i already has.

Life Changing Event

One extremely important time in my life was my freshman season of soccer. I went into tryouts not expecting a whole lot because while I loved playing soccer, it wasn't necessarily a huge part of my life. To my amazement I made varsity. The coach later pulled me aside and said, "We didn't choose you because of your skill right now. We want to see you work hard and improve and the best place to do that is on this team". I worked my ass off and about a  quarter of the way into the season I was a starter. Before this part of my life I never really had anything to work extremely hard for and I believe it taught me something about working towards a goal until you've reached it.

Example Narrative Response

Overall I think that this example essay was a good one. I didn't have a lot of complaints about it. First off, I thought the content of the story was a good one. Not something that would happen everyday, but it is a feasible situation. I also thought the theme that her story revolved around was smart to choose. The realization that material things aren't as essential in our life as we think they are is something most of us have had to think about at some point in our life. The way the writer described the subway to the reader was good. The details make it easier to understand the story as a whole. One thing I noticed what her diction when she wrote about calling nana. It makes shows how the writer is feeling at that moment, younger and more vulnerable kids tend to call their grandma nana. Some things I noticed that I didn't like were how short the story feels. I know it shouldn't feel like a novel, but it feels like the writer is racing to finish. I also noticed a couple grammar and spelling errors, but those are to be expected in a rough draft.

Confessions of an Adolescent Gun Owner

When I was about 10, I received a Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas. The following summer I was trying to show my friend how good of a shot I was. Looking around for a target to shoot I decided that my neighbor's car window was obviously the only viable option. Small but not too small, would produce a easy to hear noise, and of course would break because it was way too strong to do that. I took the shot and not surprisingly, it shattered. Since I didn't want to get caught, two ideas ran through my mind. I could go downstairs and pretend I had no idea what happened, or I could tell my neighbor myself and say, "I noticed your window was broken, what happened?". I chose the latter and she then told me it was brand new and cost $400. I felt horrible, but not bad enough to tell the truth.

Social Networking vs. Reality

Looking back at what I've posted is pretty entertaining. If I was looking as some one who didn't know me, I would see that 75% of my tweets is one-liners and inside jokes, 20% are about soccer, and the remaining 5% have to do with drinking. Inevitably I would think that @SamJohnson7296 drinks, loves soccer, and tweets when he should be texting. All are true but they wouldn't come close to describing who I actually am. For example, if some one looked at my twitter posts they would think that I've never been in a relationship when in fact I've been in one for about a year. The thing is I hate when people post about their relationships, everyone who should be informed about it will be in person, so there's no need to tell a bunch of people I don't care for much about my personal life. Therefore, an outside viewer would have no idea I have a girlfriend. In conclusion, some random person would be able to learn true things about me but it would be far from the whole truth.

Expectations

Expectations have been and will always be a powerful thing. They shape how you view things and people, but most importantly they shape you as a person. I was adopted into a family of devout Christians who loved to work hard in school and in sports. I'm the youngest of five, so naturally they would expect nothing different from the youngest. While I did try hard in sports, the problem is when it came to trying in school and church. I'm not sure if I didn't know how important trying in school is or if I just didn't care, but I realized my mistake and know that it is a good expectation. The expectation that I hated was the religious role I was supposed to fill. Forcing me to spend my time studying a filled me with resentment for my church and my parents. Both of these put pressure on my relationship with my parent's and led to arguments that affected us in ways i didn't like. I'm not saying their expectation for me was unreasonable or wrong, but i do know that it made things hard sometimes.

The Meaning of Happiness

Happiness to me is a joyful, uplifted mood. Being happy is extremely important to me in the sense that I want to be happy and I want the people around me to happy as well. Without happiness in my life I would find it hard to be productive and I would be in a dark and stressful place in my life. Its also important because without happiness I don't think it is possible to truly enjoy anything from work to spending time with people you love. The things that makes me happiest in life is going up to my cabin with just my friends in the summertime. No one has to worry about work or personal problems, all there is to do is relax.