I'm a huge fan of eating meat. I was just raised to like it. It's tasty, it's satisfying, it get's the job done. But I found out some pretty disturbing things about meat and how it effects the entire world. According to vegsource.com, there are many arguments as to why our meat consumption should be toned down quite a bit. They have many arguments with evidence for this, but I think the most convincing was the hunger argument. According to them if Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10%, the land freed up could feel 100 million people. It doesn't give many details like a time frame or how they'd get the food or what food would be grown, but it still packs a powerful punch. It also goes on to say how most of the corn and oats and grains produced in America are used to feed livestock. This is rather convincing because it shows if we ate less meat there would be less livestock and if there was less livestock there would be more food. It seems to make sense. Another convincing point is that on one acre of land 40,000 pounds of potatoes can be grown while only 250 pounds of beef can be produced. It all makes perfect sense and if you read the page the other arguments are very logical too. But my question is, if it's so obvious that less meat is a good thing, then how come we are still eating it by the shovelfull?
I have some ideas. For starters we're really used to consuming meat, and plus it's tasty. Old habits die hard and plus, I can say personally switching from meat eating to vegan is tough. My mom had a phase of at least a year and a half where she was obsessed with eating organic. We would often have meatless meatballs and meatless bacon and meatless meat. I'm not gonna lie, it was pretty disgusting. But another reason is because it's profitable. There's nothing more important to people than money, and less beef means less money. So in order to keep the cash flowing they have to keep the beef flowing. That also makes perfect sense and it's probably the main reason. Another main reason is that many people just don't know. I know I didn't. Meat is thought of as being healthy and the stuff that builds muscles, it's hard to see the overall impact that producing meat has on the world when we see the immediate benefits so much sooner. So for now I will try to eat less meat, but unless somehow the word is spread quickly and well about the harm meat has on the world, I don't see less beef in our future.

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Stalkerazzi

My sister is a frequenter of sites such as perezhilton.com. She likes her celebrity gossip and candid photos, and hey, who can blame her? Let's be honest, it's really interesting to hear about what the daily life of your favorite movie star or musician is really like. Here's where the Paparazzi come in. I always hear about the Paparazzi ruining lives, so being the curious person that I am, I decide to look wikipedia it. I never realized what horrible people these photographers are. For example, a photographer crashed his car into Catherine Zeta-Jones's car in order to get her out of it. Some photographers were found camping on Susan Sarandon's property, as in her house. And of course the most famous would be the debate of whether Princess Diana's death was due to the Paparazzi they were fleeing from. This seems like a minor subject, but I feel like it's exploitation and pornography. These leeches are making a quick buck out of harassing celebrities. They intentionally try to get a reaction out of them to make the footage more sensational. If you've ever seen a show called TMZ it's all they do. If you haven't seen it, count yourself lucky. It's painful to watch. It's a room full of people saying who they harassed and then showing the footage. It's truly despicable.
This makes me wonder how far is too far. When will something so horrific happen because of the Paparazzi that laws will be put against them. Already there are laws against being too aggressive while getting photos of celebrities. But just look at all the photos of people like Amy Winehouse. It's horrible of course what she's doing to herself and she obviously has some issues that she needs to deal with, but for Christ's sake leave her alone! She's troubled enough without four trillion people trying to get her to look bad. Anyway, I didn't even expect to be writing about this, but after looking at what a person will do to get a stupid photo I had to say something.

On Gugle Making us Stoopid

I wanted to touch on the topic we discussed a few days ago with the "Google is making us stupid" article. There is really no way to measure the affect on google on the entire population, but we can make good guesses based on certain cases. When Carr quotes Karp and Friedman, two persons well versed in literature according to Carr, this evidence really puts in to words something I've noticed myself. I'm beginning to read books the way I read online, in short bursts. I have diagnosed attention deficit disorder and I have trouble listening and reading one thing for too long. It's a trade off though because when I get into something I'm interested in, I hyperfocus for a short burst of time which can be personally rewarding. It's not a big deal, but ADD does affect almost everything I do. But I feel like more and more people are beginning to have ADD of some kind. This makes me wonder, are we being conditioned by society and by basically ourselves to have short attention spans? This is basically the argument Carr is making. Will our education system then adapt to this new way of thinking? I can personally say that a short attention span and our current education system do not mesh. I don't think either the person or the system are at fault. But something has to be changed in one or the other won't survive.
But we can't forget that google has revolutionized the way information is gained and shared. It's truly incredible the hieghts technology has taken us to. But we have to be careful with all this new power, it might make us stoopid.

Obamarama

I know this is probably about the four billionth post about how great Obama is, but I'll go ahead and say what I mean to say anyway.  I'm so incredibly proud of our country.  Our country was founded on ideals of equality and the basic rights of man (I won't go into that since I already have an essay's worth of things to say about that) and some of those rights were great ideas but didn't really work out when they got the country started.  Abolishing slavery wasn't just a cool idea Lincoln came up with one morning, they'd been talking about it for years.  It took them three quarters of a century to get that done.  But even after they abolished slavery there was clear racism in america.  I don't want to bore you with a stupid brief history of the civil rights movement ect.  

The point is that Obama being elected president is probably among the most important events in our nation's history.  It has turned the american dream into something even wider and more inclusive.  Growing up teachers said "anybody can be president" but now I actually believe it.  And the fact that he is also and incredible smart leader who will do great things with this country and was elected for that and not because of his being black is even better.  Nothing will ever be the same.

That being said, I'd like to also say something about John McCain.  I was talking to my friends on election day about the whole thing and finding out just how misinformed people can be. Almost all of my friends are very liberal people and I consider myself to be a moderate with liberal leanings.  But they were saying wild things like "if McCain wins then it's over, I'm moving to Canada,"  or "Mark Kirk is a crazy man."  I know they were exaggerating for effect, but it just was so strange to hear.  Had McCain been elected president, he would've done a fantastic job!  I don't agree with everything he promises, but I don't agree with everything Obama promises either!  McCain is a true american hero and would've made a darn good president.  I just think Obama was the best candidate.

Well I guess this post has about no point whatsoever and is really just me ranting about my opinions.  But if I were to make a point it would be that I think people our age should be more informed before they go around making really strong statements.  That's not to say that I am well informed about everything, I just think a person should be informed before they start hating someone for no reason. 

Blocking information

On the French and German Google search engines, more than 100 sites deemed controversial have been quietly removed from the search listings. These sites were mainly nazi sympathy sites that denied the existence of the holocaust. I don't think people are going to miss those sites, but how is something deemed "controversial?" Since the internet is a fairly new advancement in technology, there are almost no regulations and laws for it that pertain to the whole web. Sure schools and workplaces can ban certain sites, but can a search engine really just not list some sites. China has been known to block Google from the country, but that again is an example of a government (or workplace or whatever) that is controlling what its people see and is another issue all together.
I don't think a public search engine should have to block anything from the public. It's fine if they are asked to block it by a government or if the government (or workplace, school, etc.) itself blocks it, but I don't think Google should get in trouble for something they can't help. A better solution would be for the government to go after the people creating the websites instead of a search engine that just locates it.
We should also look at the future and anticipate what kind of regulations need to be followed by the internet. One of the most innovative things about the internet is how freeing it is and uncensored. But as time moves on, there are generally more and more people with more and more complaints and criticisms and biases whose feelings are easily hurt and if they need to regulate it, then fine. But don't go after a search engine whose job it is just to find the pages.

Here's the article.

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Genetic Gender Bender

A new procedure is being developed to let expectant mothers choose the gender of their babies. This controversial procedure has taken nine years to be approved for research, and it even now faces some opposition. Doctors are wondering whether or not this is ethically the right thing to do. Will this be used for non medical procedures? If they allow to select gender, what's to stop them from being able to select other frivolous traits to be passed on?
If you've ever seen the movie GATTACA, then you know where Hollywood scientists think this can lead. GATTACA takes place in a dystopian society where our prejudices against race have been replaced by a genetic prejudice. The scientists have been able to choose things ranging from hair color to life expectancy. Those who were born "love babies" are genetically inferior and not allowed to have the same rights and luxuries as those genetically perfect.
I think that this new procedure is incredibly interesting, but we should be careful what we do with it. It's one thing to prevent a birth defect by ensuring the baby's gender, but choose the sex of your child based on your own selfish wants goes against nature. What if the baby was supposed to be a boy and you chose a girl. Will that child be a boy stuck inside of a girl's body? Will they be unhappy all their life? We don't have the answers to those questions.
Also, this could open the doors to a whole new kind of discrimination. I'm fully aware that GATTACA is a Hollywood movie and should not be treated as a prediction of the future, but even untrue stories hold some sort of truth in them, and the message is still relevant.
The publics' reaction to it is also important. 59% of women said they'd refuse the procedure even if it was completely free. So maybe even if the technology's available, people will appreciate the miracle and surprise of birth as nature intended it.

News article

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Homosexual High

There are reports that a high school is opening in Chicago that is designed to be a safe place for gay and lesbian students to go. The argument for it is that gay and lesbian students are three times as more likely to skip school because they feel unsafe. This leads to truancy and lower grades. But an even bigger problem is the violence that openly gay people can face. The article I read from CNN.com told about a 15 year old kid who was shot by another boy after he asked him if he'd be his valentine.
There's no question that there's generally a bad attitude towards homosexuals in the younger crowd. Gay people face harassment and bullying all the time, and this school does seem like a nice, easy way to stop the bullying. But what is sacrificed by separating these students from the rest of the world? Legally they cannot ask the sexual preference of a student, but it definitely is geared towards gay kids. When does something like this become segregation. And maybe someone agrees that it's segregation but believes that it's a good solution. But what isn't being discussed here is the issue of how being separated from other students will affect them negatively.
I think this is too easy of a solution. Instead of slapping a band aid by separating the harassed kids we should focus of teaching the harassers what's wrong with doing that to other people. Is this a real solution to this huge problem?
Another issue that this gay high school might bring about is tricky to explain. If these homosexual students go to high school where everyone else is also gay, how will this affect the way they function in society. It's the way a home schooled kid reacts when they are suddenly dropped into high school. All these prejudices and people and biases they didn't know about are suddenly dropped onto them like a ton of bricks. High school is part of a very long training for the real world that every kid has to go through. In the real world there are going to be angry and violent people, there are going to be groups that aren't so accepting, and there's going to be homophobia. It's something real that has to be dealt with. But to learn how to cope, I think going to a regular high school is vital.
Now I know the argument against what I'm saying is that gay people are in danger because of all the prejudice and violent hate against them. But that's where a solution should come in. There should be more serious consequences for students who act out against homosexuals. But to segregate homosexuals is almost as wrong as segregating black people (for different reasons of course) and we should seriously consider opening this school.

Here's the CNN article
the picture's also from there.

My choice of an editorial is from the September 27th edition of the New York Times. Here's the editorial:



"September 27, 2008


I’m Your Pastor, and I Approved This Ad
Call it an act of faith or call it a political ploy, but 33 ministers plan to endorse a presidential candidate from their Sunday pulpits in defiance of federal law.
The ministers and the conservative group organizing them know they are breaking a 54-year-old law barring tax-exempt organizations from using their sheltered status to support a political candidate. They want to be taken to court, quickly, in hopes of overturning it.
The pastors complain that the statute limits their free expression. We take any challenge to free speech very seriously, but this is not a challenge to free speech. This is about protecting the collection plate while using the power of the pulpit to influence elections. Shepherds are entirely free to tell their flocks whom to vote for. They just cannot expect taxpayers to subsidize turning their churches into campaign offices.
The tax code mandate they are challenging has protected the separation of church and state by denying tax deductions for contributions to charitable organizations that engage in secular campaigning.
The ministers haven’t announced their preferences, although Senator John McCain is expected to be favored. Senator Barack Obama has blurred church-state lines in promising more subsidies for social programs run by religious-based groups. But Mr. McCain has gone much farther, proclaiming America to be “a Christian nation.”
A (tax-exempt) consortium of Christian lawyers that presses conservative causes — the Alliance Defense Fund — has organized the ministers’ protest as Pulpit Freedom Sunday. They argue that the tax code restricts their right to be “talking to their congregations about biblical issues related to candidates and elections.”
Taxpayers of any faith should see this as an election-year gambit to dash the pillar of church-state separation. Other clergy, mindful of being spiritual not political ministers, have organized to say no thanks to Pulpit Freedom Sunday. We expect the courts and the Internal Revenue Service to say those preachers are in the right."

Reading this article, you have to understand what the law entailed. It basically says that tax exempt organizations (such as churches) cannot protect their money from the IRS while still associating the church with a candidate. This law has been in effect for 54 years and this is the first time it's being broken. The author's opinion is not exactly easiest t0 find, but it's entirely appropriate with the way she shows her argument. She starts with the unbiased facts, then moves on to give her opinion. She obviously does not agree with the church thinking it is an issue of free speech. She believes that an issue of free speech would be banning them from preaching about politics, which the law does not ban. To make this easier for the reader to understand, she uses a metaphor very well. She says, "Shepherds are entirely free to tell their flocks whom to vote for. They just cannot expect taxpayers to subsidize turning their churches into campaign offices. " This explains the they can tell the church members to vote for one candidate, but they cant take advantage of their not having to pay taxes and make their churches into a campaign office that is exempt from taxes. Her argument is solid, and it's not fueled by anger which is nice. It is a little hard to follow, but her point gets across nicely. A point that I wished she would've expanded on was McCain calling America a christian nation. I think that was compelling point and I wanted to read more about that.

A m

I found this picture of a "sexy puritan" costume on the web, and it made me think about how ironic it was that a society that so conservative and held back, are being parodied now by this costume. I also wanted to pose a question I had been thinking about lately during this whole puritan unit. How would the puritans react to society nowadays, where even the historically "purest" society is being skewered in a cheap attempt to cash in on the "sexy Halloween costume" craze.

To answer this question, I think we can safely draw some comparisons to the Amish society. If puritans were still around today, they'd probably share many characteristics with the Amish. They'd probably create separate communities away from the modern world, and have some of the same values. I think that the difference between the two would be in their reactions to this "modern world." The Amish people live in harmony with the "modern world," while staying completely separate. If the puritans were around today, I think that they'd be vocally opposed to our way of life, and insist on their viewpoint. They'd insist that they are the city on the hill and that our society is destined for eternal damnation.

There is a reason that there are no puritans anymore, they can't survive in the modern world. I posed this question hypothetically, because I've wondered during this unit how a puritan would survive nowadays. If the puritan society had lived on, it probably would've evolved with the times into something completely different. But you can be sure of one thing, the traditional puritan would not be caught dead in one of those costumes, lest they fall prey to the devil and eternal damnation.

I started cracking up during Palin's speech at the Republican Convention when I saw this.  Check it out.

my first blog!

dear people of the interweb,

this is my first post!

love,
michael

p.s. check this out!

p.p.s.