http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/27/health/research/27brain.html?ref=science
Please read the above article. What are your thoughts about surgery as a cure for obesity?
Due Wednesday Dec. 2 by midnight.
Thanks.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Monday, November 23, 2009
Politically Correct or a reason for murder?
Read the following editorial and "Quote, Paraphrase, Respond."
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez23-2009nov23,0,5458020.column
The Ft. Hood massacre was not the first violent tragedy that conservatives have blamed on political correctness. But it might be the first one in which they actually have a point.
In March, commentator Glenn Beck suggested that Michael McLendon, the man who killed 10 people in the worst rampage in Alabama history, might have been "pushed to the wall" because he felt "silenced" by political correctness. (Conservatives, in particular, he said, are afraid to speak up because "you're called a racist.")
Ten years ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed the infamous Columbine High School massacre -- in which teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 people and injured 21 others -- on the cultural contamination caused by decades of "political correctness" that "undermined the core values in American history." He said the two teenagers probably never realized they were robbing their victims of the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" because their teachers never taught them about the Constitution.
Let's face it, ever since the term was brought into popular usage in the 1990s, political correctness has been a convenient bête noire for conservatives. The PC label makes fun of the absurdities of the self-righteous liberal language police, and the right has done a bang-up job of spreading it around.
But the joke congealed into something nastier. Political correctness is not a powerful and deadly force, as prominent right-wing commentary would have us believe. But the term has become a kind of code for an essentially racial struggle over what it means to be American.
Take the three examples above of conservatives blaming mad violence on political correctness. In each case, those wielding the term are arguing that "Americans" have either been hamstrung in their ability to root out the bad guys (Ft. Hood), or have been induced to become bad guys themselves (Columbine and Alabama) by a PC regime that contaminated their heritage. But who are these Americans whose heritage and hands have been so tightly bound?
To answer that, it helps to remember why and how the culture of political correctness emerged. At best, the term refers to the active avoidance of expressions or actions that could exclude or offend minorities. It was this "soft" political correctness that led to our generally harmless acceptance of ethnic labels such as Native American in place of Indian, gender-neutral terms such as firefighter in place of fireman, and generally made members of the majority (i.e. white Americans) aware that not all Americans thought alike.
At worst, political correctness became an attempt to limit language, ideas and what was acceptable in public debate or conduct. Campus advocates have bullied or sought to silence those with opposing views. Oversensitive cultural watchdogs have encouraged stilted, self-conscious interactions -- between races, classes, genders or any minority group and the majority -- presumably to ensure that nobody was ever offended, not one tiny bit. Finally, and this may apply to the case of Maj. Nidal Hasan, workplace and legal regulations have made some bosses feel they could not fire even unsatisfactory minority employees for fear of being accused of discrimination.
For good or ill, political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population -- whites, or often more precisely white males -- to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds. That means the Americans who are considered to be victims of political correctness are members of the white majority. And the revolt against everything PC is driven by a sense that whites have bent over backward for -- and even sold out mainstream culture to -- minorities.
But is that true? Do blacks, women, Latinos, Native Americans or handicapped people, for that matter, have the United States in their proverbial pockets? Are the actions and lives of white people at large really impinged and shaped by the demands of these minority groups?
We do have an African American president, but can we even say members of that minority and others disproportionately hold seats of political or economic power in the country? White supremacist groups would say yes, but I don't think even Glenn Beck or Newt Gingrich would agree.
To be sure, the hazards of political correctness are not merely a figment of the right's imagination. In the case of Hasan, it may be that his problems and proclivities were ignored because his superiors feared they'd be accused of discrimination against a Muslim. And it's possible that his dangerous actions and behaviors were shrugged off as a matter of cultural sensitivity, or to provide the military with more strategic diversity.
But however PC things were during the major's career, what went wrong with him and the system surely can't be reduced to one bugaboo; it is deeper, broader and more complicated than that.
In any case, as conservatives should know, political correctness doesn't kill people -- angry, crazy people do.
grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-rodriguez23-2009nov23,0,5458020.column
Opinion
Ft. Hood and the bugaboo of 'political correctness'
Look deeper at a killer and what do you usually find? An angry, crazy person.
Gregory Rodriguez
November 23, 2009
In March, commentator Glenn Beck suggested that Michael McLendon, the man who killed 10 people in the worst rampage in Alabama history, might have been "pushed to the wall" because he felt "silenced" by political correctness. (Conservatives, in particular, he said, are afraid to speak up because "you're called a racist.")
Ten years ago, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich blamed the infamous Columbine High School massacre -- in which teenagers Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 13 people and injured 21 others -- on the cultural contamination caused by decades of "political correctness" that "undermined the core values in American history." He said the two teenagers probably never realized they were robbing their victims of the "inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" because their teachers never taught them about the Constitution.
Let's face it, ever since the term was brought into popular usage in the 1990s, political correctness has been a convenient bête noire for conservatives. The PC label makes fun of the absurdities of the self-righteous liberal language police, and the right has done a bang-up job of spreading it around.
But the joke congealed into something nastier. Political correctness is not a powerful and deadly force, as prominent right-wing commentary would have us believe. But the term has become a kind of code for an essentially racial struggle over what it means to be American.
Take the three examples above of conservatives blaming mad violence on political correctness. In each case, those wielding the term are arguing that "Americans" have either been hamstrung in their ability to root out the bad guys (Ft. Hood), or have been induced to become bad guys themselves (Columbine and Alabama) by a PC regime that contaminated their heritage. But who are these Americans whose heritage and hands have been so tightly bound?
To answer that, it helps to remember why and how the culture of political correctness emerged. At best, the term refers to the active avoidance of expressions or actions that could exclude or offend minorities. It was this "soft" political correctness that led to our generally harmless acceptance of ethnic labels such as Native American in place of Indian, gender-neutral terms such as firefighter in place of fireman, and generally made members of the majority (i.e. white Americans) aware that not all Americans thought alike.
At worst, political correctness became an attempt to limit language, ideas and what was acceptable in public debate or conduct. Campus advocates have bullied or sought to silence those with opposing views. Oversensitive cultural watchdogs have encouraged stilted, self-conscious interactions -- between races, classes, genders or any minority group and the majority -- presumably to ensure that nobody was ever offended, not one tiny bit. Finally, and this may apply to the case of Maj. Nidal Hasan, workplace and legal regulations have made some bosses feel they could not fire even unsatisfactory minority employees for fear of being accused of discrimination.
For good or ill, political correctness was a response to the rapid diversification of the U.S. population and the perceived need to induce the majority population -- whites, or often more precisely white males -- to take into account the sensitivities and self-definitions of minorities of all kinds. That means the Americans who are considered to be victims of political correctness are members of the white majority. And the revolt against everything PC is driven by a sense that whites have bent over backward for -- and even sold out mainstream culture to -- minorities.
But is that true? Do blacks, women, Latinos, Native Americans or handicapped people, for that matter, have the United States in their proverbial pockets? Are the actions and lives of white people at large really impinged and shaped by the demands of these minority groups?
We do have an African American president, but can we even say members of that minority and others disproportionately hold seats of political or economic power in the country? White supremacist groups would say yes, but I don't think even Glenn Beck or Newt Gingrich would agree.
To be sure, the hazards of political correctness are not merely a figment of the right's imagination. In the case of Hasan, it may be that his problems and proclivities were ignored because his superiors feared they'd be accused of discrimination against a Muslim. And it's possible that his dangerous actions and behaviors were shrugged off as a matter of cultural sensitivity, or to provide the military with more strategic diversity.
But however PC things were during the major's career, what went wrong with him and the system surely can't be reduced to one bugaboo; it is deeper, broader and more complicated than that.
In any case, as conservatives should know, political correctness doesn't kill people -- angry, crazy people do.
grodriguez@latimescolumnists.com
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Mr. Toulmin and his model
We talk a lot about the "Toulmin Model," without really exploring the ideas that Stephen Toulmin put forth. This week I would like for you to explain what the Toulmin way of thinking means to you. Why do you think we use it? What are the benefits? What are the limitations? How can it be used in different types of writing and thinking?
Please be honest! Please respond to this post by Wednesday evening. I want to use this discussion in class on Thursday.
Please be honest! Please respond to this post by Wednesday evening. I want to use this discussion in class on Thursday.
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
The Voice and Ms. Dowd
This week we have been discussing how to find our voices as writers. It takes years for some writers to develop a strong voice. They do so by consistently using the same rhetorical strategies in their writing. Below is a link to a columnist who is known for her strong, witty, and sometimes sarcastic voice. Please read the column and comment on how Maureen Down creates her voice.
As I am posting this post much later than anticipated, I will extend your time until Saturday November 12th at 5pm (that being I said, I strongly recommend you do it soon as the chances are very high you will forget once Saturday rolls around!).
11/13/ UPDATE: Apparently the link did not work (thanks Candace!), so I have posted the entire column in the body of this post.
Op-Ed Columnist
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1
As I am posting this post much later than anticipated, I will extend your time until Saturday November 12th at 5pm (that being I said, I strongly recommend you do it soon as the chances are very high you will forget once Saturday rolls around!).
11/13/ UPDATE: Apparently the link did not work (thanks Candace!), so I have posted the entire column in the body of this post.
Blue Is the New Black
WASHINGTON
Women are getting unhappier, I told my friend Carl.
“How can you tell?” he deadpanned. “It’s always been whine-whine-whine.”
Why are we sadder? I persisted.
“Because you care,” he replied with a mock sneer. “You have feelings.”
Oh, that.
In the early ’70s, breaking out of the domestic cocoon, leaving their mothers’ circumscribed lives behind, young women felt exhilarated and bold.
But the more women have achieved, the more they seem aggrieved. Did the feminist revolution end up benefiting men more than women?
According to the General Social Survey, which has tracked Americans’ mood since 1972, and five other major studies around the world, women are getting gloomier and men are getting happier.
Before the ’70s, there was a gender gap in America in which women felt greater well-being. Now there’s a gender gap in which men feel better about their lives.
As Arianna Huffington points out in a blog post headlined “The Sad, Shocking Truth About How Women Are Feeling”: “It doesn’t matter what their marital status is, how much money they make, whether or not they have children, their ethnic background, or the country they live in. Women around the world are in a funk.”
(The one exception is black women in America, who are a bit happier than they were in 1972, but still not as happy as black men.)
Marcus Buckingham, a former Gallup researcher who has a new book out called “Find Your Strongest Life: What the Happiest and Most Successful Women Do Differently,” says that men and women passed each other midpoint on the graph of life.
“Though women begin their lives more fulfilled than men, as they age, they gradually become less happy,” Buckingham writes in his new blog on The Huffington Post, pointing out that this darker view covers feelings about marriage, money and material goods. “Men, in contrast, get happier as they get older.”
Buckingham and other experts dispute the idea that the variance in happiness is caused by women carrying a bigger burden of work at home, the “second shift.” They say that while women still do more cooking, cleaning and child-caring, the trend lines are moving toward more parity, which should make them less stressed.
When women stepped into male- dominated realms, they put more demands — and stress — on themselves. If they once judged themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens and dinner parties, now they judge themselves on looks, kids, hubbies, gardens, dinner parties — and grad school, work, office deadlines and meshing a two-career marriage.
“Choice is inherently stressful,” Buckingham said in an interview. “And women are being driven to distraction.”
One area of extreme distraction is kids. “Across the happiness data, the one thing in life that will make you less happy is having children,” said Betsey Stevenson, an assistant professor at Wharton who co-wrote a paper called “The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness.” “It’s true whether you’re wealthy or poor, if you have kids late or kids early. Yet I know very few people who would tell me they wish they hadn’t had kids or who would tell me they feel their kids were the destroyer of their happiness.”
The more important things that are crowded into their lives, the less attention women are able to give to each thing.
Add this to the fact that women are hormonally more complicated and biologically more vulnerable. Women are much harder on themselves than men.
They tend to attach to other people more strongly, beat themselves up more when they lose attachments, take things more personally at work and pop far more antidepressants.
“Women have lives that become increasingly empty,” Buckingham said. “They’re doing more and feeling less.”
Another daunting thing: America is more youth and looks obsessed than ever, with an array of expensive cosmetic procedures that allow women to be their own Frankenstein Barbies.
Men can age in an attractive way while women are expected to replicate — and Restylane — their 20s into their 60s.
Buckingham says that greater prosperity has made men happier. And they are also relieved of bearing sole responsibility for their family finances, and no longer have the pressure of having women totally dependent on them.
Men also tend to fare better romantically as time wears on. There are more widows than widowers, and men have an easier time getting younger mates.
Stevenson looks on the bright side of the dark trend, suggesting that happiness is beside the point. We’re happy to have our newfound abundance of choices, she said, even if those choices end up making us unhappier.
A paradox, indeed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/20/opinion/20dowd.html?_r=1
Sunday, November 8, 2009
Free Expression?
There are two different viewpoints/claims presented in the article below. Your task is to find the claims, decide which one you agree with, then "quote, paraphrase, and respond!"
Thanks,
Ms. K
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/fashion/08cross.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
Thanks,
Ms. K
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/fashion/08cross.html?_r=1&ref=fashion
Monday, November 2, 2009
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