Category Archives: Spring 2009
Lord Chesterfield Diction and Syntax
Posted in Spring 2009, Uncategorized
Style Analysis of Professions for Women
In conclusion, Woolf’s extroverted dignity reveals that while women of her time did not question the authority of society, she did. She inspired many women to think beyond their imagination into deep depths, to not let man’s judgment taint their thoughts. By doing so, she became a role model for many bright women, beginning the crack on the glass.
Woolf’s use of detail gives off an understatement when viewing her own accomplishments. She said her profession was literature, but that the “road was cut many years ago” making her “path smooth, and regulating [her] steps,” which helped her career build. In doing so she created a sense of serenity among humble women too tentative to start a profession. Along with this, she names a list of very famous classical authors before her time. When Woolf did this, she was actually comparing and including herself with these adept women. She also felt that “the reason why women have succeeded as writers before” was because of “the cheapness of writing paper,” which did not “demand” any money from the “family purse.” Woolf’s logic was to emphasize on how anybody could write, just as long as “one has a mind that way.” Surprisingly, men also played a small part in women writer’s success. They viewed women as harmless and having only thoughts of socializing and “housework.” This stereotype made women work harder and step out of man’s shadow to “[succeed] in other professions.”
Posted in Spring 2009, Uncategorized
Should the Government Issue Compulsory Voting?
Posted in Spring 2009
Psychology Paper on Reign Over Me explaining symptoms to prove that Charlie was depressed/suicidal
Posted in Spring 2009
Is knowledge Power or is Ignorance Bliss?
Knowledge in the real world today is a very special trait to have. To replace it with ignorance would be to make a “fool” out of one’s self. Once knowledge is obtained, great wonders could be achieved.
Looking back into prehistoric times, man did not start out in fancy suits, but rather with nearly no clothing at all and no knowledge of the outside world. As time progresses, so does knowledge. Notice where the world is today, we learned that there is more than just the planet earth, we learned how putting elements together creates something totally new, and much more that a mere essay could not begin to list. With knowledge, we have all the advancements that no other being before has, giving us “power” over them.
Another great reason for having knowledge is that it helps us to further advance into the future. Without knowledge, we would no longer have the automobile that we love so much to drive, the microwave that makes cooking much easier, the internet that helps us find our research faster, or the advancement in medicine that have helped and encouraged generations of people to keep moving forward.
Although gaining knowledge is very ideal, sometimes it can be abused. Some would wonder if maybe “ignorance is [really] bliss.” In the dictionary, bliss is defined as to have supreme happiness and ignorance is defined as a lack of knowledge or training. If a person was trying to find a job, but practices the idea of “ignorance is bliss” then how could that person ever find a job if training was required. The person couldn’t; therefore, the person would be unhappy, contradicting the idea of “ignorance is bliss.” Which is why, to be ignorant, is to ignore and live like there is nothing going on. If a person were to live like that, it is to live life with everyone knowing something you don’t know. It is to be out of the loop, not knowing what people think. It is to live an un-blissful life.
Whatever life a person has, knowledge is still power and it’s what someone does with that power that makes knowledge so incredibly special.
Posted in Spring 2009
Should Animals Have The Same Rights As People
Animal equality has always been an issue at hand. We eat them, we test them, and we keep them as pets, but is it enough to give them rights? I feel that they should at least have moral rights.
Animal testing is looked down upon by many, yet others find that because it benefits humans, it’s okay. Well it shouldn’t be. With advanced technology, we should be able to alter the way to find cures for diseases. When the U.S. bombed Japan, we destroyed a lot of their factories and technology. They had to start all over. With this new beginning, they created top of the line advanced technology. If they can do it, why can’t we develop “top of the line advanced technology” too. There is more than one way to do things and as dominant as we think we are, then let’s try a new way to cure diseases instead of using animals as the victim. People debate that torturing is wrong, yet half of the people that think that are hipocrites. Those hipocrites believe that torturing is wrong for people, but when it comes to animals, torture is not wrong because it saves a human life from that same torture. Animals are not much different from humans. Tim Radford, contributer to the UK Guardian explains that animals “can feel pain, experience fear, and react in disgust.” (Tim Radford) Radford goes on to say that “if a wildebeest did not feel pain, it would carry on grazing as lions chewed at its hind leg” and “if a canine did not experience disgust, it would not vomit.” In some senses, animals are also smarter than humans too. For instance, Cleveland Gonnawinn made a good point by asking “When was the last time you saw an animal smoking crack, cigarettes and/or drink a beer?” (Cleveland Gonnawinn) We are literally committing suicide. We may say we are superior but that does not make it true when half of our population is majorly flawed. Another good point Gonnawinn made was “we are said to be the smartest species on the earth, and that is because we as a people collectively support and made that comment.” Ironic right?
With animals should come rights that we as humans would want for ourselves. I’m not saying we should let them vote in our elections or anything, but morally can we at least treat them the way we wanted to be treated?
Posted in Spring 2009
More to: Should Schools Require That Children Be Vaccinated
With kids exposed to many viruses and harmful bacteria, the mandation of vaccines should be enforced all over the country.
Little do parents, or people in general, know what vaccines actually do. When a person is injected with a vaccination, he is exposing his body to the weakened virus or bacteria. Once in, he develops immunity to the pathogen. So if this person were really exposed to the injected virus/bacteria, his immune system would be ready to defend itself. Because of current times, there are less and less people infected with a disease, such as polio. However, there could always be a comeback of a disease, therefore everyone, including children, need to be vaccinated so there isn’t that risk. To really fight off another epidemic, we need to perform whats called herd immunity. According to the Manual of Epidemiology, herd immunity is when “a high proportion of individuals of a group” are “resistance to infection”. (Manual of Epidemiology) Dr. Vincent Iannelli explains that because “most people around you are immune to an infection and can’t get sick, then there is no one around to infect you, even if you aren’t immune to the infection.” (Pediatrics) Not only would you be “immune to an infection,” there are also many benefits of a vaccine. In the long run, vaccinations save many lives, reduce pain, suffering and disability, and they save a ton of money. A blogger for the Economist’s View adds that other benefits included are that “healthy people live longer” and “healthy children are more likely to attend school and are better able to learn” in class. (Economist’s View)
Although we all know that their aren’t many outbreaks of old diseases any more, it is easy to refocus our attention on the risks instead of the benefits. People do not realize that an epidemic could come back. This realization is why schools know what is in the students best interest to receive a vaccination: they want to prevent the risk of getting any student sick.
Posted in Spring 2009
Should Schools Require That Children Be Vaccinated? (flopped argument)
Vaccines are supposed to eliminate any harmful viruses, however many also pose as threats to the human body. Some will ask themselves, “Can I take the risk?”
Contributer Tatiana Morales of the CBS Early Show says that every day, there are “11,000 babies born.” (CBS News) Morales also mentions that with these new born babies, doctors recommend a total of “20 shots” before the baby reaches “18 months.” These “vaccinations” are suppose to strengthen their immune system and prevent “11 diseases.” However, as a child continuely grows, more vaccinations are required, especially entering the elementary schools. Morales quotes from The American Academy of Pediatrics that “immunizing a child is far more beneficial than not immunizing.” Although this may not seem so bad, there are reports of children’s health altering after receiving a vaccination. As ironic as that seems, parents do not realize that not all children’s bodies are exactly the same. Some respond differently to certain stimulus’s. For example, when my little sister was about five, she needed to have a vaccination for the chicken pox. We had no idea that when getting a vaccination, there could be any potential side effects, all we could think about was that it was one less disease to worry about. However, a couple hours after the vaccination, my sister started twitching uncontrollably and her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, drool falling out of her mouth everytime her body shook. We were all freaking out because we had no clue what was happening, so my mom immediately drove her into the emergency room. After the doctor calmed the seizures and did some blood work, he explained that Emily (my sister) had had a bad reaction to the chicken pox vaccination, but was going to be okay. As a sigh of relief was let out, the harmful effects of a vaccine can be very scary and even deadly. Many parents object to the vaccinations required for school, claiming for religious purposes or other personal reasons. Whether there is a reason or not, the child belongs to the parents, not the school, so why are the schools trying to take over? For instance, some schools require that children receive the hepatitis B shots. For those of you that do not know what that is, North Shore University defines it as “a virus commonly spread by sexual intercourse or blood transfusion, or from mother to newborn from birth. Another way it spreads is by using a needle that was used by an infected person.” (North Shore) I can understand if a mother passes this disease onto her newborn, the shot would be neccessary. On the other hand, I don’t exactly know any child that would participate in any “sexual intercourse” or shoot up an “infected” needle. Why then, would this vaccine be neccessary for kids? The answer: “because high-risk groups—sexually promiscuous adults and IV drug users—are difficult to reach or have rejected this vaccine.” (Opposing Views) So while these adults are exposing the disease, the younger generation must go through the transitions to prevent it, which doesn’t seem exactly fair. It seems that if children were made to receive mandatory vaccinations, then so should the “sexually promiscuous adults and IV drug users.”
While schools debate whether vaccinations should be recommended or required, parents and children alike need to know the risks that come with a vaccine and whether or not those risks are worth the trip to the doctors office.
Posted in Spring 2009
Should Schools Require That Children Be Vaccinated?
Some schools require that kids entering grades k-12 and sometimes even college be given shots that prevent diseases. Many argue that this is not neccessary and that it should not be up to the schools to mandate someone else’s child’s health issues. Getting a vaccine is painful, especially when seeing a kid go through it, however seeing a kid suffer through whooping cough is even worse. The need for vaccinations are imperative and would, in the long run, prevent many future out breaks.
The saying, “better be safe than sorry,” can very well apply to getting a vaccination. The CDC (Centers For Disease Control and Prevention) states that “Vaccine-preventable diseases have many social and economic costs: sick children miss school and can cause parents to lose time from work. These diseases also result in doctor’s visits, hospitalizations, and even premature deaths.” (CDC) Hearing this, many would say that maybe vaccines aren’t so bad after all. They save money and time. For people without health insurance, going to the Doctor can get pricey, especially if the child was so sick, x-rays or even surgeries were needed. Also, if vaccinations were stopped, millions of deaths worldwide could be expected. Because of the success of vaccinations, people do not realize that diseases, such as measles or polio, are dangerous. Many parents argue that instead of vaccinations curing their kid, it caused them severe health problems, like seizures or autism. According to an article in the New York Times, on Vashon Island, a ten month old baby died in his crib 2 weeks after an immunization. In another, a little girl suffered four years of seizures that began minutes after her first whooping-cough shot. Their doctors disagreed, but these mothers were sure the indictment was on the vaccinations. (NYTimes) These many blames may sound convincing, however researchers have shown that these vaccinations and diseases have no corralation. They say that parents often link vaccines with their children’s symptoms because they are vaccinated at an age when disorders are often first diagnosed.
As new diseases pop up and old ones drift away, our love or hate for vaccinations will always be here, and so will those diseases, hovering and waiting to come back for a second round. So will we be there to catch it?
Posted in Spring 2009
Toulmin Theory of Argument: Should Animals Have the Same Rights as People?
Evidence: The Sanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy says that “Humans are morally considerable because of the distinctively human capacities we possess, capacities that only we humans have. But which campacities mark out all and only humans as the kinds of beings that can be wronged? A number of candidate capacities have been proposed–developing family ties, solving social problems, expressing emotions, starting wars, having sex for pleasure, using language, or thinking abstractly, are just a few. As it turns out, none of these activities is uncontroversially unique to human. Both scholarly and popular work on animal behavior suggests that many of the activites that are thought to be distinct to humans occurs in non-humans. ”
Claim: Animals should have moral rights.
Warant: Although human beings and animals have a different genetic make-up, they share a lot of the same characteristics.As noted, animals basicly have the same wants and needs to survive as we do, showing that man-kind and animal are really not that different. When the world starts questioning whether or not animals should be given the privilage to have rights, then we have major selfish issues. They have feelings. They are not the ones with the problem, and they especially do not want to be stuck in a cage having harmful tests done to them. If we wanted something that bad, then we should have the integrity to go forth and do it ourselves, not be a coward and have an innocent animal do it for us. Animals are not something that can be disposed of when we need. They were put on this earth too, to live their life in peace and while they do no harm to us, is it fair to do harm to them, to take advantage of them?
Backing:If we were to put a human being into that tested animals place, we would find ourselves outraged and disgusted that someone could do that. Animals go through the same pain you would if you were both subjected to painful and deadly experiments. If products were pumped into your stomach, rubbed on your skin, or squirted in your eyes, I don’t think you would be able to sit there and just take it. Animals, like monkeys, that have to sit in their cages, never to see any of their family and friends and just waiting to die. If everyone and everything has feelings and experiences pain, then who are we to say that humans shouldn’t have to go through it, but other animals should? Millions of animals are tortured and killed each year for testing (peta.org) when most of those tests aren’t even 100 percent accurate.
Rebuttle: Although you don’t have that same compassion for animals, think about how that animal has to sit there everyday, not able to say a word, to take the pain, hoping for it to stop, but knowing that they have no control over it, until they take their last dying breath. That is what should be considered. That is why animals should have rights.
Qualifier: Not always do we have to consider moral rights for animals. A fly, for instance, is one that we don’t have to be defensive about.
Posted in Spring 2009