Blog Entry 13

The Meatrix Issues

Organic

     “The philosophy of organic food productions maintains certain principles: biodiversity, ecological balance, sustainability, natural plan fertilization, natural pest management and soil integrity.” According with The Meatrix website, around the time of WWII the intensive productivity of farming and technological advances put the manual labor aside, and synthetic fertilizers were affordable manufactured until “farmers reject the idea that this was advancement  in agriculture”, so they started to study other methods that improve the productivity ending with what we call organic. Organic farming or organic food is good not only for the environment but also for people because keeps us in balance and out of illnesses.

     Organic farming helps the environment since they don’t use pesticides or fertilizers that contaminate the soil and the environment. In addition animals such as cow, pigs and chickens are raised outdoors, fed with organic food and out antibiotics and hormones that promotes fast growing. As a result plants grow in a natural way giving more nutrients, and animal are raised happy far away from mutilations that makes them sick and that poisons their meat. Moreover, organic farming keeps sustainability which is good for people and farmers. To be mention farmers need to prove that their product is really organic, so they’ll be approve by the US Department of Agriculture’s (USDA). Therefore, consumers have to look for the “USDA” logo in order to be sure that the product they are buying is organic for real.

     To take out chemicals from food will give people a healthier environment because organic farming avoids water pollution, toxic free soil and since there are no mutilations on animals or antibiotics there would be no pandemics around. Moreover people won’t suffer of side effects such as pandemics, obesity and cancer.

     In conclusion, by following the principles of organic food production will keep us on an ecological and healthy balance that not only includes human beings but animals and plants. All these will be reached with the help of USDA and consciousness.

    

Blog Entry 14

Imitation of Film: Here’s Smoking at You Kid

[Re-writing]

    

     In the passage “Imitation o Film: Here’s Smoking at You Kid” by Nicholas Balakar, on which he states that children ages 10 to 14 tent to smoke more if they see actors smoking in the movies. Also researchers said that the 38% of children who start smoking do it because they trying to imitate what they have seen in the movies. I agree with the author because children ages 10 to 14 are looking for their own identity, they are very vulnerable and easy to be influenced by media when there no one to supervise them.

     Teenagers look for an identity everywhere, especially, when no one is there to supervise them, which occurs in most of the cases. Unfortunately, they find that sort of identity in the wrong places such as movies, where they favorite actors and actresses besides looking pretty, handsome, interesting and apparently having a lot of personality, have the habit of smoking. These characteristics are exactly what they looking for in order to be popular as them. In addition teenagers like to experiment with anything new or prohibited. Therefore, they are easy to be influenced by any type of addiction like smoking because of their vulnerability to the new things.

     Dr. James D. Sargent, the lead author on the study and a professor of pediatrics at Dartmouth Medical School said that “R-rated movies contain twice as much smoking” and those are viewed for children from fourth and fifth grade. This only shows the range that media can have since everywhere. For instance, the movies rated R on theaters require ID because they can’t be viewed by anyone under 17 since the content is considered too mature for younger viewers. However, media is not only on theaters, but also in the black market which anyone can find on the streets, and it is easy to afford it. For example, last week my ten year-old nephew asked me to take him to see Paranormal Activity 3 movie, so I respond no because it was R-rated, so he couldn’t see it. Then he said that his friend had told him what happened in the movie because his friend’s parents bought a copy of the movie on the street, so the whole family saw it including this kid who is only 10 years old. In this case not only media but the lack of consciousness of parents makes teenagers and easy prey to catch.

     In conclusion, due to the vulnerability of teenagers while looking for an identity makes them easy to influence by media into an addiction as smoking. More over parents lack of consciousness that leave our adolescents out of protection and how Dr. James D. Sargent says “This association should be taken very seriously.”   

Blog Entry 12

                                                     

                                                          The Meatrix

    The Meatrix part I is comperation a with The Matrix movie but with animals in a farm and their sad reality. The main character Leo who is a pig, seems to live happily as any other animal in  farm, suddenly a bull named Moopheus appeared telling him about the meatrix and asking if he wanted to know more about it. Moopheus offers him a blue pill which will keeps everything the same and a red pill which will show the reality of the meatrix. Leo chose the red pill and get in the reality where Moopheus show him how animals “live”, how they are abuse and mutilated. However Leo wanted to know how everything happened and started, so Moopheus explained him that since the 20^th century factory farmers found a way to to increase the production of meat for the consumerism of the entire country by reducing the space and putting the animals closer. Really close that they can even move, but this situation brough insanity between them, so to avoid the possible dieses factory farmers started to manipulate animals. For instance, They debeaking chickens and cut the cow’s tales. Moreover, they dosage them with antibiotics, to avoid dieses, but lately they’ve been overdosing them and this excess can end in an unstoppable epidemic. In addition the high quantity of pollutes the air and water of our environment   Moopheus tells Neo to help him to spread the word in order to stop the abuse to animals. So Leo responded to count him in it.

      SinceLeo “GOT INVOLVED”  with Moopheus , he had helped him to make more than 2 millions of people conscious about buying healthier meet, milk and eggs, but he needed to know more, and they get in to the meatrix. Once they get in, they appeared in a farm, but Leo who wasn’t wearing glasses saw that everything was beautiful , cows were well treated and a lady was getting milk from them manually. However, it wasn’t right, that Moophes told Leo to were his Glasses, so he could see the reality, which was that they were in a factory farm. In this factory farms the cows were always sick, even though they were dosage with antibiotics all the time. The antibiotics weren’t the only chemical the cows were dosage, but also an artificial growth hormone (RBGH) made it by Canada and the European Union. Moreover, calves were taken from their mother since they had born and factory farmers fed them with milk mixed with cow’s blood that would spread the mad cows desiese . At the end Leo recommended  people to by milk in some of the small family farms in order to stop the corporations of milk ut the agents capture Moopheus.

      In the meatrix II ½,  Leo and Chikity went to save Moopheus who is in a factory called “Happy Farms.” Inside the agents got Mopheus and show him how everything works in bad conditions such as the production is to fast that the employees hurt themselves and the meat get contaminated, also manure from the intestines were leaking on the meat. However, Leo and Chikity arrived on time to save Moopheus  but the fight will still continue. GET INVOLVED!!

        

Blog Entry 11

Does Knowledge Make You Happier?

     “As for me, all I know is that I know nothing” said Socrates meaning that despite of the vast knowledge we can get in our life, we will continue being ignorant in compare with the immensity of the universe. Therefore, I think that we would never get enough knowledge, but the more we get the happier we will become. On the other hand, there are some downs since everything is not perfect as we saw in Truman Show and in The Matrix. We can see these two sides of knowledge in our education in college and how it has influenced us as citizens and human being.

     “Te Allegory of the Cave”  in The Republic by Plato, Socrates sets up an scenario of a cave representing ignorance and to come out represents to come out to reality, to the enlightening while in The Matrix, to live in, it also represents ignorance and to come out represents knowledge but knowledge about the truth. In our daily life to get out of the cave is to get educated, or enlightened as Socrates said, so we can enjoy the beauty of the real world. This beauty is not only about nature if not the satisfactions that education brings which include a good job, competitive wages, and some luxuries that having a carrier can afford it. However, reality not always means a positive enhancement like in The Matrix, when Neo wakes up in the reality where the food is awful and barely has some clothes to wear.  In our reality, it is more than just to take a red pill because if we cannot afford to pay for school nobody is going to offer education for free, even though we are ready or willing to be enlightened. Moreover, some people in our community, who already has a degree, cannot qualify for a job or exercise the benefits of high education due to immigration status, and there is when people start to think that “ignorance is bliss” like Cypher, the traitor in The Matrix, who becomes frustrated about knowing the truth of the real world.

     “I imagine, right now, you must be feeling a bit like Alice, tumbling down the rabbit hole?” Morpheus said to Neo because he seemed confused and scared. The more Neo knew, the more he get impress. Similarly, when knowledge make people to understand things that couldn’t understand before but they are not capable of change them. For instance, knowledge makes people understand how the economy works and that the economists see people as number but not as humans that in determined situation they don’t care who die or lived. It also makes people understand that there are social problems such as poverty and famine. Because of knowledge, people get awareness about those situations and try to fix them which make them happy. However, we haven’t been capable to fix them which make us confused and scared humans beings.

     Indeed, knowledge makes us happier, but it doesn’t mean that reality it’s perfect because to know the truth, it also brings dissolutions that we aren’t capable to solve, so “all that I know is that I know nothing.”

Blog Entry 10

The Dangers of Reality TV

(Rewriting)

     Long time ago, the Romans invented the circus in order to entertain their population’s minds. Nowadays, we have something very similar to the Roman circus, and it is called reality TV. According to the passage “The Dangers of Reality TV” by Timothy Sexton, reality television minds in order to manipulate them. Sexton states that reality television is promoting competition as a key of success in shows such as Survivor and Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire. Another message is “image rather than ability” says Sexton, and the best example for that is American Idol, where no matter how talent a person can be if he or she has no personality, there will always be someone who is prettier. The last message to be mentioned by Sexton is that reality television doesn’t care about education and make the audience to believe in that. For reality TV there is no reason to go school for many years if people can get plenty of money by eating bugs and doing nasty things like in the show Fear Factor. I agree with the author, when he says that reality television promotes competition in order to reach success, image is more important than talent and education is not important because the people who are strongly influenced by these messages are teenagers who are inexperienced, and they are just developing their own criteria. Therefore teenagers are an easy prey for reality TV makers who want just block our way to education.

     Timothy Sexton says that reality TV is promoting competition in order to reach success, and we can see that in our daily life. For example, if a girl in the reality shows Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire has pretty hair, and she uses Pantene shampoo even when she is doing it just for publicity, a teenager girl who is looking for acceptance at high school and who wants to look prettier than other girls, will use it too because she wants to look pretty just as the girl in the reality show. Moreover, a teenager girl would think that she will win a handsome boyfriend or the most popular guy at school that can give her everything she wants, and she will grow up with the same idea in her head.

     Sadly, reality television not only influences teenagers with non-sense competitions but also adults, which is worse, with the idea of image rather than ability as Sexton says. It happened to two of my close friends who were absent at school for long time. One of them my friend Carlos who was a good student, but he became ill of kidney condition, which took him out of school for four months. When he came back to school, he tried to get on the same level with the rest of the class and took several tests. Unfortunately, he didn’t pass all of them. I have to mention that it was the la of three years of school, so it was the year of our graduation. Then Carlos asked for a second chance, so he would have time to prepare, but our professors said no to him. Carlos couldn’t graduate in that year. On the other side was my friend Joanna, who became pregnant, and she was absent in class for three months because she was ashamed. Joanna’s grades weren’t real good, but she was very pretty.  In fact everyone at school used to say that she was the most beautiful girl in the premises. The professors said that because it was the last year of school there was no reason to keep her stock in the same thing, and Joanna got her certificate without any challenge, and without any knowledge. This only proves that Sexton is right when he says that reality television transmits the idea that beauty is more important than any talent and people doesn’t even realize that they following it. Moreover, he is right about reality television promotes no education just as teaches at school did with my two friends. Carlos tried really hard, but Joanna didn’t have to. She only had to become pregnant and to be pretty in order to get the award as in reality TV where the pretty girl, even though she has no education or any talent, gets everything, nice and easy. Therefore people especially girls think that it would be that easy and not only at my school if not in my entire culture, but Joanna she didn’t even eat bugs.

     In conclusion, we should be smart and think twice about what we watching, so we won’t influenced by the circus  today called reality TV and we won’t be what the Romans meaning “reality” TV makers want us to be which is a “reality fan” without real education.                                                     

Blog Entry 9

The Perfect World

      I believe that in the movie “Truman Show”, Cristoff, the TV producer, creates the perfect world, and tries to give the perfect life Truman just as any father would do for his son. Some parents think that if they give everything their kids need, it would be the best for them. Parents always want to raise their kids in a good environment and far away from gangs, drugs or anything that can hurt them so their children would grow, graduate, find a good job and get married which equals a “perfect life.”For example, me at the age of 8 and as the youngest of six siblings, I was very spoiled that my parents almost didn’t let me do anything on my own. One day that I was about to cut an orange in half, and my mom came from somewhere and said not use the knife or I could hurt myself. Then my sister who was there asked to my mom, don’t you think that the Sleeping Beauty wouldn’t have hurt by needle, if their parents had thought her how to use it? My mom just nodded and from that moment and on she thought me to be independent. However, my parents always were very overprotective, especially my dad who besides everything was very traditional. He wanted me to graduate as secretary or accountant, and I had to live with them until I get civil marriage and in the church with a lawyer or sort of it, so that I would have a “perfect life.” It seems that it would be perfect for parents to create a world for their children out of bad people or anything that can hurt them and including thousands of cameras, so they can watch any moment their babies need them just like Cristoff did with Truman and just like my parents would have wished.

Blog Entry 8

                                            “The Allegory of the Cave” and The Truman Show

     While I was watching The Truman Show movie, the reflections of the past readings came to my mind. A poor child, who was a product of undesired pregnancy and was taken for an ambitious TV producer in order to create a perfect environment, life and world for a human being, Truman’s life wasn’t more than a reality show, so everyone outside in the real world could enjoy his life step by step without his knowledge since he was the only real one in it. Truman grew up in a manipulated world surrounded by obliviousness, lies of media, and hype perhaps as everyone of us.

      The scenario where Socrates sets up in “The Allegory of the Cave”, written by Plato, he describes to Glaucon, his student, a situation on where human beings are prisoners since they were born and all that they know about life are the shadows that are reflected on a wall in front of them because a blazing fire is behind them and between these two a long way with people crossing and talking producing echoes. Then one day one of the prisoners is set free, and in his way out he cannot distinguish well until his eyes get used to the light and he becomes amazed for what is outside in the real world. Similarity, Truman was like a prisoner since his first time alive inside this TV set living in ignorance like in a cave, seeing shadows who were the people around him talking things that sounded like echoes, words that nobody understand. However, that was his world until he wanted to be free, yet he couldn’t distinguish well at the beginning because people around him, the actors and actresses didn’t let him to see. Moreover the TV producer Chistof did everything in order to keep him inside as the chains of a prisoner would do, but Truman found his way out of his cave called “Seaheaven.”  Obliviousness doesn’t only happen in movies or literature work, but it also happens in real world. For instance, I know many people who came from my country to the US as they were trying to escape from a cave. They cave was their town surrounded by poverty due to corrupted government, but it was every that they have known since they were born. All that they knew is that they had to grow up, work, and get married, but they didn’t think about their education and the lack of it, were the chains that kept them in the cave of ignorance until they decided to come here, and set themselves free from the shadows of corruption and poverty. Mostly of them are trying to get “enlightened” as Socrates says, but others have just changed to a different cave.

Entry 7

                 

Reflection on Writing Skills

     The information given in class has been very useful because it has improved my annotating and summarizing skills, as far as significant idea to thesis is concerned, has helped me a lot since it’s much easier to get ideas but specially, saves time.

     I have noticed the improvement of my writing when I have to collect my ideas and put it together which is really satisfactory because I always take too long in the introduction of an essay.

     Despite of my improvement on summarizing, I’m still confused because I don’t know how much information I am suppose to write in the introduction or how I should add my opinion. On the other side,  I also think that my main problem is my lack of vocabulary that makes me spend a lot of time to figure out the right words. Therefore, I have been reading a lot, and I know that has nothing to do with what we have been seeing in class, but it is just part of my reflection.

     I feel a bit more confident on my writing skills than before, but I know that I still have to work on it.