1.Virtual Worlds, Real Science: Epidemiologists, Social Scientists Flock to Online World
Brian Vastag
Science News, Vol. 172, No. 17 (Oct. 27, 2007), pp. 264-265
Published by: Society for Science & the Public
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20056213
This article I found is about World of Warcraft and the effects of a wide spread epidemic. Apparently in 2005 Blizzard release a new dungeon and one of the curses they allowed the boss to have seaped out into the world and sread everywhere from there. This was very useful to people who study the effect of epidemics on people because even though it was in a vurtual world many of the responses were life like. "Word spread urging everyone to flee, but still the plague ripped through the world creating a holocaust." I believe this quote shows the severity of Massive online games and how serious it's players take it.
The Attitudes, Feelings, and Experiences
of Online Gamers: A Qualitative Analysis
Zaheer Hussain, M.Sc. and Mark D. Griffiths, Ph.D.
CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIOR
Volume 12, Number 6, 2009
ยช Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
DOI: 10.1089=cpb.2009.0059
This scholarly article is a pretty big experiment done on 71 participants from 11 different countries on the effects of MMORPGs. I know for a fact that this article will be helpful in paper 4 because it's title and abstract discuss exactly what I am interested in.Apparantly, "81% of online gamers were male and that
the mean age of players was 28 years." I find this very interesting and can't wait to see what else this article has to offer for me.
Monday, April 12, 2010
Sunday, April 4, 2010
Group Essay
The view taken by Tim Wise is that race is the primary casual factor in how an individual is able to work, and how easily they may progress in American society. Spe-cifically, a member of the American white majority will progress far easier than an equally capable minority individual. However, we feel that such a claim is mostly fictitious, and is not settled in reasoned fact.
Simply put by self-proclaimed anti-racism activist, Tim Wise, “skin color has been given social meaning that affects people’s lives” (Cook, 2009). His belief is that minori-ties are still often oppressed, both intentionally and unintentionally, by the light-skinned majority of Americans. He states that, “people of color are victims of housing discrimination 3 million times a year” (Cook, 2009). Using a rough approximation, this means that nearly one in three minorities moving are denied housing in some area annually. Clearly, from Wise’s view, with such high occurrence, racism is not a fringe issue
We contend however, that racism is not as significant of an issue that Wise makes it out to be. On the topic of putting a wall on the Mexican-American border, he says that such an action is “selective enforcement. [American’s have a longer…border to the north, and [America] isn’t building a wall there” (Cook, 2009). Such a statement does not bear any weight though. As the United States does not have a significant im-migration problem from the Canadian border, there is no need to merit any sort of phys-ical barrier along the border. However, on the Mexican-American border as many as an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrates make their way into the United States annually. Wise goes on to claim that police tend to be racist as well, citing that Black and Latino males are two to three times more likely to be stopped for a drug search as whites, while white individuals are far more likely to be carrying illicit drugs. This statement ig-nores where individuals are pulled over, and questions of crime rates in areas where drugs are more common. In these areas arrest rates may very well be on par between individuals, yet possession rates are unrelated to arrest rates. In rural areas where mi-nority numbers tend to be low and possession rates are still high. As such, the concept of race causing privilege is mostly fictitious, and for most purposes nonexistent.
From this I feel so much anger, but it’s not the anger that you are all thinking I’m feeling. I am not some racist who feels I need to slam any race. As you can tell from my earlier writings in this blog I do not have sympathy for other races because frankly I feel I am just as labeled and oppressed as they are for being white. As a white male I am said to be superior to all and with that I have no opinion on racism that isn’t racist. I say screw that… how is that fair? Just because some white man’s ancestors messed up means I deserve to be oppressed because of it? My family migrated to the States in the 1950’s from Russia and Germany and you want to tell me that I come from some white owned plantation in the 1800’s where blacks and Latinos were miss-treated? Well thank you for being racist and assuming that. I have done nothing to deserve this oppression just like blacks and Latinos and that’s why I wish to make an argument on why exactly we still have the word race around?
From the looks of it, giving people a race has only allowed someone to be supe-rior, so why can’t we just abolish all races and consider man as a whole? I’m tired of every time I am oppressed and it’s labeled as reverse racism and it is ok. Why can’t we just do what the great Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind and make all men equal? Don’t you people see? Tim Wise is not for equality, he’s for getting even. He believes that since blacks and Latinos have been oppressed for so long I owe them something. Let me tell you that I do not take any part in this oppression and racism he speaks of and if you say I do well then I think you are a racist.
If I was to go to any other part of the world I am considered the minority and then it’s ok for me to be oppressed but since I am in a land of majority whites it is impossible for a black or Latino man to be racist towards me? I feel you people are missing some-thing in this argument and that something is logic. This is why I strongly urge that we take all races out of the United States and change it to man. No more special scholar-ships, no more we don’t serve your kind here, no more of anything that is oppressing. If you can get special privileges for the color of your skin then I think I might just go dye my skin brown, dye my hair black, speak with an accent, and apply for a college, and in doing so I might just send in another application as a white man as well with the same criteria and see which one gets in and then when either is let go (now days I feel like the white person wouldn’t get in) I would open a lawsuit towards that school and show them that I will not stand for this racist BULL SHIT! I don’t care how you justify allowing the color of someone’s skin to grant them special privileges your are promoting racism and in doing so are keeping racism alive in this country, making anyone and everyone who allows special privileges to races, a racist, not the common white male, Mr. Tim Wise.
How might racism affect vegetarian and omnivorous food communities I’m not quite sure and frankly I don’t believe they do and until someone else can prove to me how this might be I have nothing more to say on this issue towards paper 3.
Works Cited
Wise, Tim. "By the Color If Their Skin." Interview by David Cook. The Sun July 2009: 4-12. Print
Simply put by self-proclaimed anti-racism activist, Tim Wise, “skin color has been given social meaning that affects people’s lives” (Cook, 2009). His belief is that minori-ties are still often oppressed, both intentionally and unintentionally, by the light-skinned majority of Americans. He states that, “people of color are victims of housing discrimination 3 million times a year” (Cook, 2009). Using a rough approximation, this means that nearly one in three minorities moving are denied housing in some area annually. Clearly, from Wise’s view, with such high occurrence, racism is not a fringe issue
We contend however, that racism is not as significant of an issue that Wise makes it out to be. On the topic of putting a wall on the Mexican-American border, he says that such an action is “selective enforcement. [American’s have a longer…border to the north, and [America] isn’t building a wall there” (Cook, 2009). Such a statement does not bear any weight though. As the United States does not have a significant im-migration problem from the Canadian border, there is no need to merit any sort of phys-ical barrier along the border. However, on the Mexican-American border as many as an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrates make their way into the United States annually. Wise goes on to claim that police tend to be racist as well, citing that Black and Latino males are two to three times more likely to be stopped for a drug search as whites, while white individuals are far more likely to be carrying illicit drugs. This statement ig-nores where individuals are pulled over, and questions of crime rates in areas where drugs are more common. In these areas arrest rates may very well be on par between individuals, yet possession rates are unrelated to arrest rates. In rural areas where mi-nority numbers tend to be low and possession rates are still high. As such, the concept of race causing privilege is mostly fictitious, and for most purposes nonexistent.
From this I feel so much anger, but it’s not the anger that you are all thinking I’m feeling. I am not some racist who feels I need to slam any race. As you can tell from my earlier writings in this blog I do not have sympathy for other races because frankly I feel I am just as labeled and oppressed as they are for being white. As a white male I am said to be superior to all and with that I have no opinion on racism that isn’t racist. I say screw that… how is that fair? Just because some white man’s ancestors messed up means I deserve to be oppressed because of it? My family migrated to the States in the 1950’s from Russia and Germany and you want to tell me that I come from some white owned plantation in the 1800’s where blacks and Latinos were miss-treated? Well thank you for being racist and assuming that. I have done nothing to deserve this oppression just like blacks and Latinos and that’s why I wish to make an argument on why exactly we still have the word race around?
From the looks of it, giving people a race has only allowed someone to be supe-rior, so why can’t we just abolish all races and consider man as a whole? I’m tired of every time I am oppressed and it’s labeled as reverse racism and it is ok. Why can’t we just do what the great Martin Luther King, Jr. had in mind and make all men equal? Don’t you people see? Tim Wise is not for equality, he’s for getting even. He believes that since blacks and Latinos have been oppressed for so long I owe them something. Let me tell you that I do not take any part in this oppression and racism he speaks of and if you say I do well then I think you are a racist.
If I was to go to any other part of the world I am considered the minority and then it’s ok for me to be oppressed but since I am in a land of majority whites it is impossible for a black or Latino man to be racist towards me? I feel you people are missing some-thing in this argument and that something is logic. This is why I strongly urge that we take all races out of the United States and change it to man. No more special scholar-ships, no more we don’t serve your kind here, no more of anything that is oppressing. If you can get special privileges for the color of your skin then I think I might just go dye my skin brown, dye my hair black, speak with an accent, and apply for a college, and in doing so I might just send in another application as a white man as well with the same criteria and see which one gets in and then when either is let go (now days I feel like the white person wouldn’t get in) I would open a lawsuit towards that school and show them that I will not stand for this racist BULL SHIT! I don’t care how you justify allowing the color of someone’s skin to grant them special privileges your are promoting racism and in doing so are keeping racism alive in this country, making anyone and everyone who allows special privileges to races, a racist, not the common white male, Mr. Tim Wise.
How might racism affect vegetarian and omnivorous food communities I’m not quite sure and frankly I don’t believe they do and until someone else can prove to me how this might be I have nothing more to say on this issue towards paper 3.
Works Cited
Wise, Tim. "By the Color If Their Skin." Interview by David Cook. The Sun July 2009: 4-12. Print
Monday, March 29, 2010
Picking a source
Of course I wrote my first blog on the wrong thing. Oh well at least it gives me a little extra room to rant about having to do twice the amount of work because my dumb ass was rushing. So any ways when I pick a source I usually do a google search to find interesting ideas and topics to write my paper on, lets face it, if I was to do that in one of these boring library websites they wouldn't be much help. After I find an interesting topic I will then go to a scholarly web site like jstor.org, which by the way has been the best source finder all year for me and after writing five research papers last semester and three so far this semester I think it deserves some credit. A scholar web site is always the place to go because their claims and information can always be traced back to an original source by someone who actually did field work on that specific topic. If I could go about finding sources any other way it might be getting a better understanding of our libraries way of working. I hope I'm not alone either when I say this because I have been to two of the classes where the librarian comes in and teaches the class how to use the wsu library web site and I still get lost. They either need to make it a required class for freshman or make it much more user friendly because I feel everytime I log onto that website to find a source, WSU needs to be paying me for my amount of hours spent there trying to figure out what the hell is going on.
They Say I Say Chapter 9
In chapter nine of They Say I Say, they discussed how "Acedemic Writing Doesn't Mean Setting Aside Your Own Voice", but I say since when? Because everytime I write a paper and I add a little bit of my own flavor into it I get immediatly shut down once it gets peer edited. As soon as I add my own "ness" to it someone comes along and says, "NO COLLOQUIAL!" and crosses it out. It's not just from students either, I get it from T.A. and Teachers too. Heck students wouldn't even know what colloquial statements were unless we were marked down for them time and time again. The funny thing is that all my colloquial statements have never been any more riskay than the examples in this book either, that's what really gets me. Here I am reading a book that tells me that putting a little bit of flavor into my writting is ok and then on the other hand I am being shot down left and right and told to keep it strictly proffesional and scholarly with no flavorful opinions or mildly colloquial statements. Until I am actually promised by a professor that writting mildly colloquial statements in my papers will not result in a bad grade on my paper I will keep writing my papers as scholarly as I possible can.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Paper 3 source
http://www.jstor.org/stable/29525369?&Search=yes&term=vegetarian&list=hide&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dvegetarian%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dvegetarian%2Bhybrid%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don&item=2&ttl=5816&returnArticleService=showArticle.
i found this article of Jstor.com after doing some research on the vegetarian diet. I read through some of it and it seems to be useful so we'll see when it comes down to judgement day.
i found this article of Jstor.com after doing some research on the vegetarian diet. I read through some of it and it seems to be useful so we'll see when it comes down to judgement day.
Norman Borlaug'sArticle
Norman Borlaug is obviously a very intelligent man. I mean half the stuff he discussed in his article went right over my head the first time reading it. Now that I think I understand what it is exactly he was discussing I think he has a very good head on his shoulders full of logic. He seems to be on a bio technical stand point for crops, but also respects that some food products even after being genetically modified, are certainly not perfect. I also believe and agree with him for calling out the reporter from Nairobi who used the critics from South Africa and Ethiopia to support his argument that supplies from America for aid are genetically modified so that we can trap them into buying crops from us for now on, but as Mr. Borlaug says these critics have no scientific facts to base these opinions off of. Nothing pisses me off more than when some idiot has a grudge and feels he can just go around making assumption and pointing fingers with out and evidence.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Omnivore's Dilemma; Chapter 15
Chapter 15 of Omnivore's Dilemma was a short chapter on how Pollan was preparing to make a meal from sustenance of all foraging groups. Fruits, vegetables, fungi, and meat were what made up this meal and he wanted to find and gather enough of each to make his first meal that he has ever gathered all of the needs to create. Pollan had just moved to California, so he was not to familiar with the area, so he decided to hire a foraging Virgil. This way he would not have to worry about shooting the wrong animal, picking the wrong fungi, nor consuming the wrong forage. I would say this was a smart move on Pollan's behalf, especially when you have just moved to an area that you are not familiar with.
Pollan seems to poke fun at how easy it is for a resident of California to buy a firearm, but can't take aim at an animal before taking hunter's education. I personally don't believe that you should have to take hunters education to buy and own a firearm, but I do think it is a good idea. Hunters education teaches you allot of common sense things like the proper way of carrying a gun over a fence and things like this, things you think people should already know, but the truth is that they wouldn't teach it if it wasn't a problem so what most think to be common sense is often not common sense until they have taken hunters education or some safety class on guns. So maybe if you don't feel like taking hunters education you should still have to take some sort of firearm safety course before being allowed to purchase a firearm of any sort. Not every person buying a gun has handled one before so accidents are immanent, so why not send them through a class before allowing them to buy a gun and giving them the chance to learn from trial and error.
I think Pollan made a good choice by not eating the mushroom he found while on his nature hike. That kind of thing should really be left to a professional and maybe once you have been taught by a proffesional, then you too could be an expert on the matter. Maybe if he had consumed that familiar looking fungi he might not of ever finished this book. haha
Pollan seems to poke fun at how easy it is for a resident of California to buy a firearm, but can't take aim at an animal before taking hunter's education. I personally don't believe that you should have to take hunters education to buy and own a firearm, but I do think it is a good idea. Hunters education teaches you allot of common sense things like the proper way of carrying a gun over a fence and things like this, things you think people should already know, but the truth is that they wouldn't teach it if it wasn't a problem so what most think to be common sense is often not common sense until they have taken hunters education or some safety class on guns. So maybe if you don't feel like taking hunters education you should still have to take some sort of firearm safety course before being allowed to purchase a firearm of any sort. Not every person buying a gun has handled one before so accidents are immanent, so why not send them through a class before allowing them to buy a gun and giving them the chance to learn from trial and error.
I think Pollan made a good choice by not eating the mushroom he found while on his nature hike. That kind of thing should really be left to a professional and maybe once you have been taught by a proffesional, then you too could be an expert on the matter. Maybe if he had consumed that familiar looking fungi he might not of ever finished this book. haha
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