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
ª 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

Omnivore's Dilemma Chapter 16

This chapter in Omnivore's Dilemma is all about... well just that, an Omnivore's Dilemma. Pollan discusses how humans and rats are both similar in the since that they are both omnivores, but unlike rats, humans have fallen away from natural instincts on choosing foods and began to rely on advertisement, and scientists to chose their diet for them instead. Pollan also discusses how this is a Capitalist doing, and that it's all about making money. Michael Pollan right or wrong is a very clever opinionated man. Whether he bends the words of others to get his point across, or if he just lays out cold hard facts, he leaves me with a sense of just wanting to stop all this packaged, marketed crap and go back to home grown farms and family dinners where everyone actually sits together and enjoys the same home grown meal. After all wasn't that once the "American Dream"? All in all Pollan seems to leave me longing for a new movement away from fast food and back towards farmers markets every time I read a chapter. So if this was his goal he did a very good job at getting it through to me.

They Say, I Say; Chapter 6

Planting a "Naysayer" in you texts proves to be very clever. Nothing like putting your worst critics in their place by addressing the problems they were hoping to point out. One should really try to pick an argument that doesn't need to have too many flaws pointed out though because if your argument is that flawed then maybe should be arguing against the topic, not for it.
I really liked the section on naming your "Naysayers" because it all just seems like a mild way to be as professional as possible while still being a smart ass. haha i love it. The examples they used are all common "Naysayers" as well so maybe that's why this area made me chuckle. "Feminists" haha. But yes, we should also remember that stereotyping hurts and is also unnecessary, so we must refrain from doing so at all times if we wish for our works to be taken seriously. So needless labeling should always be avoided.
This chapter will hopefully prove to be useful in the papers to come and I must admit that it has been quite some time since I have "planted a Naysayer" in my works so I hope I will get the chance real soon. Maybe a research paper in the future?

Omnivore's Dilemma Chapter 12

These little mom and pop shops are what I grew up on. My family used to own the only butcher shop in our town till we sold it to another family that had also grown up there. Going out on the butcher truck with my grandpa and dad was not an uncommon thing for me. I think back now and wonder how I didn't turn out messed up, watching countless animals being shot, skinned, gutted, and then hung in the back of the truck each time. Watching this while I was little was fine for me but as I got to be about 10-11 years old I finally started to see through the animals eyes. In Psychology you learn that there are 4 cognitive stages to your childhood. The 3rd one ranging from ages 6-11 years old is where a child gains the ability to see through the eyes of another person or thing. If you were to ask a 5 year old in the audience what the person up on stage can see, they will most likely reply, "the backs of people's heads". This is because they have not yet made the connection that other people visually see things differently then them. Once I roughly reached 10-11 years old I began to see the view the animal saw right before a bullet penetrated their skull at 1800fps. This very quickly became unbearable for me to watch. The sheer helplessness of the animal crushed my heart and mind. As I got older I began to realize that the animal seemed more and more emotionless and I got over the killing part, but for a while their I had to go in front of the truck and plug my ears so I wouldn't actually see nor hear any of the killing happen. It's funny though,I couldn't watch the animal be killed but as soon as in was droped and bleeding out I was fine. I think it was the whole taking of life thing that got me. The animal was alive and thriving and with the squeeze of a finger it's life was ended. I just couldn't take it. Like I said though, that was a phase I went through, I finally understood when I was about 13 that the animals had no idea what was going on and had no feelings towards me nor the rifle. When Pollan discusses the cutting of the chicken's neck it bring me back to that feeling I once had when I was so little. Telling myself that the animal wasn't alive any more, it wasn't suffering, it's movements were nothing more than a fight or flight instict, involuntary. That is all long gone now and by taking one look in my dorm room you'd never think I cared about the life of an animal(deer head hanging on the wall), but the truth is, I believe animals do not precieve death the same way humans do, they do not fear death the way humans do, therefore they cannot be compared. I'm not quite sure what my argument was for this blog other than the fact that I too have felt the same feelings Pollan did when taking an animals life and maybe my question to you is, what do you think is wrong or right? Do animals know exactly what is going on right before they're helplessly executed and my opinion is just a fabrication I developed in my mind to get over death? Or is my way of thinking correct? Do animals have no clue what that stick pointed towards them is going to do? MAybe a class discussion could be in order?

Paper 2 Peer review article citation

Title:
Alcohol Advertising and Alcohol Consumption by Adolescents
Author:
Saffer, Henry; Dave, Dhaval
Author Affiliation:
Unlisted; Unlisted
Source:
2003
Publisher Information:
National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, NBER Working Papers: 9676
Publication Date:
2003

Omnivore's Dilemma Chapter 9

As Michale Pollan discusses in Omnivore's Dilemma many organic company's sell their product based off of their story they put on the label. We see a story that reminds us of the ways we always remembered animals when we were children and immediately are willing to pay an arm and a leg for the product. We think to our selves, this product was raised correctly and will be healthier to consume so I must have to pay more for it right? What I would like to know is how, doing things the right way became more costly? Why do we think it is alright to pay extra for something correct and pay a moderate price for shit? And what's with the retailers who slap an organic label on a box of crap and watch it sell off the shelves... that's ridiculous. Michael Pollan states that he tracked his so called organic food back to it's origins and found that the animal he chose for dinner that night had never even touched a blade of grass, instead the animal was fed a grain mixture that was deemed certified organic in it's feed lot. Talk about lies. Obviously the definition that the public is familiar with compared to farmers and retailers is completely different. I don't even know where to make an argument on this subject because the entire thing makes me furious. Ahhhhh!!!!! (I actually growled in furry). Our whole system is f 'd and the public has no say. Welcome to AMERICA!

Omnivores Dilemma Ch 2,6,7 & TSIS Ch 1-3

They Say I Say:
Ch 1: This chapter discusses how to open your paper with an argument, or the book states it as "They Say". It starts with a conference and throughout the conference the book author discusses how they never knew what the speaker of the conference was basing his conference off of. I think it is crucial to base your argument off of what other people are saying because this gives you reason to be writing or taking in the first place. Without this, as the author of TSIS states, you don't even know why you are there at the conference or reading this paper in the first place. So the low down of this chapter was starting with what "They Say". It helps you build your own argument in doing so.

Ch 2: This chapter talks all about "The Art of Summarizing". The author gives many ideas on how to summarize effectively such as putting yourself in the shoes of the person or thing you wish to summarize. This chapter also discusses the fact that you can also misunderstand a reading and summarize it the wrong way and if you try to make an argument with that summary later you will ultimately look like a fool. The way you summarize can make or break your argument in some cases and so though it is a summary it deserves much more credit than most people give it. In a way a summary can tell you the summarizer’s feelings behind the subject at hand, unless they have read this section of this book and learned that a good summary comes from the shoes of the original readings author. This chapter also brings up the proper use of signal verbs such as verbs that make a claim, express an argument, disagree or question, and verbs that recommend. This list of verbs seems to be very useful because I myself have a hard time sometimes introducing summaries into my writing. This chapter should be a great resource for future papers and arguments to come.
Ch 3: This chapter talks about "The Art of Quoting"(Graff C., Birkenstein C., 2006, p.39) :P and how quotes, like summaries, can also make or break your argument. I have come across many arguments where their quotes have told me whether or not to challenge their argument or agree with the writer and I definitely agree when it comes to using quotes to support you. Someone else has already done the research so why not use that research to write a paper or base an argument? I mean why not, it'll definitely save you a very large amount of time, but in return it is only kind to show them the same amount of niceness when you quote and cite their work. This chapter also discusses how to find proper quotations and the process of what to do after finding them. DON"T BE A HIT AND RUN QUOTER!!! Selecting a quote that has very little relevance to your assignment does not in any way fulfill your need for a quote, once you've selected a quote like the reading says, explain your quotes, don’t be a hit and run quoter who just hits the quote and leaves it there to defend for itself out on a open country road with plenty of scavengers around and doing this will surely get you incarcerated. Haha… This chapter also gives you a very good tip on blending the author’s words with your own when quoting. I think this was the more beneficial of the three chapters because it was the only one that if not done properly could get you in DEEP… oh what’s the word? POO…

Omnivore’s Dilemma:
Ch 2: Corn now days has become so widely needed for basically everything your average U.S. citizen consumes that I find it very much so CRAZY! Not only has our need gone up but our yield has gone up quite a bit too. Your average Iowa farmer yields anywhere from 160-200 bushels of corn per acre and compare to when this agricultural trend all started in the 1920’s is a 140-180 bushel increase. An even crazier thing is this my friends, Omnivore’s Dilemma only discusses half of it. The Author, Michael Pollan chose to do his research in Iowa and it kind of makes you want to assume that all our corn comes from there but that’s not even close, corn is such a desired cash crop that it is massively produced all over the U.S. where adequate soil has been established. Farmers are striving to plant so much of this stuff that they are actually pushing out the other plants, animals, and people who live in Greene County Iowa. I think the point Michael Pollan is trying to make is that corn has become such a great crop for the U.S. in many ways but we are now coming to find that corn has caused so many problems too and we as a nation need to take a step back and decide what we want to place into our bodies and into our atmosphere.
Ch 6: This chapter focuses on us the consumer, hints the title in case you haven’t read it yet. Haha. I had no idea that some many American’s in the early 19th century were having such a good time. What happened to us? Going from 5 gallons of spirits a year to 1, that’s a big difference and if studies show that alcoholism runs in the family, I think Michael Pollan just supplied me with reason otherwise. I mean 5 gallons a year is accurate think about how much they didn’t get done. No wonder we haven’t been able to travel through time yet, it was those damn 19th century foke slacken off. Lol alright back on topic. So Michael Pollan wants us to see that our drinking habits back in the early 19th century are very much so comparable to the eating habits of a modern U.S. citizen. Well I say NAY! I’ve never see someone sit down and eat themselves to death but I will admit that I have seem a few close one’s with alcohol. So I ask you Michael Pollan, where do you get off!? Haha ok in all serious now (bored). We are eating so much that this is the sad thing, our eating worldwide eating habits in 2000, took over nourished people and passed under nourished people 1 billion to 800 million. Can you believe that number? I just find that to be so astonishing I don’t know whether to be angry or laugh. Can a human being honestly be that selfish? 1 billion of the world’s people can eat themselves to death slowly but very much so surely, while 800 billion starve and die within weeks? I feel like we need so major televised/ broadcasted awareness program to guilt the people of the world into giving up their money for their morning box of donuts or midnight snack of McDonalds to go to the 800 million people or more of the world who are starving at this very moment. It would not only help out 1 billion people but 800 million as well. So there you go, there’s my two cents. I could go more into corn in this chapter especially on ethanol but I’m honestly becoming tired of typing so this is my last words: Type II diabetes and obesity KILL! LETS FIX IT! Enough said…


Ch 7: This chapter in Omnivore’s Dilemma talks about, “The Meal”, which is probably what you guessed it was about, “fast food”. Who would of thought this stuff could be bad for you right? I mean how could something deep fried in a vat of grease ever hurt you? Right? Haha lmao (my sarcasm kills me). I think Judge Sweet is right about this who McFrankensteinian chicken McNugget thing. Fast food retailers need to make the ingredients and the harm that may come from consuming this product, just like cigarettes do, available and easily attainable to the public. If we don’t know what’s in it, why would we ever put it in our mouths? That’s like having a stranger sit you down, blind fold you, have you open your mouth, and eat whatever they give you. Doesn’t sound to bright to me. Michael Pollan also brings up how much of our food comes from corn, now I don’t know how much you guys knew about this already but this is my second time reading Michael Pollan’s book and every time I read that such a high percent of our food we consume comes from corn I get shocked. He provides what would ridiculous and farfetched numbers and the scary part is he claims they’re true. So how bout we take an oath as a class to slow down on our fast food consumption, maybe even donate some money to a nutritional charity rather than paying for slop and then eating it. It was fun blogging with y’all. Peace out.