I witnessed the way my great uncles illness was dealt with at the end of his life. My grandmother was stuck caring for him for about 4 years before that. I saw the stress put her when she was forced to take care of him while she was having health problems of her own. Once he had to go to a retirement home his children were only visiting him in the old persons home to get his money. So again my grandma was forced to stay in California, away from her family, just so he could have human interaction. It was amazing to see how someone was willing to neglect there sickly father, leaving my grandmother to absorb the stress. When he passed away my grandmother was able to move to Pensylvania to be closer to most of her family.

Dealing with a dyeing loved one is stressful and sad. I was told by my parents that once they need dippers to send them strait to an assisted living facility. They seem to think that would make things easer for me. I believe my parents said that they want me to send them to the retirement home just so I do not put my self what my grandmother went through with her brother. 

This goes along with the American social norm of how to deal with older people. Our cycle of life goes like this; Childhood, work all your life, 10-15 years of retirement, then your last 2-5 years are spent away from your loved ones in a retirement home. Although it sounds sick, it is convenient for the younger people who do not need to take care of there sickly parents. Maybe my grandmother was having trouble with the guilt of abandoning her brother. And that’s why she spent all of her time at the retirement home visiting him. I was told that in eastern Asia this would never happen. I met a women who said that her grandparents lived with them from the start of there retirement to the day they died. Both ways of dealing with things have specific benefits and disadvantages which I am curious to learn more about.

Hw 12

Thesis: Americans are under the false impression that the nightmarish industrial atrocities are necessary for maintaining our culture.

Claim 1Americans are in denial:

Americans are not healthy-http://newsroom.cigna.com/article_display.cfm?article_id=720

They believe they are-

http://www.consumerreports.org/health/doctors-hospitals/health-care-security/overview/health-care-security-ov.htm

They are truly unhealthy:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maria-rodale/the-true-cost-of-doubt-an_b_581514.html

CLAIM 2 Things can change:

Growth of green market-http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/08/29/sunday/main6816240.shtml

Other nations-

http://www.arla.com/

http://www.foodoresund.com/composite-313.htm

HW 11

As an experiment I decided to become a vegan for a week.
At first it went well. After a few days I had more energy and felt healthier. I found that the most convenient place to find vegan food was whole foods. They have a vegan desert section, a vegan veggie burger section, and a vegan version of just about everything. The people were a lot nicer and more helpful than cheaper grocery shops.
By the 4th day I was trying to find a way to stretch my money a little farther and look at the ingredients in the vegan food. I saw that most of it was made with soy. I decided to avoid soy. Saving money was a huge challenge. The restrictions almost limited my diet to just vegetables which are expensive if you are looking to get healthy ones. The goal of avoiding soy did not happen because of my budget. It was the primary meat and dairy replacement.
By the 6th day the initial feeling of more energy did not fully maintain itself, but I was still proud of what I had accomplished (except for the soy part). I found that I needed to eat more to get the same calorie intake and it was a challenge. It was becoming costly and I decided to continue for one more day.
IT WAS A FAILURE. On the last day of the experiment I went to my friend’s house for Shabbat dinner on Friday with her family. I had made the correct decision to eat dinner before I got there. I had a miss communication with the mother as she told me that I could eat the cookies she was surviving for dinner because they were completely kosher. She explained that that meant that there was no meat and no dairy products in the cookie. I ate it. I looked it up. There were no meat or dairy products. But there was an egg in the cookie.
The experiment was almost successful. Instead of an entire week with no animal products I went 6 days and 18 hours. Let’s just round it up to a whole week. I learned from some of the challenges which accrue as someone chose to abandon the American traditions and change there way of eating. I also learned that it is possible to abandon theses ways and make a change. There are affordable, healthy changes one can apply to a diet. For example, you can purchase 2 pounds of green beans for 4 dollars. The experiment taught me that people can find a balance between there traditional foods and healthy foods. Imagine an obese family who has hamburgers and french-fries every night from McDonalds. They can all split their hamburgers and get string beans and spend almost the same amount of money on that meal.

HW 7d

9)Summary: In the late 90's a man was infected with e-coli from a hamburger. This is because there is feces in the hamburger meat. People used to think that hamburgers were unsanitary but the companions like White castle worked hard to replenish the hamburgers reputation by hydrating the disgusting facts. E. coli 0157:h7 is a mutated form of E.coli needed in the human digestive system. The E. coli 0157:h7 causes disintegration of the lining of the intestine.

Quotes: "There is shit in the meat"
"A single fast food hamburger now contains meat from dozens or even hundreds of different cattle."

Responses: The first quote is blunt. It was placed at the end of the paragraph as a way to summarize the paragraph by giving his opinion.
When I eat a hamburger I don't thinks about the fact that i am eating multible cows. This fact made it difficult for me to eat ground beef for a while.

Chapter 10) Global Realization

In a small town in eastern Germany ware the people have repetitively protested for there freedom, A new McDonald's was built. McDonald's is trying to open more and more restaurants out side of the United States. The world is just as fooled as the united states as a pizza hut in Moscow making certain people so happy that they say "Hail to Gorbachev" as a way of thanking him for bringing the food to their nation. All over the world people are Americanizing and begin to eat and look like Americans. The United states has the highest obesity rate of any industrialized nation.

Epilogue) Have It Your Way
Dale Lasater is a farmer in colorodo who is a patrin to the idea of grass fed beef. Conway's is a restaurant near Colorado springs that has survived the fast food take over. They give there full time workers health insurance and pay them $10 and hour which is $2.64 cents more than the current Colorado minimum wage. These family run companies seem devoted to maintaining there dignity and not franchising.

7c

chapter 8

Precise:
Entering the slaughter house required heavy gear. While walking through you see people quietly cutting cow’s throats with out any expression on their faces. Workers injured, sexually harassed and told to take hormones, all of which is secret because these people are illegal immigrants

Gems:
"I stop and try to absorb the whole scene: the cool breeze, the cattle and their gentle lowing, a cloudless sky, steam rising from the plant in the moonlight. And than I notice that the building does have one window, a small square of light on the second floor. It offers a glimpse of what’s hidden behind this huge blank façade. Through the little window you can see bright red carcasses on hooks, going round and round”
Response:
I love how dramatic this quote is. The author went through a lot to get this bit of information. And it shows how sickened he was and how sickened he is trying to make the reader.

HW 9 - Freakonomics Response

Correlation vs. Causation in Freakonomics:

In the film, Levitt and Dubner go through several examples of how people confuse correlation with causation. They believe that there is a sharp difference between the two and some people just can not see it. One example is when Levitt examines the drop in crime rate in the early 1990’s. Money people have found a connection to the amount of people in prison at that time to the crime rate reduction. Levitt and Dubner argue that the crime rate reduction is due to the fact that many young criminals were never borne due to the legalization of abortion in 1973. The two of them never say that correlation is causation. They spend a segment of the storey discussing how it is quit the opposite. The two of them vaguely imply that “lack of proof is causation.”

Evidence in Freakonomics:

In Freakonomics several forms of evidence are used including statistics and experts. Statistics are used when examining the sumo wrestling scores. They identified cheaters by looking when which wrestlers won which match, They found that it correlated directly with which ever wrestler needed to win to keep there rank up. That means that sumo wrestling buddies were allowing each other to win to remain in control of there salary.

            When Levitt and Dubner were looking for examples of how names can portray someone’s outcome they went directly to two Harvard professors. This type of evidence can be considered a fallacy. More specifically a logical fallacy, because of the fact that both of these men are Harvard professors they seem smart. So by saying that these men are smart they must be right. Unfortunately this is a fallacy that is difficult to get around because of the fact that these men are smart and educated.

             

Response to statement about Freakonomics:

“Freakonomics serves as an inspiration and good example to our attempt to explore the ‘hidden-in-plain-sight’ weirdness of dominant social practices.”

I agree with the statement. I agree because, the movie does attempt to expose what is, “hidden in plain sight.” This is shown in the film when they descuss the possibility of the fact that allowing un wanted babes to not be borne into un-wanting families may reduce the chances that they will become criminals. You do not hear people discuss this on a everyday basis just like you don’t hear people discussing how McDonald’s exploits immigrants.

7B

7:
Precis:
In the small smelly town of Greedy, Colorado, there is a there are tuns of "rural gettos in the American heartland" have taken place in towns like this. 100 years ago a book outraged the government as Roosevelt ordered investigation into a book that was written about the meat industry.