JUST DarWIN BABY!

The book I would choose to save would be the collective writings of Charles Darwin. My hope is that people surviving the apocalypse would not let humanities judgment be clouded by religion. Rather I would have them focus on progression and science and how to survive. The theory of evolution is a valuable learning tool in survival. Survival of the fittest is essentially what will be taking place. Also people having a working knowledge of genetics could explain a lot of the mutations taking place and figure out a way to isolate them from the main genetic pool. On a brighter note the second book I would save would be a George Carlin book because people need to be able to laugh during times of adversity. This is a very interesting topic and I am very excited to see what books my peers have chosen.

Happy Halloween Jerk!

My major complaint with Halloween as a parent is not what you might think. Most parents dread the candy and the out of control kids, not me. I love that excitement that comes with young kids celebrating Halloween. I hate the aspect of making Halloween overly gory and gruesome. For Pete sakes it’s not a celebration of torture and serial killers. I know Halloween has a tradition of fear and horror movies have their time and place on that holiday. However, when people do not know when to draw the line and start scaring your kids to the point they want to go home and not trick-or-treat any more. Case in point, this year we were out and about in our neighborhood gathering goodies and having a blast. When we got to a seemingly normal house and a man jumps out of the bushes covered in fake blood and wielding a severed arm, fake also I hope. Now you have to keep in mind my kids are 2 and four, this scared the crap out of them. We had to cut our evening short and I had to have an awkward conversation with some jerk I did not want to give a lecture on Halloween manners to. So my kids Halloween was ruined so some 40 year old schmuck could feel like a big man. Other than that I love it. Mainly because it occurs on my favorite season, autumn

Why can't I walk to class?

The biggest thing I would change about Wright State is its location. Do not misunderstand me, this is not a problem with Dayton or Ohio. My problem is where our college is located in relation to a major town center. The residential areas where students live off campus are located at such a distance walking or biking to class seem like to big of an inconvenience to outweigh the benefits. Thus students are required to drive and spend their limited funds on gas, parking passes, and the dreaded parking ticket. We have created a commuter campus. At my previous institutions of higher learning I never once drove to class. I could roll out of bed and stroll directly to class. Also, during breaks I could walk to the restaurants I wanted to go to because it was located in the town. Aside from the inconvenience and financial aspect there are severe environmental implications to students making multiple trips a day to and from campus. Think about the hundreds of thousands of gallons of gas. Other than that I quite like Wright State and it has been a good fit for me in my return to academia. So the location in relation to a town center of residential area is what I would change.

reVISION

I have loved the amount of focus this class has dedicated toward the act of revision. I am a classic example of the type of student who has a million other things going on besides school and generally hand in my work as is without even proof reading it. The gradual progression has allowed me to focus on my errors and logically think about how good my paper really is and how it could be better. Also I feel more connected to the papers because of the amount of time and effort that has gone into developing them. I tend to take more personal accountability in the quality of my papers because of this. An invaluable aspect of development has been using the input of not only our teacher, but of my peers. These critiques have been the cornerstones of my final draft and I love the feedback good or bad. I always value another person’s opinion. I have also been applying this skill to my other classes. I am currently taking public speaking and I higher level rehabilitation studies class. Both of these classes require several papers and presentations for which I have been doing drafts of and revising since they were assigned. Rather than doing it at the last minute and taking no pride in what I had developed.

Rhetorical de Toulouse-Lautrec

The Henri deToulouse-Lautrec painting I chose to analyze for rhetorical elements was, Jane Avril. The painting is simple and mainly just contour lines and a little bit of color. De Toulouse-Lautrec does a fantastic job of capturing the motion of the can-can dancer’s high kicks. Another cool aspect of this painting is how the artist uses the neck of the upright base in the foreground as part of the frame of the image. It seems to draw the viewer’s eye to the action. The audience Mr. de Toulouse-Lautrec is seeking is adult males. After researching the painting I found the Jane Avril was a famous can-can dancer of the era. The painting is a sort of advertising for her can-can high kick show. The purpose of this painting is to show how exciting Mrs. Avril’s shows are and give the viewer a sense of being their without having attended and thus want to come and see if it lives up to the bill. It’s essentially an advertisement. Mr. Toulouse-Lautrec painted several can-can and burlesque themed paintings so I am assuming he is a fan of those sorts of places and women playing that role. The genre of this work is visual art. The media is a painting.

tap water

I have always been a supporter of tap water. I grew up in a rural area and drank well water for the first 10 years of my life. The water tasted like straight sulfur. So I have never been pick about how my water tasted and I could not fathom paying for something that comes right out of the faucet. Also the waste of disposable water bottles has taken its toll on our land scape. You cannot look in any direction and not see and old dasani or aquafina bottle. I discovered through my research that the only real advantages to bottled water is that they use less harsh methods of purification, as opposed to tap water which is purified through chlorine and other harsh methods. However mineral water or private water companies are not required to check their water as often as the public companies. Also most disposable water bottles are made of cheap plastic that leach toxins into your water and accumulate in your body over time. The best containment for tap water is in a water bottle that is BPA free and thus will not leak toxins into your water. Most water bottles today are BPA free.I got my information fromhttp://www.ehso.com/ehshome/DrWater/drinkingwater.php#Overview

No television for you!

Overall I think if we turned all the televisions off it would have a relatively positive impact on our society. I feel the most positive impact would be on adults in our society. With obesity and substance abuse on the rise it would be nice for adults to have to develop some other hobbies rather than sit and eat in front of the television. If anything it would have adults thinking for themselves and not believing what any talking head on television tells them too. As far as kids are concerned I think two of the three areas in the blog assignment. I feel with the unplugging of all televisions kids would be healthier and more independent. However, I feel the education would not increase, but maybe even decrease. The health benefits would be obvious. Kids need to be outside and using their imagination. The independence would flourish, without preconceived notions from television and commercials children would once again have artistic license to use their imaginations again. One thing I have noticed about kids my children play with that are banned from watching television is that they are usually behind my children as far as knowledge of the world and the way things work. My kids have learned the principles of counting and reading from sesame street and other educational shows. It’s like all potentially harmful luxuries in our society; you have to use it in moderation. I think definitely everyone should watch less television, but eliminating it altogether seems drastic. Just because some of our society cannot handle the responsibility of the privilege of watching television does not mean most people do not get social or intellectual benefits from its proper use.
One final note is that one advantage of the no television is that lazy parents would finally get off their asses and raise their kids instead of relying on television to do it for us. So in closing I say the most positively affected would be the lazy. It would give them a new lease on life. For all of us who use television in moderation it would be a dark day.