Blog 24: Reflection on the Class

It’s hard for me to pick three of my blog entries that I consider my best in terms of critical thinking, but I can definitely pick three that were easiest for me to write – 12, 21 and 23. All of these were easiest for me, since for me connecting to the text and elaborating my ideas is the hardest part in writing my essays.           
     Writing online was different from the experiences that I had in the past. When I was in high school we didn’t have access to computers or the internet. Writing online is way better. It’s not as time consuming and everything I write, for this class, stays on my blog, so I don’t have to worry about misplacing any of my essays.

For this class we had to write 24 Blog entries (including this one). I don’t know if blogging itself that helped improve my writing or the constant practice.

      I think online work was both an individual and shared experience. Obviously we wrote our blog entries individually, but by posting our work online we had the chance to read each others work, to compare and get useful insight. I always read others work.

I am not sure if any of my classmates read my work, but from the comments I received on a couple of blogs, I know students from other networks were assigned to read and comment my work.

I will definitely be walking away from this class with the knowledge that it is good to experience new things, even though they might not seem pleasant. “The Allegory of the Cave” was one my favorites. It has me thinking non stop about “leaving the Cave”.

I really didn’t know what to expect from this class. I thought that we would focus strictly on writing. I would have never thought that we would watch movies and talk about food, and labor issues. I found all of the topics we covered in class very informative, and I am glad that Dr.X chose them.

We did everything in class, from annotating, summarizing, writing thesis statements, to elaborating our responses. I definitely have an understanding of all the writing strategies; I just hope I can put them in use when taking my CAT. 

The most memorable assignment was watching “The Matrix”. I would have never expected to watch this movie as a class assignment in college. I must say I am happy that we did, because I saw this movie before and to tell you the truth all I remembered was the impressive fights. Now at least I know what the movie was really about.

My one and only recommendation for a student who plans to take this class would be to always be on time and to try not to miss classes. We covered a lot of material and even though I didn’t miss a single class, I can imagine how hard it would be for someone to try to catch up and write blogs on the topics they missed out on.

Blog 23: Expanding on one topic in Sleep Dealer

In Sleep Dealer, people become cyborgs by buying implants called “nodes” that allow to connect them to cyberspace.
a) Make a list of how nodes are used by the main characters: Memo, Luz, and Rudy. What uses seem perfectly normal to you? What uses seem perverse? Are there any uses that should be illegal? What uses are very similar to interactions on the internet?
b) In Sleep Dealer, Luz makes a living by uploading and selling her memories in cyberspace. Is this ethical? How does selling actual memories compare to writing a “tell all” autobiography, for example? How does it compare to participating in a reality television show?

In “Sleep Dealer” nodes are needed to perform different types of work. The main character - Memo uses the nodes to work in a hi-tech factory. Luz, the girl Memo meets on the bus on his way to Tijuana uses the nodes to sell her memories. And Rudy, soldier, uses the nodes to pilot his drone while working to secure the dam in Memo’s village.

Memo’s use of the nodes seems the most natural to me. Without them he wouldn’t be able to work, and he wouldn’t be able to send money to his family.  

Rudy’s use was rather disturbing to me. He used the nodes to control his drone and kill the “bad guys” who wanted to steal water from the dam. The nodes made his work look like a video game. Very unrealistic, which makes killing someone look like nothing than what it really is, even to a soldier.

I found Luz’s way to use the nodes to be perversive. She used them to sell her memories. It is one thing to write a book, even an autobiography. What she was doing was way more than that. She didn’t only tell the story, she also gave a visual. A facial expression can sometimes say much more than words. If no one can rob us of our memories than why would someone willingly give them away, especially for money (grrrrrr).

I think that it should be illegal to use nodes for Rudy’s and Luz’s purposes. I never killed anyone, I can’t even imagine doing such a thing, but the way it was shown in the movie it looked (I can’t believe that I’m actually going to write this) very simple. All you do is control a drone and shoot your target, just like in a video game (and now everybody plays video games so what would be the difference?!) And as to Luz, our memories should stay untouchable. They really are OURS (no matter if good or bad) and no one should be able to record them and sell them to whomever. That is why I understand Memo’s reaction when he gets really upset when he finds out that Luz has been selling her memories that included him. He shared everything with her, including how his father died, which he didn’t want to do from the very beginning, he wanted to keep it to himself.

Al thought I feel that Luz’s use of the nodes was very inappropriate I find it very similar to today’s internet use. For instance (even in our ENG 099) we blog. We write entries that consist of responding to a certain reading. Our responses are personal, at least they should be. But we blog in class, because that is our assignment, some people blog just to simply share their days experience. Some people go to extremes (I mean extremes!) Who wants to know what time you wake up, eat breakfast, go shopping, fight with your boyfriend, what the argument was a bout …etc… kind of thing.

As I mentioned before I find Luz’s way of earning money unethical. I understand that she wants to be a writer, but what she is doing with Memo’s story, to me, is way to personal. There are certain boundaries, that everybody should ably to, such as keeping things that, were meant to be private, private.

From what I understand a “tell all” autobiography is an autobiography that includes all the details of a persons life, even all their deepest secrets. I don’t really believe that writing such an autobiography is possible, because everyone has their little secrets that no matter what we just want to keep them to ourselves. If someone, however would decide to really, but really write about everything they have been through in the smallest details that still wouldn't equal to what Luz did for a living. Not only she sold her memories that contained Memo, but she also did not tell him of her doing so. Like I mentioned before, words don’t give as much as facial expressions. We can tell everything from our face, when we’re happy, sad, angry, even when we’re lying …..and its not only the facial expressions but our whole body movement. I'm just wondering if , according to Luz, sharing our personal experiences is so simple, why in movies based on facts we see actors rather than the people who actually took part in whatever it is we are watching?

Reality TV shows are meant to show life as realistically as it is possible, but to me it’s a bunch of BS. Everything is staged, people whom are presented to be real people are actors. Reality TV is made for entertainment purposes only, so we presented with things, actions what we want to see. There is nothing real about it. To me, Reality TV, what the name itself stands for, is exactly what Luz does with Memo's entries. Nothing is fake, it's a hundred per cent true. 

Blog 22: Watching and Responding to The Story Of Stuff

Define "planned obsolescence" and "perceived obsolescence" in your words. Who/What is responsible for these marketing strategies? Who/What benefits from them? Who/What suffers because of them? Are these strategies necessary? Are they right? Provide evidence from your own experience or from what you have read and discussed in class.

Planned obsolescence is a strategy that companies use to make people purchase more and more stuff by making their products easily destructible.

Perceived obsolescence is a strategy that convinces people to upgrade to new better looking products even though the ones they currently have work perfectly fine.

Both strategies are made to benefit only the corporate world, people just end up spending more and more money on stuff that is made to be easily broken and stuff that they don’t need.

I think these strategies are necessary for the big corporations, if they want to make money. Without them people wouldn’t spend as much money on unnecessary things.

Even though I think these strategies are necessary for the companies, I don't think that they are right. People shouldn't be pressured into getting newer products if they are comfortable with the ones they have.

Cell phones! Every couple of months cell phone companies come out with newer and newer cell phones. Cell phones are made to make phone calls when we are away from home. Why should we have to care if our cell phone is trendy enough and if we can talk while sending e-mails, picture messages and playing games?

Blog 21: Summary and Response to "The New Industrial Migrants"

Part I

                “The new industrial migrants” article from the Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser is an article about immigrants working meatpacking jobs. in part I of the article Schlosser gives us a comparison of what meatpacking jobs use to offer to their workers, which was life on a middle-class level and what they offer now, which is a little more than poverty wages. Schlosser also mentions that at the Greeley beef plant workers quit or got fired every three months. The annual turnover rate at that plant, with hiring five thousand people during eighteen months, was four hundred percent. According to the author, today two-thirds of the workers at the Greeley plant are Mexican immigrants that do not speak English. They usually live in old trailers near the slaughterhouse or share rooms in old motels. Workers get paid $9.25 per hour and are offered health insurance after six months and a vacation pay after a year (most workers will never receive said vacation). Now the annual turnover at Greeley is around eighty percent (decline from 400% in 1990s). Schlosser than writes about a different slaughterhouse - ConAgra Red Meat. He mentions Mike Coan, who in 1994 was the safety director in ConAgra Red Meat. Their annual turnover was a hundred percent. Lastly, Schlosser talks about IBP and their annual turnover. Arden Walker – the head of labor relations at IBP, when asked by a Counsel if he was bothered with the turnover, during a federal hearing in the 1980s, answered – “Not really” and continued with a explanation “we found very little correlation between turnover and profitability” (correlation - coefficient measures the degree to which two things vary together). Schlosser finishes his article by saying: “a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industry – as in the fast food industry – also helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control”.


Par II

                In part II of his article “The new industrial migrants” Schlosser writes about the advantages for the employers from hiring illegal immigrants and disadvantages for the illegal immigrants from working in meatpacking firms.  IBP was one of the first companies to realize that immigrants would work for less money than American Citizens and that they would be more hesitant to join unions. Hiring immigrants was such an advantage for IBP that they would group their workers from poor communities throughout United States, even homeless people, and if they were located thousands of miles away the company would send buses to pick them up. According to the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Iowa and Nebraska illegal immigrants represent one quarter of all meatpacking workers and yet a spokesmen for IBP and the ConAgra Beef Company denies hiring immigrants on purpose saying - “We do not knowingly hire undocumented workers” and that “IBP supports INS efforts to enforce the law and do[es] not want to employ people who are not authorized to work in the United States”. Than Schlosser writes how of GFI America, Inc. tricked and misled their workers. GFI hired thirty-nine people from Texas to work in Minnesota. The company had promised them apartment housing when in reality the recruits were suppose to stay in a in People Serving People, a homeless shelter. Most recruits refused to stay in the shelter. Schlosser finishes by writing about how angry the advocates of that homeless shelter were when bribed by GFI. This was their reaction - "Our job is not to provide subsidies to corporations that are importing low-cost labor".

Response

                Eric Schlosser in his article “The new industrial migrants” (part I and part II) talks about the annual rates of turnovers in meatpacking industries and the advantages theses industries have from hiring illegal immigrants. I agree that turnovers and hiring immigrants might be good for the companies themselves, but what about the workers?!

Turnovers stand for how long an employee stays on a job. Schlosser mentions in his article, the head of labor relations at IBP Adren Walker, who says he is not worried about the company’s annual turnover rate since there is “very little correlation between turnovers and profitability”.

With hiring new employees after a short amount of time, big companies avoid paying their insurance fees or vacation time, since these mainly apply after six months or more. To the companies that is nothing but pure profit since they do manage to keep their job positions filled. In today's economy companies have an even bigger advantage do to the excess number of people that are unemployed.

My dad for instance works in construction, he’s a carpenter. He hasn’t had a steady job for a while now. Every at least three or four months he ends up unemployed. There are so many unemployed workers, that the owners of the companies literally can pick and choose who to hire and let them go without giving them any benefits.

                Schlosser also writes in his article about illegal immigrants being cheaper to maintain by big companies and that they would less likely join unions. I am from Poland and ever since I can remember America has been introduced to me as the great escape for a bright future. Everybody always said that in America there are well paying jobs for everyone. When I was young I didn’t really know that you have to be authorized to work in the United States, so yes I did believe whatever I had heard. When I came to America I realized that whatever all the beautiful things I heard before weren’t at all true. From what I know from living in Greenpoint (a Polish neighborhood) for a little while, is that most of the men work in construction and women clean houses, apartments or offices. Both men and women work for minimal wages, since they don’t have proper papers for employment in the US.

            My friend’s aunt and uncle have been here in NY illegally for the past 15 years. He used to work in construction until he had a terrible accident at work and now can barely walk and the aunt ever since she came here worked in Williamsburg, cleaning Jewish homes. She works almost fourteen hour days. When she gets home she is extremely exhausted and yet she still has to cook, clean etc., to help out her husband. Life for them hasn’t been easy but it is still better than the life they would have had if they were back in Poland. 

            In conclusion, big companies care only for their profits. They use illegal immigrants to save money they would have to pay to hire American Citizens. Immigrants on the other hand, even if they know that they do not get paid the money they really do deserve for their long hours of hard work, still rather stay here in United States than struggle even more in their home countries.  

Blog 20: Reflection on the food unit

I really enjoyed the first classes of the Food Unit, especially watching “The Meatrix” and parts of “Super Size Me”. “The Meatrix” was funny but as well as “Super Size Me” very educational. I also enjoyed reading the content on http://www.sustainabletable.org/, which was needed to complete part II of Blog 15.

“The Matrix”, “Allegory of the Cave” and the Truman are all about learning the unknown. In all of these cases the unknown stands for the truth. Neo form “The Matrix” learned of the not so pretty reality of the real world outside the Matrix, one prisoner from “The Allegory of The Cave” who was lucky to escape the Cave learned all the beautiful things there were outside the Cave and Truman from the “Truman Show” learned that there is way more to life besides of what he had already experienced and that it doesn’t have to be as monotonous. In my opinion using the “The Matrix”as basis for the “The Meatrix” was a very simple, catchy and funny way of showing the horrifying realities of farming industries.

Leo the main character of ”The Meatrix” just like Neo for “The Matrix” is given a choice of taking the red or blue pill. He decides to take the red pill to discover the truth.

The whole point of the media unit we previously studied in class was to open our eyes to new things and develop our experiences. What I think this has in common with the food unit is that if we do not take interest in what we eat we’ll live in “the matrix”, “cave” and “Seahaven” not realizing what we really consume. We have to start reading labels that are placed on the products we buy, visit farmers markets and not just shop in supermarkets because it seems more convenient, since they do sell everything we might be looking for, and most of all we should stay away from fast food restaurants and find the time to cook ourselves.   

I found Cat #3 really hard to respond to. I started writing my summary and I wanted to write a thesis, but I couldn’t find a way to respond to the passage. I figured I’ll try something else than, so I got rid of my summary and started writing about a significant thing in the reading and than tried to response to it and so on. I think I really did not do a good job at all with this cat. I did not give any examples with my responses.

In general I feel like I am stuck. I did not see any progress in my writing throughout the Food Unit.

Blog 19: In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan in his book “In Defense of Food” gives a set of suggestions of what we should and should not do to eat healthier.

His examples of what we should not do are: eat foodlike items from supermarkets (the ones that our great-great-grandmothers would not consider as food), eat anything that does not rot or contain ingredients we are not familiar with. In addition, he mentions that we should not shop in the middle aisles of supermarkets, since the healthy food is usually displayed on the outline walls of the stores, and processed food is usually in the very middle.

Pollen then writes what we should do: avoid products that advertise to be healthy (they almost never are; it is just the opposite), we should eat plants especially leaves which will drastically change the amount of calories we consume and that we should spend more money on food since healthier food costs more. Lastly, the author states that we  should cook more and plant our own gardens.

 I agree with Pollan that by not eating products with unknown ingredients, shopping in peripheral shops, and by cooking and growing our own vegetables we can start eating healthier.

Pollan states that products, which contain unfamiliar ingredients “are reliable markers for foods that have been highly processed”.  Processed food is modified with additives to taste better, look better and even smell better and some additives can cause serious health problems.

The author writes that we should avoid shopping in supermarkets and instead we should go to a farmers market were we can find “the kind of food your great-great-grandmother would have recognized as food” – real healthy food.

I always shop in small local Polish Deli’s. Everything is fresh from bread, cheeses, meat, sweets etc. Everything’s looks so delicious it literally screams at you – eat me!  Even though everything is a lot more expensive than products from supermarkets, I rather pay more and get healthy fresh food that pay less and end up with a stomachache.

Pollan writes - “the culture of kitchen, as embodied in those enduring traditions we call cuisines, contains more wisdom about diet and health than you are apt to find in any nutrition journal or journalism”. I agree. Eating anything we cook ourselves is a 100% healthier starting with the simple fact that we know exactly what our meals consists of. I try to cook as often as I can, however, with my current busy schedule I barely have time. If I do not cook, I still pass up on fast food. I prefer to make myself a simple sandwich than go to McDonalds or any other fast food place.

Pollan also writes that – “the food you grow yourself contributes to your health long before you sit down to eat it.” In my previous apartment, I had a spacious balcony that I decided to change into my little garden. I planted mainly tomatoes and flowers for decoration. I was surprised that my tomatoes actually grew but most of all that they were very tasty. They were so good they tasted even better than the ones I use to get in a grocery store. Now I unfortunately do not have a place for a garden L. But who knows maybe in the near future …

Blog 18: Summarizing and Responding to "Where the Whale Be At"

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Blog 17: Summarizing and Responding to "The End of Overeating."

The article adapted from “XXXL” by Elizabeth Kolbert starts by mentioning a former commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration – David A. Kessler, who states that food is being modified to make people addicted to it. To create such an addiction the food industry came up with fashion products called “eatertainment” that consists of: fat, sugar and salt. Kessler compares Cinnabons and Starbucks’s Strawberries & Crème Frappuccinios to drugs. A research on rats shows that the rat’s brain reacts to sugar and fat the same way as a drug addict reacts to cocaine.

I agree with David A. Kessler when he indicates that the processed food is being modified to make people addicted to it.

 The food industry is increasing the use of fat, salt, and sugar in food and is creating fashion products called “eatertainment”.

Food Companies add fat, salt and sugar to our food to increase people’s cravings. I guess it is obvious that if we have a an explosion of different tastes in our mouth we start to crave the product even more and we cannot seem to stop eating it (seriously like an addiction). That is exactly what Kessler calls “conditioned hypereating”. For instance, I hardly eat chips. There are so many different kinds. They vary in tastes, color and smell. I can never make up my mind, but if I do end up eating chips it’s almost always the kind called “party mix”. The name it’s self says everything. What a combination. If you’re cravings something salty you have the pretzels, something cheesy - cheetos and something sweet the sweet sunrise chips. I mean what more can a person desire from a small pack of chips?   

Besides from attacking our taste buds with mixes of fat, sugar and salt food industries are also trying to get our attention by making their products as visually desirable as possible. McDonalds is making their meals bigger and bigger and also it’s adding toys for kids in happy meals. Kinder Bueno is another company that is trying to catch kids’ attention with toys. They came up with chocolate eggs that have little toys on the inside. Parents are getting great deals – a meal and a toy. You just can’t go wrong (not!). KFC’s wings can’t look any juicier in their commercials where in reality there nothing but dry. So many times after seeing a KFC commercial on TV I ended up eating it with nothing but regret at the end, and what funny is I know I’ll still have it in the near future.

In conclusion, in my opinion the food industry is doing a very good job with getting us addicted from their products. Even though people now are able to learn how many calories they are consuming when having a burger at McDonalds they still have it. Food industries won’t stop modifying their products, if anything they will come up with different ways of doing so to make profit. It is up to people as individuals to decide whether they want to eat healthy or not.