Having proved this, can we accurately call caffeine a narcotic?  More legal research about narcotics and pharmaceuticals as far as what is and what is not legal might be unnecessarily interesting for this essay.

Gladwell has some excellent research about Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s grandfather about how he used to sneak opium into China.  I imagine he had to dig deep for that little secret, something the politicians could not find out about.

I think what makes his research most interesting is that he has many funny little side stories about important characters, places, and times alongside a bunch of scientific, matter-of-fact elaborations about caffeine.  His research covers a wide range of interesting subjects that relate to caffeine.

On the other hand, Shah’s research, if you could call it that, in “tight Jeans and Chania Chorris” is a focused, personal story.  While it effectively portrays the idea that tight jeans are a symbol of teens coming into their sexuality, trying to distract the opposite sex with white teeth, curves, and popularity, the personal story of one family’s experience is not convincing enough.

Shah does not have a clearly stated thesis.  She talks about tight jeans and their relationship to feminism very briefly in the beginning and again in the closing paragraphs, but her story seems to convey a different message about tight jeans.

Altering Shah’s essay, I would start with research on developing trends of “sexy” jeans over the last five or six decades.  I would talk about the developing trends that led up to tight jeans being the widely accepted hot trend, from bell bottoms to daisy dukes.

Shah could have also expanded on Indian culture as far as beauty and gender roles go in society.  She already has the setup for this great comparison between Western and Indian culture.

Shah is missing half of society; I think her feminism theme is restricting what she can write about as far as tight jeans.  What about guys wearing tight jeans?  Tight jeans for children?  Tight jeans as a symbol of Westernized culture- rock and roll, sexual appeal, insecurity, sacrificing comfort for beauty?

This past assumes the boy and girl are relatives.  However, there is no evidence to prove that the girl was the child’s mother.  Her body language suggests she is scared because she is hiding her face in her arms.  A mother would hold her son as she falls.

The child sprawls out his limbs.  He looks like a falling star spinning on it’s way down.  He is not worried about death; his concern is holding onto something that is not falling.  The planter pot will not work.

The fire escape is broken into pieces.  The iron chunks race them down the brick building to the ground.  Leading in first is the ladder; planter pots close in second; and the terrified woman taking third. It will be a close one, folks!

The child is almost smiling.  ”It looks like I am on top now,” he laughs.  Children can be so oblivious to their surroundings that anything can be a fun ride.  He knows he will live.

In the following paragraph, about two-thirds of a page long, Ephron describes the readers’ negative reaction to the Boston photographs.  This had to have the least amount of ink because there is only so much one can say to reveal the discontent many readers had about these photos.  Ephron wrote just enough, quoting responses saying that publishing these pictures was out of line, exploiting that poor lady’s misfortune.  What was most shocking was that some people seemed to forget about the people in their last, horrific moments of life and pay more attention to fire escape safety and ghettos.

Then, Ephron goes on to express the incident from newspaper editor Charles Sieb’s point of view.  He saw the edge this could bring to his paper, almost forgetting about how his readers would perceive the pictures.  As the Godfather said, “It’s nothing personal, it’s just business.”  Sieb, generally representing the editors’ point of view in Ephron’s essay, saw the beauty in these fateful shots, which is how Forman probably expected these pictures to be received.  Te difference in the views lies in the business aspect; Forman said he had to turn away as he realized what was happening through in his viewfinder.  Perhaps he did not expect these pictures to be so publicly exposed.  Perhaps the paper already paid for the roll of film that was loaded, and he, like Sieb, was bound by his profession to share these pictures with the world.

Finally, Ephron moves from censorship to her own analysis of the situation.  In a little less than a page, she evaluates the newspaper’s role in society.  There are some things that, by law, can not be shown in the media, and it is the newspaper’s job to show everything else.  Ephron boldly admits, and I agree,

“They deserve to be printed because they are great pictures, breathtaking pictures of something that happened. That they disturb readers is exactly as it should be: that’s why photojournalism is often more powerful that written journalism.”

Photography is a hobby of mine, and I know it must have made Forman so proud and so exhilarated to take such a fateful frame.  I also thought it was interesting how he said he was “making the pictures” in paragraph one, rather than taking or capturing.

The bad evidence was presented first in the essay, perhaps awaiting clarity from the better, later evidence.  For example, in paragraph nine Bird’s observations of the typical American campuses rate them a gloom place based on the faces of students.  College ought to be a very stressful experience if it is to be a valuable one.  Even if that is not the case to such observed students, the happiness of a school is not enjoyed by an outsider.  A student is more likely to know the laughter and play of campus life than a nation-wide wanderer, one, like Bird, who is obliged to research to visit a majority of American campuses if he is to speak on behalf of American campuses.  The next bit of bad evidence in Bird’s essay is written in the eighteenth paragraph.  A survey was taken by 300 students at Central High School in Valley Stream, New York; 200 of them revealed that the education they were getting was not worth the money they or their parents were paying.  First, there is a flaw with who could take the survey.  If the survey was taken in person, that means most of these kids are those who just sit around campus to be social and do not take school seriously.  Meanwhile, the scholars are secluded in study, not wanting to be bothered, or in class.  It is also impractical to say these 300 east coast students from a college not so well known represent students in Bird’s nation-wide focus.

Bird’s thesis that college is, in most cases, a waste of time and money is supported by ample good evidence.  For instance, Bird uses a mathematical relation in paragraph 27.  This is good evidence because is is a mathematically proven truth.  The numbers used in the relation are practical- cost of tuition at Princeton saved in a bank account instead of spent over four years.  Mathematics is the best unbiased evidence that supports why one value is more than another.  In this case, it directly shows the benefit of not paying for college and investing in one’s ambition.  Another case proved by good evidence in Bird’s essay was that there are too few places for college graduates with degrees to go and make the decent  living that college seems to promise.  In paragraph 40, Bird uses numbers from a federal resource, The Department of Labor, and the collective colleges of America.  In 1975, 4,300 new jobs would be available for adults with psychology degrees, but colleges were expected to hand out 58,430 psychology degrees.  This gives readers an obvious sense of the unbalanced and unlikely chance of getting the desired job after graduation.

II. Ideas themselves are not dangerous.

III. All harmful acts come from dangerous thoughts.

IV. Recognizing dangerous ideas is the first step to preventing harmful acts.

V. Conclusion

Section II-

Ideas themselves are not dangerous.  Historical records will say the French revolutionaries were beheaded because of their ideas.  The idea of revolution is not what beheaded countless revolutionaries in France in the late eighteenth century.  It was the blade of the guillotine that separated their heads from their necks, and it was the radical acts of looting and causing chaos that got them caught.  It could be argued that the guillotine was an idea, but that is an incomplete statement.  The guillotine is an invention of a person with an idea.  Without the technology, the idea would remain in an alternate reality in someone’s mind- intangible to the world.  Why would such a thing be of any threat to us?  An idea has no way of breaking the law.  Many could argue another angle on the French Revolution and say it was the ideas of the French Monarchy that made the heads roll.  But an idea has no arms to hold somebody on the chopping block nor legs to march to the person’s house and arrest them.  It was the power the of the monarchy that turned their medieval ideas into a reign of terror for the peasants.  Without their assets- a crown, an army, and wealth- they might as well be a bunch of local pub drunks rambling about what ought to be done about the mischievous masses.  Like the guillotine required technology to take physical form, the monarchy needed high-standing power and control for their cruelty to become reality.  Are we held accountable for our mistakes, or the ideas that they spring from?  Obviously, one’s actions and the consequences of his or her actions are all that can be accounted for.  The idea, if it has not been made obvious by the action, will be left completely out of the picture, unknown to the world.  An idea only really exists to its beholder, and he/she is the only person that can be affected by the idea itself.  Ideas need power to become dangerous; without them, they are a harmless gust of wind that could pass through ignored and unnoticed.

Where does the degradation of our educational system of today start?  Staples points to students and schools who only care about the image of success; “The consumer appetite for less rigorous education is nowhere near more evident than in the University of Phoenix, a profit-making school that shuns traditional scholarship and offers a curriculum so superficial that critics compare it to a drive-through restaurant” (Staples, 5).  Everyone wants the easiest, cheapest ticket to success, and the University of Phoenix is practically a get-rich-quick scheme that comes with a diploma.  That diploma will not reflect the true value of education when you compare it to someone with a traditional, hard-earned diploma.  Here you are comparing sweet apples to sour apples.  For Brooks, the problem is that, “biological factors influence reading tastes, even after accounting for culture” (Brooks, 6).  Something about the curriculum is less attractive to boys than girls.  There is a study that shows girls are ahead of boys in school, and Brooks suggests that maybe it is not our fault that school is boring us to tears.

From comparisons of the past, these authors show that our educational standards have changed for the worst.  Brooks points out that “the percentage of young men who read has plummeted over the past 14 years” (Brooks, 10).  It has been proven that boys’ minds function differently than girls’.  As time has been going on, half of the students are slowly being let down because of inferior curriculum that does not interest boys at all.  While this is happening, “campuswide averages have crept from a C just 10 years ago to a B-plus today” (Staples, 2)  Staples argues that over the years the curriculum has become easier, or maybe the standard of education has dropped for political reasons beyond the student.  Coincidentally, there is no proof that the human brain has evolved to such an extraordinary height of intelligence, so it is the colleges that want the B-plus image so they can get more students and more money.

From the past, we have strayed from an effective structure of education.  Our methods had to change with the times, but are we changing it in the right way?  As is, declares Staples, “Professors at every level inflate to escape negative evaluations by students, whose opinions now figure in tenure and promotion decisions” (Staples, 3).  While ratemyprofessor.com is a great website to praise or defile teachers, what is said on that website determines if people sign up for their classes in the following semester.  More people will be drawn to a class if a review said, “Awesome teacher, easy A, does not take roll, etc.” A teacher with tenure- a guaranteed spot on the payroll- would not care either way, but for a part-time teacher without tenure, it is more alluring to feed the monster, as it were; they can give out As for good ratings, thus having a better chance of people taking his or her class, or the school can decide they are not needed since no one is taking the course.  Feed the monster or it will destroy you!  But this monster is indeed a monster that needs to be destroyed.  Good teachers that challenge their students are being cast out of their career because some lazy, ignorant, chumps praise the bad teachers that do not teach but pass their students.

Brooks take on necessary change is a more traditional approach. Brooks refers to Dr. Leonard Sax’s belief that “They just have to be taught in different ways… which would allow kids to open up and break free from gender stereotypes” (Brooks, 11).  Single sex schools would allow a school to focus on the special ways the brains of different sexes work as Brooks mentions before with specific curriculum.  Single sex schools are a better alternative to segregating coed schools because it does not suggest the stereotype that men and women are not equal.

What is college guaranteeing nowadays?  I think the “pre-rich” fields are undergoing serious transformation because of the economy.  Every body gets sick, but only a few get insurance to actually see a doctor.  Small businesses are not doing well at all versus the money-suckling corporations.  Corporate restaurants and supermarkets drain the area around it of every last penny with unbeatable low prices, leaving developing, small businesses high and dry. Business majors either go to be middle men of corporations or most likely fail with a small business.

Sometimes this college pressure just tells me, “Hey kid, if all goes wrong, or at least not how you want it to be, you can become an evil genius who no one listens to until you make a global destruction device.”  I do not mean to scare anyone; I am just trying to help you feel the weight of the situation.

The humanitarian does not go to college anymore.  I want to save people by predicting earthquakes so they can all et out of there. But then the question struck me to the wet cement of my career in geophysics: where are they going to go?  The world id such a cruel place.  Say, for instance, that I could have given two months notice to Haiti.  Well the cruel truth I realized is this: no country is going to take in thousands of poor Haitians.  The U. S. is already having immigration and population problems.  Even with my entirely humanitarian goals in science, there is not much just one can do.  Humanitarians ought to be in politics, but only politicians have enough money to do that kind of stuff.

We are reliant on the work of others, and vice versa.  I need the human relations people to send the message to politicians.  Then, politicians need to be more compassionate.  The politicians need me to do their calculations to save their people.  It is a cycle of dependence on each other, much like how Zinsser linked college stress to the economy to parents.

There are two types of stress: healthy and unhealthy stress.  College brings forth a healthy pressure.  It makes us strive to do better for ourselves and ultimately others as well.  The stress of due dates and hours spent reading and writing is ultimately rewarding and strengthens our souls.

Pollan starts with an argument about the duality of our coexistence with animals. How can we be so loving and nurturing to domestic animals and cruelly oblivious and neglecting toward farm animals that supply us our proteins? Well, we cannot relate to every animal the same way.

Then he moves on to the question of pain of animals, and Singer compares the IQ of a chimp being equal to or greater than that of a child or retard.  So why are we not testing products on retards? Well that’s cruel and unusual.  Here is where the term “speciesist” is defined.  The idea is similar to racism or sexism in that the unfair treatment of animals is justified because they are not Homo sapiens. Speciesist are going to be the new Nazis in forty years.  Singer disproves any argument that Pollan can think of, but that does not mean he’s right about anything; that is the excluded middle argument fallacy.  Just because one side’s argument are disproved doesn’t prove the other side’s argument is valid.  I don not like this Singer guy because he generalizes carnivores as a bunch of brutal, heartless Nazis as even Pollan pins himself as a speciesist.

Killing is a part of nature argues Pollan, but the counter is that we should not base our rational on nature because murder and rape is natural.  I am offended by this point.  Murder and rape is chaos; nature is a cycle.  By farming livestock animals- pigs, horses, sheep, and chickens- we are interfering with that cycle of life.  We are also improving their living conditions by providing them with a sudden, painless death. There is no way to tell what animals prefer.  This concludes that language makes animal suffering different, not similar in any way, than human suffering.

Animal confinement was the most essential element in Pollan’s essay.  The corporate industrial farm put an evil face on farming because the conditions are absolutely cruel; however, there are farms like the Polyface Farm, with glass wall encouraging people to look.  This is a good alternative to looking away or going vegetarian.  Pollan ends with this notion of a humane carnivore; one who supports small farms with sunshine, open fields, and glass walls.