No, to Budget Cuts in Higher Education

Education doesnt come cheap.  Everyone in American knows this. But with modern society's emphsis on higher education in order to get a better job and to make more money to take care of yourself and your family. But with education prices rising people are forced to take out huge loans which is nothing but huge debts and right now our country can not take anymore debts like this.

Elizabeth Medina uses a lot of facts and statistics to make her point int he writing. She makes the point that cutting higher education budgeting would affect students, faculty, and staff.  Education has taken a big enough hit here in Georgia and our law makers need to have that in mind every time they try to cut money.  Georgia students wont measure up to other students from other states if we keep cutting education. They are fully aware of that bu they seem to pretend that they don't notice it.

I know that Georgia is in debt as many other states are, but we need to do what we can to continue to educate our citizens so that we can be ones to help create new businesses and generate revenue for the state.

A Modest Proposal

In this famous writing by Johnathan Swift from the 1700's is a powerful piece that is still widely read in today's times.  Swift wrote a satire piece about the poor and how they should raise their children to be eaten and how this will help with the hunger rate of the poor. 

Now I am a fan of funny dark humor, but this was a  bit too much for me. I truly thought that Swift was serious about  eating children, he did such a good job doing that, but he did an even better job bringing attention to the oblivious rich people in the country that there was a large problem with the poverty level in the country.

Swift's writing that a brilliant piece of writing can be done in many different ways. Though some people today might feel that what he wrote went beyond tackiness and tastelessness, they can not argue that it did not get them thinking about how serious the poor problem had to be for some to suggest such a thing.

Why Schools dont Educate

 John Gatto is a New York City teacher of many years and an author of a few eductional books. He was a true education advocate, he understood the importance of teaching children in and outside of school which he stressed in Why Schools Dont Educate.

After reading this paper, it really had me thing about how often I allow my son to explore the world around him.  It is clear that the public schools system here in Georgia are limiting in their education tacticts yearly. Cutting funding for schools, have enlarged class sizes, cut field trips, and limited classes like arts, music, and other extra curricular activities. Gatto pointed out that based on the amount of time children are in class and when they get home, the amount of television they are allowed to watch cuts into the actual time kids have left each day to just be kids. Its seems that kid now a days might be less well rounded then their parents and their parent's parents and this is a problem, People need to be able to adapt to all situation and circumstances, but if they are not given the opportunity to as children, it is a possibility they will grow up lacking the basic life tools to be productive and successful.  Gatto really opened up my mind to the amount of television my child was watching and how he needs to get out more and just enjoy his life as a child.

Girls Will be Girls, Unfortunately

" Cliques are to girls as bullies are to boys"

Ellen Goodwill wrote a column in 2002 about "mean girls" in today's society.  A lot of what Goodwill talked about was true and valid.  At times she almost went overboard with her examples ( ie. the Columbine Massacre example) but I can understand the harsh example and tone.  In today's time young girls and grown women can be very mean...to simply put it.  Women want to surround themselves with other women that look like them, act like them, and want to do what they want to do, and for some, especially teenage ladies, those women that don't "fit in" with the group or clique are not welcomed and often times become the target for ridicule and separation.  Some girls can handle being outcasted but others can not and this sometimes is the cause of teen depression and suicide. I believe that without guidance young girl put to much emphases on irrelevant issues and these issues will cause them to take part in things that would be detrimental to another girl and to themselves. And with things like camera phones, Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc things can be recorded and later shared with millions of peoples and a lot of times this is the method these girls are using to exploit other teenage girls and make them embarrassed and shunned by other students and people. So the important thing to do her is understand that kids are cruel and its important to stay on top of our young ladies to insure as much as possible that understand the importance of being an individual and following a crowd. And just teaching them that being a "nice girl"  is way better and beneficial then being a mean one.

Indirectness is Not Insecurity

In her article Deborah Tannen writes on the effects of gender on communication. Tannen suggest that women use indirect orders to get there employees to follow direction and get things done men tend to be straight forward and direct.  She centered this communications difference in the modern day work place.  she showed how a woman approach could be just as effective as the mans.

I dont agree with Tannen, I believe that we have to adapt an communication tactic that works best for the individuals who I am managing. If they do better with a sternness and more direct means of communication, then that tactic should be used. But if I have people working for me that need more of a sensitive indirect way of being communicated with then I would use that, but only to a certain extent.  I believe that as a woman we are looked at a sensitive creatures and sometimes this gets in the way of managing certain types of people.  When men are being managed by women they might tend to dismiss a sensitive woman as a boss and not take her seriously.  so maybe using a more universal method of communication in the workplace would workout best. Strong, but not overbearing seems to be good.

A Deadly Education

In a writing titled "A Deadly Education" by T. Maxwell, he wrote about the harmful effects of second hand smoke and how being a student at Clayton State University, how it was hard to avoid this second hand smoke when walking around campus.

I truly understand the concerns of the non-smokers, but people pay to go to school here, this is a public University so I do not believe that someone should be told that they can not smoke on campus. I am a student here and I see people everyday smoking and I have just learned to walk around it. I have not seen that many people smoking where it is a cause for alarm or a problem for me to just avoid. It is the same thing these non smokers would have to do outside of public building and other places, so I guess I I just don't understand the big deal?

Should This Student Be Expelled?

In an article written by Nat Hentoff for the Village Voice,  Hentoff discusses the case of Doug Hann,  a varsity football player for the prestigious Brown University.  In 1990 Hann was involved in a situation where he went on a drunken rant, on his 21st birthday,  were many racial slurs were used. This rant had taken place on campus, and witness by many other students.  At first the slurs were not targeting one specific individual, but when another student asked Hann to calm down and lower his voice, Hann began to use racial and sexual slurs at specific people. Later when some students had had enough, they began to follow Hann and his friends and Hann's began to make demeaning comments to the students of other races, even trying to fight a few of them. It was later found out that this was not Hann's first time getting drunk and spitting out racial slurs. He was ordered two years prior to the birthday night incident to take race relations workshop for calling  man a "nigger" in a bar. 

Months later Hann was expelled, with no chance of re-admittance,  from Brown University for the birthday night rant. Hann was expelled under the "Hate Speech Code" that had been adapted by other schools arcoss the nation. Some agreed with the code and others did not. It was clear that Hentoff was one that did not agree that code. Personally it caused me to do some serious deep thinking.

Racial slurs are wrong and as a society we know that, but I think almost everyone is guilty of using them at times, but not in a public setting. Most people aren't racist but just calling someone stupid or ugly or even when a women is called a bitch or a whore: people use words that they know will hurt the person or persons they are aimed after.  Its doenst mean thatthey person using the terms has a real serious biased against the race, sexualaitly or gender of the person, but what Hann did showed, in my opinion, thay he was rascist.  He didnt mind using such terms in a public setting and was even educated enough to know what the Israli flag looked like to evenn make anti-semtic slur at that person.  Alcohol played a little role in his behavior to me, and becuase this situation took place on campus, I blieve the school did exactly what was appropiate. He had already had one cance two years ago to fix his issues, but he choose not to. That is his fault.

Now I believe in Free Speech, but what he did was not that. This was not a clan rally an individual speech to a crowd of followers. This was a racist grown man allowing alcohol to show his true self.  Colleges at the end of the day are to have a since of unity, and speaking hate on campus has no place there. If this was take place off campus grounds I would not agree to have Hann expelled, but since it was the school acted correctly.

In Praise of the "F" Word

In this article  Mary Sherry  writes from her experience as a mother and teacher on a very touchy subject, Social Promotion. For many years students who should not have, passed because of the social stigma associated with being kept back.President George W. Bush even pushed the No child Left Behind incentive. 

The goal of having every child succeed is a great goal, and every parent strives to have a child who is successful in every thing they do. However the mere fact of passing children who do not possess the skills to be successful in the next grade level is present in today's society  and is not benefiting our children but hindering them from ever being successful.Plainly put children who can not read only grow to be adults who can not read. Sherry's article says it all that flunking as a punishment for lack of motivation is necessary to teach a lesson.

Why We Crave Horror Movies

 In Stephen King's essay,  "Why We Crave Horror Movies"  he tells us that horror movies appeal to the insanity and the potential for violence in all of us- and that could be a good thing. He starts the essay with reason why people go to horror movies. He says we are all insane, we like to push the envelope to prove we are not afraid, or to have fun. However his reason become more complex as you read on. He asks why people like to see others suffer, and that the answer has to do with the dangerous effects of not finding an outlet for negative emotions, negative emotions we all possess. He wrote this essay to bring awareness of the shared insanity of people, a insanity we all try to hide. The insanity the younger generation embrace but shy away from with age. However King suggest that watching such movies helps us live the fantasies we can not really live without being put away. 

You Have Been "Prepared"

     Civilization produces many customs and rituals which could be construed by others to be quite uncivilized. Embalming, in my opinion, is one of those practices.  In fact there are some that would argue that the process of embalming is more barbaric today than in times past. Jessica Mitford penned a fabulous essay describing the brutality of what goes on behind closed doors at the mortuary. “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” was written solely for the purpose of shedding some bright light on the planned horror that takes place after death.

     In a brilliant collection of prose, Mitford describes the tools, chemicals, and tricks of the trade used by what she describes as inaptly trained “pseudo-surgeons.”  The way that she depicts the procedure actually inspires fear. Not fear of the thought of death, we all feel that, but fear of the thought of what they do thereafter. She takes care to humanize the corpse that is being prepared by referring to him as Mr. Jones. It seems as if Mitford has done a great job of balancing critical thought processes with accurate and effective emotional cues-both of which are used cleverly to engage and influence the reader. Expressing the humanity and science of death is not something one does without much thought and intestinal fortitude.

     Reading “Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain” has forever affected the way that I feel about attending funerals, even my own end of life plans. It makes me wonder if the living are just being selfish by holding on to something or someone who is no longer there. When I go, just throw me in a box and sing me a song! (And no sad songs, please!)

Paper Mills

In " Free Online Paper Mills", the author, Michelle Vu, searched two different website that offered to "write" a students paper for them at a cost. The two sites were Custom Writings and eCheats, and though both site looked different they bother offered the same thing; plagiarized essay papers. Surprisingly enough, both sites try to avoid blame by writing that these essays should be used for paraphrasing and should also be listed on a student's work cited page, to insure they are not braking any rules. But all that sounds like is a cop out.

All student learn early  in their school careers that turning in a paper, that was not written by he or she is considered plagiarism...period! whether a person paid for it or not, and a person found to be using one of these custom papers should be punished.

Robotic Surgery... The Future is Now

After reading Jacqueline Owen's "Robotic Surgery" it made me view the robotic movement in medicine differently.  In the writing the author talked about the advantages and disadvantages of  the use of robotic surgeries today.

Siding with Owen, we too believe that the advantages of robotic surgery far out weigh the disadvantages. Just cutting down on the recovery time to us is a large advantage. It is commonly known that just because someone make it out of surgery, that sometime due to complications during recovery can lead to a person becoming sicker or even dying.  Less pain for the patient will also insure a more speedy and comfortable recovery and that is important.

yes, there are disadvantages to the use of robots in the operating room, but these same advantages also coincide with those of a human surgeon. No one person or thing is without faults or the ability to make a mistake or malfunction if you will. But if there is a way to minimize the overall cost of a surgical procedure for a patient, while also minimizing the patients recovery time, I do not understand why more hospital are not doing all they can do to make sure these robots are available in their hospitals.

Why Write When You Can Buy?

In the reading Free Essay Websites: A Convenient Way to Plagiarize by Katie Hindman , the author wrote about the wave of custom essay writing sites available to students today online and whether or not buying an essay from one of these site is actually considered plagiarism. The essay compared two different websites that both sold these "custom written essays" and the writer dissected the two, showing their similarity as well as their differences. How the layout of the site and the language of writing  was used to make the inquirer more comfortable with maybe deciding to purchase a paper. 

Writing essays is a very important part of college, not one student can avoid them. With this, it is common knowledge that people, since the beginning of time, have cheated their way through a lot of things and college is no different. If there is a way for some people to avoid hard work in life they will use it. Websites like the ones described are one of the methods lazy people use to make it out of college and its basically just not ok. College is not  mandatory, so when a person decided to attend after graduating high school, they should be in the position to give it their all. Laziness is not and should never be tolerated in the college atmosphere.  Those individuals who would rely on a website or even another individual to write a paper that is suppose to demonstrate "their personal" acquired knowledge of a certain subject have no place in college. Granted, there are a lot of people who have extremely busy lives and feel like that they could benefit from a service like this. Some students might have complete knowledge of the subject being written upon and could regurgitate it successfully if tested, but due to their schedules, feel like essay websites would be used as a convenience only.  But it is still wrong. Plagiarism in our society is frowned upon, and so,  if a essay is not 100% your own written words, then it cheating and just plain unacceptable.

"Arguing in Community"

"A new study says some obese people who are generally healthy live just as long as their slim counterparts... and are happier than people who struggle with diets."

Over the years society has changed its opinion on what is "average" and what is "healthy". Recently a study published by York University has given us food for thought on the subject of weight in relation to health. A common assumption is that if you are overweight, you must be unhealthy. As we begin to feel like we are in the throws of an obesity epidemic, we must stop and evaluate our tendency to make sweeping generalizations. This study celebrates our individuality, without stereotyping any one group based on arbitrary averages.