All posts by Olivia Meader

Part I:

“Overconsumption of calories in the United States is usually meat and animal bi-products, which contain cholesterol and saturated fatty acids. The rate that the United States consumes meat is extremely excessive, given meat is not crucial to having a balanced diet.”

Not only did I not have hard evidence to prove my statement, but I also use the word “usually” which is not persuasive or successful in proving my argument.  The common logical fallacy that I used was False Cause.  I implied that obesity was caused largely by the consumption of meat and animal byproducts.  I need to use statistics to strengthen my argument and correctly relate the consumption of meat for a percentage of overconsumption of daily caloric intake.

“This would increase yields allowing farmers to sustain a food supply as well as grow their incomes.”

This was in relation to improving agricultural conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa.  This conclusion does not logically follow because there are so many more variables that have not been accounted for, such as governments manipulating the incomes of farmers.  I need to go in depth about how incomes will fall from an economic aspect.  I need to specify how incomes could potentially grow without government intervention.

Part II:

On the two wings, I am going to present my two conflicting arguments about the impact of the industrialization of meat on rural farmers in developing countries; one promoting and the other condemning.  In the middle I will draw my own conclusion together based off of the two different arguments.  I will draw diagrams and market graphs to illustrate the impacts in the short and long term.

Presentation Evaluation

While completing my Power Point presentation I realized that it would be much easier to narrow my focus down.  I had to choose what good I would concentrate on, which developing country I need to research specifically, as well as other aspects.  I realized that I need to pull together conclusions I make from various studies about poverty, trade and international relations to produce a new argument.  After presenting and evaluating other presentations, I now realize how much more I need to narrow my focus because I am being flooded with information.  I should narrow which industry in the meat market to study, like the beef  market.  I should narrow my study of the Ethiopian population affected to the rural farmers, etc.  I need to research so much more information about economics and economic implications of the global food trade.

Promising Sources!

EDITORIAL.” New Internationalist (1977): 2. Peace Research Abstracts. EBSCO. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.

Howat, G. R. “Eating in 2000 AD- Meat and Two Veg Or Stones into Bread?” Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 44.1 (1985): 3-11. AGRICOLA. CSA. 11 Oct. 2010

Nishikawa, Jun. “The future of international cooperation—hunger and us: the background of hunger.” Peace Culture 1.43 (1999): 11. Peace Research Abstracts. EBSCO. Web. 11 Oct. 2010.

Wedding, Kristin.  “Cultivating Global Food Security:  A Strategy for U.S. Leadership on Productivity, Agricultural Research, and Trade.” Center for Strategic and International Studies (2010): Web. 8 Oct 2010

Wertime, Shirin. “Energy Use in the US & Global Agri-Food Systems: Implications for Sustainable Agriculture. ” Culture Change 5 Jun 2010: Alt-Press Watch (APW), ProQuest. Web.  11 Oct. 2010

The site that looks most promising so far is “Eating in 2000 AD-Meat and Two Veg Or Stones into Break?”.  By evaluating the abstract it pinpoints exactly what I am focusing my paper on which is food shortages.  However, it is advocating exactly what I am against which would help me find flaws in my own argument.  This source is heavily chart based which gives me relevant information directly.  The references of this source will bring me to sites where the charts and information originally come from.  It is helping me refine my topic even more by emphasizing the tradeoffs of agricultural production vs. meat production.

Stallybrass blog

In saying that the individual should not be the origin or his or her thoughts is dealing with inspiration.  An idea is something that is passed onto an individual, and the individual will process it and come up his or her own convictions.  This will later be passed to others who will build upon it.  It was never an original thought, it just is considered by different people in different ways.

This is very much what research deals with.  Each topic that is chosen for research is one that has already been considered and reserached.  It is the researcher’s obligation to find what has already been ‘thought’ and learn about the ideas that are already presented.  Once the reseracher understands these, different ideas should be inspired from them.

Research Journal

I am interested in researching the development of synthetic cells

because I want to find out how substantial a change they could create through refining reusable fuel

This is important because it could affect the global dependency of fuel as well as affect the environment and global market place.

Questions:

1.) How expensive would manufacturing be?

2.) How long would it take to perfect the refining of fuel?

3.) Would using synthetic cells as a source of fuel be exploiting nature and the environment?

Enola Gay Exhibit

Museum curators are prone to criticism due to the pressures of audiences to exhibit a subject in a determined attitude.  The Enola Gay exhibit is especially controversial because of its implications during World War II.  It is important to consider the perspective of the museum, but more importantly the curator.  The museum holds its focus on aviation, so it would seem appropriate to exhibit and display solely the information pertaining to the mechanics of the B-29.  However, the devastation that it caused plays a major role in the mechanics of the machine as a weapon.  Besides holding duties to the museum and its priorities, the curator also holds loyalties to the veterans of the war, being a retired U.S. Marine.  This puts the curator in a compromising situation between the loyalties to the war veterans and museum and the responsibility the United States owns because of the Enola Gay.  If a plane had achieved incredible feats, it would undoubtedly be added to the exhibit.  It is wrong to withhold information because of sensitivities to certain groups of people, or because of guilt.  Doing this only creates a lack of knowledge that prevents society from understanding the true nature of history.

Paul Revere’s Ride

http://poetry.eserver.org/paul-revere.html

Many children learn about the heroic ride of Paul Revere in elementary school.  They are usually expected to learn this poem, or even memorize it.  However, there are many flaws that arise in this poem about how the midnight ride actually occurred. The phrase, “the British are coming!” is one that none of the riders yelled.  There was still a large percentage of the population that was loyal to the crown, so this operation had to be in secret.  Not only that, but Revere was only one out of nearly forty people who sent out the alert.  The main leaders were Revere, Prescott, and Dawes; in the middle of the operation Revere was arrested so the others had to complete the task without him.  Many people see Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as the person to blame for this misunderstanding in his poem.  But, the poem was never intended for historic purposes, rather, it was used for nationalistic purposes during the time of the Civil War.

Promissory Notes

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mfd&fileName=44/44007/44007page.db&recNum=0&itemLink=/ammem/doughtml/dougFolder6.html&linkText=7

The Promissory Note that I reviewed was issued September 1st, 1868 in Washington D.C. It is a promise note from Charles R. Douglass to pay back Frederick Douglass the amount of $300.  This would have  been an extremely large amount of money which indicates that the person who was borrowing the money was someone Frederick Douglass trusted immensely.  He granted a period of two years for the borrower to repay him.  He was both confident in, and sympathetic to Charles R. Douglass.  The questions that this artifact provokes are: who was Charles R. Douglass in relation to Frederick, and for what is this money being used?  These questions could be broader to include: what major events were happening in D.C. at the time?  Charles R. Douglass was the youngest son of Frederick Douglass.  Despite not being able to find an exact explanation as to what the money was for, I found that Charles was enlisted in the army until around that time.  There are three stamps at the top of the note.  Questions this may incite would be about where it was stamped and why.  It could be an official bank that issued the note, leaving the stamps for proof of legitimacy.  This illustrates the graciousness of Douglass for lending money for various causes, especially during the time after the Civil War, where many people looked to him for guidance and support.