Author: Rollo

Definiton Argument- Flyerfan1974

This week on Thursday Night Football,  a sudden play sparked a huge brawl between the Baltimore Ravens and Miami Dolphins. During the second quarter on third down, Ravens starting quarterback Joe Flacco scrambled out of the pocket and ran for the first down. As many quarterbacks do, Flacco slid feet first into the turf to avoid injury. There is a mutual understanding to avoid hitting the quarterback. As Flacco slid, Miami linebacker Kiko Alonso delivers an unnecessary hit to the sliding QB. After the hit, Flacco’s helmet comes off and he receives a concussion. Ravens players start to push Alonso down, sparking a brawl between each team. Sure this hit was extremely unnecessary and Alonso could have avoided Flacco, but he didn’t. There was nothing to stop the 6’3 233 lb linebacker, no barrier, nothing. The only thing protecting Flacco was his shoulder pads, and his helmet. As soon as the hit was received, Flacco received a concussion and his helmet came right off. How safe really was he? Would it have been better if he was not wearing a helmet?

Flacco’s concussion is just one of the injuries received in the 2017-2018 NFL season. This year has been one filled with injuries to big stars, teams losing vital pieces, and fantasy football team owners losing their minds. You can make a whole team with backups with the injuries that happened this year. This shows that no position is safe from the violence of football. Aaron Rodgers, a future hall of famer has a broken collar bone. Giants star wide receiver Odell Beckham Jr. has a broken ankle. Eagles future hall of famer LT Jason Peters has a torn ACL and MCL. These injuries just prove how violent the game is, it doesn’t matter if you are 5’11 and 170 lbs or 6’5 and 330 lbs, everyone gets injured. It is just the violence of the game.

The injured players all wore helmets and pads, yet still were injured. The pads may have absorbed some of the blow, but again the players were still injured. Helmets do nothing, they may seem like they do, but they really don’t. Many propose to take away tackling or just ban the game, but this is really not a solution. If we can not protect the players from this violent game, then maybe we might have to protect the violent game from the players. Im sure when Walter Camp changed the rules from Rugby into American football he did not want players to become seriously injured. The violent nature comes from the players, they don’t have to make an enormous hit, but they do anyway. These enormous hits, they cause injuries. Why do they do this, a concept called Risk Compensation. Protective equipment, like helmets and pads, may prompt users to act more aggressively and thereby increase the potential for serious injury. Im sure when a football player is on the field with no helmet he is not going to make a risky play, but give him a helmet and he will make that play knowing he is suppose to be protected. In the 1940’s, when there were no plastic helmets, players were taught the initial point of contact should be the shoulder. In the 1960’s when todays helmets made their first appearance, players were taught that the initial point of contact was the head due to it being protected. There was a noted increase in tackling drill fatalities between 1945 to 1954 and 1955 to 1964. The players in the 40s and early 50s had no helmets, but this time period has a significantly less number of tackling drill fatalities than when helmets were invented. Risk compensation is also found in other sports such as, baseball, hockey, skiing, snowboarding, and bicycling. Risk management is even found in rugby.

Rugby is the sport that started American football. Walter Camp changed the rules of rugby to create American football. It is an American tradition that cannot ever be taken away, that is why we need to fix it. Rugby is absolutely a violent sport, players are jumping, running, hitting, being put into giant huddles, and players are even being thrown, and they do this all without any protective equipment. If you ask many Americans, they may not understand the rules about Rugby. Rugby does not have as much injuries as it does in football. It is ironic that the sport with the most protective equipment has more injuries. In the British Journal of Sports Medicine there is a study about Rugby. In this study, scientists wanted to find out if headgear reduces the incidence  of concussions in Rugby. Sixteen under 15 rugby union teams were recruited from three interschool competitions in metropolitan Sydney and the adjacent country region. A prospective study was undertaken over a single competitive season. The study had two arms: a headgear arm and a control arm. Headgear wearing rates and injury data were reported to the investigators and verified using spot checks. “A total of 294 players participated in the study. There were 1179 player exposures with headgear and 357 without headgear. In the study time frame, there were nine incidences of concussion; seven of the players involved wore headgear and two did not. There was no significant difference between concussion rates between the two study arms.” The conclusion was that although there is some controversy about the desirability of wearing protective headgear in football, this pilot study strongly suggests that current headgear does not provide significant protection against concussion in rugby union at a junior level. As you can see risk management was present in this study. Out of the 9 players, 7 were wearing the head gear. Due to having protection, here players must have felt more safe, and make more riskier hits.

Risk management is all around us and is not just on a sports field. When you are driving, are you more likely to drive more risky if you have your seatbelt on than if you didn’t? When boating are you going to drive your boat more risky with your life vest? With the phenomenon of risk management defined, we can now determine how to fix the problem of concussions in football. With the definition of risk management in our minds we can safely say that taking away helmets in football will make it safer and reduce the number on concussions.

Works Cited

Hagel, Brent PhD*; Meeuwisse, Willem MD, PhD “Risk Compensation: A “Side Effect” of Sport Injury Prevention?” Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.

A S McIntosh, P McCrory  “Effectiveness of headgear in a pilot study of under 15 rugby union football” British Journal of Sports Medicine http://bjsm.bmj.com/content/35/3/167.short

Brad Gagnon Nov 3, 2017 . “NFL 2017 All-Injured Team Is Loaded with Pro Bowl Players at Halfway Point of Season.” CBSSports.com, 3 Nov. 2017, www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-2017-all-injured-team-is-loaded-with-pro-bowl-players-at-halfway-point-of-season/.

 

Safer Saws-Flyerfan1974

1A. Manufacturer

The saw was equipped with a safety device called SawStop that could distinguish between wood and flesh and then stop the blade fast enough to prevent a gruesome injury.

1B. The saw is equipped with a safety device that prevents injury.

1C. Factual Claim- Saw stop preventing injuries is a fact.

1D. The claim provides logic to persuade the reader that this device may change the world of woodworking. If this device prevents “gruesome injury” then people will want to buy it. No one likes gruesome injuries like losing fingers.

3A. Bosch Spokes person

“The new Bosch ReaXX saw will have a completely different blade brake tech that will allow for 2 braking events before the cartridge has to be replaced. It also won’t destroy your blade.”

3B. The tool company Bosch is stating how their product is will be way different than the SawStop, created by Steve Gass.

3C. Opinion Claim- Bosch is saying how their product will differ from Gass’s, but there is no factual evidence to prove this.

3D. This claim provides logic that their product is was different from the one created by jobs. If their product is slightly different, then they will not be sued. The claim is reasonable, the product can be different. However, the accuracy is poor due to Gass’s product being released before theirs. He spent his entire life on this product, and finally releases it, then after this Bosch suddenly has the same idea only slightly different.

6A. Personal Injury Lawyer

“10 amputations a day and thousands more injuries every year, is an unacceptable toll when a ready fix is affordable, available, and waiting.”

6B. This claim is stating that it is unacceptable that people are being injured when a safety tool is sitting around doing nothing.

6C. Opinion Claim- This claim is opinion because other might not think the SawStop is a reliable, affordable, available product.

6D. This claim uses logic to get its point across. Why are people being amputated every day when there is perfect tool to prevent this sitting on the bench? This claim is very accurate, 10 amputations a day can be stopped if the SawStop is implemented. It is affordable and ready.

9A. Steve Gass himself

“They contend that Bosch, and their new ReaXX table saw, which also features flesh-detection and blade brake technology, is infringing on SawStop’s patented inventions.”

9B. Steve Gass feels that Bosch completely ripped off the idea he has spent his whole life creating.

9C. Opinion Claim- This is a more opinioned claim because no one can actually know if Bosch stole his idea, there is no factual, hard evidence. If Bosch created a similar product then some can say it is a copy while others can say it is not a copy.

9D. This claim provides hard evidence like Bosch’s saw has the same flesh detection technology that Steve Gass’s Saw Stop has. The claim also says that the ReaXX saw is infringing on the SawStop’s patented inventions. This is reasonable considering that the ReaXX contains the same technology as the SawStop which has a patent.

11A. Amputees

“I lost a finger and half the use of my hand in a table saw accident the cost of a cartridge a new blade is well worth having that safety.”

11B. This claims states that people would rather buy a new saw than lose a finger.

11C. Factual Claim-Everyone would not want to trade a finger for 60 dollars.

11D. This claim provides a logical explanation, a finger is way more important than a $60 blade. No one would pick less than $100 over a finger or hand.

Proposal +5- Flyerfan1974

Proposal- For my research essay I am going to be discussing why helmets in football make the game more dangerous. Forever, football has been a very dangerous sport, causing injuries the can cause a lifetime of pain. Many blows to the head causes players to form CTE, a brain condition where plaques eat away the brain tissue.

Football equipment has come a long way since the leather heads, but players are still receiving concussions. The use of protective equipment is prompting players to hit harder, due to a phenomenon called risk compensation.

  1. “What is CTE?”

The Essential Content of the article: This article provides information about CTE such as causes, symptoms, treatments, and who is more at risk. It goes into detail about how CTE destroys the body.

What it Proves: This article shows how CTE is caused by playing American football, and how it destroys the human body.

2. “Risk Compensation: A “Side Effect” of Sport Injury Prevention”

The Essential Content of the Article: This article describes how risk compensation prompts humans to act more aggressively, increasing the risk for injury. The article lists how risk compensation plays a role in football, rugby, baseball, skiing, and everyday bicycle helmet use.

What it Proves: The article proves that more protection leaded to more aggressive, riskier behavior. It gives this phenomenon a name, and backs it up with scientific findings.

3. “Effectiveness of headgear in a pilot study of under 15 rugby union football”

The Essential Content of the Article: This study concluded that rugby players wearing the head gear, actually received more concussions.

What it Proves: Head protection may increase your chances of concussions in rugby and football. It also shows that out of all the players in the study, only 9 received concussions.

4. “The counter-intuitive idea that could drastically reduce football’s concussions”

The Essential Content of the Article: This article discusses how University of New Hampshire professor Erik Swartz proposes the idea that helmets may be hurting our players.

What it Proves: Taking helmets out of football can reduce the number of concussions by causing players to play much safer. The article also proves how the idea of risk compensation can apply to not just sports.

5. “ESPN Football Analyst Walks Away, Disturbed by Brain Trauma on Field”

The Essential Content of the Article: This article talks about how ESPN football broadcaster Ed Cunningham quit his job because of all the brain trauma in the sports. Cunningham a player himself, tells his story about how he cannot stand to watch players retire early due to health concerns.

What it Proves: This article proves how CTE has affected one mans life. Not directly, but indirectly it caused him to quit a top job in sports. The brain trauma and injuries were too much for him to handle, and he did not want to be disturbed by it anymore.

Visual Rewrite- Flyerfan1974

0:01: We start off the video with a wide landscape shot, there seems to be some kind of ash and hot coals. Ash and hot coals indicate that a fire has recently happened. This could have been a forest fire, a camp fire close up, or the top of a burnt match. This could be an ad about grilling or fire prevention. It even could be a close up of the ashes of a backyard fire then the camera will zoom out and we will see a family around a campfire in their backyard, we do not know yet. We do not know if we are on Earth, but we cannot just make that assumption. The ash is being uplifted by something. We do not know what it is, it could be wind, a landing helicopter, or a passing car. In the back we can make out a sort of mountain range. Earth has mountains, but it could be the moon. The ash looks gray and depressing, the creator this video used this color to portray a sort of death feel. There are no plants, humans, or animals. Whatever caused this devastation had to have killed off anything in its path.

0:02: Almost half of the ashes are swept up by a sort of golden force. Trees and grass have come back to life with the removal of all the ash. However, a lot of ash still remains. The back of a boat looks like it is leading the golden force. Trees, grass, and a boat indicate that we are in fact in Earth. This force causes an uplifting of all the ash and coal, as if the creator of this video is bringing all that was destroyed back to life.

0:03 Almost all of the ash has been pushed away from this mysterious golden force. Mountains, trees, bushes, and grass come back from the dead. Making the landscape as beautiful as it once was. In the background, huge mountains start to grow to their mighty selves again. The destruction of huge mountains, which must be extremely difficult to destroy shows just how powerful a fire can be, it just ravishes an area. The golden force is what the area looked like before. The beauty of the before fire landscape shows the viewer that all that beauty is to valuable to be destroyed. The most important part of this frame in the boat. It is followed by the bed of a pickup truck. It is a truck hauling a boat, but it is going backwards. Time is being turned back, so whatever this truck passed, it caused destruction to.

0:04: Our shot is now along the road. We see the once mighty mountains, the beautiful trees, grass, and bushes. The trees have all their leaves on, and the man is using his boat. It must be hot, hot summer time. The truck pulling the boat is however, causing an extreme number of sparks. Something metal must be scraping the asphalt. The grass is not extremely green, it is a more yellowish. This discoloration is caused by the hot summer heat. This is the kindling to the fire, and the sparks are the fuel.

0:05: We see the man in his blue pickup truck, his shirt is yellow, and he has a watch on. The man has his arm out the window, tapping the roof of his truck. His eyes are pointed not at the road, but up at the sky. He looks as if he is not paying attention to the road, or the trailer behind him. He may be taping the roof because he is listening to music, he is taping along with the beat. He has the window down so how does he not hear the chains? The music must be so loud that its drowning out the sound of the chains dragging.

0:06: We now have a view from under his truck, and see that the chains used in the connection are sparking up. The metal being drug along asphalt causes the sparks. We can see the ash filled barren wasteland left behind by the fire.

0:07: We see ash and hot coals being lifted off a house and a grass filled front yard. A house was put in this video to show how people’s homes filled with all their belongings, can be destroyed by a simple mistake. The porch of the house is even filled with many belongings. We see the truck driving on by.

0:08: The house is even more intact, with all the belongings being visible. There are barrels and crates all on the porch. They must be filled with produce, with is grown at a farm. This farm house shows that farmers lively hood can be wiped out by the snap of a finger.

0:09: We now can see the front of the truck, moving backwards, turning what was destroyed back into fire, back into what it was before. There is a sort of landscape with dry grass, boulders, and dessert sand. The landscape looks like Texas, which his very hot during the summer. This heat plays a huge role in the forest fire. The front of the truck has no emblem on the front so we know it is not a truck commercial.

0:10: We now have an aerial view of the truck and trailer. The ash is being pushed back to reveal streets, sidewalks, lampposts, and businesses. The creator of this video must have added the town to show what the wildfire can do.

0:11: More and more businesses are revealed. With the destruction of businesses, people will lose their jobs, consumers will have to seek a business farther away, and the whole towns economy may plummet.

0:12: A school and a playground has been cleared of the ash by the backwards moving truck. The creator added this to give an emotional hook. Children go to school, and play on playgrounds. They are defenseless, and are our future. This adds to the whole picture how much a wildfire can take from us.

0:13: The left rear tire is about to hit a pot hole the chains have just started to make sparks.

0:14: The backwards moving truck is now passed the pothole, and the chains are not dragging. It is safe to say that when the truck was driving forward and hit the pothole, the chains were knocked loose. Also we see leaves falling, Autumn may upon us. The leaves falling, and landing under the chains must have been the kindling for the fire.

0:15: The truck is perfectly fine, pulling a boat on a trailer just like normal.

0:16: The truck has stopped in front of a city hall with the American flag flying. This represents the devastation that wildfires have caused the us. A bear with a forest ranger hat and blue pants is walking on 2 feet toward the trucks hitch. It is the famous Smokey Bear who represents forest fire prevention.

0:17: Smokey now walks up to the chains to adjust them.

0:18: Smokey crossed the chains so they are shorter and do not drag even while hooked on the truck, and so that if the trailer comes off the ball of the hitch, it will be cradled by the crossed chains.

0:19: Smokey crosses them all the way so the truck is all set.

0:20: He reaches for the chains which are already connected.

0:21: He pulls on them to check if the chains are secure.

0:22: Smokey gets a close up of his face, and beings to no his head yes, saying “this truck is ready to go.

0:23: The truck pulls away and Smokey’s back faces us as he looks at the truck in pride.

0:24-0:30: A sign comes up on screen and says, “Spark a change not wildfires,” and Smokey is in the same spot he was before, in the background.

(The video says 46 seconds, but the extra 16 seconds are for social media page links being shown)

My Video 

Stone Money Rewrite—Flyerfan1974

Abstract Money

I approached an ice cream stand one day while walking with friends and I decided to buy a cone. After receiving my cone, I pulled out my wallet to pay $2.88. A thought abruptly popped into my head: what is money? I pondered this idea for many days until I discovered the true definition. Money is an abstract concept that may hold a monetary and cultural value, however, not a physical one. Money is not one physical item, but it takes a multitude of different forms including checks, cash, and cards. When I bought my ice cream cone, I paid by debit card. I gave him a swipe of a piece of plastic and he game me a physical item that I could eat. The debit card withdraws money from my account into the ice cream company’s system, which in turn raises its account balance. Currency is not a physical item, but an idea that influences our society. 

When I head over to a gas station or convenience store, and use the ATM, you receive a slip of paper confirming your transaction, it gives you the balance of your account. If the balance of the account is for example $5,000 dollars, then that $5 grand isn’t right there in your hands on the slip of paper, and there is not a little compartment in the ATM that holds your 5 grand. The banks physically do not hold all of your money in a little room, your money is circulated all over the world. Here is a physical example to help you understand, say I get paid a 100 dollar bill. Holding this germ covered, green piece of paper with 100 written all over it, you see Ben Franklin looking at you with pride. Say I take this green piece of paper, draw a red X on it and deposit it in the bank, a week later I go and withdraw 100 dollars. Will I get my red X 100 dollar bill back, no I will not. When I deposited that 100 dollars the only thing that changed was a number on a computer system. That number can be viewed by the bank, by an ATM machine, and by me on a banking app. Our red X 100 dollar bill has now been taken into the banks safe where it is put into circulation. What does this mean, this means that if another person comes by to withdraw 100 dollars they may wind up getting my red X bill. Then they deposit it, and the cycle continues. If you think about it, money is just an abstract concept.

A long time ago in the early stages gold was the only currency of our country. To buy food, or water you would actually have to hand the clerk a piece of metal. Then the abstract concept of paper money was born. Due to the unfavorable test of lugging gold around, you could go to the bank and exchange cash for gold. You could get 1 dollars worth, or 1000 dollars worth, just as long as you had the cash. The money was just an abstract concept because it represented the gold sitting in the bank. If all the gold suddenly disappeared one day, then all the cash would be worthless. For example if I went to the bank and exchanged a little bit of gold for cash, but suddenly the gold disappeared, my cash wouldn’t be worth anything, the cash was just a convenience. It was almost like a title on a car, you can give another man the title, and yes he may own it, however if there is no car then he is just holding a piece of paper with a name of a car.

Today our transactions are documented to the last detail; time of transaction, amount, and type of currency used. We use receipts, bank statements, and ATM slips to show that we have made the transaction of money. If someone asked me if who owns this dollar bill I can show my paycheck. However, in the late 19th century there was a civilization of people who did not record the transaction of money. Everyone knew who’s currency was who’s. In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was an island near Germany called Yap. The people of Yap used fei as their currency. However, fei is very special because it is a large wheel like stone. The fei is made from limestone which can only be reached on another island. Milton Friedman talks about how these people on the island of Yap, use fei as their currency. “Their medium of exchange they call fei, and it consists of a large, solid, thick, stone wheels, ranging from a foot to twelve feet,” says Friedman. The people on Yap’s currency is enormous, it cannot fit in any wallet I own. The people on Yap had to go to another island which was 400 miles away, and had to carve the fei from limestone. Limestone was not found on Yap. The people used canoes and rafts to make the treacherous journey. With extremely heavy stones and flimsy canoes and rafts, something is eventually going to happen. When talking about the people of Yap and their currency the NPR broadcast states that,”You don’t actually have to have the stone to own the stone. The stone is sitting on a path or something, and everybody knows that I own it.” You physically do not have it, but in everyone’s mind you do. One day while sailing back to Yap, the canoes sank, sending all the fei to the bottom of the ocean. “They came back and told the people of Yap what happened, the people of Yap said that’s fine, thats no problem,” “the stones at the bottom of the ocean are still owned.(said in NPR broadcast)” So the people of Yap physically did not have the fei in their possession. They just had the possession of the idea of the fei. For example, say I’m on Yap and have 3 fei, ones in the ocean, ones on a path somewhere, and one is in front of my house. A random stranger from the US comes by and sees my house he would assume I have 1 fei, but my neighbors on Yap would know I have 3 fei.

While searching around about fake, abstract money I noticed an interesting article titled, “How Fake Money saved Brazil.” In the article, Channa Joffe-Walt talks about “how an economist and his buddies tricked the people of Brazil into saving the country from rampant inflation.” Joffe-Walt talks about the crippling inflation that had hit Brazil.” In Brazil, inflation was killing the economy. Milk, and eggs would be priced at a dollar one day, the two dollars the very next day. People would have to run faster than the clerk who would mark up the prices to get the lower prices from the previous day. With many factors like inflation, who knows what can happen? The stock market crash, and the housing market crash are all reminders how are economy can be crippled just like that.

What is money? This question has been asked forever, and is still being though about today. My definition is that money is fake, it is an illusion of our society today, it is a status symbol, a tool, and sometimes a savior. It does not accomplish anything physically, just metaphorically. You cannot build a house out of money, but you can pay for one. There may be physical items paper money, gold, coins, and fei, however money is just fake.

Work Cited

Work CitedFriedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 9 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil>;.

EO3: Critical Reading-Flyerfan1974

Section 2

  1. “Caleb has been home since 2006, way more than enough time for Brannan to catch his symptoms.”
  • Home- Caleb is home after coming back from Iraq with PTSD. Home is a confined space where Caleb and Brannan spend their lives together.
  • Enough Time- The author is telling us that the couple has been in this home for so long that Brannan has caught her husbands mental disorder.
  • Catch his symptoms- Brannan never went to war, however being with her husband in their home everyday, she has contracted the illness

2. “When a sound erupts—Caleb screaming at Brannan because she’s just woken him up from a nightmare, after making sure she’s at least an arm’s length away in case he wakes up swinging—the ensuing silence seems even denser.”

  • When a sound erupts- When any sound erupts, Caleb suddenly feels as if he is back in the war, reacting with some violent actions
  • Screaming- Caleb screams to the anger he is feeling
  • Nightmare- Caleb may be having nightmares due to his experiences in war
  • In case he wakes up swinging- Caleb’s nightmares put him in a defensive state, and Brannan must make sure she is out of range to avoid being injured

3. “Their German shepherd, a service dog trained to help veterans with PTSD, is ready to alert Caleb to triggers by barking, or to calm him by jumping onto his chest.”

  • Alert- The dog helps Caleb by showing him if a trigger is near
  • Triggers- These are factors that can aggravate Caleb’s PSTD

4. “This PTSD picture is worse than some, but much better, Brannan knows, than those that have devolved into drug addiction and rehab stints and relapses.”

  • PTSD is a serious problem that plagues may Americans, some have it not so serious, but many have very serious PTSD
  • Picture- The author uses this word to describe Caleb and Brannan’s situation
  • Drug addiction- Due to deep depression and other symptoms, many PTSD victims turn to drugs to ease the pain. The author adds this part to show what can happen to PTSD sufferers if they do not receive help
  • Relapses- This word is added to show how powerful PTSD can be, it has the power to keep people unhealthy and make them keep turning to drugs

5. “Sometimes I can’t do the laundry,” Brannan explains, reclining on her couch. “And it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m too tired to do the laundry,’ it’s like, ‘Um, I don’t understand how to turn the washing machine on.’ I am looking at a washing machine and a pile of laundry and my brain is literally overwhelmed by trying to figure out how to reconcile them.”

  • Brannan cannot do the laundry do to her PTSD from her husband. She physically forgets how, and becomes overwhelmed.
  • The author included this quote to show how Brannan, who was never in the war, is affected by PTSD
  • Overwhelmed- The PTSD causes stress which makes her panic and not be able to do the laundry
  • Reconcile- Reconcile means to restore friendly relations between. This word is added in the article to show how her brain tries to put together that laundry goes into the washing machine

6. “When we hear Caleb pulling back in the driveway, we jump up and grab their strings, plunging the living room back into its usual necessary darkness.”

  • Jump up- These words are added to show the severity of his arrival. Brannan must act fast not to trigger her husband
  • Plunging- This word is added to show how the darkness makes the room a dark, unlikeable place to be
  • Necessary darkness- It is vital for the room to be dark so that Caleb is not triggered

7. “Now, he’s rounder, heavier, bearded, and long-haired, obviously tough even if he
weren’t prone to wearing a COMBAT INFANTRYMAN cap, but still not the guy you
picture when you see his “Disabled Veteran” license plates.”

  •  rounder, heavier, bearded, and long haired- This is added to describe how Caleb has let himself go, the PTSD is affecting his health, and physical appearance
  • prone to wearing a COMBAT INFANTRYMAN cap–  If Caleb wore this hat, he would be triggered
  • Disabled Veteran license plate- Caleb is a strong man who you would never think is disabled by his physical appearance, but no one really knows what is going on inside

 

Summaries-Flyerfan1974

  1. Polio Vaccination Boycott

It seems counterintuitive that people boycott vaccinations, even though they are used to eradicate disease. In 1996 Nelson Mandela launched the Kick Polio out of Africa campaign which had a goal to vaccinate 50 million children. In 2003 Northern Nigerian state leaders began to denounce the polio vaccination. They told parents to not let their children get the vaccination, due to the contamination of  anti-fertility agents (estradiol hormone), HIV, and cancerous agents. These leaders were suspicious of anything from the western world. They believed America and western allies deliberately  put carcinogens, anti fertility agents, and HIV in the polio vaccine. Previous policies that limited the number of children a woman could have, made people believe that anti fertility drugs were inserted in the vaccine. A committee was appointed to access the safety of the vaccine, but was rejected due to no muslim representation. After an 11 month boycott the Nigerian state Kano leader finally gave their approval for the production of approval from Biopharma, and Indonesian company. Indonesia is a muslim country trusted by the Nigerian muslim leaders.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1831725/

2. Organ Donor Vultures

I find it counterintuitive that doctors give very poor care to patients who are close to death and organ donors. A man who agreed to donate his organs upon death was wrongly declared brain dead by doctors. A suspicious daughter and nurse brought in a neurosurgeon who determined that the man was not brain dead. The mans daughter later described the first doctors as vultures. She also stated that she would receive calls from the organ donation group. They would say statements such as “we need to retrieve the organs in a certain amount of time”, and “how is your fathers condition today.” When the two doctors determined the man brain dead, they came in the room and said “we have 2 signatures thats it we need to pull the plug.” A nurse later performed her own investigation determining he had a strong gag reflex. After this the third doctor came into the room to determine he was not brain dead at all. With a national organ shortage, many believe that doctors are compromising care for organs. In San Luis Obispo a doctor is under investigation for apparently ordering a high volume of medication for an organ donor patient who later died. Many other physicians call this spooky and a rare high stakes error.

http://articles.latimes.com/2007/apr/12/local/me-transplant12

 

3. Vancouver Addicts

I find it counterintuitive that Vancouver provides a place for addicts to legally use drugs. Vancouver, a beautify city has a dark side to it. Vancouver has set up a safe zone called Insite, where addicts can shoot up heroin without fear of being arrested. In this safe zone nurses provide clean syringes, antiseptic wipes, and other instruments. They are also giving the addicts the best heroine. These people are receiving free heroin prescribed by a doctor, 2-3 times a day. The center is for people who did not take heroin alternatives to get clean. These people are the most severe addicts in Vancouver. One man said that the program can help him keep down a job, and not have to spend time looking for his next fix. The free heroin also keeps crime off the streets, the people either break into a car to get money for heroin or get free heroin from the program. Vancouver is blackmailing its heroin addicts. These severely addicted heroin addicts will never get off heroin, so the free drugs keep these people from being the less dangerous drug addicts they can be.

https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/vancouver-combats-heroin-giving-its-addicts-best-smack-world

 

Visual Rhetoric—Flyerfan1974

0:01: We start off the video with a wide landscape shot of hot coals, and ash. However, the ash and coals are starting to be lifted up. A wind may be moving in to area. This devastation may have been a forest fire or a house burned down to the ground. The landscape probably looks so desolate and barren to show the devastation what a fire can do.

0:02: Almost half of the ashes are swept up by a sort of golden force. Trees and grass have come back to life with the removal of all the ash. However, a lot of ash still remains. The back of a boat looks like it is leading the golden force.

0:03 Almost all of the ash has been pushed away from this mysterious golden force. Mountains, trees, bushes, and grass come back from the dead. Making the landscape as beautiful as it once was. In the background, huge mountains start to grow to their mighty selves again. The destruction of huge mountains, which must be extremely difficult to destroy shows just how powerful a fire can be, it just ravishes an area. The golden force is what the area looked like before. The beauty of the before fire landscape shows the viewer that all that beauty is to valuable to be destroyed. The most important part of this frame in the boat. It is followed by the bed of a pickup truck. It is a truck hauling a boat, but it is going backwards. Time is being turned back, so whatever this truck passed, it caused destruction to.

0:04: Our shot is now along the road. We see the once mighty mountains, the beautiful trees, grass, and bushes. The trees have all their leaves on, and the man is using his boat. It must be hot, hot summer time. The truck pulling the boat is however, causing an extreme number of sparks. Something metal must be scraping the asphalt. The grass is not extremely green, it is a more yellowish. This discoloration is caused by the hot summer heat. This is the kindling to the fire, and the sparks are the fuel.

0:05: We see the man in his blue pickup truck, his shirt is yellow, and he has a watch on. The man has his arm out the window, tapping the roof of his truck. His eyes are pointed not at the road, but up at the sky. He looks as if he is not paying attention to the road, or the trailer behind him. He may be taping the roof because he is listening to music, he is taping along with the beat. He has the window down so how does he not hear the chains? The music must be so loud that its drowning out the sound of the chains dragging.

0:06: We now have a view from under his truck, and see that the chains used in the connection are sparking up. The metal being drug along asphalt causes the sparks. You can see the ash filled barren wasteland left behind by the fire.

0:07: We see ash and hot coals being lifted off a house and a grass filled front yard. A house was put in this video to show how people’s homes filled with all their belongings, can be destroyed by a simple mistake. The porch of the house is even filled with many belongings. You see the truck driving on by.

0:08: The house is even more intact, with all the belongings being visible. There are barrels and crates all on the porch. They must be filled with produce, with is grown at a farm. This farm house shows that farmers lively hood can be wiped out by the snap of a finger.

0:09: You now can see the front of the truck, moving backwards, turning what was destroyed back into fire, back into what it was before. There is a sort of landscape with dry grass, boulders, and dessert sand. The landscape looks like Texas, which his very hot during the summer. This heat plays a huge role in the forest fire.

0:10: We now have an aerial view of the truck and trailer. The ash is being pushed back to reveal streets, sidewalks, lampposts, and businesses. The creator of this video must have added the town to show what the wildfire can do.

0:11: More and more businesses are revealed. With the destruction of businesses, people will lose their jobs, consumers will have to seek a business farther away, and the whole towns economy may plummet.

0:12: A school and a playground has been cleared of the ash by the backwards moving truck. The creator added this to give an emotional hook. Children go to school, and play on playgrounds. They are defenseless, and are our future. This adds to the whole picture how much a wildfire can take from us.

0:13: The left rear tire is about to hit a pot hole the chains have just started to make sparks.

0:14: The backwards moving truck is now passed the pothole, and the chains are not dragging. It is safe to say that when the truck was driving forward and hit the pothole, the chains were knocked loose. Also we see leaves falling, Autumn may upon us. The leaves falling, and landing under the chains must have been the kindling for the fire.

0:15: The truck is perfectly fine, pulling a boat on a trailer just like normal.

0:16: The truck has stopped in front of a city hall with the American flag flying. This represents the devastation that wildfires have caused the us. A bear with a forest ranger hat and blue pants is walking on 2 feet toward the trucks hitch. It is the famous Smokey Bear who represents forest fire prevention.

0:17: Smokey now walks up to the chains to adjust them.

0:18: Smokey crossed the chains so they are shorter and do not drag even while hooked on the truck, and so that if the trailer comes off the ball of the hitch, it will be cradled by the crossed chains.

0:19: Smokey crosses them all the way so the truck is all set.

0:20: He reaches for the chains which are already connected.

0:21: He pulls on them to check if the chains are secure.

0:22: Smokey gets a close up of his face, and beings to no his head yes, saying “this truck is ready to go.

0:23: The truck pulls away and Smokey’s back faces us as he looks at the truck in pride.

0:24-0:30: A sign comes up on screen and says, “Spark a change not wildfires,” and Smokey is in the same spot he was before, in the background.

(The video says 46 seconds, but the extra 16 seconds are for social media page links being shown)

My Video 

 

 

Stone Money—Flyerfan

Money is a vital factor in our society today. It buys houses, pays bills, and even can build cities. Money is also used in everyday business, being exchanged for products or services. Money may be vital to society, but is it vital for humans to live? Money physically cannot feed a family, it cannot clothe people, cannot be put together to build a house, so what is money all about? If I walked on the street and asked different people what money was, I would probably get different responses from each person. However, each response would be along the lines of “money is used to buy stuff.” Others may have to take time to think of their response. The official definition of money is a current medium of exchange between coins and bank notes. This is a definition defining money as a physical item, even before this assignment I too thought of money as a physical item. However, after thinking about it, I assure you that it is far from it.

When I head over to a gas station or convenience store, and use the ATM, you receive a slip of paper confirming your transaction, it gives you the balance of your account. If the balance of the account is for example $5,000 dollars, then that $5 grand isn’t right there in your hands on the slip of paper, and there is not a little compartment in the ATM that holds your 5 grand. The banks physically do not hold all of your money in a little room, your money is circulated all over the world. Here is a physical example to help you understand, say I get paid a 100 dollar bill. Holding this germ covered, green piece of paper with 100 written all over it, you see Ben Franklin looking at you with pride. Say I take this green piece of paper, draw a red X on it and deposit it in the bank, a week later I go and withdraw 100 dollars. Will I get my red X 100 dollar bill back, no I will not. When I deposited that 100 dollars the only thing that changed was a number on a computer system. That number can be viewed by the bank, by an ATM machine, and by me on a banking app. Our red X 100 dollar bill has now been taken into the banks safe where it is put into circulation. What does this mean, this means that if another person comes by to withdraw 100 dollars they may wind up getting my red X bill. Then they deposit it, and the cycle continues.  If you think about it, money is just an abstract concept. A long time ago in the early stages gold was the only currency of our country. To buy food, or water you would actually have to hand the clerk a piece of metal. Then the abstract concept of paper money was born. Due to the unfavorable test of lugging gold around, you could go to the bank and exchange cash for gold. You could get 1 dollars worth, or 1000 dollars worth, just as long as you had the cash. The money was just an abstract concept because it represented the gold sitting in the bank. If all the gold suddenly disappeared one day, then all the cash would be worthless. For example if I went to the bank and exchanged a little bit of gold for cash, but suddenly the gold disappeared, my cash wouldn’t be worth anything, the cash was just a convenience. It was almost like a title on a car, you can give another man the title, and yes he may own it, however if there is no car then he is just holding a piece of paper with a name of a car.

In the late 1800s and early 1900s there was an island near Germany called Yap. The people of Yap used fei as their currency. However, fei is very special because it is a large wheel like stone. The fei is made from limestone which can only be reached on another island. Milton Friedman talks about how these people on the island of Yap, use fei as their currency. “Their medium of exchange they call fei, and it consists of a large, solid, thick, stone wheels, ranging from a foot to twelve feet,” says Friedman. The people on Yap’s currency is enormous, it cannot fit in any wallet I own. The people on Yap had to go to another island which was 400 miles away, and had to carve the fei from limestone. Limestone was not found on Yap. The people used canoes and rafts to make the treacherous journey. With extremely heavy stones and flimsy canoes and rafts, something is eventually going to happen. When talking about the people of Yap and their currency the NPR broadcast states that,”You don’t actually have to have the stone to own the stone. The stone is sitting on a path or something, and everybody knows that I own it.” You physically do not have it, but in everyone’s mind you do. One day while sailing back to Yap, the canoes sank, sending all the fei to the bottom of the ocean. “They came back and told the people of Yap what happened, the people of Yap said that’s fine, thats no problem,” “the stones at the bottom of the ocean are still owned.(said in NPR broadcast)” So the people of Yap physically did not have the fei in their possession. They just had the possession of the idea of the fei. For example, say I’m on Yap and have 3 fei, ones in the ocean, ones on a path somewhere, and one is in front of my house. A random stranger from the US comes by and sees my house he would assume I have 1 fei, but my neighbors on Yap would know I have 3 fei.

While searching around about fake, abstract money I noticed an interesting article titled, “How Fake Money saved Brazil.” In the article, Channa Joffe-Walt talks about “how an economist and his buddies tricked the people of Brazil into saving the country from rampant inflation.” Joffe-Walt talks about the crippling inflation that had hit Brazil.” In Brazil, inflation was killing the economy. Milk, and eggs would be priced at a dollar one day, the two dollars the very next day. People would have to run faster than the clerk who would mark up the prices to get the lower prices from the previous day. With many factors like inflation, who knows what can happen? The stock market crash, and the housing market crash are all reminders how are economy can be crippled just like that.

What is money? This question has been asked forever, and is still being though about today. My definition is that money is fake, it is an illusion of our society today, it is a status symbol, a tool, and sometimes a savior. It does not accomplish anything physically, just metaphorically. You cannot build a house out of money, but you can pay for one. There may be physical items paper money, gold, coins, and fei, however money is just fake.

Work Cited

Work CitedFriedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

The Invention of Stone Money.” 423: The Invention of Stone Money. This Is American Life, WBEZ. Chicago . 7 Jan. 2011.

Joffe-Walt, Chana . “How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” NPR.org. 4 Oct. 2010. 9 Sept. 2017. <http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2010/10/04/130329523/how-fake-money-saved-brazil>;.