Body Image

Sadly, body image plays an important role in today’s society.  It’s a person’s perception of their physical appearance based on what they learn is appealing and attractive, what they are told, and hear from the people that surround them. I for instance, have grown up in a world where if you are tall, tan, and thin, you are beautiful and I’m sure I’m not the only one who has grown up with these opinions and thoughts “preached.” A long time ago beautiful was determined by how fat you were because if you were fat, you ate well, which means you were wealthy and that was what everyone was trying to find in their potential “soul mate.” People judge one another first by their appearance then by personality. Those who judge first by the appearance of another don’t get to truly find out who and what type of person it is that they are judging because they don’t even want to take the time. I fully agree and back up the author of “How Far Will We Go to Change Our Body Image?”. After growing up, always hearing I was too fat I’d look pretty if i lost some weight, not only by peers but by family members as well, I went through a stage where I would see myself in the mirror and wasn’t happy, see people out at the beach with their tiny bikini bodies, and just felt nothing but sadness. Some girls do go to extreme measures to lose weight to look like the models, advertisements, and latest trends, they see within the media causing some girls to become even more unhealthy then when they were overweight or what they thought was “too fat.” Truth is, no natural girl or guy has a perfect body. The author states that, “ Over-concern with the body image and shape can lead to restrictive dieting and unhealthy weight control methods which may lead to potentially dangerous disordered eating behaviors” (Croll 540). Be an individual, love your body, be confident at any weight, and if you want to lose some weight, lose it the healthy and safe way. 

The Environment

      Where I live in the south part of Fort Myers close to Estero, looking around the apartment complex that I live in, most of the pollution is being caused by the littering of bottles and cans throughout the parking lot and grassy areas of the complex. The Apartment complex that I live in is strictly college students with lenient security. The combination of the two just leads to uncontrolled parties and harm to our planet. The difficulty involved with eliminating the littering surrounding the buildings is that most drunk college students tend to be too irresponsible to clean up their mess or dispose of their bottles, cans, and other trash into a trash can. If one were to try to talk some sense into one of these students, they wouldn't get anywhere because most of the students simply don't care.
      Lately, there has been such a long waiting list to lease these apartments that the owner recently bought the untouched woodsy lot beside the complex thats full of animals and their homes to knock down and completely destroy so he can have more apartments built. Not only is destroying and the murder of these woods and animal's homes is cruel and but is also degrading the environment. The machines being used to cut down the trees and clean out the area are also causing a lot of air pollution. Unfortunately, there is not much one can do about the growth of society and the need to build more homes, but there is a more efficient way to build while minimizing the degradation and the pollution within the environment by saving areas to preserve the wildlife, not polluting and providing the animals a sanctuary to live in. Although some people simply don't care about the planet overall and just about the present time, there are others though who do care and do their part by recycling and helping save this planet. Every helping hand counts even the smallest performance of the prevention of pollution can make a difference. If those who cared more tried to branch out to at least one person a day and get them to lend a hand, it would have a big impact on our environment.

Handlebars

      Handlebars by The Flobots, isn't one of my favorite songs, but is one song that I know which has a shockingly deep meaning. The song is about two friends growing up and going down different paths of life. One decides to go into corporate and the other chooses a more innocent and free nature life. The friend who chooses corporate, soon begins to become corrupted with power and eventually becomes president. Whereas, the other friend who remains true to himself begins a rebellion against the other. Handlebars is a song about the nature of ambition and the drive for power, what a difference a small choice can make, and about two friends who started out the same and then took separate paths. 

      A basic human need is the need to feel powerful and capable. When the friends we young, they rode their bikes with no handlebars, resembling power over the bike. As they grew older and wiser, one needed more power over bigger things because he became to obsessed with it. His driving emotion from his intellect doesn't change as he grows older and remains unsophisticated. Near the end of the song, the corporate friend begins ordering his army to kill everyone who is in the rebellion. He realizes that it is getting out of his control and then the army kills his friend. Due to his friend's death, he realizes that one can't completely control an army and he then comes to his senses and is horrified of the things he has done. The corporate world is corrupting what was once a more innocent and overall free world. Every choice we make has an effect on our future, like the butterfly effect.

Handlebars Song by The Flobots

Irony In A Modest Propsal

A Modest Proposal, by Jonathan Swift, is an essay full of irony in many different instances. For instance, Swift writes, "the addition of some thousand carcasses in our exportation of barreled beef, the propagation of swine's flesh, and improvements in the art of making good bacon, so much wanted among us by the great destruction of pigs, too frequent at our tables, which are no way comparable in taste or magnificence to a well-grown, fat, yearling child, which roasted whole will make a considerable figure at a lord mayor's feast or any other public entertainment. But this and many others I omit, being studious of brevity." Swift is talking about how we kill so many pigs to put on our tables which doesn't even compare to eating a child. Even though we work hard to make good tasting bacon and stuff it into our children, the kids would taste better than our bacon. It's ironic because we go to great lengths to kill certain animals and eat them when we, ourselves, would taste better than those animals that we would slaughter for food.

Argumentum Ad Populum Fallacy

      Ad Populum is a fallacious argument that concludes a proposition to be true because many or all people believe it. In other words, it "appeals to the people." When I was younger, everytime I told my I wanted something just because all the "cool kids" have it or asked to do something because everyone was doing it,  my mother always used to respond with the question, "If everyone was jumping off of a bridge would you do it too?" I always wanted to do the things that everyone was doing whether it be something good or bad just to be in the "in" crowd.
      FOX News channel is a great example of ad populum because most watchers want to watch FOX because all of it's news is by popular choice. Since FOX is ad populum, it has some of the highest ratings within three of the major news channels. FOX tends to create stories or controversies for popular choice since the facts and the truth aren't always a subject to popular demand or choice. Rachel Maddow on the Rachel Maddow Show from MSNBC once spent a show talking about how FOX news is argumentum ad populum saying that, "FOX does what FOX does." She was trying to describe that saying she was wrong because more people watch FOX is an argumentum ad populum stating, "If many believe so, it is so."

The Flynn Effect and the Sleeper Curve

      In Everything Bad is Good for You, Johnson writes about the Flynn Effect being a progressive increase in the overall IQ of both blacks and whites due to the environment. Whereas the Sleeper Curve "shows that the popular culture is growing more complex, yet it is not sufficiently complex to challenge the most gifted minds, which is why the geniuses aren't getting any smarter"(Everything Bad is Good for You 152). Johnson hypothesizes that there is a connection between the Sleeper Curve and the Flynn Effect. I believe Johnson's hypothesis is true because in the earlier days they were limited to card and board games and throughout the generations, technology has advanced. Kids are now exposed to video and other games that can help them develop positive behavior and the skills they need to raise their IQs at an earlier stage of life, linking the Flynn Effect to the Sleeper Curve. For example, a recent news article about the classic game, Tetris, has been proven to help people gain problem solving and visual skills.

Everything Bad is Good for You

House is a show aired on FOX network every tuesday night at 8:00 or 9:00 p.m. This show is a medical drama about a man named Dr. Gregory House who is a medical, sarcastic genius who doesnt follow the rules but almost always finds the solution to save another life.

House is never anything less than a medical mystery. It always starts intriguing and as the show goes on it only gets better.  The most recent episode of House aired was "You Must Remember This" season 7: episode 12 on February 14, 2011. At the beginning of this episode, the mystery begins with a waitress, Nadia, who becomes temporarily paralyzed in her legs. Once she is admitted to House's team because of her puzzling case, she continues to gain more symptoms which House and his team can not figure out the diagnosis. As the show continues, there's plenty of drama with Nadia and her sister, House and his friends, and House's team and their lives outside of the hospital. Nadia ends up having a rare genetic condition known as McLeod's Syndrome. Nadia finds out that this particular syndrome isn't curable but is controllable. She receives a prescription to help her live a normal life. Nadia's life wasn't only saved but she also gained a better relationship with her sister after receiving a kidney from her. What a great episode!


"The narrative weaves together a collection of distinct strands-sometimes as many as ten, though at least half of the threads involve only a few quick scenes scattered through the episodes"  (Everything Bad is Good for You 67).  This show is a perfect example of what STeve Johnson is stating in his book, Everything Bad is Good for You.  Not only was the episode about House's team finding a diagnosis for Nadia, it's also about House and his relationship with Cuddy, Nadia and her relationship with her sister, House and his friendship with Wilson, and House's team and the drama between them.


 Usually in this television series there is always quite a bit of arguing going on whether it be between doctor and patient or doctor and doctor. The argument between Nadia and her sister is more of a personal argument dealing with what happened between them in the past. The other arguments between House and Cuddy, House and Wilson or his team, and House's team and their lives are all continued from the previous episodes. 


House is a show full of sarcasm, mystery, medical education, and drama. It is a perfect example for Everything Bad is Good for You.  One can't help but think with this series and wonder how it is going to end and what the diagnosis is.