john jones | courses

I am not sure if we have to do a blog this week or not, but I am just going to go ahead and do one anyway. First off I really enjoyed not going to class this week. Secondly, since we had no readings this week I do not know exactly what to talk about. I do not know about anyone else but it has become increasingly easy for me to write papers effectively because of the organizational skills I have gained from those handouts. I just wrote an A paper in another class and it only took me an hour. I also am receiving great comments about my introductions because of the introduction techniques I have learned from that same handout.I dont know if anyone else is experiencing similar success but it sure is nice.

Our youth in America is becoming more and more obese. I recently read an article in Newsweek about New York and its the its recent passed proposal of removing trans fats from many of its restaurants. I did research and found out that the process of substituting out of these trans fats is not as difficult as it sounds. My solution would be this substitution away from trans fats into the fast food chains that could be causing the youth's obesity and also cause other heath problems such as heart disease. My audience would include addressing the general American public's awareness of the issue

I didn't present mine today, but I'm sticking with the same Utopian philosophy thing that I presented. it was the one where it had the scrolls on the screen and the three books on the website proposed ideas as to what Utopia is and how to implement it into our present day society. My topic proposal addressed the issue of how to implement it. The author of my Utopian text thinks that the bestt way to achieve Utopia is to acquire mass amounts of knowledge which we can then use to solve the problems of poverty, disease, war, etc. I think that it's a good idea, but the author thinks that we should divert a majority of our current resources to the acquisition of knowledge.

After presenting in class, I have tweaked my argument to be aimed towards Americans:
There’s always that one feature that could be a little fuller.. more lifted.. perhaps tucked in a bit. Some people can learn to love the imperfections, and some people become obsessed with them. In America, we are surrounded by shows such as Extreme Makeover and Nip/Tuck, and “before and after” celebrity makeover surgeries are admired on the covers of magazines. Suddenly, the idea of fixing the little flaws no longer seems far-fetched. This is what I am defining as the skewed utopia: creating the perfect outer experience. I would argue that a “utopian beauty” is reached when a everyone can truly believe that he or she is beautiful. (Of course this will never happen, but that’s what this whole class is, right? Rhetoric of Nowhere.) For some people, a cosmetic surgery could be a really positive experience. For example, correcting a cleft lip could completely change a person’s life. My concern is for the people who get one surgery and immediately start obsessing over the next physical feature that could be improved. (If you give a mouse a cookie... right?) In most cases, these people will never be happy. (If you want an example of this addiction, and a good laugh, go here: http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/200502/tows_past_20050208.jhtml . I saw this on Oprah a few years ago.) I will use the Argentinean article that I showed in class as a warning of the direction that America could be headed. It can be a dangerous, expensive addiction.

I really liked the discussion yesterday in class. It helped me a lot and I am a little more focused on what I want to write about now. I'm doing my paper on this project that this guy created called Globus Cassus. He made a plan in which 4 nodes are raised from the earth and pull all of the earth's magma outwards, then making a new hollow earth 7 times the size of the current one. I actually think this is a good idea, and am considering making my audience specifically the people who are concerned with the environment. This project would help their concerns because it would make a brand new world to start rebuilding on.

I liked the class presentations from Wednesday. I think these topic proposals were a lot more interesting to hear about. When I presented my idea in class, I had a lot of things to work on and a lot of narrowing down to do. After thinking about how I could narrow this paper down, I finally came down to a new audience. I think I am going to still base my topic on the visually impaired, but I am going to narrow down my audience to the people of My Space who enable settings available for users of the website to build their pages from. I am going to propose the idea of creating an option of putting ALT text when the users display images and also different options throughout their pages that will help the visually impaired.

Yesterday in class I presented my topic proposal about Eco-Domes. I came into class not really clear on how my topic proposal would work for the paper, but after listening in class for a little while, it all came together in my head and made a lot more sense. I really think the workshops we did benefit us, or at least me, greatly.

Now what I am trying to figure out is where to go with my proposal in choosing an audience. I have three main ideas:
1. Low income families - the way I would appeal to these people to use Eco-Domes rather than a typical home or apartment is a.the money issue (it's cheaper and they can use the money they save for the benefit of their kids), b.the future of helping the environment/ecological benefits (so that their children will have a nice place to live and grow up in)

I was thinking of writing about the perfect classroom; in which ways do the students learn best based on their environment. Within this paper a lot of points would be brought up with everything relating for each other. For example, a part of this perfect classroom environment would be to learn beyond the curriculum (like preparing them for life socially). Also, it's important for teachers to incorporate different ways of teaching for the different learning styles for each student. This leads to teachers treating some students unfairly. Students who don't understand a topic may be because they way it's being taught. Everyone learns differently so it's up to the teacher to incorporate different teaching styles. It's also important for the student population as well as the teacher population to be from diverse cultural backgrounds because that'll give students a true representative of what the real world is like. And what about tests? Are they REALLY necessary? I've been thinking no for the past 10 years or so (but hey that's just me)! That ties in with the pressures on teachers. They have so much pressure to meet these standards that many of them are teaching for their sake (so they don't get fired) and not for their students' sake. This leads to students dreading school, instead of them coming to school to want to learn! So, yea, with all this said I think I definitely have more problems than necessary. Even though everything relates to each other, I still have to narrow it down. With that said this is my new topic:

Unfortunately I have missed the last two class days because I was celebrating Passover. However, I would like to present my utopian topic to the class via the blog. I found an article discussing how the media portrays an “ideal female body type” and as a result there are adverse affects on young girls. Girls become obsessed with being thin and are turning to life threatening habits to stay skinny. The idea that skinny is pretty has caused young girls to become bulimic, anorexic, resort to drugs, etc. There is plenty of evidence backing up this idea – sad, but true. The idea that there is a “perfect body type” is ridiculous.

Today’s topic proposal workshop was very helpful to me. I was very unsure about my topic proposal going into the class today, but I feel like I have a much better idea as to what this paper is supposed to be. Today, I talked about somehow incorporating the idea held by many intentional communities such as Twin Oaks that all work is equal, judging only by the time spent working rather than the type of work done by a member. At first, I have to admit I was a little lost and not sure where I was going, and I was thinking of someway to use this to prove that this is not a good system. However, I kind of had an epiphany after class.

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The idea of a utopia is really hard for me to fully grasp. I cannot seem to get my mind around the idea that there are people out there that actually think that these crazy ideas, such as jonestown and the society in virginia, are a good way to live your life. In these societies they are simply outcasts to the rest of the world rather than people trying to create the perfect society. Do we not all look at these people as strange beings that do not live life like we do therefore they are "weird"? While they think that they are creating these great places to live and be accepted by their own society the rest of the world as a whole is looking at them like outcasts.

I think today's discussion was the most in depth one we've had in this class. It really helped me gain a good understanding of the true meaning of Herland. It obviously portrayed the ideas that Gillman had and maybe what she experienced in her life time. The part that was most shocking to me was that I didnt realize Terry had tried to rape his wife. I'm not exactly sure what I thought happened, but that definitely wasnt it. I just thought he was one of those guys who thought he was God's gift to earth and was trying to use his charm on his new wife. I really find it kind of weird that none of these women developed any sexual feelings through out the course of the book.

Now the topic I picked is an article about the Abraham Life Center in San Antonio. It the world's first, "embryo bank". Basicall you can oder you can pick and match the type of egg donor with the type of sperm that you want in order to have the brightest, most handsome, most athletic kid. Basically it is like odering a dell instead it is a kid. When I compare this to Herland I try to view it the way the women in Herland would. From first perspective, it looks like they would be appalled to it but at second glance maybe not so much. The women in Herland do not even really raise their children as the one mother.

I am finding Herland to be pretty easy to read, and a pretty interesting work in its own right. Before last week I hadn't known that Charlotte Perkins Gilman had written both Herland and the Yellow Wallpaper; it is interesting to see how different and yet similar the two writings are. She is really a talented writer to be able to create such disperate works that both seem to have similar effects. The idea of both of the texts is that men are a detriment, or at least a hinderance, to the advancement of the female gender, and that women are capable of becoming successful by any measure of the word without men.

I'm really enjoying this book a lot more than I have than all the others. It's very easy to read making it easy to understand, there are funny points, and it's a page turner. I love how the women are portrayed in this book, also. They are not portrayed as the typical weaker sex because they are very sophisticated, civilized and very well educated. It's real funny for me when Terry keeps saying there just HAS to be men around, for his several reasons. I admit, though, I agreed with him in the beginning there must be some men somewhere, else how would there be any children. I thought men had to be locked up somewhere, too, or maybe not locked up, but living in their own little society close by.

It was very interesting exploring the different types of utopias, both in the class and during my search. Through the examinations of these I saw how diverse utopias really are. There were demonic, drug worshipping utopias, yet on the other end of the spectrum there were tofu and hammock producing ones as well. The discussions in class helped me to see that utopias can come in other forms, other then the in the form of creating perfect societies. It helped me to see the differing opinions of what others consider utopias. Although I presented the Amish's own utopia, I will probably researc

I actually remembered to post my own blog. I also liked the ideas presented today in class about the different kinds of Utopia. I still think that Utopia will never be possible, no matter what, but I liked hearing about all the crazy ideas that were in some of the articles/websites. It just goes to show how different everybody's idea of Utopia is and how a true Utopia will probably never be reached. I honestly think that the only way to achieve Utopia would be to give poeople operations like in We to gives them some kind of artificial happiness. It's gonna be interesting hearing people's topic proposals.

I really enjoyed everyone's discussion of different utopias, but I have to say that there was one in particular that was really interesting to me. The one that revolved around people constantly being under the effects of drugs, or excstasy more specifically. I went back to the creators site and read that he believed that it was possible to completely abolish physical and mental pain, and that people would be about to achieve a perpetual state of Nirvana. I agree that this sounds great on paper, but is it really that desirable? If we were constantly on drugs then we would completely discard intelligence, and show no empathy.

I really enjoyed the presentations yesterday. I thought the presentation about Twin Oaks was particularly interesting. It made me think of some of my economics classes. The book would teach different concepts by illustrating a society that only produces two items, such as bananas and rubber bands. They would use this as a basis for determining the maximum amount of productivity that could occur in this society. For example, if it took the same amount of work/time to grow 2 bananas as it did to produce 1 rubber band, we would study how the economy would adjust to meet some sort of ideal output. I had never thought about this before, but we were creating utopian societies. I am totally fascinated that there is really something like this out there. It was brought up that hammock-making was more popular than tofu-making, so the society had to make stipulations for how much tofu a person should be producing. That is the only way the society can thrive.