Chew, Swallow and Then Burn

After reading 50 more pages of Fat Land, I learned quite a few interesting things. I have to clarify though that this book was published in 2003, so many of the data that the author uses is from the 80's and 90's. Still, my knowledge on diets and nutrition has been expanded and I realized that there are many different theories regarding a perfect diet. What's important is to be smart and not let all of the different theories get to you. It has happened to me before, where I heard about a new diet that would for sure make you lose an certain amount of pounds, but in the end it just wouldn't work. What I can conclude from everything that is being exposed in chapters 3 and what I read from 4 is that you can eat all of the different types of food ONLY if you manage to burn it. In other words, exercise is key. 

So at first, when chapter 3 begins, Critser talked about how people became overweight or obese. He mentioned how "eating out" became "a thing" and people would just eat the majority of their meals at places other than home. This brought negative consequences because eating out was viewed as a treat, which meant that people could order bigger sizes. They only did this because cooking at home would just mean more work and time spent on something that shouldn't require so much time. It would also take away time with family. In economics, this is called opportunity cost, by the way (the cost of the best next alternative). Anyway, Critser then talks about puericulture, which originated in 19th century France and was basically adapted to teach mothering techniques to new mothers. This meant that new mothers would learn how to feed a child. More towards the 21st century, a basic principle in puericulture was to "never put a child on a diet" (pg. 39) because (very long story short) that would lead to eating disorders later on in that child's life. 

Dyspepsia: (noun) indigestion

 Scientists discovered later on, that "snacking", something that emerged in the 1980's would bring negative consequences. This truly shocked me because I had heard multiple amounts of times by nutritionists and non-professionals, that eating healthy snacks between foods would speed up your metabolism and thus make you lose weight. However, I learned that there was and still is a wide variety of snacks, and "variety had become the enemy" (pg. 40). Researchers at the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center from Tufts University found that: "the higher the variety of snack foods present in the subjects' diet, the higher the number of calories from those foods they would consume, and the higher would be the subjects' consequent body fatness" (pg. 40). The snacking explanation truly impressed me, since I thought that snacking was actually helping people lose weight when in reality it does the opposite. 

 Another very interesting thing that came up was how more kids are becoming obese each day. After some research and an observation of 4,063 children, researchers came to the conclusion that "the more TV a child watched, the less she exercised and the more likely she was to be either overweight or obese" (pg. 73). When they asked the parents why their kid wouldn't go outside and get active, the majority of parents more or less said that even though TV watching is bad, their kid at least wouldn't be exposed to the dangers of the street. To me, that sounds ridiculous. I would understand that answer if they lived here in Colombia, where crime is much greater than in the US. Plus, in the US there are a lot of different safe parks and places that kids can go and be well supervised. 

Fat Land has been quite an interesting book, and I've learned so much about nutrition and eating concerns. I am still hoping to maybe get to a part where the author might give out some of his personal experience. I don’t know, I just hope that I can be able to get out as much as possible from this book in order for me to adopt a healthier lifestyle. 

Home to the Fat

Oh, America! Traveling to the United States can really be surprising. Since the very second I set foot on the "land of the free", the smell of fatty foods always penetrates my innocent nostrils. My eyes wander around and the people I see are clearly different from what I'm used to seeing in Colombia. It's astounding: 60% of Americans are overweight. It's becoming an epidemic that is only leading everyone towards obesity. Greg Critser was once fat. In his book, Fat Land, he analyses "how Americans became the fattest people in the world" (cover page). 

Truculent (adj.) eager or quick to
argue or fight; aggressively defiant

 I started reading this book because I have always been interested in nutritional behaviors, especially how they vary in the US and Colombia. Recently, I have been talking about the subject with my mother, since I'll be moving to the US next year for college. It has been one of my concerns. Having to deal with a completely different food scheme brings a mayor concern to my head. Will I gain weight? Many people say that in freshmen year you gain 15 pounds. However, I have wondered if there is a way to escape those freshmen 15. 

Gurney (noun) a wheeled stretcher used
for transporting hospital patients 

 Coincidentally, Critser can be the answer to my major doubt. His story seems very interesting to me, for he used to be overweight. One day, he witnessed the quasi-death of an obese man when Craig went to the hospital to visit a relative. The young, obese man was on a gurney and his mother cried while he gasped for air. Shocked, Critser thought to himself, "there but for the grace of God go I" (pg. 6). That's when he realized that he had to make a change in his life and take the healthy path. 

Peripatetic (adj.) traveling from
place to place, esp. working or
based in various places
for relatively short periods 

 I've only read the first 30 pages of the book, and it has been extremely engaging. Even the first two chapters of the book have been interesting, and they talk about the historical and economical aspects of fatty foods in America. It's actually fun because many concepts explained, I've already learned in AP Macro and Microeconomics. For example, when Critser starts talking about the Japanese scientists who discovered fructose as a cheap way to sweeten food, he begins to analyze al of the economic implications (which I felt proud for understanding). Basically, fructose leads to the creation of corn syrup – artificial sweetener and preservative. Since it was cheaper than sugar, per unit production costs decreased, which increased the profit of American corporations such as Pepsi, Coca Cola, and McDonalds. He then mentions a price ceiling that Nixon puts on the price of meat (a maximum minimum price for a product under the equilibrium quantity). Then, he talked about the invention of "largesizing" portions in order to get more profit, and proved that "supersizing" was a new kind of marketing power. All of these things catched my attention. 

 While reading this book, I remembered the documentary Supersize Me and also Food Inc. I just can't wait to find out how Critser managed to lose so much weight.

Wake up! It's Just a Machine

After finishing the second half of The Influencing Machine, I came to my senses and realized many different things about the media. As the title implies, the media is just a machine that influences the way we act, think, judge, and value. The news that is delivered to us now days can be digested in a completely different way than in the past. Neil Postman observed once that today we can access news from anywhere in the world through different technological devices, and news that isn't exactly relevant to us is exactly the type of news that we see as entertainment. News from everywhere has now become relevant, and it has managed to affect us all. Additionally, he mentions that now we can act to spread news and influence how every news story ends (like helping out on a famine relief). 

Giddy: (adj.) affected with
vertigo; dizzy

 Our cellphones provide a huge contribution to enhance our lives. It is through the use of our cellphone that we can access all types of news, maintain our social interactions through social networks, and rely on a safe companion. Brooke Gladstone actually wrote, "…Cellphone addiction may be our way of medicating against isolation. And information addiction may inoculate us against echo chambers. Maybe the same technology that gives rise to digital diseases actually holds the cure" (pg. 140). I can relate to this completely. I use my cellphone approximately 16 of the 24 hours a day. I use it either to read E! News or to chat with friends. Actually, I also use it to play stupid addictive games, scroll through my Instagram account, send Snapchats, and wander around the Twitter application. 

Epaulets: (noun) an ornamental
shoulder piece worn with on
uniforms, chiefly by military
officers

 Is all of this too much? Are we getting an excess of information from all the many social networking websites, newspapers magazines, TV channels, radio stations and Internet webpages? Actually, that's what my last SAT prompt was about. I took the position of saying that it is actually too much. (It's quite ironic how I want to base my life around the media, yet I defend the position against it.) Not only is it too much, but it also makes us lazier and stupider human beings. An ancient Egyptian king said to the god of the alphabet the following: "this discovery of yours will create forgetfulness in the learners' souls-they will trust to the external written characters and not remember of themselves" (pg. 135). When I read this, it reminded me of the notifications that we get through Facebook and the alarms that we set in our phones whenever it's someone's birthday or when we have a special thing that we want to remember. Without these aids, people would have to actually make an effort to remember stuff. It is very shocking how we now depend on technology and the media in order to remember to do things. 

This second half of The Influencing Machine was a bit more entertaining to me than the first half. It talked about more recent things, although it also talked about some historical important events. I learned above all, that objectivity in journalism is essential yet impossible. That's why journalists will always have some type of bias in their writing. Indirectly, we have been influenced by what they write and believe. Journalists deliver to a machine – the media. That's why we have to have our own beliefs and independence so that this machine doesn’t take over us.

Fallacies and Cigarettes

Click here to watch our fallacious commercial. 

So I Chose a Graphic Novel...

The Influencing Machine by Brooke Gladstone was my pick. This graphic novel takes the reader through history analyzing "The Media" and the view that we as an audience have had throughout the years. I read half of the book (it's only 155 pages long) and even though it’s a graphic novel, it still took me quite some time to get to the middle. This novel focuses a lot on politics. I've never really been a fanatic of presidents, elections and laws so it has been a different experience for me. It also uses a lot of vocabulary that I didn't quite know. 

Penchant: (noun) a strong inclination.
taste, or liking for something.

 Before I started reading this novel, I thought that maybe the book would take a different approach on the media. Yes, of course I was expecting it to cover the history of journalism and obviously political journalism. I just didn’t think it would be all about those two topics only (or at least those are the only things that the novel has talked about up until where I've read). The subject of journalism and the media as a whole are topics that interest me a lot since I want to major in communications when I go to college. Although the book focuses more on elections and politics in general, I still would've liked for it to explore other types of journalism such as entertainment journalism or sports journalism. 

Libel: (noun) a published false
statement that is damaging to
a person's reputation.

 However, Gladstone still manages to convince me, and I can really tell she knows a lot about the subject. Since the beginning of the novel, I felt transported to 10th grade when I took AP US History. Terms like "The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798" and "Boston Tea Party" reminded me of the boringly tedious days back then. The author says, "The truth is irrelevant. Lying journalists helped build this country" (Page 15). That's why it's important to learn about the history of journalism; we need to understand where it all came from. 

 Something that really impressed me had to do with statistics. Gladstone says that the number 50,000 has been used as a statistic relating number of assassinations, abductions, and homicides. Year after year, reporters would often say that 50,000 people were victims of several different misfortunes. However, we then discover that "50,000 is a death magnet." She says that Ken Lanning explained this phenomenon like this: "It wasn't a real small number…like 200. And it wasn't a ridiculously large number…like 10 million. It was a Goldilocks number. Not too hot, not too cold" (Page 51). It's incredible that reporters simply give out this "Goldilocks number" just because it sounds like a good fit. These types of discoveries are what really take out the credibility of journalists. 

Ubiquitous: (adj.)
existing or being
everywhere.

 Despite all of this, what I am enjoying about this book is the register and tone that the author uses. Her register is informal and formal (gives her opinion, uses strong vocabulary, seems like a conversation between the writer and the reader, etc.). Her tone is witty and candid, which really hooks the audience (at least it really grabbed my attention due to her tone alone). I just hope that maybe in the pages to come Brooke can shift to other types of journalism, or maybe focus on other areas of the media.

My Opinion on an Opinion

I read this op-ed article from the New York Times about kids with autism and how wandering around is such a big concern. I honestly didn't have much background knowledge on the topic, I still don't really know much about autism. However, in the article I learned that kids with autism tend to walk around places, just the same way that people with Alzheimer's do. I did know about people with Alzheimer's - I have family members that are diagnosed with it - and how they sometimes lose their orientation skills and simply wander around having no idea where they are heading. It is very interesting how the brain can trick us and makes us do things that maybe we wouldn't think about doing. For example, in the article, the author talks about different cases of kids diagnosed with autism and how they wandered around very dangerous places. The fact that they are risking their lives brings a lot of anxiety to their families. This is what Lori McIlwain, the author, conveys in the article. 

I noticed that the author used pathos throughout her article. She used pathos when she described the different examples of kids who had negative consequences due to their wandering around. For example, she mentioned a 5-year-old boy called Devonte who was also autistic and wandered from his grandparents' home. He was tragically found drowned near a slough the next day. Also, she talks about her experience with her own son, Connor, and how she has felt anxiety and distress whenever he wandered around. Through pathos, she manages to move us with her story. 

McIlwain also uses ethos in her article. We as the audience get to know what type of person she is. I noticed that she is a very good mom, and cares a lot about her child. Many families don't get that much attention from a mother, especially many whose kids are confronted with problems like autism. She over protected him by putting a secure fence around their home's yard and also bought a tracking device for her son to use. This really shows us her interest in her kid and the way she wants him to be safe at all times. Additionally, she became a member of the National Autism Association, where she states that they provide "information and resources for caregivers." That shows that she is fully committed to helping families just like hers. 

At the end, the author compares the attention that Alzheimer's and autism get from the public. She said that the Department of Justice gives around a million dollars each year for Alzheimer's-related technology for tracking. On the other hand, there's no equivalent funding for autism-related tracking technology, and she mentions that the government should really take this into consideration, for both of the problems are very serious. 

"The Fight" and the Arguments

This weekend I watched an old episode of The Office called "The Fight" on Netflix. It was about a fight that Michael Scott (the branch manager at Scranton, PA) has with Dwight Schrute, a salesman. This episode is absolutely hilarious because Dwight, a purple belt in Goju-Ryu karate, battles with Michael, who has absolutely no idea how to fight. Michael's pride and ego takes over him and lies about having experience and being a street fighter. Coincidentally, I found many things that are explained in Thank You For Arguing. 

During the weekend, I also read chapter 20. I really enjoyed this chapter, definitely more than 15 and 16, because I find cleverness very fascinating. Many of the techniques I knew about, others are completely new. For example I already knew about irony, metaphors, and repeated first words. The others are obviously clever, but unknown to me. 

Many of the terms that came up in chapter 20 actually appeared in this episode of The Office, however the first thing that came up was from way back from chapter three. At the very beginning, the three-core issues from chapter three (blame, values and choice) were recognizable. As Dwight comes into the office he blames: "Who moved my desk?" Then he uses demonstrative rhetoric and says, "It is not funny. This is totally unprofessional." After nobody confesses he uses deliberative argument and says, " Ok, I am going to tell Michael and this entire office will be punished." 

Later on, I found the use of verbing (turning nouns into verbs, or vice versa). Michael Scott said, "Chillax, Pam. Don't start Pam-M-S-ing" (quite funny, converts Pam – in this case the noun – into a verb). 

Then I found two examples of metallage, which is when you take a word or phrase and use it as an object within a sentence. Both of the examples are said by Michael Scott: "this is more of a ying-yang thing. Michael is all cursive and Scott all caps." And "Oh hi there, "Karate Kid" (used to refer to Dwight, and maybe it could also be a metaphor). 

Another thing that I found was the self-answering question. Dwight asks himself, "Did I wanna harm Michael? The one man I've been hired to protect? No, I did not!" 

Irony was the next thing that I recognized and was used by Jim Halpert:" Well, we're all kind of excited to see this fight. The Albany branch is working right through lunch to prevent downsizing. But Michael, he decided to extend our lunch by an hour so that we could go down to the Dojo and watch him fight Dwight. Fight! Fight! Fight!" This was very funny because he is comparing their branch to the Albany branch and the way that people at the other branch are working very hard and for extra hours in order to avoid downsizing, while at Scranton they are just fooling around with a stupid fight. Michael doesn't care about corporates's downsizing decision, and promotes all of the foolishness. 

Finally, the episode ends with a question that the interviewers ask Michael. They ask him if he would rather be feared or loved and he responds, "Would I rather be feared or loved? Easy. Both. I want people to be afraid of how much they love me." This could be a chiasmus, and in a way a self-answering question. 

The Office was and still is one of my favorite shows, and I really enjoyed being able to spot all of the different things that I've learned from the book. I wonder, were the writers of the show aware of the use of rhetoric or was it pure coincidence?

Fallacies, Deadly Sins, Muslim Terrorism, and Liar Detectors

In chapters 15 and 16 of Thank You For Arguing, new topics were introduced to me. The subject of fallacies was one of them, although that was in chapter 14. I have heard people close to me talk about fallacies multiple amounts of times and whenever I asked them what those were, they simply wouldn't know how to explain those to me. That's why I'm so glad I now know what they are. I think that fallacies are very interesting, and I know I've said this before, but I have already seen them in casual argumentation without even knowing. It is in chapter 15 where the "seven deadly logical sins" are explained. Making allusion to the seven deadly sins in Christian ethics, these logical sins "aren't 'wrong,' since rhetoric has no real rules. They simply make deliberative argument impossible…they lie out of bounds" (p. 240). The seven deadly logical sins, exactly as they appear in the book, are: 
1. Switching tenses away from the future 
2. In flexible insistence on the rules (using the voice of God, or refusing to hear the other side) 
3. Humiliation (argument done only to humiliate, not to make a choice) 
4. Innuendo (if you object to it, you can look like a fool) 
5. Threats 
6. Nasty language or signs 
7. Utter stupidity 

 These tools are very useful in everyday life. For example in this video, Bill O'Reilly manages to spot a fallacy when Jon Stewart makes a statement about Muslim terrorism. Jon Stewart says, "Let's say that somebody commits an act of terror…and we took their whole religion…and we lump them in for special singling out." O'Reilly immediately spots the all natural fallacy. This fallacy assumes that members of the same family share the same traits. O'Reilly then stops him and clarifies that he's talking about "An act of terror, not 14,600 acts of terror." The family in this situation would be the Muslim community and the fact that one individual from that family committed an act of terrorism doesn't make all the other members of that family terrorists. That's why people shouldn't assume that all Muslims are terrorists, or that all terrorists are Muslims. 

 Finally, in chapter 16 it talks about knowing how much you should trust someone's trustworthiness and sincerity. Heinrichs talks about this by saying that there are two main liar detectors: the needs test (which measures disinterest) and the extremes test (which measure virtue). All of this is provided through ethos. 

 To finalize, here are the vocab words that I learned in these chapters: 

Clobber: (verb) to hit (someone) hard

Eponym: (noun) a person after whom
a discovery. invention, place, etc., is
named or thought to be named.

Savvy: (noun) shrewdness and practical
knowledge esp. in politics or business. 

Scratch "Simple"

Ah, Rhetoric! It looked so simple when we were introduced to logos, pathos and ethos. Chapters 10 through 12 of Thank You For Arguing proved that rhetoric is not as simple as you might think. There's more to logos, pathos and ethos. In the field of rhetoric there are a lot of different concepts. I feel like I'm learning a new language or a complex subject, such as microeconomics. I know that for me it's hard to accommodate to all of this new content and language, but I'll give myself a few more chapters and I bet I won't be struggling as much. At least that's what happened when I took AP Macroeconomics last year. 

Don’t get me wrong; the content is very interesting and quite entertaining in my opinion. Heinrichs' didactic, yet whimsical tone makes the reading fully engaging. There's just so much going on at the same time that it sometimes seems like if he was talking too much. I mean, in just Chapters 10 through 12 we learn about: passive voice, backfiring, humor (and all of the different types of humor), "The Common Place", "The Advantageous", babbling, labeling, "The Rejection", stance, framing, redefining, term changing, and definition. That's quite a lot, I believe. 

 However, I do feel that Chapter 11 introduced the topics very thoroughly. It was my favorite chapter out of the three. I really liked the idea of "The Common Place" because it explains something that I have been trying to do whenever I give presentations to a big audience or simply in an argument. If I manage to point out a common viewpoint that the audience holds, then I can "use it as [my] argument's jumping-off point" (p. 142). This just made me realize that if I find that "Common Place" I'll sound more convincing. 

Tenet: (noun) One of the principles
on which a belief or theory is
based on.

 While reading, I also noticed some things that have already happened to me in the past. I talked about this in previous blog posts (how I've already experienced some of the things mentioned in the book), but I like to realize these things because to me they are just coincidences. I have never studied rhetoric before. That's why it's so interesting to me the fact that I have already employed techniques that are explained in the book. A clear example of this is when Heinrichs defines babbling. Babbling has been used in my life so many times, especially when I was a little girl. It happened whenever I argued, or actually fought, with my brother. Stubborn little kids do it all the time, and stubborn old people do too (I see it all the time with my grandfather). 

 Even though Thank You For Arguing has been and engaging and delightful opportunity for me to learn about rhetoric, I feel like Heinrichs "talks" to me very fast. I always need time to digest whatever I read, and with this book it's been hard due to all of the new concepts explained. I know that soon I won’t be complaining about this, and that I'll be able use all of the new techniques.