Response to Mr. Ticknor’s blog post #2:

Mr. Ticknor writes about how the fast food giant, McDonald’s, has two of basketball’s best players endorse their food. Lebron James and Dwight Howard definitely do not show how McDonald’s is great for your health, being professional athletes who most likely rarely eat a Big Mac from Miccy D’s. Although Lebron James was quoted to say he endorsed McDonald’s to help out the Ronald McDonald House which helps children with disabilities pay for health bills, it still looks awkward for him to be indulging in a Big Mac. Mr. Ticknor put it the best way, “Nothing says top physical fitness like a Big Mac.”
While reading Mr. Ticknor’s blog about two professional basketball players endorsing McDonald’s and their high calorie food, I almost laughed. I didn’t know about this endorsement, but now that I am aware of this, I too am asking myself, “What are they thinking?” There is no way that those two basketball players eat McDonald’s! McDonald’s must be targeting a young athletic audience when having Lebron James and Dwight Howard endorse them, even though those young, athletic people most likely will not eat at McDonald’s because of the horrible health problems that McDonald’s food can cause. McDonald’s is straight up not good for you, no matter what you order, and athletes do realize this if they want to be in good shape; McDonald’s will not be their first choice for fast food.

Post 2: Prepare a Meal

When I get hungry in the dorms, I will usually prepare a small meal or sometimes just a snack. Today I have a craving for some high sodium Ramen Noodles. Ramen Noodles can easily be a meal for any one on a college budget. The first step to making Ramen Noodles, the fast way, is to hit the bag of Ramen very hard to break up the noodles. Once the noodles are completely crunched apart, open the bag and pour the contents into a bowl or cup. Take out the flavoring packet and pour them over the dry noodles. Now pour water over the noodles until water is slightly above the noodles. With water and the seasonings on the noodles, place the bowl in the microwave for four minutes on high. While waiting four minutes, do some homework or random activity, which makes the Ramen Noodles taste that much better after the wait. Once the microwave makes the annoying beeping noises, remove the bowl of Ramen Noodles and let stand until cool enough to indulge in.
When Michael Pollan writes about how Americans have switched over to eating more processed foods than natural foods in his book, “In Defense of Food,” I agree it is due to that fact that Americans are very lazy and careless when it comes to buying eating food. People do not want to spend time in a store searching for the healthiest meal that will most likely cost more. They will just find the cheap food and prepare a meal very fast, which I did with my meal of Ramen Noodles. There are many other websites that give ideas for cheap meals, and all include ingredients that are cheap and almost all are processed such as cheese sauce and cream of chicken soup.

Water Skiing Demo Speech Self Eval.

When I demonstrated how to get up on water skis, all main points were touched on, even though there are not many steps to follow to accomplish the hard task of getting up on two skis. I went through each step, from putting on the skis to actually skiing around on two skis. I acted as I was teaching someone to ski, which I do quite often throughout the summer, and know how to affectively show others how to do.
I look at skiing as being a very fun and energetic sport, so I tried to convey that point in my speech by laughing and telling a few humorous stories to keep the audience feeling positive towards the great sport. I could tell while watching the video of myself that I was nervous by my body movement from side to side, and my quick eye contacts with the audience. I usually do not sway when I talk to others as I did during my speech, or quickly look up and down at the audience.
The only good way to teach someone how to water ski is to show the one wanting to learn first. I did this in my speech by using a ski handle to show the direction I would be getting pulled out of the water, and how the handle effects good water skiing form. It would have been better to bring in a pair of water skis, but I did not have easy access to water skis being 200 miles away from home where all my equipment is stored.
Looking back on my speech topic, I would definitely repeat it if I had a chance because I know water skiing very well and can easily walk through the process, step by step, of getting out of the water to skiing behind the boat. If I did do this speech again, I would try to bring in a pair of water skis to add some visual assistance to the audience to more easily describe the process of water skiing as a whole. I also may show a quick video of a certain type of skiing, such as hydrofoiling, to wrap up the process.

Peer Response #1

After reading Frank Behling’s initial post, I agree completely with what he believes. Frank agrees with Michael Pollan about the way Americans have changed the way we eat over the past century or so. Food companies add nutrients to foods that lack certain nutrients, then call the reengineered food something else, such as butter, although it is really just many chemicals, margarine. The food companies do this to try to make a cheap product that has all the same benefits as a similar, natural food. Then once this food is said to be equal to its natural counter part, a “Healthy For You” label is slapped on the box, although it may not be healthy for you at all, according to Michael Pollan.

This first blog post is clearly laid out and can be clearly understood. It can easily be seen that Frank definitely agrees with Michael Pollan about how healthy processed foods are for the human body, and why these processed foods are engineered. Frank links to an article criticizing the amount of food scientists deemed to be “healthy” for humans. This list includes many natural foods such as carrots, whole grains, and fruits, all of which most people already realize to be “healthy”. Between this other article and the post, I also agree with Frank. People need to stop eating processed foods so companies quit manufacturing them, and leave science for discovering what foods are healthy and not to make healthy foods.

Post 5: Compare Two Opposing Articles

These two images show Arctic sea ice extent from January 1, 1990 (left), and January 1, 1999, (Right) respectively. These images were created using data from the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program's (DMSP) Special Scanning Microwave Imager (SSM/I). Click images to see larger pictures. Credit: NASA.

As time passes, more research is being done on global warming and its relation the melting ice caps on the North and South Pole. I found two articles on the internet relating to both sides of this following ongoing argument: are the ice caps melting, and are they the cause of global warming? This topic extremely controversial and continues to cause millions of dollars of research to be used to prove one side or the other.

The first, and more convincing article, is written by NASA, and states that over the past 40 years, the ice caps on the North and South Pole have been rapidly decreasing in area http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/Perrenial_Sea_Ice.html. NASA researchers have found that the ice caps are decreasing at nine per cent per decade, and by the end of this century, there will be very little left of the ice caps. Also, studies have proven that the summer temperature on the ice caps have risen by 2.2 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, which makes me trust this article because it is not only done by NASA, which is more scientifically centered than the opposing article, but also gives numbers instead of just words to prove a point. 

The opposing article talks about how the ice caps are actually growing in size over the past thirty years. The researchers have looked at the satellite photos of the ice caps at the North and South Pole and have found that in 1979 the area of the South Pole ice cap was 15.9 million square kilometers, and in 2009 the total area is 16.3 million square kilometers http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/comment.php?comment.news.125 This is a difference of approximately 400,000 square kilometers, or about twice the size of Texas. Unlike the NASA article, this article does not seem to have any research done other than looking at satellite photos, which tells me this is not a reliable study.