Wednesday, December 20, 2017

Assignment16 - Sarah Palmer


Animals in Captivity 

Imagine it’s spring break and this year your parents said that you all were going to SeaWorld. Or even that you all are just going to the zoo. Personally, I would be thrilled! I would get to see beautiful orcas and dolphins and elephants and tigers. I would learn all about them and see how they behave and live in real life.

          But in all actuality, this is not how these animals live in nature and they are suffering. The workers are inflicting violence on them and in turn the animals on the workers. Their enclosures are nothing like their natural environment and it’s affecting their psychological and physical health.

          Before we get ahead of ourselves we will discuss why we keep them in captivity. Some people argue that it is for educational purposes and this is the only way to fully learn about wild animals. That would make sense, there are plaques all over zoos and aquariums that tell information about the exhibits. For example, when SeaWorld had their “Believe” show featuring the orcas they would have a slide going in the back with information about them. The slides would tell you about how their average life span is 20 years and how in the wild they all have different shaped dorsal fins like the ones in their show have. And the life span is 20 years for orcas in captivity. It is 30 to 50 years for orcas in the wild. In the wild less than 20% of orcas have a collapse dorsal fin, meaning that instead of standing straight up it flops over on one side. However, in the 100% of the males in captivity have collapsed dorsal fins. And I’m not discounting all the facts they say, some of them are true, but for it to be completely educational it would have to be completely true.

So why else would we keep them? According to ElephantVoice Elephants began being captured in the Indus Valley more than 4000 years ago. They were used in war until they were replaced with machines in the industrial revolution. After they weren’t used for the war anymore people began using them for entertainment.  And we still do.  Whether that be at the zoo or the circus

There are many ideas about why we keep them and perhaps we are both learning and being entertained, but the focus is simply more on entertainment. And you might say that it’s not a bad thing because no one is getting harmed in the situation, but what you don’t see is how they are trained for shows. Elephants are trained using a bullhook, a “guiding” tool or if we are being honest a disciplinary tool that elephants are moved with or hit with if they do not do as they are told. Trainers purposely put the hook on sensitive spots on the elephant, for example behind their ears or around their face where their skin in thinner so it will cause more pain and therefore be more effective.

Not only are the trainers inflicting pain on the animals, but the animals, especially orcas, have returned the favor. Tilikum is widely-known for his appearance in the SeaWorld show “Believe” and for the fact that he has killed 3 trainers in the water. He first killed a woman at the Sealand of the Pacific, then a man trespassing in SeaWorld Orlando, and most recently his trainer Dawn Branchea in SeaWorld Orlando. And you could say that he was just violent, but there were many accounts in which Tilikum worked with Dawn and nothing happened. As explained in Blackfish, the day she died they had a show and Tilikum was supposed to do a trick at the end and he did it twice because he didn’t hear the whistle to go back to the trainer, so he was expecting to get food as a reward, but dawn withheld it because he had not come back immediately, which most likely frustrated him. Then, Tilikum also probably would’ve heard the ice starting to hit the bottom of the bucket when she was pulling out fish to feed him which meant that the show is about to end and he would have to go back to his pool alone. So, after the show he dragged her into the water. The other trainers did everything they could but couldn’t make him let go of her. They eventually had to pry open his jaw to get her out. And this makes Tilikum seem violent and harsh and maybe he was in that moment, but he was also just trying to find a way to show his frustration. There has not been any report of violence from a whale in the wild. And Tilikum has been featured because of his violence, but it’s also possible that other animals in captivity would do the same thing if they could. Elephants can’t because they would be hit or chained up and tigers can’t because they are also scared of getting hit or whipped when they are trained, but orcas are in such proximity to their trainers they have the access to the trainers physically. It is an unsafe environment for both the trainers and the animals.

Now we will talk about the physical environment they the animals are put in. Elephants are sometimes used at temples for worship. They are honored there; however, they are also chained up there. Literally. They will take chains are wrap them around their torso or just above their feet, so they cannot escape. They are sometime stuck in the sun all day or as you can see in the picture they get no sun.

In the circus tigers must be transported in tiny crates like household cats going to the vet. And in case you hadn’t realized tigers are not like household cats.

The orcas have pools nothing like the area they would cover in the wild. They travel 200 km a day in the wild. They swim in circles in their pools.

Tigers can’t run, elephants can’t cover themselves in water, orcas can’t swim as much as they should. Their enclosures are not big enough. We struggle to stay in school for 6 hours a day. They must stay in a box the rest of their lives with no bell at 3:15 to let them out.

This affects them physically and psychologically. In captivity large animals can develop stereotypic behavior. According to Dr. Ingris Visser, a marine biologist, stereotypic behavior is an abnormal repetitive behavior with no outward function. This includes things such as swaying, moving in patterns, head bobbing, chewing on concrete, or self-mutilation. The reason: boredom. They have nothing to do or look at or play with. They have no stimulation in their habitats.

It is also hard for animals psychologically because if they typically stay in family groups in the wild. For example, elephants stay in a family and orcas in their pod. Then when they are alone in a pool for hours on end with nothing to do is the equivalent to solitary confinement. In the US we use solitary confinement as punishment. According to the New York Times, of the prisoners in solitary confinement 73 percent reported chronic depression and 78 percent said they felt emotionally flat. It has the same effect on animals. They are in the same exact situation. In the whole grand scheme of everything are not that different from us! Yet, we are treating them worse than we treat people in solitary confinement. And these animals are innocent.

          Some people suggest larger pens or more real enclosures and although that would significantly help they would still be  in captivity. We can’t release them because most of them have lost their natural instincts and would not be able to survive. They only way we can stop this issue is to stop putting animals in this situation. We need to stop breeding animals in zoos or aquariums. This would still give the zoo and aquariums another 40 years of business with the animals already in captivity. And after those 40 years we can keep animals in nature, in the wild, where they belong.



Links:















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Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Blog 16 - Brenden Knuckles

Net New-Reality
Before I begin, let’s take a second and imagine a dystopian future. Big corporations rule over everything we do and say, forcing us to give in to their wants and needs in order for them to flourish. But let’s take it one step further. What if this was a reality? How would society react? What would happen to our normal daily lives? This can only be determined if this dystopia took place.
But what if I said that this dystopia will soon become our reality?
Net Neutrality, in its purest form, is the reason as to why the internet is so widely available and free to conquer by any newfound adventurer. If this “neutrality” were to be taken away, these certain areas to explore are now under a higher power’s command, forcing you to pay a toll in order to explore such area. The ideas behind repealing net neutrality is not a new thing at all. Back in 2016, this sort of scare took place in which the FCC passed legislation to curb ISPs (Internet Service Providers) from controlling how fast their speeds are on different sites. This may lead to believing that this is great for us, but the bad part is what took place after. Major ISPs quickly retaliated, calling out the FCC for its dastardly deeds. Supporters within the ISPs introduced a new legislation known as “The Restoring Internet Freedom Act,” which was far from it’s intentions.

For example, as talk show host John Oliver once put it, “If AT&T doesn’t like Amazon, they can just throttle (or drastically slow speeds on) that site in order to push their personally owned marketplace websites.” Net Neutrality vows to make sure that every website has the same respect and speed as the other. So, the “freedom” they speak of in their legislation is only for the ISPs to choose their favorite sites. Their competitors? Not even close.
What repealing Net Neutrality would do is EXCLUSIVELY benefit CEOs of these ISPs. Nobody else. And in order for these ISPs to get what they want, they implement their own supporters into the FCC to force Net Neutrality to become Net No-More. In fact, the former FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler was not against repealing Net Neutrality, saving us all from the corrupt clutches of ISPs… at least for awhile. However, in the months following Trump’s inauguration, he immediately imposed a new chairman into the FCC to stop Net Neutrality in its tracks. This new chairman within the FCC has set his sights on destroying Net Neutrality entirely.




Could a Net New-Reality save the internet? Possibly. Numerous reports of dire circumstances to vocally and physically oppose Net Neutrality in the last 48 hours before the vote show how desperate people can get to keep such legislation alive. Even some members who are a part of the FCC have shown their clear opposition to repealing this legislation. NPR, the New York Times, Wired, and numerous other news sites have reported to show opposition against repeal. Multiple online startup websites like Netflix and Amazon have taken days to encourage their users to oppose repealing Net Neutrality en masse. Yet, none of this can stop the FCC from taking their landmark vote on the matter on December 14th. Even after millions of comments and numerous protests occurred, the vote will still continue.
Our society, at this point in the process of voting to repeal Net Neutrality, has given up on saving the internet. It’s quite clear that, even after the hugely apparent public backlash, we still have no effect on saving what we all hold dear. Who knows? Maybe something will occur, and Net Neutrality can stay for longer. New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is investigating this possibly corrupt FCC scheme. What he theorizes is that the comments against Net Neutrality are false, and made by those who work high up at the FCC in order to falsely show support for repealing it. Will this investigation go through and save Net Neutrality? That will be up to what is found.

Net Neutrality is what keeps all of us happy on the internet. Nobody this day in age wants their favorite websites throttled by ISPs. That’s what everyone fears most. A dystopia in our technological age is the loss of freedom with how we use this communication of technology, for big corporations to rule us all. Unless some miracle or legislation takes place to stop the repealing of Net Neutrality, this dystopia could unfortunately take place in our lifetimes. But let us keep our heads high. If the FCC can fully recognize the scale to which these protests are occurring, we may be able to confirm that this dystopia will remain a mere fantasy.
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Assignment 16: Max Young

Well, he got what was coming to him. She probably deserved it. They were asking for it! All of us have heard those phrases, or something like them, throughout our lives. Maybe in something as simple as sports, or something as dismal as death. The explanation as to why people seem to default to these kinds of ideas is the psychological term the “Just-World Phenomenon”. Meaning that good things happen to good people, and bad things happen to bad people. Without knowing any prior information about a person, we usually correlate what happened to them with their behavior rather than bad luck or a bad situation. Now, can this perspective be true? Is it possible that something happened to someone purely because of something that they did? Of course. If you watch sports, most games are, what we say in the sports world, self-policing. For example, a hockey player illegally smashes another guy’s head into the boards. The next time he's out on the ice, somebody knocks his lights out with a hard right hook. While yes, the reason behind that player getting knocked out was because he made an illegal play, that's a situation in which people watching knew the prior circumstances. But that isn’t really what the just-world phenomenon talks about. When we see these kinds of situations, ones where we know prior information, it has an impact on the situations we know nothing about.
What feels like a growing group in America and especially in Lexington is the homeless. The homeless are a prime example of the “just world phenomenon.” Observers regularly blame the homeless’ situation on that person’s qualities. They don't work hard. They spend all their money on drugs. They are messing up their own life, and I have to admit it, I’ve thought that too. But a while ago I spoke with a group of former homeless people at my temple, and I came to a realization. Is it possible that some homeless people are hooked on drugs? Sure. Is it possible that some homeless people don’t work hard? Sure. But when we see these homeless people it’s not a maybe. It’s the fundamental attribution error. With these pre-existent assumptions about the homeless, we don’t take into account what their entire life has been like, what it has consisted of. One of the women I spoke with told me that she was born into a homeless family, and she spent her whole life growing up alongside the homeless. She didn’t choose to be homeless, she never asked to be homeless. She talked to me about how she has tried to get a job many times, but due to the fact that she has minimal education, no home address, and no experience in any kind of employment, it’s a lot harder than it seems. The woman I talked to is not a bad person, she never had a drug problem, she was trying to get a job, but because of the life she was born into, it was extremely difficult to obtain those things. Now, she has a minimum wage job, but still lives in community housing. Why am I talking about this? With the idea that these people are homeless because they are a bad person, they get dehumanized, put into a category of  being below “normal people.” Max Keene from DBK News says that, “Fatal assaults against people experiencing homelessness outnumber hate-crimes against all protected classes combined. Between 1999 and 2015, at least 1,657 homeless individuals were violently attacked, in many cases because of their housing status, according to a report by the National Coalition for the Homeless.”
But what about things that aren’t as easy to see? Recently lots and lots of sexual assault and rape accusations have come out against many large celebrities. Some of which has been met with arguments from defendants of the stars, and rapists in general. Victim blaming is prevalent in the defenses against rape. Saying that what happened took place because the victim was wearing provocative clothing, got too drunk, or didn’t say no. In their just world, the person got assaulted because of something that they did or initiated, not blaming the rapist for, well, being a rapist. As a result of this, women are scared when it comes to talking about being sexually assaulted, for fear of being ridiculed. That is exactly why large numbers of accusations come out around the same time, because once one person has stood up for themselves others follow. But we shouldn’t let it get to this point in the first place. We shouldn’t be blaming the victims of sexual assault and rape for something that someone did to them. We shouldn’t blame them for when they were attacked. That brings up the reason as to why people place blame on others for being bad people, a way of making themselves feel better. In a twisted kind of way, saying that bad things happen to bad people makes some feel safer.
Which brings me to my final point. Why does the “just-world phenomenon” exist in the first place? Why did we ever start thinking that the world is fair? I remember growing up and crying when my brother got something and I didn’t, I would say it wasn’t fair. In response, my mom would always say, “Well life isn’t fair.” I digress, parents want their kids to grow up and be a good person. They want their child to have good morals, be respectful, and be safe. And that is where it all begins. Whether it be in normal home life or at places like church, children are taught to be good people, so that good things will come to them in life. And granted, I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter whether you’re a good or bad person, but from a young age children are given the mindset that bad things will happen to them if they are bad. Now you’re thinking, well max, striving to be a good person isn’t a bad thing. You’re right! It’s fantastic to be a good person. When we base it on that bad things won’t happen to you, that is when we get more into victim blaming. Much like common school bullies, people blame the victims as a self defense mechanism to reassure them self that they won’t fall victim to crime or bad luck. Barbra Gillan, a social work professor at Widener University says that, “Holding victims responsible for their misfortune is partially a way to avoid admitting that something just as unthinkable could happen to you—even if you do everything ‘right.’” Gillan also talks about how we as a society would rather try and train people to not get themselves into those situations rather than teach the attacker to not do it.  
The world isn’t a fair, just place. Bad things happen to good people all the time, and good things happen to bad people just as often. So what am I trying to get out of this? As a society it is a necessity that we come together and put an end to this style of thinking. I know that sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s true. The more we prolong this idea that the world is just, the more split we become. Growing homelessness rates, mass amounts of sexual assault accusations, and tons of other situations where this is applied, if we continue to blame the wrong people, we are no better than who we see them as. If that makes sense. Be a good person, but be a good person for the right reasons. Help those who you see in trouble, rather than harassing them further.

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Monday, December 18, 2017

Assignment 16 - William Church

Net Neutrality
You’ve just finished your last final exam. (Sigh).  What a relief.  With the stresses of school out of your mind at last, you head home, finally getting to relax.  You get home and go to get on Netflix, but then you receive an error message.  “Oops, Netflix isn’t included in your basic internet plan.  To view at premium speeds, please upgrade to the Video Streamer package for an additional $5.99 per month.”  (Pause).  Frustrated, you close this pop-up window, and click on your favorite show.  Loading….loading…. Still loading.  The video finally starts playing, but the quality is low and blurry, and before you’ve even made it to the title sequence, the video is loading again.
Of course, this sounds like a nightmare to many of us.  Unfortunately, this isn’t just a nightmare; this could quickly become a reality that we all must face.  Last Thursday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), voted on party lines to repeal net neutrality.  For those who don’t know, Net Neutrality is a concept coined by Columbia University professor Tim Wu in 2003.  It refers to the concept that all data on the internet should be treated the same by internet providers like Time Warner Cable or Comcast.  For example, right now, with net neutrality in place, these companies can’t charge you more for watching netflix, or for visiting a certain website.  Without net neutrality, these companies could charge you more to watch youtube, or to visit ebay.  
The former net neutrality rules were set in place in 2015 under the Obama administration.  They were repealed thursday by a 3-2 vote, the majority lead by Ajit Pai.  Pai’s plan called for a less restrictions on Internet Service Providers (ISPs) like Time Warner Cable, or Comcast, such that they could give preference to certain websites or companies that may need it.  For example, in the future, as self-driving cars become more prevalent, the speed of data being transferred could be the difference between whether or not a car uses its brakes in time.  This all sounds well and good, but the problem is that what actually happens isn’t the same as what theoretically happens.  
Large companies like Google or Amazon would theoretically be able to pay ISPs to avoid having their websites be slowed down or blocked, but this isn’t an option for small businesses.  Without the funding that major companies have, the small businesses have no money to pay ISPs for regular speeds.  This isn’t even comparable to a local grocery going out of business because of a Kroger being built near it.  This is more comparable to having to drive for an hour to go to your “local” grocery, or walk for a minute to get to Kroger.  
Ajit Pai claims that having no requirements for ISPs will foster more competition between competing companies.  Companies would theoretically compete for customers by having lower prices or better services.   The only problem with this is that ISP’s often don’t have competition.  Over 30% of Americans have access to one or no internet provider, so the company providing for them could raise prices, and yet the customer would have no option but to deal with it, or stop using the internet entirely.  The monopoly that many ISPs have will not foster competition and won’t make the internet better for anyone.  
So who actually wants net neutrality to be repealed?  The opponents of Net Neutrality are mainly the aforementioned ISPs.  These companies have been lobbying politicians for years, hoping to get legislation passed to repeal net neutrality.  If this legislation was passed, ISPs would be able to charge more for the same things we have access to now, especially in areas where the ISP has a monopoly, and customers have no choice but to continue to pay exorbitant prices.  
As it stands with the issue of net neutrality still up in the air, ISP’s have already began to circumvent these laws.  For example, T-mobile recently introduced a new business plan called “Binge-On.”  It allowed for T-mobile users with Netflix to watch shows without it counting towards there data limit.  This is clearly an unfair bias towards Netflix, which makes using a smaller company that much less appealing to any T-mobile customer.  Not stopping there, T-mobile introduced another plan, whereupon a user could enter a contract for unlimited data, but videos were limited to 480p.  This also violates current net neutrality laws, because the fact that the data is video shouldn’t mean that it is limited to lower quality.  This is simply T-Mobile trying to save money, since videos are typically more data than a website or email.
The internet is really, quite unique.  Nowhere else are you moments away from research papers from Harvard, or any of the countless books transcribed to the internet, or even memes.  The knowledge contained in the internet is nearly infinite, and it has always been free to everyone.  Why change that now?  The internet was made by the people, for the people, so why take that right away from us?  A free and open internet protects freedom of speech, promotes innovation, prevents discrimination of pricing, and provides equitable access to information (the open internet.org).  It’s not too late to stop these ISPs.  The best way to help is to call your congressional representative, and tell them about how this will affect you.  Protest.  Make your voice be heard.  











Bibliography:
Killswitch (2014) - Documentary
https://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-what-you-need-know-now
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/14/technology/net-neutrality-repeal-vote.html

http://www.theopeninter.net/






Trip Church
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Assignment 16: Theodore

Given the recent political climate in America, it seems almost as if the country 
has a split personality.
“Split personality? This is the GOP’s fault. They can’t accept Obamacare; they can’t accept 
climate change; they can’t accept equality. Trump is leading us toward ruin.” 
“Hold on. It may have taken the Democrats this long to realize how out of touch they are,
 but that doesn’t give them the right to interfere with our government. The people have spoken; 
elections have consequences. Americans want small government and traditional values.”
As I was saying, it seems as if Americans have become divided into two political camps,
 with no in-between. But is it really true that political polarization has taken over our country?
 I’ll look at the evidence for that point of view, but then I’ll explain how polarization is often 
exaggerated. In fact, we will see that you, as students, can have a significant effect upon reducing 
political polarization.
But it’s impossible to deny that polarization appears to control our government. Just look 
at the Senate’s confirmations of Supreme Court justices. Only 20 years, the Senate measured
 justices based on their level of experience, not political qualifications. Votes were almost 
unanimous. But today, we have political litmus tests, and the partisan climate has become 
so divided that when we do confirm Supreme Court justices, it’s by a strict party-line vote,
 Republicans versus Democrats — as in the case of Justice Gorsuch (Flegenheimer). Now,
 one possible reason for this, as explained by journalist Bill Bishop, is that Americans have 
geographically sorted themselves by political party. Democrats usually choose more urban 
areas, while Republicans generally live in more rural areas. Think of Bishop’s hypothesis
 this way. Suppose that each American is a paperclip, and political beliefs are magnets. Put 
the paperclips and the magnets in a jar and shake it. Eventually, the paperclips clump around 
different magnets. We can see this recent rise in political polarization with the advent of the 
Tea Party. The PBS documentary, Divided States of America, talks about how President
 Obama came into office with a message of hope, change, and unity. Soon, politicians found 
that it was easier to gather votes by appealing to highly divisive partisan issues that the base
 prefers, not pursuing issues that the moderate middle would support. As a result, the Tea Party
 and the Republicans won the House of Representatives in 2010.
So we see that polarization is significant, but the causes are not as clear-cut as Bishop put it.
 He decided that Americans have polarized ourselves because the number of landslide
 counties — counties where one party wins 60% or more of the vote — has increased
 dramatically over the past few decades (which it has). If we take a closer look at these counties, 
which Dr. Strickler, a political scientist, did, we find that the truth is a little more complicated. It turns 
out that 80% of the people in a landslide county on the far right have the exact same political
 values as 80% of those living in a far left county. The magnets do pull paper clips into different
 clumps, but if we look at the paper clips, they are identical. So why do we see polarization
 on the electoral map, even though it doesn’t exist at the individual level? One possible answer
 is gerrymandering: when politicians redraw districts to create safe seats that increase their 
party’s representation — in effect, politicians choosing their voters. For the 2010 elections,
 David Daley, the editor of Salon magazine, reported that the GOP used sophisticated algorithms
 to gain an advantage in the House races, partly leading to their control of the House. Now,
 I don’t blame the GOP for all gerrymandering. But in the past few years (since the 2010 census)
 the GOP has tended to succeed more at gerrymandering than the Democrats.
So political polarization doesn’t come from the people — it’s more of a manufactured trend — 
but how can we, as students, resist it? After all, we cannot vote yet. However, we can take a 
stance in the political battle taking place on social media. Social media isn’t just a place to
 share ideas with friends. Actually, foreign powers are trying to influence our views. In 2016, 
Russia, as the New York Times reported, paid agents to pose as extremists on social media. 
By pretending to be extreme versions of Black Lives Matter and extreme social conservatives,
 they wanted to divide America, as well as undermining our trust in our political system 
(Confessore and Wakabayashi). Americans are paper clips linked together, and Russia is
 using electromagnets to try to pull us apart. We must resist that. Besides, even if students
 can't vote now, some of us will be able to in a year; the rest of us, two years. Now you see
 that it matters that we vote to reduce political polarization.
In conclusion, we have seen that polarization results in significant problems in that it causes 
gridlock — lack of compromise in the government. But our divided politics aren’t the fault
 of the people directly — unless you choose to ignore the problems. It’s more a product of our political
 institutions and misinterpretations of the data. If you, as a consumer of social media, take 
steps to examine your sources and make sure that they are not trying to pull you toward an
 ideology, then you are reducing political polarization. So even if America really has a split 
personality, it is our job as citizens to act as psychiatrists and heal the patient.
 
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Assignment 16- Richie Lane

Suicide. Extreme violence. Murder. Abuse. Depression. Memory loss. Substance abuse. These things, along with countless other ailments, are often associated with severe trauma. People who have been abused, been to war, or had great hardships are typically the kind of people that are associated with these issues. But there is one thing that causes all of these, that many people are choosing to ignore, because it involves one of their favorite pastimes: Football. Although football has been "Our nation's sport" for decades, people are just starting to realize how dangerous the sport really is.
Many people feel that the NFL is prioritizing entertainment value over the health and wellbeing of its players. For instance, last year, Cam Newton suffered at least 4 hits to the head in a game. After the fourth, he laid motionless on the ground before getting up and continuing to play. He was never evaluated for a concussion. This one example showcases a much larger issue with football. Last year, there were 244 reported concussions resulting from hits in games and practices. There are 256 total games played every year, so you can probably do the math. Almost every game, a player suffered a concussion. Once these shocking numbers became more known to the public, the NFL made great strides to fix it! They implemented a concussion protocol and stricter rules on what constitutes a "clean hit", and now, players are much safer. At least, that's what they'd like you to think. In fact, since the year the league adopted these new concussion rules, concussions are at an all-time high. Of course, this doesn't mean players are all the sudden hitting harder and playing dirtier. It just means that the NFL finally decided to recognize when a player suffers a concussion, even if he's not showing severe signs of one. But how long do you think it's been since the NFL decided to start taking more responsibility? 10 years? 20? Close. The original concussion protocol was introduced in 2013. And a whole 4 years later, it's still pretty ineffective. But that's not because the technology to diagnose and properly rehab a concussion isn't there. In fact, it's been there for decades. It's because the NFL wants to keep their stars playing. They require "clear visual evidence" that a player is unable to continue playing before they will pull him off and do an evaluation, but often times, teams neglect this responsibility until after the game, unless the player isn't playing as well, and then they are suddenly very concerned with his health. Even after the diagnosis of a concussion, players only have to demonstrate little recovery before they are cleared to play again, even if they aren't fully healed. But the biggest issue with these concussions is the fact that most players will suffer multiple in their career. Troy Polamalu, for instance, suffered 9 recorded concussions in his first 10 years in the NFL, and that's not accounting for the ones the league may have missed. These repeated concussions can lead to a scary condition called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. This fairly new disease has very dangerous side effects, and by the end of a player's career, he will more than likely have CTE. In fact, players could suffer from this disease before they even make it to the NFL. The autopsy of a player from the University of Pennsylvania who committed suicide revealed that he was showing early signs of CTE at only 21 years old. This condition has led to many players showing extreme violence, sometimes as extreme as murder or suicide. It has also led to ADHD, memory loss, impulsive behavior, poor judgment, and in its late stages, dementia, movement disorders, speech impediments, tremors, deafness, and depression. In a study conducted by Dr. Ann McKee, a neuropathologist, it was found that out of 111 examined brains of diseased former NFL players, 110 had CTE. And it's not just concussions that are causing CTE. All hits to the head contribute to a player eventually developing this disease. One study from researchers at Stanford showed that one college offensive linemen suffered 62 of these hits- in a single game. Each one of which came with an average force on his head equivalent to if he had driven his car into a brick wall at 30 mph. Dr. McKee said that a player can suffer over 15,000 of these hits in his career.

So how can this be fixed? You could say that the NFL should more closely monitor signs of CTE, but out of hundreds of recent cases, only one diagnosis has been made while the player was still alive. Because CTE is so hard to diagnose while the patient is still living, football leagues at all levels need to enforce much stronger regulations to help prevent severe brain injuries, even if it means something as extreme as forcing a player into early retirement. Because of the violent nature of the sport and the fact that as time moves on, players continue to get bigger and stronger, these severe head injuries will never fully vanish, and could actually increase. But the rate at which players suffer these injuries is alarmingly high, and great strides need to be taken to help lower these numbers. With much more regulations and more responsibility taken by football leagues at all levels, football could truly earn the title "our nation's sport".
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Sunday, December 17, 2017

Assignment 16- Stone Poole

I'll start with this deep question. Does everybody like food? Maybe, a juicy burger, a cheesy pizza, or if you are a breakfast person a warm donut or crispy bacon, even though you know those aren't the healthiest things to eat. Yeah, I'm a foodie if you couldn't tell. I eat 4 meals a day then sometimes I have a bowl of ice cream just to treat myself. Only if I deserve it though. That's my rule. Okay most of the time. Okay some of the time it's my rule. I've always been this way even though I know it's not the healthiest lifestyle choice.  I had to go on a diet when I was 2 because I had a chocolate milk addiction and it got to the point that I had skin rolls that looked like I had rubber bands around my wrists and ankles. I'm a lot healthier today but there are people in the United States who struggle with their food addiction and aren't able to stay healthy and it leads to obesity. For many of the people who struggle with obesity, it starts young. As eating habits develop early and are hard to change. An obese 5-year-old is 10 times as likely to be obese in adulthood than a 5-year-old with an average Body Mass Index according to epidemiologist David Freedman. To fight the obesity epidemic, we have to first, invest more effort into educating kids at a young age, second, make healthy food options cheaper and lastly, promote daily exercise and physical activity. 
Now, as I mentioned earlier kids can develop eating habits as early as a year old. Fast food chains such as McDonald's target preschool and elementary school age children more than any other age for this reason. If they can attract kids at a young age they can get kids to incorporate their food into their eating habits for the rest of their life. We have to start teaching them about healthy eating habits early as possible.  Kids need to be educated on the negative effects so they aren't so easily persuaded to eat unhealthy foods because they come with a cool toy from the new Star Wars movie. Even though Star Wars is pretty cool. Kids need learn to be aware of the caloric intake. They need to know the difference between unsaturated and saturated fats and what impact high-sugar and fat foods can have on your body. I couldn't tell you what those were before I looked them up for this speech. The education on healthy eating I had was a food pyramid on the wall in elementary school cafeteria and I took a class in middle school, so pointless I don't even remember the name. The only thing I do remember was making chicken tortillas, but they were burnt and I couldn't eat them, but nothing about healthy food habits. Learning the curriculum on nutrients in food and healthy eating habits would be helpful but by the time kids get to middle school they have already developed their eating habits and won't listen to the advice of a random middle school teacher in an elective they didn't want to take. 
 In 2010, with Michelle Obama and her let's move initiative, the USDA and CDC passed the Healthy, Hungry-Free Kids act or the HHFK. The HHFK targeted school meals with the goal of improving nutrition, reducing obesity and combating childhood hunger. But as important as the act was it didn't include education on healthy eating, kids just saw the options in the lunch lines change. With this act have come other contradicting effects. Meals are healthier but kids don't always eat the healthy items on their plate and schools also complained that the plan was a financial burden and did not have enough variety.  
The complaints from schools bring me to my second point, cost. Fast food chains are famous for their dollar and value menus. Why buy a salad or a make a ham sandwich when you can run to a Wendy's and get a burger, chicken nuggets, fries and a drink for $4.00. These are featured menu items come with a low price for your wallet but not for your health. A majority of the food in restaurants and fast food chains don't meet the regulations set by the CDC division of nutrition. Getting back to cost, a 2013, Harvard School of Public Health study showed that eating an unhealthy diet compared to a healthy diet was $1.50 less per day which adds up to $2,000 a year. That money saved adds up for those who choose to eat an unhealthy diet. They can put that money towards medical expenses when their bad diet leads to a plethora of health issues. But, no healthy fast food chains are going to provide that value menu with the healthiest options out there. So how are we going to not spend as much but still eat healthy? One thing many people do is buy fruits and vegetables in season, they avoid high costs but still eat healthy. Many of you might think wait why can't I be like Jared Fogle the guy who ate subway to become healthy, well he also implemented my 3rd point and Subway is a sandwich chain that has always provided more healthier options than fast food chains just ask Morgan Spurlock who ate Mcdonald's instead of Subway every day, also buying a sub a day is not a cost-effective way to becoming healthy. There's also other reasons why you don't want to be like Jared but let's stick to the topic. 
Now if you don't really care if you eat unsaturated or saturated fats or about your caloric intake and you don’t want to put in $1.50 extra per day to eat healthy, it doesn't look good for you. Wait I just described myself. Don't worry there is another way to staying and becoming healthy. Exercise. Whether it's getting up on Saturday mornings and running a mile or 2 or joining a team at school with your friends. Maybe swimming. There are multiple studies showing that people need at least 60 minutes of exercise per day in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle, and there are many programs out there. The NFL, for instance, has created the play 60 program to promote physical activity and the game of football all over the country. The programs takes players to different cities to teach kids skills of football while encouraging them to stay active. But as we get older the time to be active gets smaller. We have to make time and dedicate it to being active. Physical activity is the most important part in combating obesity and it is also one of the easiest. 
So who wants to be a part of the change and make our generation the one that ends obesity for future generations by focusing on educating at earlier ages, not settling for cheap and unhealthy fast food and lastly promote physical activity all to maintain a healthier lifestyle. 
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