From older ideas to modern problems.

Some of my sources, due to the time of publication, show a glimpse into the historic outlook on the benefits of the vegetarian diet. Additional sources with whom I've been working are from much more recent days; as today the science and of much greater concern, the type of meat we regularly eat has changed tremendously. Geared only toward easy profit, such the way most things are today. Taylorism as expected,  has eventually yielded to near complete automation. The process of food production is every bit devoid of a soul, as the ones who benefit from the product sales. And to this end, what results is a lack of concern with many health implications assumed by the consumers who buy it. Processed meat is quickly produced, cheap, easy to find and easier to prepare and eat. Slaughterhouse employees, of the human type remaining, no longer have to look into the eyes of the animals which are fated to be salami and hamburger. The modern means of the dirty work being done are called "kill floors." We've seen this on the in-class documentary "Food Inc." It's only fitting that we now see directly correlated diseases like diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases and colon cancer being linked to its consumption and thus the continuation of the production cycle. Processed meat is bad for more reasons than just ethical reproaches and culpability of corporate slime. It can kill a person.

Renata Micha et al, Sarah K. Wallace, Dariush Mozaffarian. "Harvard School of Public Health." 17 05 2010. Harvard School of Public Health Press Releases. 22 June 2014 <http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/processed-meats-unprocessed-heart-disease-diabetes/>.

Raphaëlle L. Santarelli et al, Fabrice Pierre, Denis E. Corpet. "HAL Archives Ouvertes- France." 25 March 2008. US National Library of Medicine and National Institutes of Health. 22 June 2014 <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2661797/>.

The Most Outstanding Article that I Couldn't Possibly Use

My research paper is heavily geared toward the health aspects involved with giving up meat as sustenance.
I plan on incorporating at least one or two sources to give some play to the ethical concerns, and in search of these, I found it difficult to find information that wasn't sourced from animal rights groups which have an agenda-driven interest in people becoming vegans for the groups' reasons. However I did find a phenomenal article on the BBC website, written from the vegetarian side of the argument, and giving asserted perspectives from deontological, utilitarian,consequentialist and virtue ethics.

The rub of it, there was absolutely no information that I could find about the author, when it was written, who to credit etc. It was just floating there.

Here's a link to it. It was a great read for anyone who enjoys philosophy and ethics.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/animals/using/eating_1.shtml

More Streamlined topic with a Wealth of Sources

The latest and greatest on the research paper is that the topic is now set. It's going to be about the vegetarian diet, and the health aspects of such. I found some very compelling (and some very old) literature to make a case for the benefits of abandoning a flesh-diet. This is just to put an historical context to the way people though about vegetarian diets with regard to health.

I found an article written in 1857 by which gives a rather enthusiastic approach to adhering to a meatless diet. The claims made in this piece really sells the idea of a vegetarian diet as something that is great for a person's health. It hits on longevity, physical and mental strength and endurance, and the freedom of being burdened by life-ending diseases. 

 The next piece was about a study done in Brussels in 1907, which actually studied the effect of vegetarian 

diets on muscular endurance. The findings of the study were positively in favor of vegetarians over those 

test subjects who ate meat in their diets. There was little difference found in strength, but it was no contest 

where endurance was concerned the vegetarian subjects where observed to have three times the muscular 

endurance of their counterparts.

Forster, T. "Inquiry into the Average Longevity of Vegetarians, Compared with that of Persons who Live on 

a Mixed Diet." October 1857. jstor.org. 21 06 2014 .web.<http://www.jstor.org/stable/41134790>.

Fisher, Irving. "Diet and Endurance at Brussels." Science. New Series. Vol 26. No. 669 (Oct.25, 1907): 561-563.

 

Taking Shape

With hardly a moment to spare, we've finally settled on a topic for the paper. The question central to the topic is: "Is a Vegetarian Lifestyle the Right Way to Live?" I'm going to approach the topic as an argument in itself, divided into three portions. First will be a lifestyle/preference portion. Next the debate will move to the ethics of the way our livestock is treated before it meets its end. And finally the debate will focus on the health considerations which should be considered between the meat and vegetarian diets. Both sides of the argument, meat-eater and vegetarian, will be represented. As a way to initiate and maintain the flow of the argument, at least for the lifestyle and preference portion, I'll present a claim from one side or the other which is reasonably out-of-order, but are still readily accepted by people who want to be validated in their choice in dietary content--without doing much thinking about the reasons for their choices.

For example, and this isn't necessarily one that will wind up on the paper, is the way that meat products are advertised as symbols that demonstrate gender strength. Picture your run-of-the-mill, dumb, burger chain commercial for some hypothetical product like the "gargantuan burger" a six-patty, mayo slathered, bacon laden, jalapeno detonation, with an ounce of extreme potato chips under the top bun.

Of course, a burger this caliber could only appeal to the manliest of manly men; so naturally the model they hire to take an ever-so-dramatic, slow-motion bite of this monstrosity has to be a six-foot-four, blond guy, with a three-inch-beard and a huge neck exploding forth from the collar of a tattered old football jersey. As if eating a greasy mass of processed meat, cheese, bread and toppings is suddenly the equivalent of climbing to the summit of some alpine mountain, to spend a year by oneself hurling boulders down the slope and reading a well-worn book of viking poetry.

My point is, a lot of the nonsense that is shown in advertisements carry over into the culture in real-life, and there are quite a few people who really think that some of these ridiculous notions, which were only meant to sell fast food, speak some truth about who they choose to be as individuals. Even on the smallest level, any acceptance of this, should be countered with some reasoning. On the other hand, if it's manly to eat copious amounts of meat, it's obviously not an exercise of free will and a product of rational thought for a man to choose a vegetarian diet, but merely a case of a boy who used to like wearing his mommy's shoes. That kind of thing.

I probably wont spend a lot of time giving play to these kinds of misconceptions, I don't want to spend hours at a time spinning my tires in the mud because I mistakenly felt the right approach was to attempt the socratic method on myself and my sources. I'm just playing with ideas to find out what will work. The next post will be about some of the sources I've found.

Ideas running thin.

Another one bites the dust. Three proposals and not one was satisfactory. My grades are in the toilet and I'm totally fried. I just don't know what it is about this that I'm not understanding and the rest of the class is. This wasn't supposed to happen. Anyway, let's shift mindsets and figure out a new topic before it's really too late.

It should be obscure, but not too obscure. It should be narrow, but not too narrow. It should be neutral, but argumentative. It should be a topic of interest.  It should have a question at its core. I should be able to find enough sources on it for which to do a 1500 word literature review i.e. a diet research paper. It should be 3000 words long in its final form.

Squirrels: Crucial to the Ecosystem or Worthless Vagabonds?
Why are Bears Suddenly Migrating to Western New York?
How Much More Polluted Can the World's Oceans Become Before Everything Inhabiting It Dies?

And the Lord Said... "A-booga-booga-booga... Ah-ah-ah!"

I've finally figured out what my professors for this summer sesh want from me. They want me to bang my head against the wall until it loses its round shape, my mouth hangs open on the right side and dribbles, and so that I can no longer control my bodily functions in public. Kidding. That isn't what they want from me, but thankfully, I figured out  a sweet topic for my research paper.

I like, no, I love primates, apes, monkeys, whatever their distinctions or designations. They're hilarious. I've always had this fantasy of having a pet chimp; in fact Dane Cook stole part of it and put it on one of his albums. Since since I can't sue him, I might as well let whoever reads this in on it. I would have this pet chimp, and I'd dress him up in a little Karate uniform so we could fight. I would take him out and let him eat ice cream, and all the women we meet would fall in love with him, and thus they would also fall in love with me by proxy. God what a great little daydream. But through a clustering exercise an idea hit me, and by chasing a few leads on the internet, I learned that Dane Cook and I aren't the only ones who think primates are really cool. As it turns out, there are several cultures from different parts of the world that have worshipped our furry friends as deities (some still do). Archaeological excavations have proved that primate worship has been evident in at several ancient civilizations.

I'm still chasing down leads, but this promises to be a very interesting project. More to come.

Names and Faces

For educational purposes, the immediate theme of this blog is related to animals. So tonight, in a dubious sort of compliance with the rules, I want to say a few words about a rodent. The topic of this post is one that cuts very deep, and has had me seething for about three days. It has derailed my brain-train on its track of focus, and I think that by getting this out in the open it's going to help the inner-me tremendously with getting my mind back on the goals that I've set for this summer. But before I explain any more, I need to guide whomever reads this on a short trip down memory lane. It won't take long, but it's necessary, so that I can frame this in the proper context.

Of all the rooms in my memory palace, the one that I know most intimately, is my aid station in Mosul. In the blink of the eye, I can be right there. I can smell the air in the room. I can taste the dust. I can feel the floor beneath my feet. I can hear the whirring motor of the full size, glass door pepsi refrigerator, where I kept my rip its; near-beers, vaccines and cold compresses. I can see my desk; my shelves fully stocked with all different types of oral and topical medicines; my talon II walk kits stacked in a dusty pile against the wall, and I can see the two straight pole litters; placed on top of their stands like a dirt poor doctor's exam tables. I know every centimeter of this space. I had filing cabinets too.

These filing cabinets were filled with lists; numbers; names, and tasks. In fact they still are, and I still use them. I use them to store faces, places, experiences, birthdays, shopping lists, and even emotions sometimes. The things that I store in that room today, are finally getting some air, and it's because I'm remembering all the people who I'm never going to see again. There are people in there who I miss terribly; most of them living, and a few who are not. When we were all together, in Desperado Troop, I knew every single one of their names, and they all knew me just the same. Whenever they had a weird pain in the knee bothering them; they'd come see me. When they were due for shots; they came to see me. Something really heavy on their minds that they needed to talk it out; they'd come talk to me. If they wanted to hang out at the aid for a few minutes to shoot the breeze, and get out of the sun, they knew where to go. We rolled out of the gate together, and we all came back together. I think you get the point by now.

I open the door to this section of the palace, and they're all still in there; just hanging out. The memories of this room allow me to commune with them, and I do, at some point every day. Another memory I seem to have hung on to, was being at my desk week-after-week, and I'd crack open the Army Times.
Not giving a damn about any of the articles, ads, and news; I'd flip straight to the back of the publication each time-- where the KIAs and MIAs were listed; mostly to check on my old buddies from Basic and AIT. Nothing was more dreaded than seeing a name that I recognized listed on that page. I clearly remember the feeling; the same every time; a heaviness on my heart when I read Bowe Bergdahl's name listed as MIA. I recognized his name well from over the course of time. There weren't any rumors about him that had made it to my neck of the woods. There was no twisted back-story behind his disappearance. As far as I, or anyone else around me knew; he was a PFC, who had the abysmal luck of being captured by the enemy while on patrol in the Stan.

The Army does not leave its people behind. American POWs are something of a sacred entity to the people in the ranks. Little did we know in the Iraqi theatre; that this little MF shipped all of his personal property home, shot off a few e-mails about his inclinations and intention to desert his post, and he slipped out in the dead of night; into the arms of the enemy. Deserter, defector, traitor. Six guys died in four different IED dets, except SSG Curtiss, in the search for this rat. Their names were 2Lt Daryn Andrews; SSG Clayton Bowen; SSG Kurt Curtiss; SSG Michael Murphy; PFC Morris Walker, and PFC Matthew Martinek. The worst part about this is that Bergdahl probably doesn't even give a F%@&, and the lives these men mean nothing to him. These people are dead, and he may as well have placed the IEDs himself. They haven't yet officially released the number of troopers who became casualties due to the secondary, and tertiary effects of his desertion, but there is a full-bird Colonel who told Bill O'Reilly that the number is fourteen.

And what do you know! There are political implications for Washington; the kind that leave a shroud over the whole truth of things-- lest it come out to threaten the comfort of the political bastards who play with the lives of real people on both sides of the fight. A fight that many believe, including myself, was bungled into; mishandled during, and is grievously in need of redress after its uncertain conclusion. Not a damn soul with less than an eight or nine digit figure in his or her bank account knows when (or if) that will be. But from what I'm hearing as far as Bergdahl is concerned, while there may be some minor consequence for his actions, he's such a political darling at the moment for the administration; that he may not be punished at all. After all, think about all the hell that he's been through over the years. 





http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2014/06/col-david-hunt-we-lost-14-soldiers-searching-for-deserter-bergdahl-video/

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/06/02/we-lost-soldiers-in-the-hunt-for-bergdahl-a-guy-who-walked-off-in-the-dead-of-night.html

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/02/pentagon-to-look-into-allegations-soldiers-killed-effort-to-recover-bergdahl/