What Do YOU Think?

I have always thought the different ways that questions can be phrased as interesting. By changing just one word, you can change the entire meaning of the question. By making the question more personal, you can touch a person’s heart and make them more likely to agree with the subject. By including money or anything negative a person is automatically more likely to disagree with the topic.

1.) Do you think that there should be limits on cloning?

Yes/No

2.) Do you agree with cloning pets?
Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree

3.) Would you clone yourself?

Yes/No

4.) Would you clone your child if he died?

Yes/No

5.) Do you agree with cloning embryos for profit?
Strongly Agree –> Strongly Disagree

6.) Do you agree with cloning endangered species?
Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree

7.) Do you agree with cloning extinct animals?
Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree

8.) Do you agree with cloning in order to grow organs for dying children?
Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree

9.) Do you agree with cloning livestock to help provide more nutritional food?
Strongly Agree -> Strongly Disagree

Attack of the Clones!!!!

“Why Cloning Is Worth It.” Gogoi, Pallavi. Business Week Online; 3/7/2007, p8-8, 1p.
I really thought that this was an interesting article. Other than being about cloning it also caught my attention because it was about cloning cows in particular. This made me giggle a little bit to myself, especially when I showed it to my boyfriend who is a dairy farmer. This article basically talks about the benefits of cloning cows and how it would benefit the economy and world. In the article it is explained how a higher quality of steak, meat, and milk can be produced by cloning cows. Basically only the best cows would be bred (cloned) in order to produce the best meat or in the instance of dairy farmers, to make cows that produce the most and highest quality of milk. Now instead of having “Designer Babies” we have the amazing “Designer Wonder Cows.”

“To clone or not to clone.” Christian Century; 6/5/2002, Vol. 119 Issue 12, p5, 1p.
In this article the moral and ethic issues regarding cloning are touched on. The cloning of human embryos for therapeutic purposes is basically the main subject of this article. It also talks about replicating living and deceased people. Most of the public seems to be against the idea of people cloning themselves or their dead relatives, but more receptive to the idea of cloning for therapeutic purposes.

“Here, Kitty, Kitty!” Time; 2/25/2002, Vol. 159 Issue 8, p58, 2p, 3 diagrams, 4c.
This article discusses the production of the first house pet. A calico cat was cloned and named Cc, which stands for Copy Cat (cute I know!). It talked about the difficulties of cloning the cat and how it was done. The article also hit on how entrepreneurs are picking up on the cloning of house pets. Already you can freeze your pets DNA for future cloning for a onetime fee of $895 and another $100 for every year it is frozen. It was also mentioned that the cloned pet will be a duplicate and NOT a reconstruction. Basically it will be like a twin. It will not necessarily have the same personality; it will just be genetically the same.

Perfection

After I had most of this post already typed, I went to upload the graph that I used and realized that it would not let me copy or even save it. I found it at USA Today under the snapshots. The graph was called “The Perfect Age for Women.” It is under the Life link and it should be the sixth picture or graph you see if you scroll through.

To start off I am going to make a few general comments about how the aging of women is usually viewed. The general consensus is that you are automatically “Old” once you hit the doddering age of forty. However, with all of the technology of today’s world such as vitamins and surgery, women are less likely to see their lives as “over” once they hit the Big Four “O.” According to this graph a whole 23% say that the best age for a woman is forty years or over.

On the other hand, this graph could also be interpreted to say that 29% of the women polled said that the ages of 31-40 are the best ages for a woman to be. This graph also shows that a whole 35% of women say the best age is 21-30. All together a total of 70% of the women polled said that the best age for a woman to be was 40 or under. This shows that most women still view their lives as over once they hit 40 years of age. This graph also shows that the main ages women wish to be are 21-30.

I always find it interesting how numbers can be manipulated to fit any purpose. Depending on how a person looks at it, 23% of the women in the United States would seem like a lot. However, when compared to the 70% of women who think that having fewer than 40 years is better, the 23% seems incredibly trivial.

Once again, I am sorry about the lack of the graph.

Joys of the New World

O’ technology, how we curse it, and yet how we love it. Every now and then I think back to the good old days, before all of the Gameboys, cell phones, IMing over the internet, and all of the other little conveniences that distance us from our fellow human beings. Since I technically was not alive during the periods of no internet, telephones, running water, or electricity I wonder what the dark days without technology were like. Children and teenagers would be outside running around in the town centers playing ball, wives would be gossiping over tea, men would be gambling in the gentlemen halls, and people would KNOW each other. Now a days the teens are constantly texting on their cell phones (myself included of course), the wives are bitterly whining about their cheating husbands and wondering which friend he is sleeping with, and the men are bragging about all of their sexual conquests.

Technology has changed the way everyone in our world lives. It has changed our communication, our transportation, our medical knowledge and procedures, what we eat and drink, how we keep track of one another, and every other minuscule aspect of our lives. There are negative sides to technology of course. Negative aspects such as the loss of face-to-face communication between people, less exercise, unhealthy fatty foods, and the loss of privacy to only mention a few. However, technology has given our world so much. We now have lights, miracle medicine, cars, and a vase array of information that is available at the average person’s very fingertips and but a click away.

Technology is used every second of every day. It is being used to keep people alive. It is being used to kill people. It is being used to free people. It is also being used to help capture, convict and sentence criminals. For example, in every court trial technology is being used. The technology being used can be as simple as the electricity used to see, or as complex and intricate as the DNA testing used to convict rapists and murderers. The evidence presented can be in the form of DNA, a video tape, a picture snapped from a cell phone, voice recordings, or even deleted email messages.

The technology of today is often being abused and twisted for people’s own uses. However, it is also saving innocent people and curing diseases. Every person benefits from technology, even if there are those people who use it for their own nefarious ends. Without the wonders of technology we would not have the evidence that is provided in court, the medicine used to treat diseases, the machines and instruments used to perform invasive and lifesaving surgeries, or even the stoves used to make our food. The good parts of technology unquestionably outweigh the more negative aspects.

Every great technological invention has two sides to it if a person wishes to think about it. Things that are intended for the good of all can always be used for evil, and vice versa. Guns that were used for protection and the procurement of food are now being turned towards murder. The internet that is for information sharing has become a pedophiles’ playground (excuse the sick pun). Even the electricity used for our lights has been turned to the use of murdering people in the electric chair. Every Ying will have its Yang. There cannot be light without the shadows of darkness. There would be no such thing as good if evil did not exist.

Are You My Clone???

Once the topic of our argument of fact essay came up in class I tried to begin wrapping my mind around any topic that might interest me. So far I have jumped back and forth between America’s aid in third world countries and the ever popular subject of cloning. Cloning has been my top choice for the past few weeks. However, I read an interesting article about the aid provided to other countries and almost made that my top choice. I tried using the opposing viewpoints site and really could not get into any of the article about it. I switched back to cloning and did a quick search that brought up multiple interesting articles.

I found this site to be really helpful. The statistics provided about what people think of cloning, college students in particular, were quite interesting. I have always found the subject of cloning and stem cell research to be the most interesting debated subjects. For me, stem cell research and cloning go hand in hand with the sense of bettering the world and helping to cure diseases and such. Since I am going into the medical profession, I find these topics to be even more relevant and interesting to my life.

QVRC helped me realize that the debate over aid in other countries would not be the best topic to write my paper on since I really do not know that much about it. I was happy to find that there was a lot of information on there about cloning that spiked my interest and made me want to learn even more. A little on the random side, but I have always related these subjects to the book Brave New World written by Aldous Huxley. It gives and interesting view of the future and shows some scenes that describe how the people are “made” and basically programmed. A grim view of the possible future due to cloning and controlling genetics is presented. I honestly think that reading this book was what first got me interested in this subject. I am excited that I used the QVRC and realized that cloning was the subject for me!

Poor Unfortunate Souls

One of the first articles that I clicked on was called, “Why so much aid for the poor has made so little difference” which was written by Mark Lange. This article really made me start thinking. I honestly had no idea what to do my argument of fact essay on, but this article gave me a push in the direction I think that I want to take.

I have always been interested in helping other people and learning about other cultures. This article made me even more interested in the other countries that we are supposedly “helping” by giving them free food and money. I have always been somewhat curious about how all of that worked, and now I am even more interested in the ideas behind it. It has made me wonder why our help is not really helping. Our help could be keeping the developing and poorer countries in a catastrophic and never-ending circle. There farmers can never hope to compete with free food, thus this keeps their economy downtrodden.

This should be an important topic to everyone. Not only are these people suffering and sick, but our country’s money, OUR money is going to these other countries to help them. One has to wonder whether our money, food, and medical supplies are just being wasted and given away to the brutes like the guerrillas, instead of actually being used for the impoverished and sick. Even though these countries are far away and the people of America make the mistake of thinking that these countries do not concern them, we should all be aware of the plights and problems of the poor. Not only are there poor people in third world countries, there are also destitute people in our oh-so-wonderful country. The people who do not care about other’s in far away countries would probably at least take the time to care about where all of their money is being shipped to. I know that this is a much debated topic in our country and especially talked about in politics. I believe that this would be an interesting topic that would give me some relevant insight into the countries cultures and lifestyles.

(And yes for you who noticed… the title is a song from The Little Mermaid. A lame and sad joke I know.)

Are YOU Concerned?

I honestly think that all of these topics could be interesting and worthwhile to present to a college audience. However, some of the topics would probably be best if they were presented to a specific audience of college students. A specific group as in the topic pertains to the audience’s major or career, thus they would more likely be interested in the subject.

I would say that about half of the subjects would interest the general college audience. The topics concerning Cancer, Diets, Jobs, Hurricanes, Minorities, and alternative fuels would all most likely concern and interest the general population of college students. All of those topics concern the nearby future of all peoples including college students. Some of the topics concern their health while the others concern their environment.

The other topics such as, Japan in 1945, boys in school, racial problems, past presidents, and political activists would mostly concern only those college students that are involved in history majors, education or who will become future politicians. Generally people do not care to sit for 45 minutes to listen to a speech about the past, or to listen to events that have already happen and that cannot be changed. People would much rather spend their time learning about the here and now that specifically concerns their specific person.