maybe more than one final word.
Be sure to get your paper turned in to Turnitin this week.
You are all fabulous writers and thinkers. I hope you continue to write and read all summer.
HAVE A GREAT BREAK!
DR. S
Sunday, June 7, 2015
Monday, June 1, 2015
WEEK TEN BLOG ENTRY
So, this is sort of week ten, sort of not. But this will be our last week for blogging, so enjoy it!
I recently attended a high school graduation...and then drove to Sacramento to watch another high school graduation. It was fairly torturous. The key feature in common among the speeches of the students and faculty members here and there was a simple notion: each and every individual is special and unique and a winner in every way.
Have we gone too far in pushing self esteem?
If so, at what cost?
How will this generation deal with its inevitable failures?
How does a civilization find a balance between valuing all human life and heaping on piles of unmerited praise?
What say you?
I recently attended a high school graduation...and then drove to Sacramento to watch another high school graduation. It was fairly torturous. The key feature in common among the speeches of the students and faculty members here and there was a simple notion: each and every individual is special and unique and a winner in every way.
Have we gone too far in pushing self esteem?
If so, at what cost?
How will this generation deal with its inevitable failures?
How does a civilization find a balance between valuing all human life and heaping on piles of unmerited praise?
What say you?
WEEK TEN READING
ENJOY THIS: I AM OFTEN AMAZED AT THE WIDE BREADTH OF ISSUES THAT GET STUDIED THESE DAYS. there IS SOME GREAT RESEARCH OUT THERE!ENJOY, DR. S
(CNN) -- Your spouse "had to stay late at work" -- are you skeptical? Do you think your friend doesn't like you if he cancels dinner plans? Do you suspect that your co-worker is putting her ambitions ahead of the team?
(CNN) -- Your spouse "had to stay late at work" -- are you skeptical? Do you think your friend doesn't like you if he cancels dinner plans? Do you suspect that your co-worker is putting her ambitions ahead of the team?
Curmudgeons of the world, listen up: This line of negative thinking might actually hurt your health.
A new study in the latest edition of Neurology, the journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that cynical people have a higher likelihood of developing dementia.
"There have been previous studies that showed that people who were cynical were more likely to die earlier and have other poor health outcomes, but no one that we could tell ever looked at dementia," said Anna-Maija Tolppanen, one of the study's authors and a professor at the University of Eastern Finland. "We have seen some studies that show people who are more open and optimistic have a lower risk for dementia so we thought this was a good question to ask."
Studying cynicism
Cynicism is a deep mistrust of others. Psychologists consider it a kind of chronic anger that develops over time.
Specifically, the kind of cynicism researchers looked at involved doubting the truth of what people say and believing most people are motivated by self-interest rather than by what is best for the community.
The study tested 1,449 people with an average age of 71. The study participants took a test for dementia. A separate test measured their level of cynicism. Both tests are considered reliable by researchers.
The cynicism test asks if the person agrees with statements like "Most people will use somewhat unfair reasons to gain profit or an advantage rather than lose it"; "I think most people would lie to get ahead"; and "It is safer to trust nobody."
Those who agreed with the critical statements in the test were considered highly cynical. The people with the highest level of cynical distrust had a 2.54 times greater risk of dementia than those with the lowest cynicism rating.
Researchers also examined the test results to see if the subjects who were labeled highly cynical died sooner than the others. But once compounding factors were screened out, they did not. Previous studies have shown a link between cynicism and an earlier death.
Still, the new study does not prove that having a bad attitude causes bad health outcomes. To prove a causal relationship, a study would need randomized controlled trials to show that a reduction in cynical attitudes through treatment actually lowered the risk of bad health outcomes.
More research is necessary to replicate the conclusions. But the results complement a wide body of research showing how "over time, people with highly cynical hostility do worse health wise," said Dr. Hilary Tindle, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Pittsburgh.
Why cynicism may be bad for you
What might explain an association between cynicism and poor health?
This is a complex issue that needs to be studied more, Tindle said. The relationships between psychological attitudes and health outcomes are very complex.
"I can tell you from my clinical perspective from treating patients, I am absolutely certain that psychological attitudes can lead people down a road to poor health, because I see it every day when I talk to patients," said Tindle, who wrote the book "Up: How Positive Outlook Can Transform Our Health and Aging."
Tindle was the lead author on a study that examined the health outcomes of over 97,000 women and found that cynical women had a higher hazard of cancer-related mortality.
"The bottom line is that a high degree of anger/hostility/cynicism is not good for health," she wrote.
Research shows cynical people also tend to smoke more, exercise less and weigh more. They also have a harder time following even the best medical advice, because their cynical natures won't let them believe what people tell them, Tindle said.
Past studies have also found that people who are cynical have a higher rate of coronary heart disease, cardiovascular problems and cancer-related deaths. Cardiovascular disease can contribute to dementia because it essentially damages small blood vessels everywhere in your body, including in your brain.
Cynical people also tend to have greater stress responses, which means they typically have a higher heart rate, a higher blood pressure peak, and a tendency to have greater inflammation of their immune systems. Chronic inflammation is now known to be harmful to one's overall health and it is linked to everything from Crohn's disease to high cholesterol to even Alzheimer's.
Can you come out of cynicism?
The good news is, being highly cynical is not a permanent state of mind.
"I am also certain that people can learn to change -- they change every day in that they quit smoking, they lose weight, they cut ties in unhealthy friendships," Tindle said. "The ultimate message is people are not 'doomed' if they have cynical tendencies."
So if your assumptions about people are making you angry and irritable, try having a little more trust.
"All of us are capable of adopting healthier attitudes," Tindle said. "As a physician, I see people of all ages making positive change every day."
Monday, May 25, 2015
WEEK NINE BLOG ENTRY.
Ponder a bit on paper, answering only one of the following questions:
When you are 90 years old, what will matter most to you?
Imagine I am giving you one billion dollars(you are welcome). Now, the only condition is that you must still find a job to do. What job would you chose, knowing that money is of no concern?
Ask yourself, when did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?
To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
What is your number one goal for the next six months?
What did JFK mean by this quote? "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them."
When you are 90 years old, what will matter most to you?
Imagine I am giving you one billion dollars(you are welcome). Now, the only condition is that you must still find a job to do. What job would you chose, knowing that money is of no concern?
Ask yourself, when did I last push the boundaries of my comfort zone?
To what degree have you actually controlled the course your life has taken?
What is your number one goal for the next six months?
What did JFK mean by this quote? "As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them."
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Tipping Point Essay Assignment...final paper of the quarter
Can you believe that the quarter is coming to an end? Our final assignment (we have no final exam, by the way) deals with our final reading of the quarter, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.
The assignment is below. If you have any questions, please oh please let me know!!!
TIPPING POINT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT:
The assignment is below. If you have any questions, please oh please let me know!!!
TIPPING POINT ESSAY ASSIGNMENT:
The essay should uploaded to turnitin.com. It will be 2-3 pages in length, double spaced.
There are two essay topics to choose from.
Obviously, as you read through the book look for examples that will help you build a fabulous final paper!
Write a 3 page double spaced essay on one of the following topics:
1. How might one or more of the ideas in the book The Tipping Point apply to your chosen major or profession?
2. Locate a trend [social, political, cultural, other] that seems to exhibit a "tipping point" phenomenon. Provide a brief explanation of why you think this phenomenon meets Gladwell's criteria for tipping point phenomenon; does it exhibit contagiousness. or little causes having big effects, or dramatic change?
THIS IS DUE June 9 TO TURNITIN.COM
LATE PAPERS WILL NOT BE ACCEPTED, AND YOU CANNOT PASS THE CLASS WITHOUT THIS ASSIGNMENT, SO BE SURE IT IS IN ON TIME.
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Week Eight So Late... BLOG ENTRY
sorry folks, i had technical difficulties.
Here is our only work for this week. As you start to read through the Tipping Point, choose one sentence. Write it here and tell the class why that sentence stood out to you.
Here is our only work for this week. As you start to read through the Tipping Point, choose one sentence. Write it here and tell the class why that sentence stood out to you.
Monday, May 11, 2015
WEEK SEVEN BLOG ENTRY
What is the single most important day in either
1. the history of the world?
--or--
2. in your life?
1. the history of the world?
--or--
2. in your life?
WEEK SEVEN READING
Q: What day most changed the course of history?
Ken Burns, documentary filmmaker
June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand’s carriage driver took a wrong turn and they ended up in a cul-de-sac, giving the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip a chance to kill the archduke. This was the first in a set of dominoes that put in motion the two largest wars in world history—and it all came down to a wrong turn by a carriage driver.
Timothy Snyder, professor of history, Yale University
On December 11, 1241, the Mongol warrior Batu Khan was poised to take Vienna and destroy the Holy Roman Empire. No European force could have kept his armies from reaching the Atlantic. But the death of Ögedei Khan, the second Great Khan of the Mongol empire, forced Batu Khan to return to Mongolia to discuss the succession. Had Ögedei Khan died a few years later, European history as we know it would not have happened.
Christina H. Paxson, president, Brown University
The day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440, Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge. The ensuing democratization of ideas had a profound impact on societies in the second half of the second millennium.
Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religion, Penn State University
For several years leading up to June 22, 1941, it had looked as though dictators and militarists would soon rule virtually the whole world outside North America. But Operation Barbarossa—Germany’s decision to send 3 million of its soldiers smashing across the Soviet border—would ultimately lead to Hitler’s defeat and the destruction of Nazism.
Neera Tanden, president, Center for American Progress
By empowering half the population with the responsibilities of citizenship, August 26, 1920—the day women gained the right to vote—allowed the U.S. to live up to its fundamental values of opportunity and equality.
Paul Kennedy, professor of history, Yale University
The day Thomas Newcomen invented his steam engine. America would be like a giant Angola without it.
Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of physics, Institute for Advanced Study
The day the asteroid hit the Yucatán Peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs, making room for our little primate ancestors to grow big and brainy and to take over the planet.
Note: This article originally stated that Freeman Dyson is a professor emeritus at Princeton University.
Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series
The day, in 1675, that Anton van Leeuwenhoek first looked through the lens of the microscope he invented. There are a whole lot of people making history who wouldn’t have been here save for the discoveries that followed from that drop of pond water.
W. Kamau Bell, host, Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell
There’s no way I can get this correct, so: It has to have affected me personally. It has to have had a big impact on America, culturally and historically. And it has to have involved sequins. Therefore, the obvious answer is May 16, 1983, when Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on TV. I think it’s one of the reasons we have a black president today. People went, Wow, black people are sort of magical. And Barack Obama is basically a walking sequin.
Oliver Stone, director and co-author of The Untold History of the United States
July 20, 1944, when Henry Wallace lost the vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Had he won, Wallace, not Harry S. Truman, would have become president when Roosevelt died. The U.S. would have had a much better relationship with the Soviet Union, and I don’t think Wallace would have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Atlantic contributing editor and professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University
Trite as it may seem, the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, was the first public assertion of human equality as a legitimate rationale for political action. The Declaration would eventually eat away at the formal barriers of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and any other differences that human beings have created to hold some down and raise others up.
Ken Burns, documentary filmmaker
June 28, 1914. Franz Ferdinand’s carriage driver took a wrong turn and they ended up in a cul-de-sac, giving the Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip a chance to kill the archduke. This was the first in a set of dominoes that put in motion the two largest wars in world history—and it all came down to a wrong turn by a carriage driver.
Timothy Snyder, professor of history, Yale University
On December 11, 1241, the Mongol warrior Batu Khan was poised to take Vienna and destroy the Holy Roman Empire. No European force could have kept his armies from reaching the Atlantic. But the death of Ögedei Khan, the second Great Khan of the Mongol empire, forced Batu Khan to return to Mongolia to discuss the succession. Had Ögedei Khan died a few years later, European history as we know it would not have happened.
Christina H. Paxson, president, Brown University
The day Johannes Gutenberg finished his wooden printing press in 1440, Western civilization turned onto a path toward more efficient, accessible communication of knowledge. The ensuing democratization of ideas had a profound impact on societies in the second half of the second millennium.
Philip Jenkins, professor of history and religion, Penn State University
For several years leading up to June 22, 1941, it had looked as though dictators and militarists would soon rule virtually the whole world outside North America. But Operation Barbarossa—Germany’s decision to send 3 million of its soldiers smashing across the Soviet border—would ultimately lead to Hitler’s defeat and the destruction of Nazism.
Neera Tanden, president, Center for American Progress
By empowering half the population with the responsibilities of citizenship, August 26, 1920—the day women gained the right to vote—allowed the U.S. to live up to its fundamental values of opportunity and equality.
Paul Kennedy, professor of history, Yale University
The day Thomas Newcomen invented his steam engine. America would be like a giant Angola without it.
Freeman Dyson, professor emeritus of physics, Institute for Advanced Study
The day the asteroid hit the Yucatán Peninsula and wiped out the dinosaurs, making room for our little primate ancestors to grow big and brainy and to take over the planet.
Note: This article originally stated that Freeman Dyson is a professor emeritus at Princeton University.
Diana Gabaldon, author of the Outlander series
The day, in 1675, that Anton van Leeuwenhoek first looked through the lens of the microscope he invented. There are a whole lot of people making history who wouldn’t have been here save for the discoveries that followed from that drop of pond water.
W. Kamau Bell, host, Totally Biased With W. Kamau Bell
There’s no way I can get this correct, so: It has to have affected me personally. It has to have had a big impact on America, culturally and historically. And it has to have involved sequins. Therefore, the obvious answer is May 16, 1983, when Michael Jackson first performed the moonwalk on TV. I think it’s one of the reasons we have a black president today. People went, Wow, black people are sort of magical. And Barack Obama is basically a walking sequin.
Oliver Stone, director and co-author of The Untold History of the United States
July 20, 1944, when Henry Wallace lost the vice-presidential nomination at the Democratic Convention in Chicago. Had he won, Wallace, not Harry S. Truman, would have become president when Roosevelt died. The U.S. would have had a much better relationship with the Soviet Union, and I don’t think Wallace would have dropped the atomic bomb on Japan.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, Atlantic contributing editor and professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton University
Trite as it may seem, the signing of the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, was the first public assertion of human equality as a legitimate rationale for political action. The Declaration would eventually eat away at the formal barriers of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and any other differences that human beings have created to hold some down and raise others up.
Monday, May 4, 2015
WEEK SIX BLOG ENTRY
Would your life be better if you awoke every day and wrote a poem? Why or why not?
WEEK SIX READING...A POEM
WILLIAM BLAKE, TYGER! TYGER! (1794)
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?
And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp!
When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?
Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forests of the night:
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
WEEK SIX WRITING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ
Using all of your poetic interpretation skill (actually, I
used all mine constructing this sentence), tell me what one line of this poem
means. Just interpret one line. Use as much or as little space to do that as
you would like.
Monday, April 27, 2015
WEEK FIVE BLOG ENTRY
Think about or answer any one of the following questions this week:
How do you define nation?
What does language have to do with national identity?
What is the role of schools in inculcating national values?
Should nations require national service(military or civilian)?
U.S. Army recruiters were caught signing up future soldiers at a high school in Tijuana. How do you feel about that?
How do you define nation?
What does language have to do with national identity?
What is the role of schools in inculcating national values?
Should nations require national service(military or civilian)?
U.S. Army recruiters were caught signing up future soldiers at a high school in Tijuana. How do you feel about that?
WEEK FIVE READING AND WRITING ABOUT WHAT YOU READ
Just keep reading the Tortilla Curtain and enjoying every page!
Monday, April 20, 2015
WEEK FOUR BLOG ENTRY
Your blog writing has been so brilliant that we really should keep up with that this week. So we will do a great one: the 6 word memoir.
This week, your blog entry should have six words, your own six word memoir.
Have fun!
There is a story about Hemingway that goes like this. He is
in a bar--he was often in a bar. Someone challenges him to write a story in a
very unHemingway way. It could only contain six words. They bet a bottle of
scotch, so for Hemingway, these are high stakes! He accepts. He pens this
masterpiece: "For sale, baby shoes, never worn."
He wins the bets and establishes the six word memoir.
He wins the bets and establishes the six word memoir.
This week, your blog entry should have six words, your own six word memoir.
The
only requirement is this; it must only have six words.
Then, later in the week,
you can come back and comment on the six word memoirs of your classmates.
Also, you can do multiple ones, so have a go and then skip a space and do it again.
Also, you can do multiple ones, so have a go and then skip a space and do it again.
I'll try one:
dreary sunday, rain clouds, only hope.
Here's another:
youth, writing limitless words, all red.
And a third one...
dreary sunday, rain clouds, only hope.
Here's another:
youth, writing limitless words, all red.
And a third one...
north carolina, job interview, southern drawl.
Have fun!
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