I WAS SICK THIS MORNING!

Dear Students,
For those of you who made it to class, I'm sorry that I didn't.
I got sick in the night and thought I would be able to make it there this morning
but I couldn't. We were going to work on Conclusions and I have a hand out about
conclusions that we'll discuss on Tuesday. As well as doing peer evaluations of
Part 3.
If anyone wants/needs to meet with me before next week I'll be available tomorrow
afternoon between 2:30pm - 5pm in Room 429, or we can set another time.
Please email me at lgcupolo@memphis.edu
Sorry again for not being there!!

Lisa Cupolo

HOMEWORK: Due April 10, 2007

READINGS
1, articles from EAA - pg 226-232, 477- 479 answer Q. 1 and 3
2, Read NY Times article below and write a commentary on this blog or bring to class. Commentary should include author's claim and if the argument (state the argument) works for you and why? Be ready to talk about it in class

April 1, 2007
Ideas & Trends
Being Nice to the Bacon, Before You Bring It Home
By PAUL VITELLO
SOME of my relatives in Sicily are farmers; and the first time I visited them, at 19, I made a habit each morning of visiting the rabbits they kept in a pen near the house. There were a few dozen. They were cute.
One morning, my uncle Paolo, a large and kindly man, came in to tend to business, righting an overturned bucket here, straightening a crate there and deftly scooping up a rabbit with one hand, wedging it under his arm and twisting its neck until dead. It took about five seconds.
Thus was one meat consumer introduced to the culture of meat producers.
When Burger King announced last week that it would favor producers who treated their animals more humanely it was welcome news to animal welfare advocates. But it also served to remind the rest of us that if we are meat eaters, we are slaughterers, too. At least by proxy.
To farmers and ranchers who raise animals for food, the feeding, housing and killing of livestock is an unbroken continuum that delivers a product to people far removed from its production — city folk who work in advertising, or whatever it is that city people do.
Animals are for petting, not killing. Meat, unrelated, is for eating. And never the twain shall meet.
But over the last decade, a slow but steady convergence of these two world views has begun to change the way consumers view their meat, and some producers view their animals.
Temple Grandin, an animal science professor at Colorado State University who is a pioneer in the field of humane cattle handling, said public pressure on meat producers in the last few years has been “building and building to where I feel we’re at a tipping point now.”
When she spoke at last week’s conference on animal care and handling at the annual American Meat Institute meeting in Kansas City, Mo., she said, there were more than 300 people in attendance. “That’s more than we ever had before, and I think it’s a wonderful sign,” she said.
Beginning in the 1990s, animal welfare advocates like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals began virtually force-feeding the consuming public on certain realities of so-called factory farming.
For the sake of production efficiencies and a low-cost food supply, they explained, cows, pigs and poultry are often condemned to sunless, sometimes squalid lives, only to die with needless cruelty. These advocates led protests against the largest hamburger chains, beneficiaries of the factory system.
After initial resistance, in 2001 the chains agreed to some improvements. McDonald’s and Burger King imposed some guidelines for their meat and egg suppliers: extra water, wing-room and fresh air for egg-laying hens; mandatory electric-shock stunning of pigs and cattle before slaughter.
Last week, Burger King went further. In an agreement that PETA and other advocates called “a historic advance,” it said it would favor suppliers who did not confine their chickens and pigs in cages and crates, and who used gas rather than electric shock to knock out chickens before slaughter.
Perhaps this is more than you want to know about the life and death of the creatures who made that ham and eggs on your plate possible. But by most indicators, many Americans are increasingly interested in asking. From niche-market beginnings, “free-range” and other humanely raised animal products have been embraced by many major grocery retailers, including Wal-Mart.
Retailers clearly see advantages in appealing to the demographic of kinder and gentler meat-eaters, according to Ron Paul, president of Technomic, a Chicago-based research and consulting firm for food suppliers. “There is a growing realization that the humane movement is a long-term movement,” he said. “It’s not going to go away.”
Among meat producers, the new ethos seems partly understandable and partly not. “There is obviously a great deal of emotion and publicity surrounding the issue right now,” said Janet M. Riley, spokeswoman for the American Meat Institute. “From our perspective, handling animals humanely gives you a better quality product.”
More than 80 law schools now offer an “animal law” course that deals in some way with the question of humane treatment and slaughter of livestock, said Paul Waldau, director of the Center for Animals and Public Policy at Tufts University’s Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine. He teaches such a course every other year at Harvard Law School.
It might seem hypocritical to address the quality of life of a creature being raised exclusively to be killed for food. Mr. Waldau, who has degrees in law, religion and philosophy, said that the issue was not meat eating per se, but one’s responsibility for one’s choices as a consumer. Whether to eat the meat of animals treated abysmally during their lifetimes or to buy so-called blood diamonds or clothing made in sweatshops, become parallel questions, he said.
Both Mr. Waldau and Ms. Grandin see the animal welfare movement in the context of 50 years of American political evolution, and the profound shift of attitudes that accompanied the civil rights and women’s movements.
Tell that to my friend, the rabbit. In Sicily, the episode of many years ago ended with me in what might be called the gray zone of slaughter: I held the hind legs of the little rabbit while my uncle slipped its skin off in virtually one piece, like a pair of Dr. Dentons.
As I remember, it was cooked in a stew. We ate it with crusty bread that night. It tasted like chicken. And it was very good.

Week of MARCH 26, 2007

1, NO REGULAR CLASSES THIS WEEK BUT STUDENTS WILL MEET INDIVIDUALLY FOR CONFERENCES.
Patterson Hall, Room 429, at scheduled time.
Please bring all work to the meeting (unless I have it already)

HOMEWORK: DUE April 3, 2007

1, READING Ch.10 pages, (170 - 204) In EAA, Ch.4 in TSIS
ALSO --for Documenting Sources (CITATION) there are good examples in EAC, pg 424- 442

2, Post your weekly blog entry and comment.

3, Comment on NY times article below. Answer the questions - a, What is the author's claim? Do you agreewith this claim? Use quotes to support your comment.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/25/opinion/25gilbert.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

March 25, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Compassionate Commercialism

By DANIEL GILBERT
Cambridge, Mass.

IN an advertising campaign that began last week, Nissan left 20,000 sets of keys in bars, stadiums, concert halls and other public venues. Each key ring has a tag that says: “If found, please do not return. My next generation Nissan Altima has Intelligent Key with push-button ignition, and I no longer need these.”
This campaign is clever, but not particularly original.
It was 1997, and the man who was crouched on the sidewalk at 68th and Broadway in New York City was one of the most pathetic souls I’d ever seen. His limbs were twisted in what appeared to be arthritic agony and tears were streaming down his face. “Please,” he whimpered. “Please, somebody help me.”
Most passers-by did what they were named for, but my wife and I stopped. The man looked up. “Please,” he sobbed. “I just want to go home.” My hand needed no guidance from my brain as it reached into my wallet and extracted $10. “Thank you,” he said as I handed him the money. “Thank you so much.” My wife and I mumbled some embarrassed words and walked on.
We hadn’t gone a block when she tugged my sleeve. “Maybe we should have gotten him into a cab,” she said. “He could barely stand up. He might need help. We should go back to see.” My wife is the patron saint of lost kittens and there is no arguing, so we went back to see. And what we saw was our horribly crippled friend walking briskly and happily up 68th Street, opening the door to a late-model car, getting in and driving away after what was apparently a short day of theatrical work.
I know two things now that I didn’t know then.
First, I now know that my hand did what human hands were designed to do. Research suggests that we are hard-wired with a strong and intuitive moral impulse — an urge to help others that is every bit as basic as the selfish urges that get all the press. Infants as young as 18 months will spontaneously comfort those who appear distressed and help those who are having difficulty retrieving or balancing objects. Chimpanzees will do the same, though not so reliably, which has led scientists to speculate about the precise point in our evolutionary history at which we became the “hypercooperative” species that out-nices the rest.
The second thing I know now that I didn’t know then is that this was the most damaging crime I had ever experienced. Like most residents of large cities, I’d been a victim before — of burglary once, of vandalism several times. But this was different. The burglars and vandals had taken advantage of my forgetfulness (“Why didn’t I double lock the door?”) and taught me to be better.
But the actor on 68th Street had taken advantage of my helpfulness and taught me to be worse. The hand that had automatically reached for my wallet had been slapped, and once slapped was twice shy. I’ve never again given money to a stranger without scrutinizing him for the signs that distinguish suffering from its imitation. And because I don’t know what those signs are, I typically just walk by.
Now corporate America has taken a lesson from the guild of shameless grifters. Nissan’s plan to leave those 20,000 sets of keys in public venues is every bit as crafty as the fraudulent performance that a decade ago left me with holes in both my pocketbook and soul. There is no selfish reason to bend down and pick up a key ring, but Nissan knows that we will bend without thinking because the impulse to help is bred into our marrow. Our best instinct will be awakened by a key ring and then punished by a commercial. Like rubes throughout the ages, we will be lured by a false cry of distress and quickly cured of our innocence and compassion.
We are used to commercial tricks that play on our fears. The official-looking letter marked “Verification Audit” is actually a magazine subscription renewal form; the credit card company’s ominous call to “discuss your account” is actually an attempt to sell new services.
Should we now get used to commercial tricks that play on our humanity? How would we feel about a device planted in trash bins that screams “I’m stuck!” until the lid is opened, at which point it continues, “Stuck in a dead end job, that is — and if you are too, then let us show you how to make millions in real estate with no money down”? Is it O.K. to send a thousand doleful puppies into the streets with tags that say: “Thanks for checking. And speaking of checking, our bank charges no monthly fees”?
What happens to us when greed masquerades as need, when cries for help become casting calls for chumps, when our most noble actions make us patsies? “You put an idea out there and seed it,” said the president of the advertising agency that came up with Nissan’s key ring ploy. “And people carry it for you.” Indeed they do. The idea being seeded and carried in this case is that the world cries wolf, that our moral impulse betrays us and that smart people should keep on walking.
Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard, is the author of “Stumbling on Happiness.”

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HOMEWORK: Due March 22, 2007

1, Please bring a draft of your Research Paper: Part II to class
as we'll be doing peer editing.
2, Weekly entry on your blog

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HOMEWORK: Due March 20, 2007

HOMEWORK
1, Final Draft: Rhetorical Analysis
2, Research Paper, Part II (Draft only for peer review)
3,Comment on 2 classmate's blogs (if you haven't yet done so)

Note: (DO NOT COME TO CLASS UNLESS YOU HAVE THE WORK COMPLETED)

4, Read and comment on the NY Times article below (on my blog!)
http://nytimes.com/marketing/winatrip/?mkt=tsmmphoto

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/11/opinion/11kristof.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fColumnists%2fNicholas%20D%20Kristof

March 11, 2007
Op-Ed Columnist
Win a Trip, and See a Different World
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Cast your eyes above and meet Hidaya Abatemam, whom I met last month in a remote area of southern Ethiopia. She is 6 years old and weighs 17 pounds.
Hidaya was starved nearly to death and may well have suffered permanent mental impairment, helping to trap her — and her own children, if she lives that long — in another generation of poverty.
Yet maybe the more interesting question is not why Hidaya is starving but why the world continues to allow 30,000 children like her to die each day of poverty.
Ultimately what is killing girls like her isn’t precisely malnutrition or malaria, but indifference. And that, in turn, arises from our insularity, our inexperience in traveling and living in poor countries, so that we have difficulty empathizing with people like Hidaya.
I often hear comments from readers like: “It’s tragic over there, but we’ve got our own problems that we have to solve first.” Nobody who has held the hand of a starving African child could be that dismissive.
That lack of firsthand experience abroad also helps explain why we are so awful at foreign policy: we just don’t “get” how our actions will be perceived abroad, so time and again — in Vietnam, China, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Latin America — we end up clumsily empowering our enemies.
Part of the problem is that American universities do an execrable job preparing students for global citizenship. A majority of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day, but the vast majority of American students graduate without ever gaining any insight into how that global majority lives.
According to a Roper/National Geographic poll, 38 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 consider speaking another language to be “not too important.” Sixty-three percent of those young Americans can’t find Iraq on a map of the Middle East. And 89 percent don’t correspond regularly with anyone outside the U.S.
A survey cited by the Modern Language Association found that only 9 percent of American college students enroll in a foreign language class.
Let’s face it: We’re provincial.
That’s one reason that I always exhort college students to take a “gap year” and roam the world, or at least to take a summer or semester abroad — and spend it not in Paris or London, but traveling through Chinese or African villages. Universities should give course credit for such experiences — and offer extra credit for students who catch intestinal worms.
So I’m now putting my company’s money where my mouth is. On Tuesday, in partnership with MySpace.com, The New York Times and I will announce a second annual “win a trip” contest to choose a university student to travel with me on a reporting trip to Africa. And this year, in addition to a student, I’ll choose a schoolteacher — from a middle school or high school — to accompany me as well. We'll probably travel together to Rwanda, Burundi and Congo.
Last year I chose a young woman from Mississippi, Casey Parks, and we traveled together through central Africa. Casey and I saw malnourished children just like Hidaya, and visited burned-out villages in areas of the Central African Republic that had been caught up in the furies of the spreading Darfur genocide. Pygmy trackers led us through the jungle to see gorillas and elephants, and we managed to be held up at gunpoint by bandits.
In Cameroon, we interviewed a doctor about maternal mortality — and then found a woman named Prudence, a mother of three, dying in the next room. A dead fetus was decomposing inside her, setting off a raging infection, but the doctor didn’t care about her. And so she died. You can know intellectually that half a million women die in pregnancy each year, but it’s still shattering to see a woman die so unnecessarily in front of you.
If you win the trip, you won’t be practicing tourism, but journalism. You’ll blog and prepare videos for the New York Times and MySpace Web sites. I’m betting that you’ll be able to connect with young readers and viewers — and galvanize them to care about these issues — in a way that I can’t.
So please spread the word about the contest. Rules and applications will be posted Tuesday at www.nytimes.com/winatrip and at www.myspace.com/kristofontheground.
And for those who apply but don’t win, go anyway on your own. You’ll learn more than you ever would from an equivalent period in the classroom. And you’ll gain not only the occasional intestinal parasite but also an understanding of why we should fight to save children like Hidaya.

HOMEWORK: Due March 13, 2007

1, Rhetorical analysis paper
2, Comment on 2 class mates' blogs
3, Review ch.2, They Say, I Say

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HOMEWORK: Due March 1, 2007

1, Post an article to your blog and comment on it

2, Read the following articles found in Everything's an Argument
pg 519 (read again and write a commentary), pg 486 "Turning Boys Into Girls",
pg 540 "We Should Relinquish Some Liberty in Exchange for Security,"
pg 627 "Bad As They Want to Be"

3, Read Chapter 3 in They Say, I Say