Should we be scared of COVID-19?

The world was once at a standstill. More importantly, the United States of America has been closed for some weeks now. 2020 has not been the best year with many sad and terrible events taking place. The world has been faced with a problem that according to the internet has been predicted to happen. In 2020 COVID-19 became a problem for the United States as well as other countries in the world. Why were we not prepared? Why were people not warned? Is this as serious as they're making it? According to the news, this pandemic is very deadly and we need to take various precautions, but why? Will social distancing stop the spread of the virus or just contain it until we're done with social distancing? Many people are unaware of and have no answers. Is this pandemic just a scare for us to ignore other things going on in the world? We don't know, and won't know until its too late. Also, I've heard people say that felt they had COVID-19 before it was blown up in the news. They say they felt the symptoms and thought they might've had the flu. Yet nobody knows what the heck is actually going on. Social distancing is supposed to end on May 1st, but should people take it into their own hands to social distance longer? With the uncertainty and the mixed opinions should we be scared of COVID-19 and or are you scared of COVID-19

Covid-19 Facts: True or False?

As we all know the corona virus and how it has effected our lives, but they way we hear about it is through social media so how much of it is actually true? I have read that  US intelligence community has determined that the Chinese government concealed the extent of its coronavirus outbreak and gave false numbers of cases and deaths in the country, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing three US officials. Intelligence officials transmitted a classified report of their findings to the White House last week. Bloomberg described its sources as saying that the report's main conclusion was that China's public reporting of coronavirus cases was "intentionally incomplete." Two officials told the outlet that it found that China's numbers were fake.China was the center of the novel coronavirus outbreak until last week, when the US's number of cases of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus, surpassed China's. The World Health Organization declared it a pandemic on March 11. As of Wednesday, more than 885,000 people across the globe had been infected and more than 44,000 had died. China had reported 82,361 confirmed cases and 3,316 deaths, according to a database from Johns Hopkins University. The US had reported 190,089 positive cases and 4,102 deaths.The outbreak originated late last year in the city of Wuhan, in China's Hubei province. As more and more people got sick, China's communist government implemented strict lockdowns and ordered residents to stay inside while officials raced to contain the spread of the virus. What is your guys opinion on this? 
https://www.businessinsider.com/us-intelligence-found-china-misrepresented-coronavirus-stats-report-2020-4

Charlie Rose Interview-- Thank You for Smoking

Just before the movie Thank You for Smoking was released, Charlie Rose (PBS) interviewed Christopher Buckley (the author of the original book), Jason Reitman (the script writer and director of the movie), David Sacks (who produced the movie, his first), and Aaron Eckhardt (the actor who played Nick Naylor).

I find this interview interesting for a variety of reasons, some of which I will detail here.

1.  Buckley notes that Reitman had been screening the movie at college campuses across the country. Reitman recalls one particular showing at the University of California at Berkeley, which he says is an intimidating place to screen a "libertarian film" (more on that later).  During the Q & A session (after the film), one older lady stood up and starting berating him for not going after Big Tobacco for doing such evil things.  And the students starting booing her until she shut up.  Reitman is quite pleased with that response.  Why?

2.  Elsewhere in the interview, both Reitman and Sacks refer to the movie as a "libertarian" film. I won't go into the details here, but the point is _The movie has a politics_.  In what ways is the movie "libertarian"?

3.  Sacks, who is a noted libertarian, goes on to say that he wanted to produce this movie because he loved how "the morality of the story is inverted"; usually the Big Tobacco person is the bad guy, but in this case, he's really the hero, "you're rooting for him." He goes on to say that, "We've made 'spin' necessary . . . it's society's hypocrisy that's made spin necessary. . . . We love our vices, and big government has gone too far when they crack down on these things." 

4.  Buckley notes that the son, Joey, is entirely Reitman's addition to the story.  (Joey does appear in the book, but only briefly; Reitman makes Joey a major character, and Nick's relationship with his son is a key element-- it's function is largely to "humanize" Naylor.

Following from that, it is interesting to see Buckley and Reitman together-- Buckley praising Reitman's work, and Reitman giving credit to "Buckley's words."  Why?  Because the book and the movie are radically different stories.  In addition to the development of Joey as a character, there are a lot of significant differences:  for starters, in the book, Nick is not really the Sultan of Spin.  In fact, he's kind of a bumbling fool, trying (and often failing) to defend the indefensible.  Second, Nick's kidnapping is actually orchestrated by his boss, B.R.  (Incidentally, in the movie, they don't tell you what was written on the sign hanging around his neck, only that "it was some pretty f***ed up s**t."  In the book you find out that what it said was "Executed for Crimes Against Humanity.") After the kidnapping, the F.B.I. determines that it was in fact Nick who orchestrated his own kidnapping (he is "set up" to take the fall by a coworker), and Nick ends up serving time in jail.

Finally, and I think most significantly, the ending of movie differs completely from the book. Reitman, in a different interview, says that when he was trying to find someone to produce the movie, some of the major movie studios wanted him to change the ending, saying that Nick has to go work for the Red Cross or something, which Reitman thought was "silly." This seems strange to me, since in the book, after Nick gets out of jail, he goes to work for "Clean Lungs 2000," an anti-smoking campaign. What do you think, then, is the significance of the change Reitman made to the ending?

Animal Rights

 As humans we have rights, but animals on the other hand aren't always treated the way they should be. Animal rights is the idea in which some, or all, non-human animals are entitled to the possession of their own existence and that their most basic interests such as the need to avoid suffering should be afforded the same consideration as similar interests of human beings. 

Animal Rights Facts 

5% of animal abuse cases involve dogs.

Many states do not consider livestock in their cruelty laws.

Federal cruelty laws are limited when it comes to animals. Instead, most cases are handled on a state by state basis.

 There are currently 59 orcas in captivity at sea parks and aquariums throughout the world. Some are wild-caught; some were born in captivity. A third of the world's captive orcas are in the United States, and all but one of those live at SeaWorld's three parks in Orlando, San Diego, and San Antonio. The fate of Orcas in captivity is not positive. There is no intention of releasing them back into the wild. Did you know that an orca in captivity is equivalent to a human in a bath tub? 

8 reasons that Orcas Don't belong in Seaworld

1. Premature Deaths
2. Lean, Mean Killing Machines 
3. Collapsed Dorsal Fins 
4. Tanks 
5. Fights 
6. Diet of Pig and Cow Bones 
7. Breaking their teeth to get out 
8. Family matters 

Orcas suffer mentally and physically just to line SeaWorld’s pockets. You can help them! The momentum is on our side with the release of Blackfish (also on Netflix) and the recent lawsuit against SeaWorld. Join the fight to help orcas, and tell all your friends never to go to Sea World.

Chapter 3 & 4 : Thank You for Arguing

CHAPTER 3 & 4

In class today we would discuss the book " Thank You for Arguing", as well as continuing to learn about rhetoric. We would first discuss chapter 3.  The title of chapter three is "Control the Tense", and this chapter would intel three core issues.

It would relate to " Thank You for Smoking "

BLAME ( The Past ) -  IS IT NICK'S FAULT?

VALUES ( The Present ) - IS IT OKAY TO PROMOTE SMOKING?

CHOICE ( The Future ) - SHOULD WE LABLE CIGARETTES WITH A SKULL-AND-CROSSBONES?

With anything anybody ever does their will always be people there to criticize you. Using the three core values they can question what you're doing and use these values to criticize you. Such as blaming you for something that would happen, whether what your doing is right, and what will happen in the future because of it.

Is it fair to criticize any and everything somebody does even-if it has no direct correlation to you or society?
________________________________________________________________________________

In chapter 4 we would continue to discuss rhetoric and the types of persuasive appeals.
These appeals would include

LOGOS- Logic
ETHOS- Ethics
PATHOS- Emotions

A few other persuasive appeals are:

• Beliefs or convictions
• Authority 
• Popularity
• Aesthetics

During class last week we focused very heavily on proper research methods and means of procuring resource materials. I found the discussion very helpful and it actually showed me a few things about the research databases that I did not know prior. We also received our groups for the upcoming projects. Were you guys pleased with your groups and the topics given to you? I was definitely pleased with both and am excited for the upcoming assignments.

Smoking and Tobacco Use