HEll

Democrats, DMV Employees
Circle I Limbo

General asshats
Circle II Whirling in a Dark & Stormy Wind

The New York Yankees
Circle III Mud, Rain, Cold, Hail & Snow

Barack Obama
Circle IV Rolling Weights

Steve Jobs
Circle V Stuck in Mud, Mangled

River Styx

Scientologists
Circle VI Buried for Eternity

River Phlegyas

Bernie Madoff
Circle VII Burning Sands

Parents who bring squalling brats to R-rated movies
Circle IIX Immersed in Excrement

Osama bin Laden
Circle IX Frozen in Ice

Design your own hell

Final Essay #2, or second prompt

Kyle Willett

3/15/11

ENG 151


A Culture dominated by Media

In today’s society, from the moment we wake up to the moment we go to sleep media is affecting us. I wake up to the voice of my favorite sports center broadcaster every morning and go to sleep to his voice every night. When most people wake up, before they even leave their bed they are on their phones checking for missed calls or new texts. While it may not seem it, these are both examples of how media can affect our everyday lives. Media today is inescapable. Wherever you turn, there is going to be a company selling you something or magazine claiming that Brittney spears shaved her head again. No matter what it is, media will be involved with it in someway, shape, or form.
In the early 1990’s, the amazing thing we all know as the Internet truly started to blossom. In every country of the world, people were talking about the incredible World Wide Web. Now take a look at today’s society, we literally cannot do anything (except physical activity) without our computers or Internet. I honestly cant even remember the last time I wrote on a piece of paper because typing has become much more efficient and easier. Soon there wont even be a need for TV as you can get all your news on the computer today and the ever more growing trend of live streaming is starting to dominate TV. Why wait around all night for your favorite TV show to come on when you can just stream it live to your computer at any time. As sad as it is to accept, the Internet will truly eliminate every traditional process we have as far as a society. For example, I couldn’t even celebrate Christmas with my dad this year for the first time in my entire life, but it didn’t matter because I could live stream with him while I opened up his gifts he had sent!(sarcastic tone).
In addition to the Internet, there are many kinds of media. For example, walk down the street in Times Square New York, New York and immediately your attention will be fought for by thousands of different advertisers and companies. Consuming is more and more becoming what our culture is defined by. According to my marketing teacher here at Ohio University, Packy Moran, our lives are now defined by the process of work, buy, consume, die. I think this way of looking at it is a little cruel but nonetheless true because the American people are heavily influenced by the media to be materialistic. For example, look at every single celebrity in our culture; big shiny cars, jewelry, expensive clothes, expensive phones, etc. And who do the American people stupidly admire more than their own president? That’s right, celebrities. Nothing in our culture is more brought on by the media than materialism. From a young age, our minds are molded into the universal process of get an education, get a job, get married, support and raise a family, die. This process of life is even materialistic because the ‘get job’ stage is also another way of saying getting money (which buys the materials, obviously). In conclusion, the media affects our lives much more than anything else in our culture whether it is food, religion, or family.
In addition to many other things, the media also affects our view on sustainability. Sustainability defined for dummies is the belief of local. However, media completely disregards sustainability in all forms. Sustainability has been an issue in America as of late because of the go green trend. People think that part of going green is having a more invested community and having a completely sustainable community. Local product, local economy, local economy, local jobs, and so forth is the ideal situation for a sustainable community. However, most communities today are not like this at all and are instead influenced by the media. The media makes it seem like Los Angeles, Chicago, and big cities like that are the best for us. For example, just yesterday I saw an advertisement on my TV for how everybody should move to California because this where all the jobs and opportunities are. Commercials such as these are ones where the media can affect us because I remember thinking, “Wow, yea that beach does look really nice, I definitely want to move there, screw Ohio!” Overall, the media blinds us from sustainability by promoting mass production and materialism, which are sustainability’s two archenemies.
In conclusion, the media is a force that cannot be reckoned with by anyone and it is definitely here to stay for a very long time. The media affects us everyday whether we like it or not and while the message is not always negative, it isn’t really positive either. One-way to get out of the medias suffocating bubble is by the way of sustainability. Sustainability can add jobs, money, and an overall boosted well being to communities across the world. As the world takes more turns down the complicated path of technology, it is important that sustainability comes back into the eyes of the American people.

Eco Event #7 (FINALLY!!!)

For my final eco-event, i am going to be writing about a class friendly topic; food. The article i am choosing to write on is called 'Eco-friendly farming could double food output in developing countries'. The article is mainly about new methods of farming and how they can help get more and more food into these developing countries around the world. The article is linked here

Reaction: My initial reaction to this article was wow! I think anything that is both efficient and environmentally friendly, is super cool. Especially when it is for the greater good of the world. The article says that if farmers in developing nations make the switch from using pesticides and chemicals and go back to traditional farming, the food output would nearly double for the very hungry populations. According to one UN agriculture specialist, "So far, eco-farming projects in 57 nations had shown average crop yield gains of 80 percent by tapping natural methods for enhancing soil and protecting against pests". This statistic is huge and very important because it is great to hear that after so many years of being dominated by chemicals and preservatives, the traditional method is back to the preferred method.

What could this mean for the US? Is the United States going to adapt these ways of farming again or will it continue to be dominated by cooperations using pesticides and chemicals in our food. Hopefully, these developing countries will help and teach America for once, instead of US always helping them.

ECO EVENT #6

In this modern day and age comes advanced technology, but with technology also comes the dreaded pollution. And in China, the pollution is worse than ever. When you have to wear a mask to filter your breathing just while walking through a park, you know the pollution is bad. In chinas case, very bad. In this article, the author explains how even though the Chinese have made some progress towards eliminating the pollution, it is still a major problem. You can read the whole article here.

Reaction: I knew that the Chinese had some pollution problems but i had no idea how bad. The article says that the Chinese burn around 1 billion tons of coal a year. Coal is also the dirtiest and the most traditional of the fossil fuels that creates thick pollution and acid rain. This is extremely alarming because fossil fuels are also thought to be the main cause of global warming which is increasingly becoming more important as the hailed 2012 doomsday looms closer. Now if you have read my blog, you know that in previous post i have mentioned the 2012 doomsday. However, i am not a firm believer in this prophecy due to the simple fact of science. Sorry for getting off topic there. Furthermore, the article explains how China plans to cut its carbon emissions down tremendously from past years, 17% to be more specific. The goal is to cut emissions by the end 0f 2015 which is a reasonable goal because that is a lot of progress in only four short years. Overall, i truly hope China can get its act together with the whole pollution crisis because it is terrible for the environment and for the people to be breathing in that many chemicals everyday.

My Relationship With Food (FINAL ESSAY)

Kyle Willett

3/16/11

ENG 151

Food In My Life

Any color. Any taste. Any smell. FOOD. Food is the one substance in this world that has constant variety. The variety of food is just one of the many reasons why I love it so much. Throughout my life, food has been very important from mashed carrots (baby food) to bagel bites in my dorm room, food is one thing that I look forward to everyday no matter what. When I first heard we were going to be learning about food in this class, I cant say I didn’t get a little bit excited. In high school, I took two cooking courses and when I arrived at Ohio University I enrolled in a nutrition class, so this English class wasn’t the first time I have seen food and school come together. Therefore, I really enjoyed that segment of class and especially enjoyed hearing Warren from Snowville Creamery come in and talk to us about the dairy industry. Warren talked about how sustainability is very important for the business and how the food business used to be very sustainable until more recent years where cooperation’s have dominated. However, it isn’t too late to switch back to the old ways of sustainable, healthy farming, with free graze livestock.

“There are no seasons in the American supermarket. Now there are tomatoes all year round, grown halfway around the world, picked when it was green, and ripened with ethylene gas. Although it looks like a tomato, it's kind of a notional tomato. I mean, it's the idea of a tomato”-Michael Pollan, FOOD INC.

This quotes perfectly represents what our current food system has become, an idea of food. In today’s society, there are millions of unnatural chemicals and pesticides that our food is contaminated with and it is viewed as perfectly normal. If an American farmer from the 1800’s saw our food process today, he most likely would argue that what we produce isn’t food at all. The preservatives that are in our food today could technically be viewed as poisons. For example, earlier this year, a New York artist took named Sally Davies, bought a single McDonalds happy meal that consisted of a small plain burger and small fry, nothing else. After 6 months of leaving the ‘food’ out in the open and photographing the burger and fries everyday, there was literally no change in the food besides the feel of it. The burger became as hard as a rock and the fries followed in suite, but she said there were still a few fries that you could bite without breaking your teeth. In conclusion, I really can appreciate what Sally Davies did because what better way to show that our food is not actually food by having a hamburger rot for 6 months, but show no change. In addition, this is McDonalds were talking about! A part of every American, McDonalds is a huge part of our culture and society. Everyday, millions of Americans will indulge in the fake fries and micro waved hamburgers. We as a country can no longer sit back and watch our food be tampered with so much to the point where we wouldn’t even dare ask what is in it. In conclusion, Mike Pollen says it best when saying that our current food really isn’t food at all, but an idea of what food is suppose to be. However, there is hope for change in today’s society with movies like food inc. and motivated farmers like Warren, I truly believe America will soon rip the food power away from the large cooperation’s.

My relationship with food has been very romantic throughout my life. Food was one of the very first things I ever took interest in. I remember being the happiest little kid alive when my mom would take my brother and I to McDonalds after a dentist appointment as a little kid, or being the happiest teenager alive when my mother would cook her amazing Maui flank steak for dinner. I even cooked my own food from time to time because I took two separate food courses in high school and I very much enjoyed both of them. However, when I came to college, one of the first classes that stood out to me was food and nutrition, but this class should actually be named ‘Enzymes and confusing bi-proteins’. Although this class didn’t work out, it was still cool to see that my college was offering a course on food and it was promoting health! Which brings another subject to light, health. Health and food are almost directly related, as food is our main source of our essentials. However, I could write another three pages on how health in America is corrupt and it would become a long, complex argument. Overall, food has had a huge impact on my life and continues to impact me everyday.

In conclusion, food is everywhere in our world whether you choose to take an interest in it or not. We as human beings can literally not live without food and even if we could life without food would be terrible. Food comforts us in a way no other substance can. Food in itself is a culture and will continue to be a huge part of our culture until the day we are wiped off of this earth.

Evo-Event #5

Watching the news today, i heard something about a major mystery involving the honey bee. Apparently, the honey bee has been rapidly declining in the past decades and nobody has any idea why. So i googled the honeybee and of course one of the first things that came up on google was an article titled "End of the Honeybee".

Reaction: Much like the Japan earthquake i wrote about in my last eco event, this article brings the whole 2012 doomsday to mind. Although the article does give reasons for bee decline, it doesnt completly add up. 30-70% of all bees in the United States have been reported to have dissapeared in the last decade, which is a statistic that simply scares me. Also, one of the reasons the article gives for bee decline, is actually decline of wild flowers. But how is this fact suppose to make me feel any better about the last one! I truly cannot believe something like this is happening and of course it happens in the year 2011, right before the much talked about 2012 doomsday.

I am going to pursue this topic a little more and try and find out more about why the worlds bee's are suddenly dying. Questions remain; where is the worlds honey going to come from? If wildflowers are dying could this lead to something much worse?

Eco-event #4-March

I woke up this morning to horrible news of a global disaster. Japan was hit with a massive 7.9 earthquake this morning and the whole country is in chaos. My prayers go out to the people of Japan and i hope everything gets solved soon. In addition, Hawaii was soon after hit with the same tsunami and news sources say the storm is on its way to California. The article i read was this one.

Reaction: To be honest, at first i thought my friend was joking around or stretching the truth when he told me Japan was crumbling. However, he wasn't joking nor stretching the truth, the country is literally in peril. I cant believe something like this could even happen and its scary to think that there is absolutely nothing we(humans) can do against something like this. Mother nature is the most powerful force in the world and its one thing our race hasn't been able to conquer. Its scary to think that one day an event like this can just all of the sudden happen to America, just like it did in Japan. Furthermore, what about the clean up? How long are people going to stay trapped under rubble?

I hope the country as a whole gets through the disaster and im praying rescue relief gets to the country soon.