WA #1

Goodman claims that surrogacy is becoming its own market and is starting to cross the boundary of selling ourselves into slavery and selling our children as well. Her reasons are valid in my eyes. Her best point is that you never see a rich woman become a surrogate for a poor family. It can start to be construed as slavery in everyone’s eyes. Goodman says that it is becoming an international business and that people are looking for the “best deals”.

            Goodman makes her appeal to pathos when she talks about what women that completed surrogacy did with the money afterwards. One used the money to buy a heart operation for her son and the other raised a dowry for her daughter. These appeals function as a way of showing two sides of the surrogacy argument. On one hand it makes money for women to better themselves and their own family and on the other hand it is turning to much into an industry between different countries societies.

            The additional focus I chose is, “What motivated the writer to produce this piece”. Goodman’s motivation comes from the increasing popularity in surrogacy and the abuse of the whole process involved. This strengthens my perspective of Goodman’s argument because I tend to agree with her motivation behind the piece. It seems to me that the system of surrogacy is being abused for financial gain but there are also people that use it for its rightful purposes so it becomes a tough topic.

            The thing that strikes me as disturbing is the fact that international this is becoming an economic gain. For instance, Goodman says 45 women in India will earn $5000 to $7000 dollars for delivery. It is becoming a way of supplementing income and I found that to be quite disturbing that people can’t just get jobs and work in some other way.  

Beecher Background

I learned that Beecher was a huge advocate of education for women and strongly believed that women were intellectually capable. She was also an advocate for women to be teachers and mothers. In her writing I didn't get the sense that she believed in women as teachers but that women were housekeepers and meant to take care of their respected homes. Learning more about Beecher helped me to understand where she is coming from about woman's role in society through her eyes.

SWA #4

     In Catherine E. Beecher’s “On the Preservation of a Good Temper in A Housekeeper”, there is a continuous theme of happiness and a certain sunshine around every good housekeeper. To be a good housekeeper one must be gentle and cheerful but always know that every mood will result from her system and neatness. The audience should understand that a housekeeper sets the vibe for everyone present and such little things like tone of voice and the way the mistress enters the room play a part in a good housekeeper. An “equable and cheerful temper” is so important because the housekeeper is like the circle of sunshine, keeping everything happy and going the right way.

            First off a woman that is in charge of a large household should regard her duties as dignified, important, and difficult. She should always make everything very important, even small tasks. Also always be prepared for mistakes or interference with plans that are made. Something always comes up and can ruin the plans that were made. In accordance with the rule before, always make plans to best fit your guests and their character. A very important rule is that system, economy, and neatness go so far as long as they promote comfort. Also when it comes to comfort your tone of voice is very important thing to keep in mind. No matter what, make allowances for bad behavior and immature minds because plans will be interfered with otherwise. The most important rule of them all that Beecher speaks of is the Heavenly Father being in your right mind to help secure a good-natured and cheerful temper.

            Throughout the whole chapter I feel like Beecher is making assumptions. She believes that every woman should be a stay at home “housekeeper” and not own a job. She believes her happiness is not important but that of others is what is more important. She complicates her definitions of woman and housekeeper because they sound like they go hand in hand. She thinks that happiness should come from making others happy not from making yourself happy, in terms of a woman and housekeeper.    

SWA #3

In Elie Wiesel’s “Am I My Brother’s Keeper,” there is a lot of talk about technology letting us know more about the sufferings of our “brothers and sisters”. But Wiesel also claims that it can overwhelm us to the point that a kind of numbness sets in. Wiesel’s claim to dealing with this challenge is very straight forward and simple. She says that we should show a more hands on, practical compassion to any victims of misfortune and oppression. For instance, in the beginning she talks about apartheid in South Africa and that we should have protested louder and been more hands on in the situation. I can’t say in every case I agree with Wiesel but I do agree on the level that dealing with the suffering of others in a more hands on approach is much more beneficial to that other person in the long run. To know that there is another person there to help ease the suffering means much more than any kind of secondary, non-hands on act.

            She also goes on to argue that just being in the presence of suffering is the least we can do to be hands on. Wiesel says, “Sometimes it inspires others to do what I am doing,” and I agree completely on this subject. When one person sees another person helping and putting everything they have into someone who is suffering that can be contagious. I think that shows leadership and people respect that and want to join in to help the cause.   Everything that Wiesel says is easier said than done in my opinion. The one simple thing Wiesel says that I believe can be done is just being a brother to one other person. That is the best way to be hands on to overcome the numbness that sets in. I agree with Wiesel that extending one’s help out to another person becomes a chain reaction. At least that is the hope.

ICWA 1

     My families relationship with technology is a typical relationship in society now and days. It is used as a source of information, communication, and even togetherness at times. Technology isn't a huge influence in my family but it definitely is a big part of our lives. Whether it be television, phones, or laptops, technology has a significant role throughout my house. There is a slight generation gap between my parents and I when it comes to technology. For instance, I have an iphone and they couldn't fathom having one and learning all of the ins and outs of it. But on the other hand my siblings and I have zero geneartion gap when it comes to technology. We all know how to use it equally and it is apart of our lives just as equally.

SWA #2

                When Nora Volkow says, “The technology is rewiring our brains,” she is spot on in my opinion. I think she means that technology has had such a significant effect on daily life and how society acts and reacts. It has rewired our brains in the sense that hard tasks become easy tasks and in depth thinking and problem solving becomes the simplest of processes with the support of technology. Ritchel’s best example of this rewiring is in Kord Campbell. He says that people consumed more than three times as much information in one day in 2008 than in 1960 and Mr. Campbell is the perfect example of this. He sleeps with a laptop on his chest and wakes up browsing the web. It has affected his only son and his wife’s outlook on him since they’ve been together. Also Ritchel’s evidence about the Stanford research shows this rewiring of the brain. People that think they can multitask using technology in fact absorb useless information more than non-multitaskers. Multitasking is an information overload and technology is its key stimulus.

                Mr. Campbell’s case is quite depressing. At work he has three computer monitors, an ipad, a laptop, and twitter up and running at all times. His love of technology creates mistakes like overlooking important emails and forgetting to pick up his kids because he was lingering on his iphone in the bathroom. The Campbell’s even felt like their son was unnaturally consumed by technology so they have scheduled study time. Ritchell connects to his audience the best in my opinion when he describes their family vacation. The first night on vacation they didn’t even go out to dinner because they were too consumed in their devices. The next day Mrs. Campbell finds Mr. Campbell playing video games and checking his email. This relates to a lot of families throughout society in my opinion. Being with family is only made possible in today’s society by taking a vacation and disarming all technology from the trip.

                The “myth on multitasking” completely made sense to me when I read it. Whenever one attempts to multitask, concentration is thrown out the window and useless information becomes more and more absorbed. I wouldn’t say my outlook on multitasking changed because of Ritchel but it was absolutely reinforced. On the other hand, multitasking is just a part of daily life and as much as I feel changing that is a necessary point, breaking that habit is a colossal task. Ritchell used the Campbell’s as a way to connect with audiences all throughout society and I believe everyone that reads this can connect to their story on some level. Whether that be bad or good.   

SWA #1

My best writing experience had to be my essay on why I chose the major I did coming into college. I enjoyed writing it so much because I got to describe to individuals I’ve never met my passion for my career choice. I got to open up about something that I’m going to be doing for the rest of my life. Having to give my reasoning for such a huge choice made writing the essay quite pleasurable. Since my choice was engineering I had a very fulfilling feeling sharing that I could change the world once I got done with school.

            On the other hand, my worst writing experience came in my junior year of high school. It was in environmental science class and the topic was roots and their acceptance of the nutrients in the Earth. I remember it so well because I didn’t do well on the paper at all. When a paper doesn’t interest me I have trouble putting my best work into it. It didn’t help that there wasn’t nearly enough information to put together a quality essay.  The topic was extremely boring to me and it made me regret taking the class. I know when I put together a quality essay or if it is not up to par.  

            Out of the two experiences the one that affected me substantially more was my good writing experience. It is stuck in my mind as being such a good experience because I got to write about something I love, engineering. Anytime I have the chance to write about a passion the words always flow out onto the page much better. Once I revised that paper multiple times and put the finishing touches on it I knew it was one of the best papers I had ever written. It ended up helping me get into five out of six schools and I will never forget writing it.      

Get Smarter Response

In Cascio's article the topic of the Noosphere epoch caught my attention the most. To a certain degree it seems entirely true that the focus of our technological evolution will eventually turn into learning how to handle the significant amounts of knowledge that we have obtained. It is also my belief in Cascio's description of ADD as being a "continuous partial attention-deficit disorder" because technology has absolutely taken away one’s ability to focus on anything not technologically oriented. 

The main topic that I think caught not only my attention but everyone’s attention is on drugs. Interestingly enough Cascio talks about Adderall and modafinil as being drugs that made him “smarter”. I agree that people think of these drugs as getting a faster computer or a better education but where I disagree is in the advantage. People become dependent on these drugs and can’t go back when in reality they could focus and be productive without them. It is societies typical mentality of trying to make everything easy instead of putting the time and work in.

I enjoyed reading this article because it touched on pertinent topics and also some hot topics in society as we speak. It is sad to think of a “You+” society but the fact of the matter is that seems to be the inevitable end point. An interesting topic is the fact that innovations such as agriculture and trade will never collapse but if web or technology in general did how would society react. I think society would go through a huge adjustment period and maybe even a short but harsh collapse.

Reaction

In reading the google article I remember the last line of the article most because I thought it was so true. It stated that our own human intelligience is turning into artificial intelligience due to technology. I agree that google and technology in general is in a sense, brain washing our youth. It is a problem I think that will continue to plague society.

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