The first reading was enjoyable. Learning how styles of writing evolved from no spaces to inserting commas and semi colons was ... educational. How did the reading help me start my revision? To be honest I have not started my revision yet, but after reading the article I will pay more attention to punctuation errors. For example, being cautious of my commas, semi colons, and  periods. Also note to self, do not rely on spell check to fix those punctuation errors. 

After reading Rich's article I did not get so much out of how it would help me revise my essay, instead I learned lots and lots about her personal life. As well as how she incorporated her personal experiences through her writings. I enjoyed reading her poems and have a semi better idea of how to incorporate personal experiences in writings. Unfortunately, Essay 3 is not a personal experience essay. Thus there is no use for me to add personal experiences into it. 

Also, throughout her article I noticed she has loads and loads of time to write. Years go by till she writes another poem. One important aspect that I must enforce upon my self is giving myself enough time to write and revise. The whole last minute thing needs to stop, so for this portfolio assignment I will give myself enough time to think, plan, write, and edit my papers. 

My plan for revising Essay 3 is first changing my synthesis thesis statement. It needs to be stronger, less broad and the 3rd sentence needs to have a more effective reason to why the whole essay is important. Hopefully giving myself more time to jot plenty of ideas down will give me the opportunity to write a strong 1,2,3 thesis. Also, writing the research essay gave me some more practice with the synthesis thesis and hopefully my revision will be a whole lot stronger. Paying attention to grammar, structure and appeal are the top three things i am going to look out for. 

Honey Bee Haven For Free Ice Cream!

I never knew that during the winter the bees do not hibernate, instead they keep each other warm by huddling up and switching place every so often. You know this reminds me of what penguins do when it gets super cold. They all huddle up and switch positions so that every penguin can have a chance in the middle ( warmest part). Any ways just thought that was interesting. Oh and I never realized how many bees a single queen bee could give birth to! It said nearly two thousand on one day. Thats so much...

I enjoy Alice's writing style. Her beginning paragraph was so catchy, especially when she starting talking to the busy bees. Her essay was like an informative story. She makes her essay fun to read but also informs the readers about the life of the honey bees. After reading this I actually know what it means to be a busy bee.

Okay so reading her essay reminded me of this article i read in December at the Davis Enterprise. Im not quite sure who wrote it buy they said "Haagen-Dazs has announced a $125,000 donation to the UC Davis department of entomology to launch a nationwide design competition to create a half-acre Honey Bee Haven garden at UC Davis." Plus the winner gets free ice cream for one year!

So you are probably wondering why Haagen Dazs would do this? Well it turns out that the honey bees are dying :( They are dying from "colony collapse disorder", which is basically hive abandonment. As I read further into the article I found out that the honey bees are disappearing due to pesticides, parasites, stress, and climate change. Since Haagen Dazs depends on the work of honeybees for their ice cream ( practically half of their flavors) they decided to grant UCD the privilege of building a honey bee garden. So UCD created a contest for the public to submit their garden designs.

I believe around March the winner was anounced which was a team located in Sausalito. Their design is going to be used to build a half acre garden to save the honey bees ...yay!!! And I think the actual project will be starting around October. UC Davis had a website to look at all the designs submitted but they took it down unfortuantely. It would be interesting to see what the acutaly design turns out to look like in October.

I know this whole Haagen Dazs competition does not have much to do with the reading, but whenever honey bees are brought up I always think about their circumstance right now and how companies are affected by it. And too no surprise Haagan Dazs is affected greatly by the bee shortage.

Hmm.. what to write about?

Well there is always:

1. Study an Infectious Disease: Tuberculosis, Malaria, Tetanus...

Okay, so I looked up Tuberculosis on Wikipedia and it basically said that is has been around 18,000 years before present. Im guessing the problem with this is that when I begin to research the origination the facts will not be all the accurate. Or should I go with a different approach and research how the disease is formed? 

2. Oh.. Dentistry. I could study when the first forms of dentistry was being practiced. 

Although now that I think about it... Im guessing the beginning of dentistry was probably painful and awful. Im sure dentists ( if they even were called that) did not use pain killers when removing cavities or pulling out teeth. And just think of the devices they might have used to remove those cavities and pull those teeth. Ouch!!

3. And I could study the development of Birth Control. Or study how it works? Not sure which one to go with. Anyways, the bad side is that it may be too recent meaning not much history to research. Also, recently there are so many types of birth control, so I may have to just pick one specific type and then study the history on that.  On the other hand, since it is recent it will be easy to find the first birth control that was available.

The Search for Equality

As mentioned in the title, equality is what connects "Saudis in Bikinis" to "The Tyranny of the Majority". Both articles display situations where there are two extremes, one or the other, and both articles show a search for a balance between the extremes.

Guinier's article is about searching for the equality between two extremes such as trying to reach a consensus without excluding a group's opinion. For example she mentions a dilemma that occured at a highschool between two races. The highschool was taking a poll on song choices for the prom, but the poll was unfair due to the majority of the population being white. If the african american students preferred different music to be played, well it would not happen. Thus there became two seperate proms instead. This is an example of two extremes ( two different proms) not being able to find equality ( a fair polling system so there could be one prom). She then mentions the concept of taking turns, so both parties will not be excluded, whether it be at a prom or the democratic voting system.

Kristof also shows two extremes that are finding it hard to reach some sort of equality. When he visited Saudi Arabia he learned that women are required to wear a black cloak like outfit, abayas, while in the public. He mentions that women who even showed a little patch of hair in the public were frowned upon. This is a situation where there are two extremes displaying no equality when it comes to choice of clothing. Either these women obey the rules by being fully covered or be frowned upon by not being fully covered. To find equality in this circumstance would be very difficult since how a person dresses is apart of culture. There is also no equality when is comes to women's rights. Certain buildings do not allow women to enter but men can. Clearly there is no equality between men and women, because women sometimes can not even go into the same building that a man can. 

Just roughly, "The Tyranny of the Majority" is mainly about Guinier's views on how to approach reaching a consensus without disregarding anyone's views. She explains that it can be as simple as "taking turns", therefore there being no winner or looser(creating unfairness). She applies her view towards government tendencies and clearly states that the democratic promise has not been met and believes it should be based upon the idea of "taking turns and disaggregating the majority.." 

How does Gruinier's article relate to "the Case for Torture"? 

I saw a similar concept between both articles which was, what is considered to be fair? Guinier pointed out that majority voting is unfair and the idea of taking turns is fair. Proving that majority voting causes desegregation,  she mentions Brown Rice high school and how majority voting caused two separate proms because the african american students were outnumbered when voting for choice in music. 

In Levin's article he explains how torture can be considered fair (though it is considered unfair throughout the public). He gives many scenarios, such as possible terrorists attacks, and reasons on how torturing is a method that can save lives.  Levin puts things in perspective; torture one person to save millions or not torture and put millions of innocent lives at risk. By doing this I believe he is wanting to at least change views on what fairness should be. Sure it is not humane to torture, but it is fair to torture if it saves many lives. 

Also, both articles insist on the reader to think about the future based on scenarios. Levin states that in many years from now there could be a terrorist attack threatening thousands of lives and we as readers should really think about torturing being one of the best options to save those thousands of lives. Now, Guinier also leaves the reader to wonder about the future of our government and the fairness of it. She is wanting the reader to consider other possible ways "voting and representational systems" can affect(positive/negative) the idea of Madisonian Majority. Meaning how can we include everyone's opinion into a concise vote?

Completely Random

Once upon a time there was a young girl that always wore a pink wig and pink dress (she loves pink!) who always asked, "What does it take to bake a yummy cake?" ; thus she started to write a recipe and listed the following ingredients:pink flour, homemade pink frosting, and pink sprinkles.

Analysis of "A Moral Choice"

It seems like Gordon's article is for everyone to understand, there is no particular part of the public she is writing to. Her article was published in the Atlantic Monthly( described as "America's oldest and most prestigious magazines of literature, culture, and politics"), which is another clue that it was meant for everyone to read. She also uses the word "we" a lot, which also indicates that she is referring to the general public. Towards the end of her article she makes it clear that she is pro abortion and talks about the benefits of the pro side and argues against the con, rather than being unbiased on both sides of the argument. So, im guessing this article is leaning more towards people who are not against abortion or are for people who do not believe in abortion, but she is trying to change their view.

• Part 1: The Ontology of the Fetus
  
• She raises the question on what a woman's moral choices are towards having an abortion.
  
• Choice depends on the "acting woman" view of ontology. Meaning at what point does the mother view the fetus as exsisting or as a being.
  
• Every woman has a different view of Ontology, but common sense plays a key role in deciding

• Part 2: An Equivocal Good
• Overall abortion ends up being a moral issue due to the media. 
• Whether it be from movies, television, or photography, media affects our perception on abortion.
• Reaches to male audience by describing theologian Daniel Maguire's experience visiting an abortion clinic.
• In paragraph 3 she steps away from the topic of abortion and she basically gives her view on how parents should not plan their un born baby's life out according to their dreams and hopes.
• She believes the decision of abortion should be based on a person's situation and how they live or grew up that may affect the unborn child. 
• Abortion is not a decision of "life style over life"

Part 3: The Fear of Sexual Autonomy

• Compares different abortion regulations between countries
• explains how people against abortion view mothers who undergo abortion
• Author is surprised that men are writing their views ( bad views) on autonomy but may have no actual experience, which makes them, i guess, hypocrites

Part4 : Real Choices

• Makes it clear that she is on the pro choice side of abortion.
•  Tells reader about the "trauma" a mother may have if she is forced to give birth against her will
• Explains why it is important to have the right to abortion due to health concerns. Gordon also explains the effects that could happen if abortion was not allowed. Basically illegal abortions would be taking place, thus women would be risking their lives( health safety) to abort. 
• At the last paragraph she makes a clear about how we (the public) should make our decisions of abortion on and what our decisions should not be based on.