Journals

Journal 1 – Nike Ad                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Nike has a commercial to kickoff the football season with the controversial Colin Kaepernick ad.Which for some reason gets them sad,mad, and disappointed.Me personally I’m fine with the protest since he did it without hurting anyone physically.Then people act like he committed treason for taking a knee. That’s pretty funny and ironic to me.Better yet, they say he’s disrespecting the flag or the country by taking a knee.Y’all know there’s completely better ways to disrespect the flag or the country than kneeling.Now the issue is some how big enough than it supposed to be that they decide to burn Nike gear that they already bought . Me personally can’t even see the reasoning behind the burning of your own shoe since you already gave Nike your money.Nike doesn’t really care what you do with the shoe after you gave them your money they’re a pretty rich company any way.

Journal 2 – “Lemonade ”                                                                                                                                                                                             

 The drink I used to drink and sell as a kid called lemonade dates back around thousands of years ago. In this podcast “Lemonade” the origin of lemonade is talked about and what was used to make it before vs. how its made now.

The podcast I listened to today was something I was curious about, so I decided to give it a go. I didn’t know that the drink I used to drink a lot used to started in medieval Egypt. The whole lemon not just the skin was needed to make lemonade since it doesn’t give enough juice. I’m not sure if ill rink the early lemonade since its made from fermented barley, mint, roux, black pepper and citron leaves. Roux is a flower that grew in Egypt was used in the lemonade. I liked how almost everyone in the world tackles the lemonade recipe their own way as it ravels from Europe to the US. Lemonade was used as a replacement for liquor during the temperance movement in its sparkling water form. The name that brought back some memories was called Sunkist which was what the sparkling version of lemonade. And pink lemonade was one of the welcomed accidents since it was made by a kid who accidentally dropped red cinnamon candy into lemonade turning it “pink”. I would actually try and make it that way since it might actually taste nice

Journal 3 –  Can You Spot The Fakest “real” news                                                                                                                                         

We have been taking steps to remove straws and plastics from oceans. And now the worst one of all happens to be cigarette buds. The title happens to be “Plastic straw ban? Cigarette butts are the single greatest source of ocean trash” sounds like a decent title. The sponsor of the article is NBC news channel and the site’s URL are .com. The date is recent since its august,28 2018 and the ad looks like it wants people to stop smoking than teach kids something. The article’s genre is reporting info on the bad effects of cigarette buds on the environment. The one issue is that the audience might be for existing smokers instead of everyone including the smokers, so they can stop throwing their buds in the wrong place. Another issue may be the URL which is full of ads, that may mean something is fishy about the site , and their reason for making the article.                                                                  https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/plastic-straw-ban-cigarette-butts-are-single-greatest-source-ocean-n903661

Journal 4 – Experiencing Racism or Sexism                                                                                                                                                         

  It was a breezy cold day in December around middle school. I was quiet kid back then that spoke only of a few words here and there. I didn’t have the hero aspiration I had later on but had to witness cold hearted bullying. During lunch time, I sat by myself to finish and go before a lot of people packed the lunchroom like sardines.

A black boy was looking lost looking where to sit as I head off to leave and the boy went to the table that had a few Irish and white kids there which caught my attention.I wondered how things would turn out and went near the entrance to watch. The black boy sat down and they looked at him as if he did to them the most disrespectful thing he could do to each of them. They pushed him off the table and told him to “go pick some cotton or something before someone gets hurt.” They took his food off his tray and ate it in front of him.

I left since I felt a little hot and it wasn’t because I was sick. I walked away to find a teacher and security officer walking in the opposite direction. I tipped them off about the cold display I saw and they took off to the scene.The group of boys ran off and went to comfort the black boy that started crying.Another security officer that happened to see them run away came back with them. The adults apologized ,took the kids away to punish them ,and call their parents.

Journal 5 – “The Daily”                                                                                                                                                                                               

According to the podcast, Latino voters are one of the most neglected people in elections by both parties. Due to this fact, Latinos don’t show up as much at the polls. Donald Trump worsens the issue of getting Latinos to the polls by belittling them and putting legislation in place that prevents them from participating; for example, the wall he wants to build or his immigration policies for deportation. The 2018 election is less than two weeks away and Trump is thinking about shutting down borders to South Americans representing the Republican party in a bad way.

The podcast was more interesting than I thought since I didn’t know that Latinos weren’t too represented in polls. The statistics from the poll tells me that about 60 million Latinos are in the US with only 29 million of them being eligible to vote. (The Daily) With those numbers, they should be of big importance to the candidates, but because the empty promises every election they don’t just see a point to voting anymore. I would feel the same way if I vote for the person that I elect to help us, but they forget that you helped them to be elected and start messing with your life. For instance, Donald Trump’s claims of thieves, rapists, etc. coming from Mexico and worsens that with telling people he’ll build a wall to stop illegal immigrants from crossing the border. I agree with the issue of illegal immigration, but Donald is going on about it in a bad way that affects the immigrants outside and even inside the US border. Though that is what Trump does again two weeks into the election by thinking about shutting down borders to Southern American migrants which is his boldest move yet. I wonder if Trump will be elected in the upcoming election or will he be done after some of the damage he’s done? I also wonder if there was more to the statistics or the podcast that they were letting on.

Journal 6 – “A Shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue,”                           

 “The Daily’s” podcast this week, “A Shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue,” was about the worst attack on the Jewish community in US history which happened in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania this year. According to the podcast, social media could be blamed a bit for the online threats with the hate speech that was allowed. Specifically, a social medial page called GAB allowed the breakdown of the line between real world violence and bad online behavior. They also talked about Trump, who also denounced the shooting that took place at the synagogue in Pittsburgh Saturday by Anti-Semitic extremists.

The podcast was a little sad since people in church service got shot when they didn’t hurt anyone. The Jews faced a lot of religious persecution and the Shabbats were the asylum for wandering Jews with no place to go. However, Trump thinks the Jews brought the “evil, dirty Muslims” he called out on the shooting that happened to the Jews. What was most interesting was that the gunman announced on social media that he was going to shoot up the place that the Jews were at. This happened since hate speech and sometimes the individual themselves get removed from social media, they look for other like-minded individuals in other social media, which happened to be GAB. Social media can be used for fun, but can also be a great source of threats since people can hide behind a screen greatly reducing their risk of danger. GAB’s restrictions are very loose to non-existent and allows anti-Semitic speech with many of the like-minded people including the 46-year-old gunman.

Journal 7 – “The Daily”                                                                                                                                                                                               

 The Democrats win the election of November 2018 not by calling out Trump on his bad behavior but by looking at an issue the Republicans avoid. The issue of health care is hard since people can get used to the health care that’s been given and won’t easily let the benefits change when the government wants to revoke it.

The podcast was a little boring this time but was informative on the issue of health care. Almost everyone in the US has some form of health care, that includes people with pre-existing conditions. The Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obama Care, which will leave around 250,000 with pre-existing conditions with no insurance. Some insurance companies really want healthy people rather than already sick people to take the insurance because it may cost more for insurance to help sick people. For example, Abigail Spanberger, a Democrat and former C.I.A. agent, talked to a friend that was scared that she wouldn’t have her health care coverage soon after the election. The last election, the Democrats were stunned with Donald Trump’s victory, and they want the house back next election. They had to make a plan that didn’t involve “chasing rabbits” since their new approach is not having an anti-Trump campaign but to have a Health Care campaign instead. This worked since the issue is universal and that this will affect millions of people in the US. I disagree with repealing Obama Care to cut costs if a lot of people will start to suffer.

Journal 8 – “Does the five-second rule work?”                                                                                                                                                 
 The podcast “Does the five-second rule work?” is about the wives’ tale of the five second rule since most of us do it on a daily basis. Students and Scientists did experiments with e. coli and salmonella with different variables such as the surfaces like tile, wood, carpet, etc. Carpet is the least likely to be contaminated within the five second rule. Since the type of surface, the food falls on plays a role on how many microbes latch on the item.
The article was nice, but I felt the outcome was already decided when it comes to bacteria. I also do the five second rule, but it depends on the food, where it was dropped, and if there is a lot of people around. The five second rule for me, even thought I do it, I rarely follow through since I’m I bit of a germophobe and because I thought the surface didn’t matter since in the end germs would still get on my food in the end. The thought of them saying that it takes less than 5 seconds to transfer bacteria makes me not want to use the 5 second rule anymore.
Journal 10 – Best and Worst                                                                                                                                                                                      
This was a nice class this year, and I enjoyed my time there. My favorite part of the class was the food review. I liked the food Handsome Biscuit had to offer even though I had only one sandwich. I wouldn’t mind going there again to try their desserts instead of their food. I also was fine with the food review since I like to cook and that helped me so much when describing flavors of the AC Slawter. The worst part of class for me was the documentaries especially 13th. I personally don’t like documentaries and writing about one is basically my kryptonite. On top of that, I had to find the rhetorical elements that help the message, the essay as a whole for me was a shipwreck. I liked most of the class in general, but I would have got a better grade with more preparations.

Happy Holidays Mrs. Emerson