aamend October 29th, 2007
After watching the President of Columbia University’s speech to introduce Iranian president Ahmadinejad I was disturbed by Bollinger’s lack of tact. Lee Bollinger, Columbia’s President, turned his introduction of the Iranian President into a personal attack of his character and actions. When President Bollinger began his personal attack on President Ahmadinejad he committed an ad hominine logical fallacy. President Bollinger was attempting to undermine the Iranian culture and ideology but achieved nothing more than embarrassing him-self coming across in an uneducated manner, the vary way he was trying to portray President Ahmadinejad. Although I did not get to see the entire speech President Ahmadinejad’s original ability to calmly react to this personal attack undermined Bollinger’s depiction of Ahmadinejad, because an uneducated coward would not stand before a coward and respond to such an attack with calm composure, his response would turn into anger after being invited to give the speech but then be personally attacked before ever being given the opportunity to defend him-self.
mshadows October 29th, 2007
In Paul Martin’s “A Third of Life,” he discusses the importance of sleep but more importantly discusses the scientific underpinnings of probably the most valuable and desired human activity, especially in the contemporary era. However, I would like to focus on the concept of dreams. If a third of our life is spent asleep, this inevitably would mean we also spend almost the same amount of time dreaming, perhaps a little bit less. Regardless, this provides deep insight upon the inner workings of the human psyche. Reality is often defined as a state of consciousness in which the brain interprets signals like that of sound, smell, taste, etc. These sensations are felt in one’s sleep thus an important question arises–is the dream world also just as real as this world? To most, this question is hit with a heavy no. Although I have seen the Matrix many, many times, there is no way a connection between that fact and what I am about to say–I honestly believe that the main reason why we don’t give the same importance to the dream world as opposed to the world we consciously live in is because of the fact we spend a significantly smaller portion of our life sleeping, one third to be exact. Therefore, the dream world is perhaps just as valid as this world, and the only way of proving such a proposition and striking down the allegations of skeptics is to simply sleep a lot more.
mshadows October 29th, 2007
The National Sleep Foundation published a research study behind the phenomena of teenage insomnia. I found something really interesting in theri articulation of it all: Everyday pressures + natures = less sleep. Although this statement holds true, for the difficulties of life tend to put pressure on a individual’s mind thus creating stress and a barrage of other negative effects upon the everyday functions of a human being, I doubt that it is validly applicable to the contemporary youth of the United States. Some of the “other” factors affecting adolescent sleep included watching televsion, playing electronic video games, and using electronic devices. Are these the everyday “pressures” the youth of America face today? If they are, it is truly a humorous allegation but more importantly an insult to people with bigger problems in the world. Maybe things like living in abject poverty, facing police brutality, living in a war torn region engulfed by conflict are worthy of being considered as “pressures” of life. Sadly, the pressures of not advancing to the next level of a videogame or watching endless episodes of Heroes on YouTube are much more pertinent to youth of our great nation.
ale3005 October 29th, 2007
Last Friday, during class we watched the speech that the president of Iran made at Columbia University. We had to observe all the logical fallacies in the introductory speech that the president of Columbia made before the actual speech. In understanding politics it is comprehensible that this speech was full of fallacies trying to appeal through the use of pathos an entire audience and in a way shape their views. It was incredible to see the president of a prestigious university behave in the way that he did and say all those personal attacks against a President of a State! Instead of introducing him in a respectful manner, he made personal statements trying to undermine the different ideology and culture of another country. He called the president of Iran an “uneducated coward” and basically based his accusations and assumptions on information obtained by Western media, which meant that his entire speech was one-sided. It is important to recognize that what the President of Iran was trying to do was to defend himself and in a way “educate” the public by showing other perspectives and different points of view in a country where everything that it is not “westernized” is seem as evil and corrupted.
ptomaszewski October 29th, 2007
This was quite interesting. The body does so many things while it is at rest. I knew about REM sleep but I had no idea what the other stages were. This is actually a bit disturbing considering I’m looking into the Uberman sleep cycle, where I take a 30 minute nap every 4 hours instead of sleeping at night. The Uberman cycle tricks the body into going straight into REM sleep, skipping the other stages of sleep. Now I am not sure if the trade off for more time awake is worth the lack of time spent in the other sleep cycles.
xgravex October 29th, 2007
Everyone in this country seems to think that Ahmadinejad, president of Iran, is the Hitler of our time! I didn’t get to see his entire speech/question and answer session at Columbia University so I can’t definitively say that he is or isn’t the Hitler of our time, but I do have a problem with the University president using name calling to appeal to the pathos of his audience. The President of Iran didn’t seem like the Hitler of our time from what I saw. Calling the president of Iran unintelligent, a petty dictator, and the mind of evil before he even has a chance to address the audience was a little over the top.
Nat57 October 28th, 2007
After viewing the video between the Iranian President and the President of Columbia University, it appeared to be that the president of Columbia University was not ethically sound when introducing the Iranian president. I would say that these lack of moral ethics were influenced directly from politics and not from actual personal views, as the Columbia president would have liked the audience to believe. Alongside all the logical fallicies that his speech had, he also demonstrated the unfair way that politics can seep into every aspect of American Society. While many Americans feel strongly about the Iranian president’s presence at the university, it was not the University’s president’s job at the time to personally undermine and attack the Iranian president without him even sayin a word. I strongly believe that this uncalled for behavior was influenced by other, outside factors and pressures that the president was recieving from other university officials, the public’s opinion, as well as government officials.
Nat57 October 28th, 2007
It is interesting to note the change in approach in advertisements over the years. In particular, cigarette ads have changed tremendously. I would attribute this change directly to the estensive knowledge that has infiltrated our society. Through exhaustive research, it has been found how detremental cigarettes are for your health. Therefore, cigarette companies have had to change their tactics. Instead of saying that slim cigarettes are “better” for your health or a cigarette with a filter on it gets rid of all the bad toxins that normal cigarettes have in them, cigarette companies have had to come up with new approaches. Adds over the years have changed their content as warning labels have included more and more hazards, but one thing has remained the same: cigarette ads always appeal to the reader’s emotions. Ads will always include cool, fashionable and beautiful people in order to persuade readers that those effects will happen to them if they smoke cigarettes. Bans may have hurt what words can go on cigarette ads, but a picture says a thousand words and still effectively gets the point across.
Nat57 October 28th, 2007
It was stated in class that science was a result of man’s insecurity. I strongly disagree with this outrageous statement and would offer a biased statement supporting the validity of science techniques and discoveries throughout time. Science has not progressed due to an insecurity that man has to discover the unknown, but rather due to an intense curiosity of knowledge intertwined with a fundemental grasp for improving our society by directly proving scientific findings and data. Being a major in Zoology, my opinion is highly biased as I have intensly studied the scientific theory and viewed every aspect of scientific development. Although my preconcieved notion of science reflects my four years of undergraduate studies here, I still stand strongly against the statement that all scientific discoveries are rooted from man’s insecurities.
mshadows October 28th, 2007
After reading this essay, I immediately saw the connection between this work and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club. Although this essay provides a bright and positive illustration of what shopping is in American culture, the truth is not so. James Farrell advocates that shopping brings out the introspective and self-reflective qualities of Americans. He also proposes that shopping is inherently indicative of what American culture has become. I ardently disagree with the former, especially after reading Chuck Palahniuk’s literary masterpiece. Shopping and consumerism has made Americans and more importantly, us as humans, more docile creatures that live to fulfill desires that serve no ultimate, spiritual end or purpose. We create a series of desires and simultaneously manufacture means to achieve such ends thus making ourselves slaves to a consumerist culture. Nevertheless, I do agree with the second assertion of James Farrell–shopping is quite indicative of American culture. Consumerism has replaced the age old morals, ethics, cultural values, stories, desires, and dreams of all the great cultures that thrive in this country. Consumerism is trying to destroy our culture and replace it with one that stiuplates “a suversion of all inherited cultural practices and beliefs, its disregard of all boundaries, whether sacred or secular, its destablization of every hallowed hierarchy, whether of the ruler and ruled, man and woman or parent and child, its turning of everything into an object for sale.”
mshadows October 28th, 2007
I once heard a saying that I use frequently when disraught by the immoral and unscrupulous behavior of those with power, wealth, etc–”A true test of character does not come when a man is placed in a state of adversity but when man is bestowed with the gift of power.” The “Stanford Prison Experiment” has an interesting correlation to this maxim. In this experiment, competent, college students simulated the “prison experience” by being divided in either the roles of the prisoners and of the guards. The prisoners exhibited symptoms of extreme despondency and dettachment from the world because of their powerlessness in the prison hierarchy. However, the development of the college students who played the guards is much more interesting. Their persona became warped into that of power hungry, authoritarian figures who never had any real formal training of how to be a prison guard for “the media had already provided them with ample models of prison guards to emulate.” Ultimately, the drastic change in the behavior of prison guards substantiates the maxim. Once given such power over the prisoners, common men began to exhibit un-common and punitive behavior towards others, which may provide a morose and dark portrayal of the true nature of men…
sarah930 October 28th, 2007
On Friday we discussed the logical fallacies concerning the President of Columbia University and the President of Iran. I believe that what the President did was very unproffesional and had no dignity on his part. The fallacy that I noticed was the fact that the President of the university attacked the keynote speaker before he even had a chance to speak. He invited him to come to his university and speak, but instead of introducing him in a respectful manner he accused him and belittled him as an individual. I could understand if he had talked down on what he has done or the issues of politics, but he did not and what he did so was (to me) uncalled for. I think this type of thing shows that we as a society are ignorant to what is respectful and professional. I couldn’t believe that the president of a prestigious university would make those kind of comments to a person that he wants to come to his university, as a speaker.
mshadows October 28th, 2007
In Solomon Asch’s “Opinions and Social Pressure,” he discusses the implications social norms have on an individual’s behavior and their conceptualization of “right” and “wrong.” He provides examples ranging from a child’s mastering of his native tongue, spoken by his family and compatriots, to the acceptance of a practice like cannibalism amongst tribesmen in Paupau New Guineau. This essay provides a fundamental illustration on the tactics employed by groups that advocate Palestinian liberation, like Hamas or Islamic Jihad. In the religioun of Islam, it is explicitly stated that suicide is a gross sin that will not be condoned by God and it will land the transgressor in eternal hell fire. However, the Muslims of Hamas and Islamic Jihad still advocate the tactic of suicide bombing. Furthermore, and more importantly, many of these groups attack civilians, which is another violation of Islamic religious tradtion–you must only fight those who fight you for one is never to harm the weak and defensless. Thus the question arises–why are Muslims violating the tenents of their own religion? The answer is simple: those with political power have manipulated the desperate state of its people and made such heinous acts of violance acceptable and legitimate means of achieving independence from Israeli tyranny. The power that these groups hold is so encompassing and perverse that young children are being indoctrinated to believe such methods are valid means of self defense. Nevertheless, any Muslim with an even moderate conceptual understanding of Islam will recognize such behaviors are inherently un-Islamic and unjust.
alexh07 October 28th, 2007
The President of Columbia University in NYC was not only insulting the dictator of Iran, but he was mocking the culture in which he and his people live in. He called the dictator “petty and cruel” and that he was an “uneducated coward.” I don’t know what kind of society he grew up in, but I do know that when one is invited to educate the people of Iran, you do not intentionally go to put down its society and the ways in which life is conducted based on the assumptions and accusations that the media has proposed to the public. The President of Iran handled his opponents attacks very well and in a distinguished manner. He explained to his audience that he was “not affected by the unfriendly treatment” the president imposed upon him and that ”importance of education” was the real reason he was hoping get across to his people. The President was definitely overstepping the boundaries set before him and gave Iran a negative impression of the United States and our society.
alexh07 October 28th, 2007
Yes. Just as the title reveals, one does in fact spend a third of his life sleeping. Most dreams and memories that we experience while sleeping disappear when we wake. On the weekends and the holidays, when people generally sleep the most, we can usually find ourselves feeling sleepier than during the week because of the lack of sleep we have to make up for. We live in a society where sleep has become less and less devalued. Many regard it as a waste of time. I found his article to be very interesting, but some of the information provided wasn’t necessary in explaining the subject, like the connection between animals and human’s behavior while sleeping. Sleeping sitting up only generates levels of light sleep, not deep sleep which is generated from lying down. Individuals return to the same place to sleep each night, including most animals. With the combination of information between animals and humans, one can find the article hard to follow, jumping from one species to the next and intertwined in between. I feel that the discussion on ducks and dolphins is a bit off topic from the original discussion on humans, so it is difficult for one to draw the connection. It ends quite abruptly and fails to draw the true connection between the reader and the topic. It was still very informative and interesting, just not as structured and easy to follow as I was expecting.
alexh07 October 28th, 2007
Susan Ince explains the importance of sleep and emphasizes how acquiring too little of it can be detrimental in a number of ways to one’s health. She explains the connection between sleep and active brain waves and how there are two different types of sleep - Quiet Sleep and REM sleep. The body goes through 4 stages of Quiet sleep before dropping into REM sleep. I had no idea how complex this whole cycle and how the body spends a certain number of precise minutes in each level. Young, normal people usually spend about 20 minutes in the Quiet Sleep stage. Dreaming occurs during REM sleep. A lot of activity occurs throughout the entirety of the body, though you are still in a deep sleep. REM makes up about 25% of one’s sleep. The body follows a natural time schedule through its sleep clock that maintains a cognitive pressure to stay on schedule through different tasks, such as events and train schedules. Heredity plays a very large role in one’s sleep pattern. Children should receive about 10 hours a night. Anatomical changes reduce sleep efficiently, so when a person reaches adulthood he sleeps less. Men and women that are physically fit sleep more soundly as they grow older. This article was extremely informative, though a bit hard to follow because of the immense amount of detailed information. Though, I learned quite a bit out of it and was astonished to find how complex sleeping, something that I obviously do on a regular basis, really is.
moe October 28th, 2007
Being the president of one of the most prestigious universities in the country, one would think that Mr. Bollinger would be more civil and respectful in his speech despite his strong feelings toward the Iranian president’s leadership. But in fact, his use of emotionally charged words against the Iranian president was a clear example of ad hominem. Furthermore, his poor choice of words unfortunately made his speech sound more like a rude and distasteful verbal attack against an opponent rather than an introduction to a guest speaker. Granted the Iranian president may have made some bad decisions, but it was definitely unprofessional and indecent of President Bollinger to attack someone they’ve invited during a formal setting that aired on national television.
lwalk89 October 27th, 2007
As the President of Columbia University introduced the guest, he demonstrated many logical fallacies. One of the main fallacies he revolved his argument on was that the cultural and idealogical differences Iran has compared to our own, make them ignorant and stupid. I felt that his behavior twords a guest was not only rude, but disgraceful to the image we, as a country, want to portray to other countries. I think the President of Iran, from what I saw, held himself very well and responded to the attack with dignity and intellegence. In the end, the President of Iran turned out to be the bigger man in the debate.
ptomaszewski October 27th, 2007
I think the most prominent logical fallacy that we saw today was the attack on someone’s person instead of their ideas. The university president decided to attack the Iranian President directly instead of attacking the issues at hand.
ale3005 October 25th, 2007
In her article Susan Ince tries to explain the basics of sleep mechanics and sleep control. There are two types of sleep: REM sleep and Quiet sleep. There are four stages of quiet sleep, but the most important is REM sleep or dreaming sleep in which the brain races, thinking and dreaming, and the sympathetic nervous system is active, while the body hardly moves. In the article the author points out that REM sleep facilitates learning and memory, however in today’s society people tend to sleep less and consequently do not have enough REM sleep throughout the night. I agree with the the author in pointing out that sleep is a highly complex activity and that the deprivation of it can cause several problems. Insufficient sleep is directly linked to poor health which increases the risk of diabetes and heart diseases, and the combination of sleep deprivation and driving can bring deadly consequences, so it can be say that sleep problems may affect virtually every aspect of a person’s life. It is important to create good sleep habits that can increase the quality of sleep of each individual.
ale3005 October 25th, 2007
This article released by the National Sleep Foundation helps focus national attention on the dangers of sleep deprivation in adolescents. The article points out that may of the nation’s adolescents are falling asleep in class, arriving late to school, feeling tired and down and even worse they are driving to school drowsy. Nearly one half of students sleep less than eight hours on school nights according to a poll made in 2006 and consequently this affects every aspect of an adolescent’s life. I absolutely agree with many of the points made in the article about the consequences of sleep deprivation and how important is to get enough sleep to be able to do well in school. Another important consequence produced by lack of sleep is the dangers in driving drowsy or not fully conscious. It is important to be aware of all the implications that lack of sleep can bring to our lives. The article also offers several recommendations for getting more sleep at nights which is absolutely necessary for many students to do better in school.
lwalk89 October 23rd, 2007
As humans, we spend approximately a third of our life sleeping. We live in a “sleep-sick society” that relies on alarm clocks to get up and devalues sleep as unproductive and a waste of time. As a culture, we are indifferent to the subject of sleep since there is an abaence of knowledge on the subject in the general public, medical world, and literature. Though, all mammals display the act of sleep. Some animals can have unihemisopheric sleep, where one side of the brain is awake with an open eye and the other side is asleep, in order for them to be alert in case of danger. I find this article very interesting in how it shows the various sleeping habits of humans as well as animals. Marin states “When we are awake we all inhabit a common world, but when we sleep each of us occupies a world of our own”, showing how complex and much of a personal experience sleep is. Since sleep is a necessity, I think its important for society to study and learn more about the dangers of sleep deprivation and some how change our habits to get longer nights.
theAnnie October 22nd, 2007
I believe that today’s society is easily offended due to the fact that it overanalyzes everything. If someone is even a tad politically incorrect then their essay is sent to the publisher’s guillotine. Many thoughts and ideas are probably denied publication due to the fact that they offend other people. Think about how many ideas, unorthodox, funny, or insightful that may have been too different to publish. Different ideas are what keeps society moving ahead, but how can those ideas make it to the world if they’re censored?
xgravex October 22nd, 2007
The personal anecdotes Edward Peslman presents in his analysis paper “The Coming Apart of a Dorm Society” felt like something out of one of those over the top teen dramas. I did, however, enjoy the story about his effeminate floor mate Benjamin. The macho dudes in the dorm would always question his sexuality, but little did they know that he had a secret lady friend! It seems you can’t judge a book by its cover! The truth is sensitive guys always get the girls!
xgravex October 22nd, 2007
I think that Paulo Ludivici does a decent job in critiquing Derrick Jackson’s column on “Kids, TV and the Risk of Attention Disorder”. Jackson may have made an extreme comparison by comparing TV to Cocaine but I think Ludivici makes the mistake of believing that television has redeeming value. TV has become a cesspool for liberal biased rubbish and pornography. Just watch CNN news and Desperate Housewives! Utter filth.
