English Blog

Text Wrestling

2009-11-23T19:53:00.001-08:00

In reading “The Oil We Eat: Following the Food Chain Back to Iraq”, I found that Richard Manning’s analyses were very thorough, and his statistics were revealing and relevant yet not overwhelming. It is difficult for readers to argue with a well thought out essay such as this, when his research clearly shows fastidious effort. Manning argues that the mass production of food is not efficient; however, he forgets that we do not really have an alternative. The reason for the mass production is the result of the population boom in not only the United States, but worldwide during the twentieth century.
He explains very well that the system is flawed, but provides no possible better alternative. Manning explains that he gets his family’s protein by shooting an elk, however it would take thousands of hunters to feed a mid-sized city. Growing and hunting for our own food would be too time consuming to be productive.
The only way that we could increase our efficiency in producing our food is to go back to local farms where cattle graze, rather than fed grain, which greatly increases the cost required to produce the food we need to survive.
I liked his reference to Rube Goldberg, because that was exactly how I was thinking of this process. The food chain does work as a Rube Goldberg machine, in that with each added step, more and more efficiency is lost and in a way, the end result becomes further away.
Manning’s main point is mostly to inform readers that no matter what we eat, whether we are vegetarians, eating mostly vegetables and processed soy products, or if we eat meat, we are all guilty of supporting the more cost effective methods that companies are using, when they do not realize the cost of the resources needed to feed animals, or produce cereals. I feel that Manning has succeeded in doing this, because many people do not realize what goes into every calorie we eat. After reading his article, I feel very informed, and he has caused me to think about these ideas, and if there is any way to change our ways, which the only thing would be to go back to the colonial ways of living.
At the end of the article, Manning states that while he kills his annual elk, the rest of the productivity of the system continues on. This is a very clever way to conclude his ideas, because it is a cycle that keeps going, and there is nothing practical that we can do to make it more efficient. There will always be ways of improving our methods of yesterday; however, as we are seeing in this example, they may not actually be improving anything.
Some of Manning’s points were a little exaggerated, however he was able to back them up with specific details and statistics, and overall, reading this article has made me think differently about the foods we eat, and the choices we make in our diets and their effect on the economy as well as the environment. I enjoyed reading this article, and it has made me aware of what goes into what we eat.

Annotation Sources

2009-11-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Gone but not Forgotten
Software vs Hardware Firewall
Number of Viruses
Brit hacks Pentagon
How to be a hacker

The Oil We Eat Summary

2009-11-03T19:26:00.001-08:00

In “The oil we eat: Following the food chain back to Iraq”, Richard Manning examines the agricultural aspect of civilization. The article encompasses many things, but mainly it focuses on energy. “The journalist's rule says: follow the money…We'll follow the energy”. Richard Manning follows the food chain all the way through, as though it were more of a food web. He discusses the inefficiency of the entire food industry, from the amount of energy it takes to make a box of cereal (half a gallon) to the side effects of replacing gasoline with gasohol, Manning leaves few rocks in the field un-turned.
Manning even discovers that vegetarianism is not as good as people believe. The vegetarian's case can break down on some details. On the moral issues, vegetarians claim their habits are kinder to animals, though it is difficult to see how wiping out 99 percent of wildlife's habitat…is a kindness”. The author claims that because some farmers are so dedicated to making as much as a profit as possible, they “gut-shoot” the deer, hoping they will “limp off to the woods and die where they won't stink up the potato fields”.
The main idea of the article is that the food industry is wasteful and inefficient. Countless amounts of energy, whether in the form of fossil fuels, calories, or just simple money, are lost in the entire process. Manning explains that he is a hunter at the end, and that it is a more natural way to get nutrients because it is local, and he doesn’t destroy as much of nature when he does it. While the animal he hunts is killed, everything else in the ecosystem lives on.

About Ethnography

2009-10-15T19:33:00.000-07:00

Still not quite happy with any closing paragraph so I didn't bother putting one in. I find the hardest part to write about is the actual people because they all were more or less like their characters. Distinguishing the game from the players has been a writing challenge for me that I will have to overcome.

High Rollers (working title)

2009-10-15T19:31:00.000-07:00

The moment I glanced at the twenty-sided die I knew that this was a game that had many dimensions. Never in my life had I played anything so complicated. Dungeons and Dragons can be one of the most immersive games you’ll ever play or the shallowest. When I entered the room of my fellow players the first thing I noticed was a large table with so many seats crowded around it you had to crawl underneath the table to get out. I never played the role playing game before but I was familiar with the elements. I have played Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights(which are based on the same rules as DnD), as well as various MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, so I had a general idea of what the game would be like.
The unique thing about Dungeons and Dragons players is that they don’t consider there to be a winner. “If you have fun, you won” is the motto they say. Instead of trying to beat your fellow players, your goal in DnD is to work together, they explained. The way the game works is that one person is in charge of the game, called a dungeon master. The dungeon master is like a story teller in a way, they tell the players what type of world they live in and “role play as all the NPCs (non-player characters). They are essentially the god of the world that the players play in. I noticed everyone treated the DM extra nice, as if they were mean the DM may have a few lizard men ambush them as part of the story.
In dungeons in dragons each player creates a character who they pretend to be. Different groups have different rules as to how much the player must pretend to be like their character. Our group allowed you to speak OOC(out of character) as much as we liked, but many groups do not allow anyone to speak about anything other than the game unless absolutely necessary. It is taboo to speak out of character usually, but this was a very casual game.
On the table were tankards in front of each seat for us to drink out of, and a pile of about 18 hardcover books, slightly larger than a magazine which had the rules of how to play. Only three books were really need though, and those were the player manual, the dungeon master’s guide (which players were not allowed to look at) and a monster manual. Everyone started grabbing them and filling out “character sheets” which had information about your character.
Anything you could think of to describe a person could be put on the sheet. There were spots for usual things like height, weight, eye color etc, but you could also add things like personality or other physical features. Characters could be as dynamic as the player wanted them to be. For example, one of the more interesting characters was a Goliath Barbarian, which is like a mountain troll warrior. He claimed that his race’s language did not contain pronouns, so he spoke of himself in third person. Another player was a half-orc who kept the teeth of the enemies he defeated on a necklace, and wore little clothing so he could show off his battle scars.

It took us about an hour to fill out all of our character sheets. The dungeon master helped me get through it, and it was complicated but eventually I understood it. Depending on your class(which is like a job, all of which of course involved fighting skills) you would focus on different real world “stats”. For example wizards would focus on intelligence because that would let them cast more spells a day, as well as constitution to increase their hit points(the number of attacks they can take). My character was a cleric, which is like a battle priest who wears heavy plate armor, so I focused on strength(to increase my chance to hit as well as physical damage) and wisdom (so I could cast more/better holy spells).
While I was still working on my sheet, other players were practicing their own superstitious pregame rituals. Jarrett, a half-elf druid, practiced his dice rolls while Steve, a human sorcerer, studied a manual called “The Complete Arcane”, which contained all of the spells he used.
When we finally started playing I noticed how deep and enthusiastic the role-playing culture was. To make the game seem more realistic we drank root beer from metal tankards and equipped ourselves with various toys we found in the room, which included props from various Halloween costumes such as swords, shields and cloaks, as well as various play toys like nerf crossbows.
The game itself was like a grown-up sophisticated version of pretend when you’re a kid. All actions were controlled by dice rolls (usually a “d20”, or twenty-sided die unless it was to tell how much damage was done, then it would be a different die depending on what type of weapon was used).

Personal Essay Thoughts

2009-09-21T11:19:00.000-07:00

I have been thinking about a topic for my personal essay for about a week but I am still not sure what I really want to write about yet. I want to think about something interesting to write about without getting too personal. I have come up with a lot of ideas, but my current favorite idea is doing an essay on my lineage, which I can track back to the Mayflower. I know a lot about several other ancestors, the first house built in Westport for example (which is no longer standing) was settled by one of my other ancestors (not a decedent of my relatives that were on the Mayflower).
I am still considering other options, but this seems like something I could write the most about.