Stasis

Stasis is the point of controversy or the issue within a topic.  My group will be exploring the controversial topic of the legalization of marijuana across the United States.  We will also be emphasizing its presence on college campuses.

Stasis presents itself on two sides, the argument for legalization and the argument against it.  The two arguments at hand are:

(Legalize) – Marijuana should be legalized because it is up to the individual to decide what they do with their bodies.

(Criminalize) – Marijuana should remain illegal due to negative health and safety aspects placed on the rest of society.

Stasis then draws out four recognized questions in argument:

1) Conjecture (the facts)

  •                      Did something happen?
  •                     What are the facts?
  •                     Is there a problem/issue?
  •                     How did it begin and what are its causes?
  •                     What changed to create the problem/issue?
  •                     Can it be changed?

2) Definition (the meaning or nature of the issue)

  •                 What is the nature of the problem/issue?
  •                 What exactly is the problem/issue?
  •                 What kind of a problem/issue is it?
  •                 To what larger class of things or events does it belong?
  •                What are its parts, and how are they related?

3) Quality (the seriousness of the issue)

  •              Is it a good thing or a bad thing?
  •              How serious is the problem/issue?
  •              Whom might it affect (stakeholders)?
  •              What happens if we don’t do anything?
  •              What are the costs of solving the problem/issue?

4) Policy (plan of action)

  •              Should action be taken?
  •             Who should be involved in helping to solve the           problem/address the issue?
  •            What should be done about this problem?
  •            What needs to happen to solve this problem/address this issue?

I Am

I pride myself on the fact that I am a first-generation Cuban-Russian American. The dedication and perseverance that my grandparents showed to get their families to freedom is something I admire greatly and try to emulate in my own life. In my entire life, I have never really met many Cubans; most (if not all) of them have been friends of my father. My father is Cuban born, coming to the United States when he was twelve. His family’s story is actually pretty interesting. His father was actively against Castro’s dictatorship and eventually found himself in a secret anti-Castro organization. They had been preparing blueprints, planning to assassinate Fidel Castro. However, since a government spy could be anyone, even the people your are closest with, the plans were foiled by Castro’s police who of all men involved were charged with varying sentences. My Grandfather was sentenced to 12 years in a federal Cuban penitentiary; while witnessing many of his friends being executed for just being bigger players in the scheme. After completing his sixth year, the Cuban economy began to decrease steadily and Castro struck a deal with US President Jimmy Carter allowing anyone that was no longer loyal to the country, leave along with any political prisoners. So my grandfather and his immediate family packed what they could and were flown to Miami where they began their new lives as free citizens.

What’s special about that story is the attitude of my grandparents. They both had to sacrifice so much to give their children a better life. My grandfather had to leave the family for six years in order to one day be free. The family picked up and had to leave everyone behind, possibly never seeing them again. As a matter of fact, earlier this year (2015), my family went to Florida to visit our grandparents, where one of the most incredible experiences I’ve had occurred. To my father’s surprise, around the same time an old friend named Whitman reached out to him via facebook. What was special was this friend knew my Father back in Cuba from the seventh grade. The two organized a time to meet up while we were down there. And for the first time in over thirty years, my Dad finally met with Whitman. The exclamations they shared upon seeing each other for the first time after so many years was heartwarming. They looked so different to each other yet so much the same. At the same time, my grandmother on my mother’s side was meeting with an old friend at the same place. So sitting to the left of me was two former best friends sharing old stories of Cuba and to the right of me was another set of best friends but from a nearly polar opposite end of the earth.

The fact that Spanish was being spoken to my left and Russian to my right was fascinating but what was most incredible was that I could understand both sides. The snapshot of that moment with me sitting in the middle, listening to stories from two ends of the world is something that I cherish. It is what truly defines me. I am everything my parents are and now its time for me to pave a new path using the experiences they’ve passed down to me.

Paradigm Draft (Unfinished)

 

Paradigm Shift Paper

We see shifts in societal norms quite frequently. In this day and age, with the help of our excessive use of social media, these transformations grow exponentially and become the social standard considerably quicker than in the past. We’ve witnessed a multitude of popular trends quickly make their way to infamy, some dying out just as fast. Trends such as selfies, planking, the ice bucket challenge, nyan cat, rage comics, and countless other phenomena all grew to infamy online. Some of these are still used rather abundantly today while others have more or less died out. Currently, we are witnessing something unexpected begin to rise in society. We all have a fairly decent idea of what to expect when we ask someone about the ideal male figure. Most of us would describe someone tall, with chisel-cut abs and muscular arms. Generally, we’re describing an athletic body. However, things may be changing. Recently, there has been a shift in preferences regarding standards among some women. This shift seems to be favoring a less athletic look for men. Many have termed this new ideal as the “Dad Bod.” Mackenzie Pearson, a Clemson student who wrote an article called “Why Girls Love The Dad Bod,” explains the look quite well, saying “The dad bod is a nice balance between a beer gut and working out… [it says] I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends…” This (sort of) craze can be paralleled to the female idea that “real women have curves” in that it fights the “perfect body” that men are expected to attain. The “dad-bod” is rising and definitely becoming more prevalent among men and more accepted among women. There are various ways of explaining the rising attraction to the “dad bod”, however, there are also numerous connections to be made to social standards and how, in recent year, we’ve been fighting the “ideal image.”

If someone were to ask a group of men to draw up what they believe is the perfect male, they will almost definitely come up with a tall, athletic, muscular, chiseled, man. That is because over the years, societal standards have risen drastically in favor of super muscular men. For a long time, this idea of the perfect body image has motivated men to go out and invest in gym memberships, purchase and devour expensive protein powders by the pound, and work their bodies out to full exhaustion. As we look through time, it seems that each generation of men has tried to one-up the preceding generation.

Let’s take a look at some of the popular male icons of the 1920s. Some men we recognize are Charlie Chaplin, John Gilbert, and Richard Allen. Charles Chaplin, by no means, had a muscular body. In fact, he had more of what the “dad-bod” describes. However, he was still a sought after male figure in the early years of Hollywood. John Gilbert, who was featured in various

Paradigm Shift Intro

We see shifts in societal norms quite frequently.  In this day and age, with the help of our excessive use of social media, these transformations grow exponentially and become the social standard considerably quicker than in the past.  We’ve witnessed a multitude of popular trends quickly make their way to infamy, some dying out just as fast.  Trends such as selfies, planking, the ice bucket challenge, nyan cat, rage comics, and countless other phenomena all grew to infamy online.  Some of these are still used rather abundantly today while others have more or less died out.  Currently, we are witnessing something unexpected begin to rise in society.  We all have a fairly decent idea of what to expect when we ask someone about the ideal male figure.  Most of us would describe someone tall, with chisel-cut abs and muscular arms.  Generally, we’re describing an athletic body.  However, things may be changing.  Recently, there has been a shift in preferences regarding standards among some women.  This shift seems to be favoring a less athletic look for men.  Many have termed this new ideal as the “Dad Bod.”  Mackenzie Pearson, a Clemson student who wrote an article called “Why Girls Love The Dad Bod,” explains the look quite well saying “the dad bod is a nice balance between a beer gut and working out… [it says] I go to the gym occasionally, but I also drink heavily on the weekends…”  This (sort of) craze can be paralleled to the female idea that “real women have curves” in that it fights the “perfect body” that men are expected to attain.  It is also interesting that such a body type is becoming more attractive to women.  There are various ways of explaining the rising attraction to the “dad bod”, however, there are also numerous connections to be made to social standards and how, in recent year, we’ve been fighting the “ideal image.”

 

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