Persuasion Essay Possibility

Posted on March 14, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

Right now I’m having a really hard time coming up with an issue I want to write my persuasive essay on. I’m thinking maybe I’ll do abortion. But I really don’t know. I’m pretty much pro-choice, so I guess I would be advocating the policy that is in place now. Unless I have to create my own policy? But here are some of the arguments I’m considering including in my paper.

  • As stated earlier, the right to have an abortion is already in place. This decision was in the Rowe vs. Wade case, so I can look into details from this Supreme Court decision.
  • The fetus experiences in an abortion. There is speculation that some exists at 20 weeks, but almost all abortions are performed before 13 weeks.
  • The anti-abortion position is usually based on religious beliefs, which goes against church and state. Religious beliefs should not dictate laws.
  • Safety issues
    • It is actually safer for the woman. The risk of a woman’s death from abortion is less than one in 100,000. Whereas, the risk of a woman dying from giving birth is 13.3 deaths per 100,000 pregnancies.
    • The World Health Organization estimated in 2006 that “back-alley” abortions cause 68,000 maternal deaths each year in countries where abortion is not legal. Where abortion is legal, these deaths do not occur.
    • Future of the child
      • 73% of women reported having an abortion because they could not afford to raise it.
      • Should a child be brought up unwanted?
      • Rape cases- why should that girl (often very young) be forced to keep that child, or even just risk death while giving birth?

But, like I said, I’m still really really on the fence as to if I want to do this issue. There are still many parts of it that I’m unsure of. I’m also considering drinking age, stricter DUI penalties, or women in combat.

Site: http://abortion.procon.org/

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Lettuce.

Posted on February 27, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

As a precaution, this “idiom” is a little more controversial when it comes to Spanish speakers. However, I found it too interesting to not share it. At least as I’ve found in my research, some Spanish speakers have heard it and used it, and some say that it just doesn’t make sense. As an English-speaker, I don’t think it makes any sense at all, but there seem to be Spanish-speaking areas that use this phrase seriously.

lechuga

So, you see “lechuga” (directly translated to lettuce) as a simple word with a blue sky and clouds and an inspiring picture that just gives off good vibes. Lettuce, though? Why is the word lettuce over this feel-god picture? Well “lechuga” can be feel-good too. Some areas of the world use the word “lechuga” as an inspiring, encouraging saying. Lechuga is a short, very interesting way to say “never give up!”

Where does this come from? Honestly, I have no idea. If you think about it though, I’ve never seen lettuce give up, or any vegetable for that matter. Lettuce sits there patiently waiting to become a nice salad, or hamburger topping, or something else. Not that it really has any other option, as it can’t move, but nonetheless, lettuce never gives up. I’m assuming that it is a more humorous way to say never give up- maybe to yell in a race, or something more fun and lighthearted. There are some cases where it probably would not be appropriate.

As for an equivalent, I’m again stumped. We have lots of encouraging phrases “don’t give up!” “you can do it!” “you got it!” “keep going!” and other similar things. But, I can’t even come up with a single word in our language that is synonymous to these phrases, much less such an inanimate object.

Maybe you guys can get closer? All I know is that next time we’re swimming a hard set in water polo, I’ll be yelling “LECHUGA!”

 

http://imgur.com/gallery/N2lH5

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Same-Sex Marriage… what’s going on today?

Posted on February 26, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

Last blog I gave a basic history on the fight for same-sex marriage, including court cases and important laws passed either in favor of or against same-sex marriage. This week, I want to look at what is going on today with this fight. What is the LGBT community doing to fight for what they believe is right, and what are some issues that they face? Mainly, what are they doing to be treated equally?

Movements background:

Today, more than 500 organizations are fighting for equal rights for the LGBT people. Some of these organizations work to change laws and policies through involvement in court cases, lobbying, and elections. They work to change these policies for now, but also for future generations. Others of these organizations work to help educate the American public and change the opinions and attitudes the public has towards homosexuality and same-sex marriage. This side of the organizations kind of goes along with the first, because if the public’s opinion changes, more policies and laws will begin to fit the opinion of the public. Still other organizations work with the LGBT people directly, and focus on helping those who have been hurt by prejudice, inequality, or even things like bullying. All of these organizations work together to create a better, safer environment for the LGBT community, for both now and in the future.

Youth:

All over the United States there are youth movements to help LGBT people reach equality. Many of these movements are online, to create national support. An example of this is through The Center: The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Community Center. This center is all online, but it offers support systems and ways to get involved to take action and strive for equality. They offer YO! (Youth Organization) which is where youth can get involved through an online discussion two hours weekly. There are numerous other similar movements like YO!, and also online pledges that youth, both LGBT and heterosexual, can take. In addition to these national movements, there are an incredible amount of local organizations for youth to get involved in. In fact, our very own Penn State has such an organization, as do most other college campuses and high schools.

On the federal government:

As I stated last blog, the federal government technically holds that marriage is between a man and woman, but does not require any state to hold that view, and has not made any laws upholding that view. What’s pretty cool for the LGBT community is that President Barack Obama has publicly endorsed same-sex marriage, stating “It is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married.” Not only that, but on November 6th 2012, Tammy Baldwin, a Democratic congresswoman from Wisconsin became the first openly gay politician elected to the Senate. An even bigger breakthrough occurred on Election Day, when gay marriage was approved in a popular vote for the first time. Clearly, the federal government is making strides in approving of gay marriage.

With all of this support, why is it so difficult?

You would think that with all of this support and all of these organizations, equality would have been reached and same-sex marriage would be legal. However, these organizations face some issues. Namely, the issue is finances. As with most organizations, especially during this economic time, LGBT communities have a hard time collecting revenue for their organizations. However, it is almost harder for these organizations, as the organizations are in place to gain support, and without the support in the first place, where do you find the income? Often, they end up with most of their finances coming from their own community, which in the long run, isn’t what they need. However, excitedly enough, revenue from 2011 to 2012 went up, which demonstrates that they are only getting closer to achieving their goal.

There are movements all across the United States to promote equality for LGBTs and to therefore legalize same-sex marriage. These movements come a little bit farther every day, and will hopefully achieve their goal in the near future.

Sites:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0761909.html

http://www.gaycenter.org/youth/yo

http://www.lgbtmap.org/lgbt-movement-overviews

Posted in Civic Issues | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

Moderating Strategy

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

I think this moderator experience is going to be very interesting. I’ve never done something like this before. Heck, I’ve barely ever participated in a debate. So what’s my moderating strategy? Good question. But I can make some educated guesses.

Okay, so a good moderator is neutral, and doesn’t advance any opinions. I don’t know if this will be easy or hard for me. Sometimes, I like to sit back and listen, and sometimes I don’t. I can tend to be very indecisive, so if I don’t already have a side to the issue, I will probably enjoy sitting back and listening. However, if I feel strongly about something, I can get kind of stubborn. If this happens, I’ll have to work hard to keep my mouth shut. I’ll just have to focus on listening, keeping an open mind, and not being biased.

A good moderator can frame the sides, have an introduction to the issue, and has a few starter questions. For this, I’ll have to do my research. I will have to make sure I am knowledgeable enough that I can follow, and in some cases, prompt the discussion. I’ll have to decide where I think a good place to start will be, and make adjustments as the deliberation continues.

A good moderator also makes sure all voices are heard, and nobody dominates. While I can see it being an easy trap to fall into, two people with strong opinions taking sides and going at it, I’ll have to put a stop to that before it starts to happen. I can ask the less-heard voices their opinions. I think that hearing all voices makes it a MUCH more effective deliberation, and it is probably these voices that will be able to come up with the new solutions.

Hopefully, as a moderator, I can lead the group to the final goal of common understanding, which opens the possibility for new solutions, and eventually action.

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¡Feliz San Valentín!

Posted on February 13, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

So I’m going to take a break this week from the idioms, and instead talk about Valentine’s Day in Spanish-speaking countries.

In the US, couples celebrate Valentine’s Day. It’s about love, being together, holding hands, kissing, and all that jazz. There’s chocolate, flowers, love letters, poems, teddy bears, and more. All over the world, there are similar days, with some differences.

Spain: Valentine’s day, February 14th, is celebrated in the same way as we celebrate it here. However, they also celebrate “El día del libro y la rosa,” or The Day of the Rose and Book on April 23rd. On this day, as the title hints, the men give the ladies a rose (or two or three), and the ladies give the men a book in return.

South America: In South America, they celebrate “El día del amor y la amistad” or, Love and Friendship Day. This special day isn’t just for lovers, but for friends too! Instead of focusing on couples and leaving the singles out, friends exchange cards and gifts, and often go out to dinner or lunch together to celebrate. It reminds me of elementary school, when we all made valentines for every person in our class, and all of our friends. I’d say we definitely celebrated friendship.

Colombia: In addition to Love and Friendship Day, Colombia celebrates Valentine’s Day on September 20th, where a lot of the focus is on secret admirers, instead of known significant others. Interesting, huh? I don’t know if that’s fun or creepy.

Venezuela: Specifically this year in Venezuala, Valentine’s Day has been postponed. There is voter referendum coming up, and it was decided Valentine’s day would be too distracting. However, the good news is that because of the postponement, Valentine’s Day will be celebrated for an entire week, starting on February 16th!

So, there’s a day out there for everyone. Don’t have a date? Celebrate the Day of Friendship! Busy on Thursday? Celebrate for a whole week starting Saturday! Secretly admiring someone from afar? You’ll have to wait for September, but there’s a day for that too! Or, you could be boring, and spend Valentine’s Day like an American. Good luck!  🙂

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Are you the second table’s plate? Or the main course?

Posted on February 5, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

Now that Valentine’s Day is coming up, I figured this idiom would be fitting. I’m hoping all of you are main courses! In Español, they say that somebody is “un plato de segunda mesa” (the second table’s plate) or, “el plato principal” (the main course). Basically, “un plato de segunda mesa” means that you come in second after somebody else. This can be used in all kinds of contexts, whether it be in school, religion, politics, a sports team, etc, but it most often used to describe a romantic situation. If Jenny and Sasha are competing for Adam’s affections, and Adam prefers Jenny, Sasha is the second table’s plate.

We have a similar idiom: to play second fiddle. Sasha is playing second fiddle too.

The English idiom makes more sense to me. I picture an orchestra or quartet or something of the sort, and can picture the two fiddle (or violin or whatever you picture) players. One gets to play the higher, better, melody while the other one is stuck playing the harmony, the whole time jealous of the fiddler playing the first part. That’s basically how Sasha and Jenny’s relationship is. Sasha can’t even enjoy her part because she’s so jealous of Jenny’s.

The Spanish idiom goes along the same lines, but it is a little harder for me to understand, probably just because I have been exposed to the English one for my whole life, and was just introduced to the Spanish one. This may not be completely correct, but I kind of ended up relating it to leftovers. Everybody eats the first time together in the dining room, and then somebody comes home late and has to eat leftovers in the kitchen by him/herself. Or maybe, we could think of it historically, where the help ate in the kitchen on a second table. Either way, the first table is definitely preferable.

Anybody else have any ideas?

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War of the Words Response

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

First of all, I just want to point out how cool I think the name “amidst the noise” is. It’s like all these labels and politics and strategies are the noise, and we have to strip it all down to get to the heart of what is really going on. Pretty cool.

Anyway, after watching this video, I feel so gullible. I never gave any thought as to where these names/labels were coming from, or how they influenced me. “Weapons of War” and even “assault weapons” make things sound a lot worse than they may really to be. Actually, it makes me think about the discussion I had with my group on gun control in class on Monday. My argument is that there may as well be a ban on assault weapons, because nobody should need a weapon like that. They’re for killing, they’re for the military, etc. Will informed me that there are some regions of the country that need them for hunting, or protecting their crops. Now I don’t pretend to know anything about guns or the type of guns, but this took me by surprise. I think it’s because anytime I’ve heard these weapons referred to, they’ve been called a name with a negative connotation, like assault or war, insinuating that they are designed just to kill other people. Which I don’t think anybody is really comfortable with. I’ve totally been manipulated by labels. Not that all of this necessarily changes my opinion, but it is absolutely something to think about and consider.

One thing I didn’t understand about what he said was that these labels are often meant to divide us. I don’t really get that. For example, he says that “No Child Left Behind” is a label. And he’s right, it sounds terrible to say that you’re okay with leaving children behind, even though many people are against the policy itself. But, my question is, isn’t this uniting us? By trying to make us all feel like we should go with the policy? I don’t really understand how the labels divide us. Any thoughts?

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Same-Sex Marriage: An Introduction

Posted on January 29, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

The issue of same-sex marriage is an argument that all of us have heard, and most of us have strong opinions on. I know very few people that don’t have a preference of legalization or not. Personally, I believe that homosexuals should be granted the same rights as heterosexual couples. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, “marriage is a basic human right. You cannot tell people they cannot fall in love.” While he said this in reference to marriage between races, the same can be said about homosexuals. Who are we to allow some people to get married, and tell others they cannot. However, regardless of my beliefs, I would first like to provide some background on the history of same-sex marriage.

Years ago, homosexuality was unacceptable. Most that were gay hid it from others and did not act upon it. They married the opposite gender to live out a “normal” life. There are many instances of homosexuals being prosecuted and discriminated against. At one point, homosexuality was considered a mental illness as recognized by the DSM of Psychology. Slowly, being gay became more acceptable, and homosexuals fought for more rights, and eventually the right to marry.

The fight for the allowance of same-sex marriages has been a long process, and just recently the issue is coming more into the light of current politics. In 1942, in Skinner v. Oklahoma, the US Supreme Court ruled that marriage is one of the basic civil rights. Civil Rights are rights that cover all genders, no matter the sexuality of the individual. Another Supreme Court case in 1967, Loving v. Virginia, affirmed that “the freedom to marry has long since been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men.” These court cases have paved the way for same-sex couples to fight for equal marriage rights, and were the catalysts that gave homosexuals some hope to right for their right to marry.

In 1993 in Hawaii, Judge Kevin Chang ruled that there was no good reason to deny marriage licenses to gay couples. Although the Hawaiian legislature then amended their constitution to ban gay marriage, this was the first instance where a decision was made in favor of it. On May 17, 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to grant marriage licenses to gay couples. Since then, 9 states plus Washington D.C. have legalized gay marriage. Some states, however, can’t seem to make up their minds on the issue of same-sex marriage.

California is for most of us the state that comes to mind when the issue of same-sex marriage comes about. California especially has held an extremely irresolute stand on the issue. In 2004, San Francisco Mayor Newsom ordered marriage licenses to be issued to same-sex couples, although these were later deemed invalid. When the Californian legislature passed a legalizing bill, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger immediately vetoed it. In 2008, the Californian Supreme Court ruled that marriage must be equally available to all types of couples, and same-sex couples were allowed marriage licenses until Proposition 8 was passed, again banning gay marriage. These events illustrate the strong divisions between supporters and opponents of the issue. California seems to be teasing homosexuals, getting their hopes up only to tear them back down again. Could they please just make up their mind already?

 On a more federal level, Bill Clinton passed the Defense of Marriage Act, which stated that the federal government defines marriage as a union between a man and a woman, but does not require any states to accept this definition nor does it ban any state from allowing same-sex marriage. However, federal opinion can greatly sway the opinions of state legislatures. Opponents of same-sex marriage have been trying to pass a Federal Marriage Amendment to the US constitution, officially defining marriage as a legal union between a man and a woman, but have (luckily) failed to gain support.

Supporters of gay marriage have fought a long battle, and gone through lots of ups and downs. Hopefully, in the next years, gay marriage will be legal, and we will see it as Dr. Martin Luther King once dreamed we would see marriage between whites and blacks-a completely normal.

 

Sites:

http://www.freedomtomarry.org/states/

http://www.datehookup.com/content-the-history-of-samesex-marriage.htm

http://www.randomhistory.com/history-of-gay-marriage.html

 

Posted in Civic Issues | Tagged , , , , | 14 Comments

You Threw Stones Against Your Own Roof

Posted on January 27, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

This week’s idiom is a little bit less common than usual. In Spanish, they say “tirar piedras contra el propio tejado.” Directly translated, the phrase means “to throw stones against your own roof.” It’s usually used in the context of when you hurt yourself by seeking revenge. It’s a self-destructive overreaction.

What do we say in English? To cut off one’s nose to spite his face.

It’s kind of a strange idiom, and not one I hear very often. Honestly, I feel like it’s not a very big part of our generation, and I did some extra research to figure out exactly what it even meant. I found some examples that I think help.

If a man and his wife get into a fight, are getting divorced, etc, the man might burn down the house to punish the woman. But really, he just cut off his nose to spite his face, because he can’t live there anymore either.

A historical example: The Embargo Act of 1807, passed by the United States Congress in protest against British and French interference in U.S. shipping. The Act had the side-effect of prohibiting nearly all U.S. exports and most imports, greatly disrupting the U.S. economy. Congress cut off their nose to spite their face, because really, the Act designed to help the economy just made it more complicated.

The Spanish idiom I think is easier to understand. If you throw rocks against your own roof, the roof is going to break, and you would have messed up your own house. You did it to yourself.

Origins?  For the English idiom, it’s believed that it goes back to the Middle Ages. A legend says that a group of nuns disfigured themselves (by cutting off their noses) to protect their virginity  from the invading Vikings (YIKES, right?). As it is told, the Vikings were so disgusted that they ended up burning the entire building to the ground. I couldn’t find origins of the Spanish idiom, but I think that one is a lot more self-explanatory.

I guess the morale of the story is to think about revenge, because both languages believe that it can have negative consequences.

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This I Believe Podcast and Online Deliberation

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Kelsey Wetzel

Here’s the final podcast! I believe that when faced with difficult circumstances, it is the small gestures of kindness by others that go a long way.

ThisIBelieveFinal

Online Deliberation:

It took me a while to decide on something that I wanted to do, but I finally came up with an idea. Last semester, I took Oceanography, and we learned about issues with the ocean and how humans are destroying it. There are all types of things that we as humans contribute to like invasive species, destruction of natural habitats, overfishing, pollution, chemical pollution, eutrophication and a lack of predators, etc. The list goes on and on. While some humans are working on ways to stop these things from further harming our oceans, most continue to harm them, often without realizing the results of their actions.

The blog I found is from the New York Times and it’s called Green. Coming from the New York Times, it has plenty of comments. It focuses on all aspects of our environment and how we can keep it a safer place, and take care of it. I would like to focus on ocean issues specifically, what the problems are, what we’re doing about it, and how we can fix it.

This particular post is about overfishing and how the Pacific Bluefin Tuna population has plummeted in recent years. The fisheries scientists’ assessment shows the Pacific Bluefin population has declined by more than 96 percent from its unfished level. Not only does overfishing affect the specific species of fish, but it also disrupts the entire food chain.

The top nations contributing to overfishing of the tuna are Japan and Mexico, but the United States is not in the clear either. The world as a whole contributes to these issues, when really we should all be working together to take care of them, as the oceans are important to all of us.

http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/01/10/pacific-tuna-stocks-have-plummeted-scientists-warn/

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