Letter Reaction

He is lumping all people on Medicaid in with this one individual. He is attacking every aspect of her life and only pointing out the issues that he took to heart. It's illogical because one person is not a representative to an entire community. He makes giant generalization because he feels she doesn't need free healthcare, while he is using it to illustrate his own deep-seated opinion on the issue.

The second draft of the letter contains more "details" showing why the conclusions from the first draft were jumped to. It still contains the same generalizations and the same appeal to authority as well as to a belief. It appeals to emotion more by describing things within a cinematic set up. 

New Tentative Thesis (New Topic)

Broad Topics: Government power; Use of eminent domain; Ethics.

Tentative Thesis: City government should have the power to use eminent domain and turn the seized properties over to private developers, as long as it is good for the public as a whole.

Explain: My original thesis was something to do with term limit enforcement on all Senators and Representatives of the Congress of the United States of America. I started doing research and found that most of the links I wanted to try and use were inactive or expired. I started working on a couple other ideas for the paper but none of them had enough research behind them for them to resonate well enough for a good paper. These ideas included the ethics of using Medical Marijuana to treat young children suffering from forms of autism (would have asked permission), and the use of electronic cigarettes as a "safer" alternative to the real thing. We ended up talking about eminent domain in my URBS 100 class and I noticed how conflicted the room became with peoples differing opinions. I worked out a problem within the idea of eminent domain that was controversial, turning seized properties over to private developers. I found a case study done by Gregory S. Ramirez, published in Creighton Law Review, about the choice of a city to turn over land to the Texas Rice Land Partners, and how they planned to use the land unethically based on the law of eminent domain. I also remembered something a friend told me about Pfizer doing something similar but they actually benefited the community so I intend to find a source for that.

Sources: 

Ramirez, Gregory S. "Texas Rice Land Partners, LTD. V. Denbury green pipeline-Texas, LLC: A probability of future use by the public as a key to exercising eminent domain."Creighton Law Review 41.1 (2012): 89-114. Web. 26 Mar. 2013.

Mears, Bill. "Supreme Court Examines Limits of City's Eminent Domain Powers." CNN.com. CNN, 23 Feb. 2005. Web. 26 Mar. 2013.

Thesis (work)

Term Limits

·       \  Officials in House have been in the House for years and legislate based on past ideas.

·         New runners who want to update the laws we abide by to a more modern standard aren’t winning election to 20 year House vets.

·         Older members are set in there ways and will vote accordingly hindering growth of diversity and enforcement of old, outdated laws.

·         Setting a limit on the number of terms a representative can serve.

·         All senators and congressmen

·         We have term limits on President to avoid a dictatorship lifestyle.

·         Why don’t we do the same for all representatives in the House, like we do the President

Tentative Thesis:

Enforcing term limits on all Congressmen and Senators in the House of Representatives would lead to a better functioning Congress.

Research Paper Brainstorm

1. Term limits 
2. Are shows like "House of Cards" going to be the benchmark for future production. Will we just subscribe to commercial free tv?
3. Are the use of drones in the United States unethical?

Gossip TED Talk

The main idea behind the speakers presentation is to prove that gossip is a form of academia in the category of social culture and ecosystem. She uses two examples from ancient Egypt and modern day United States. The Egyptian examples were a pharaoh sneaking off to be with an army general and the queen was intimate with a non-Royal male. In modern times she uses the examples of Kristen Stewart getting all the backlash for an affair and Chris Brown, just three years after beating Rihanna, is now back together with her and won a grammy. She also claims that tabloids are our version of Hieroglyphics. She argues that since all of these things can be observed through gossip it is a viable way to study the inner workings of todays societies and the values that hold dear. She connected the idea of the Egyptian Pharaoh allegedly sleeping with one of his army generals to the current gossip stories surrounding John Travolta and questioning his masculinity through the idea that he might be gay.