State of the Union Address 2011

So assuming that you have already seen the State of the Union Address, here are some of my thoughts.
Let's start with the most obvious one: Bipartisan seating...
This is the first time we have ever seen Congress sit with each other, rather than split by friends and party. One who may have been very skeptical of this idea may assume that this was done to cover up Obama's seemingly one-sided appeal. What I mean by this is that last year it was more than obvious that only the Democrats were cheering and standing up at virtually all of the point that President Obama made, while most of the time the judges and Republicans remained seated for the majority of the hour, and couldn't wait to get out of the room. Last year's address came to the point where Obama made the comment, "I really thought you guys would stand up for that one."
This year's State of the Union Address was quite the contrary, and most of Congress agreed with Obama's points. This probably made Obama feel more confident with what he was saying, and much of what he said wasn't extremely liberal. He made the point that it was good that there is some disagreement, and I totally agree with that. If everybody liked Obama and no one disagreed with anything he said, the country would turn into a Communist nation, and it would become a disaster. If everyone disagreed with him, though, the country would be rioting like the Middle Eastern protesters.
Anyway, one of Obama's points was about education. He did a nice job connecting education with jobs, but he was so general, it would be hard for anyone to disagree with him. He mentioned getting rid of the bad teachers and said to everyone. "Those of you who want to become teachers, our country needs you."... Or something among those lines.
Another point that he mentioned was using 90% of independent energy by 2035. This is good that this is the goal, but he made it sound like everybody in that room believed global warming exists. Sadly, this is not true, because Republicans who believe that global warming is a political tactic for Democrats refute any idea that has to do with global warming existing. The President used the term "independent energy source" to kind of satisfy what both sides wanted to hear, but I still feel that without him being in office, his goal, not the nation as a whole, will not be achieved.
Sadly I never got to hear what Republicans had to say about his speech, but from the looks on their faces, the reactions with what Obama said varied. Some Republicans in the room had a shocked and disgusted look on their faces, while others did not as much. Obama and everybody in that room knew that not everyone likes him, but at the same time, Republicans such as John McCain don't totally hate him. Obama has wanted to work with Republicans since he first got into office, but I think that maybe the bipartisan seating may have given the President the hope that he had about working together with everyone. He seemed a lot more comfortable with what he said, and didn't care as much about who agreed with him or not in the room that everybody was in. That being said, there are still sadly people in America who will always hate Obama, and if not hate, just think he's a Communist, which he made clear he was really trying not to be.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Post 3

At this point in the book, Michael Pollan describes his experience at what could be considered an organic slaughterhouse. The reasoning for him going to this place, is to desribe how the animal's (specifically the chickens) are slaughtered. He mentioned this in the book because it is important for people to understand what the life of a chicken being prepared to slaughter should be.
Pollan concluded at the end of this section, "I finally had to conclude that Rosie the organic free-range chicken doesn't really grok the wholed free-range conceit." He continues on about how the field for these chickens has turned more into a joke: something that is there but really more for people and vistors to get some fresh air, rather than for the chickens. It would have been interesting, however, to read about how Pollan feels about Factory Farming. I don't support PETA, but they make a good point about animal abuse even so.
I guess there's really no way to treat pre-slaughter animals well, and that's kind of what I can pull from Pollan's chapter about the chickens.

The Omnivore's Dilemma: Post 2

One thing that was really interesting in the later part of the first chapter was how one in three children east fast food every day. That's a lot of fast food being consumed! Michael Pollan's son doesn't get to eat at McDonald's very often, so when Pollan was talking about a trip with his family to McDonald's I knew that he was doing this to see what kinds of things people could get on the menu (his son mentioned a salad because Pollan's wife doesn't like to go to McDonald's because of the lack of a "real meal."). Of course, Pollan didn't really mention anything about fast food places such as Subway, which would have been interesting to read about, because they are also considered fast food. What makes them different? Their tuna contains almost as much fat and calories (if not as much) as a McDonald's burger.
Perhaps what Pollan was getting at was how much corn is in most of the McDonald's food. Corn is the basis of our food products in America, as I stated in my previous blog post, but how are we American's supposed to get our other neutrients, from vitamins?

The Omnivore's Dilema: First Impressions

When I picked up this book to open it up, I know going in that this would discuss the agricultural problems of America. What I didn't know it would do was explain how certain parts of agricultural history apply and have contributed to the problems we have today in America, as well as how methods may have been better in earlier times. The first chapter of the book discusses one crop; corn. Michael Pollan (the author) discusses howmany of the things we use in our daily lives (sometimes nonfood products) came from corn at some point. Soda, beer, twinkies, and many other food products use high fructose corn syrup, which of course because the same has "corn" in it, came from corn. I'm not too sure where Mr. Pollan was getting at, but I'm starting to think that corn.  is not what we should continue to base our whole agriculture off of. I'm also not sure if cows are supposed to eat corn, knowing that they prefer to eat grass. This may not seem like such a significant issue, but I do know that processed foods are not healthy at all, and this is a problem because a lot of America's diet consists of processed foods (even if there are preservatives). But perhaps this is a more important issue of politicians to take a crack at, rather than allow them to debate whether evolution exists or not.