Blog 10 (322 words)

Topic: College tuition should be free for students who finish high school with at least an 80% average.

The cost of post secondary education is substantial and is a major cause of stress to high school graduates and their families.  The cost is primarily paid through three methods (ignoring bursaries and scholarships). One, the student pays for it themselves.  This will typically involve having a well paying job, which are not available to all high school grads.  Two, the students family will pay the costs, which are not trivial if tuition, residence, food, transportation and incidentals are to be covered.  Third, the student can obtain financial assistance from the government in the form of an OSAP loan.  This can burden the student with more than $20000 in debt upon graduation.

 

Given the statistics available on youth unemployment (~13%), under-employment (i.e. part time jobs) and the average rate of defaulting on these loans (again ~13%), there is an argument for the province to switch to model of paying full student tuition on the condition of good grades (80% + average).  It would take the stress of finances off of families and students, and shift it to the stress of achieving good grades, which many students already have.  To be clear though, this would not cover residence, food and other such costs, only tuition and books.  It should also not cover post-graduate studies.

 

It would make post secondary education more universally available, regardless of economic situation. Canada technically has the legal obligation to provide free post secondary education under the UN’s International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Canada signed in 1976.  The rational that better education leads to a better job, and the ability to pay for that better education is proving to be hollow and false.  Student loans are turning out to be a way for companies to have the prospective employees subsidize their own training. 

 

Blog 9 (272 words)

“Human cloning is unethical and dangerous”

I disagree with this statement on three points

 

Dangerous would imply that the process of cloning would be harmful to the mother, or to the clone itself or to society at large.  Carrying a cloned fetus is not anymore dangerous than any other pregnancy and I can’t see how being a clone would be a detriment to society.  There is the possibility of some physical problems from being a clone (rapid aging due to shortened DNA telomeres), but this can be solved by using a sufficient young DNA sample.

 

Assuming that there are no medical issues to either the fetus or the mother, cloning creates no burdens on society and clones would be completely invisible in society, avoiding issues of creating a new type of minority. Personally, I can’t understand the resistance to cloning.   The Ethics of cloning is very similar to the ethics of organ transplant, meaning it shouldn’t even be an issue except for fringe groups.  The one limitation I would place on human cloning is that it should be illegal to clone someone without their express permission.

 

The last point of disagreement I have this statement is that it’s currently a non-issue, as no human cloning has ever taken place.  From what I understand, this is due to several medical issues.  The scientific community is reluctant to preform human trials without a near 100% success rate, which is needed when dealing with the sensitive subjects of reproduction and children.  Added to the fact that human cloning is illegal in over 50 countries, means that research in the field of human cloning is slow.

Blog Seven (122 words)

I completely agree with the idea that rewriting is an iterative process.  To continue the construction analogy, it’s like doing dry wall.  After you mud the joints, you have to sand.  Then if you want to do a good job, you have to re-mud and sand again.  However, like dry walling, you can do it too much.  The trick is to know when it’s done.  Things don’t have to be perfect, they just have to be good enough.

 

As someone who has read some web published fiction, there are a lot of authors (though I use the word loosely) who could benefit from several rewrites.  Even actually published books could benefit from a good rewrite (50 shades of Grey comes to mind).

Blog Six (~200 words)

” Death is a subject largely ignored by the living. We don’t discuss it much, not as children (when Grandpa dies, he is said to be “going away”), not as adults, not even as senior citizens. Throughout our lives, death remains intensely private. The death of a loved one can be very painful, partly because of the sense of loss, but also because someone else’s mortality reminds us all too vividly of our own.”

 

This quote from Brian Cable’s article “The Last Stop” resonated with me.  I recently went through the process of pre-planning funeral arrangements for my parents and myself.  It was true.  You don’t want to think about death, especially your own.  If I had known how stressful it was, I wouldn’t have done it at all.  I know the reasons why you should pre-plan (it keeps costs under control, it saves you from making decisions during, etc.), but it was still, to paraphrase Orwell, a “double plus ungood” experience.

 

Cable’s imagery of the three stages of life (child, adult, old age) is very iconic, and it has been used in many literary works.  It is representative of the journey of life and which ultimately culminates in death, so it fits the article completely.

 

References

Cable, B. (2002). The Last Stop. In R. B. Axelrod, & C. R. Cooper, The Concise Guide to Writing (3rd ed., pp. 57-60). New York, NY: Bedford/St. Martin’s.

Blog Five (155 words)

The piece of advice from “What The Best Interviewers Get Right” I would find the hardest to follow is “Not afraid to interrupt”.  Personally, I hate it when people interrupt me, so I try not to do it to others.  It’s just good manners.  Knowing the tendencies of your interviewee would help prepare you for this, provided you can find other interviews they have given.

The type of interview would affect how critical this skill was.  If you’re doing a informal interview, interruptions shouldn’t be necessary, barring time restraints.  You can just edit the interview later for brevity.  If you’re doing a video interview that’s being live streamed, then a more active hand may be needed in guiding the interview.

A possible solution to this is go over the questions with the interviewee prior to the interview.  It will prevent awkward pauses as the interviewee thinks up a response.  It does remove spontaneity and genuineness from the interview, so there is a trade off.

Blog Four

Here are three questions I would ask the Author.

1. What made you choose to profile a funeral Home?  I assume that the profile was part of a college course, but why choose a funeral home?  My guess, based on his introduction and conclusion is fearful curiosity, but it could also be due to simple convenience (maybe the funeral home is right next to his apartment).
2. What did you take away from the experience?  I gather that the author was pleased with the interview, but did it change his views and opinions on a personal level.
3. Would he (the author) suggest funeral home director as a career to someone he knew?  What if they they expressed interest in it?  I think the answer would show how much he respected the profession.

Blog Post 3

I really liked this article.  I agree with all the principles of Wikipedia and I think that it is one of the great inventions of the 21st century.  Think about it.  At any moment, you are only a few key taps away from an incredibly large source of knowledge exceeding old print encyclopedias, any place you have cell phone signal.  It may even represent a type of paradigm shift, where it is not necessary to memorize large amount of facts and details, but simply have the skills to look them up wherever you are.

It’s nice to see that the person in charge of Wikipedia isn’t a stereotypical “suit”, but instead is a passionate believer in Wikipedia’s principles.  At the last company I worked for, the executives put on a show of corporate spirit and identity, but it was obvious they were in it for the money.  That being said, there’s nothing wrong with working for money.  People have to support them selves and their families.  Just be brave enough to admit to the people who are working underneath you.

I don’t agree with the idea Ms. Gardner puts out that the journalist tradition is alive at Wikipedia.  I don’t see Wikipedia doing edgy journalism, exposing corruption in city hall or breaking the Watergate scandal.  Wikipedia seems to me to have too wide a lens for that, unable to focus on any one particular thing.

It’s a shame that the article is slightly dated, being originally published in 2012.  It would be interesting to see if the demographics for wikipedeans  has changed in the last 5 years.  The world has changed in that time.  Hopefully Wikipedia has changed with it.

Blog Post 2

“Shitty First Drafts” (referred to as SFD onwards) was a fairly good article.   While it didn’t really offer anything earth shatteringly new in regards to my writing process, it did help me understand it a bit better.

I’ve known for a while that a lot of your first draft isn’t what is going to be in the final draft.  I consider the first draft a rough plan or even a brain storming session to start organizing your ideas.  I guess what SFD is talking about a kind of “writer’s block”.

As someone who comes from a technical background, I’ve haven’t had to “creatively write” in long time (high school was long time ago).  I’ve written many reports and contributed to formal papers and patent applications, but those are very strict on their structure and formatting.  Things were divided into predefined sections like Introduction, Abstract, or Conclusion,  As such, there wasn’t any of the fear SFD mentions in a first draft, the fear of “where do I start?” or “What do I say?”.  Titles weren’t much of problem either.  “Rheological Investigation of the Affect of Synthetic vs Natural Oil on Overbased Calcium Sulfonate Grease”  doesn’t leave much room for entertainment.

I’ll finish with a quote from Hemmingway:

“There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit at a typewriter and bleed.”

Blog Post 1

As a more mature student, many of these “reasons to blog” seem to be little bit too “touchy/feely”. That being said, the first reason (becoming a better writer) is true for anyone and could be use to me, as I’m used to writing for a very technical audience and may need help developing a friendlier writing style.

Conversely, reason # 10 (it’s free) isn’t a reason at all.  It’s the absence of a barrier to blogging, but not a reason itself.  The other reasons are reasons you SHOULD blog or CAN blog.  “Its free” really means “it doesn’t cost anything”, a negative argument telling you why you CAN’T blog.

Reason #10  is also the only quantitative argument, giving a hard number on participation (some would say the hardest number: currency).  All of the other reasons are qualitative arguments.  “Its free” doesn’t seem to belong in this list thematically.  It might be said to be the difference of hard vs soft.  By this |I mean “I can’t afford to this” is a much harder reason than “My writing isn’t good enough”.

Personally, the only reason you should blog is because you have something to say that you want many people to hear.  Its the modern equivalent of a speaker’s corner, only with a much, much bigger potential audience.