Summary #6

In the article "Family Guy and Freud: Jokes and Their Relation to the Unconscious" Antonia Peacocke describes how the jokes in Family Guy if looked at deeper than just face value actually have a more insightful meaning. Before going into this the author describes the hardships of the television show Family Guy, having been cancelled twice. She later uses this to show how "high profile" the show is by saying "Most importantly,each time it was cancelled fans provided the brute force necessary to get it back on the air." (261). She uses different numbers and awards to show how devoted the shows fans are and how well the show is actually doing. Peacocke talks about her own struggle with the shows seemingly offensive humor but then how she realizes the underlying "satire" of the jokes. The author uses different segments of the show to display how although the jokes are, at first glance, offensive the hidden meaning is simply "pointing out the weaknesses and defects of U.S. society in a mocking and sometimes intolerable way." (263). Antonia Peacocke uses excerpts from different authors to shape her argument, agreeing with some and pointing fun at others. She recognizes some of the steps taken due to the fact that the content of some of the jokes are not for younger ears. She ends her article explaining that although she feels that there is more to the jokes on Family Guy than the offensive crudity that people like to point out she still finds that people still need to realize that some jokes do go to far and take to heart "the distinction between a shamelessly candid but insightful joke and a merely shameless joke". (266).

Summary # 4

"Lawsuits Against Fast-Food Restaurants Are an Effective Way Combat Obesity" by John H. Banzhaf III is an essay explaining the benefits of the lawsuits against the fast food industries. Banzhaf describes how the new lawsuits brought against the fast food industries are an efficient way to halter obesity and other things. He feels that by preventing these lawsuits our country is not giving consequences for the part these restaurants play in the rise in obesity in the last couple of decades. As a result, the government is hindering a useful tool in holding the restaurants liable. The author consistently compares fast food industries to tobacco companies and the laws governing the fast food industries to the laws that govern tobacco. For example, in response to the comment that the lawsuits are "frivolous" Banzhaf states "the nonsmoker lawsuits, and the lawsuits by the states against the tobacco industry, were all initially frivolous."(164) and that "industries do not need protection against lawsuits which are truly frivolous, only those lawsuits which judges, juries and appellate courts are likely to take seriously." (164). In other words restaurants would not be so worried about these lawsuits if they were inconsequential. Banzhaf goes on to address a new bill that excludes restaurants from liability in food litigation. He finds this bill to be "premature- if not presumptuous and preposterous-" (164). The author feels that if restaurants would simply take certain precautions, such as displaying calorie information where the food is purchased, provide warnings and providing nutritious choices, industries would save themselves of the legal hassles. However, Banzhaf believes that if we stop lawsuits before they even happen trying to solve this problem it is just taking away the only weapon people have and granting the companies freedom from their liability.

Summary # 3

In "Are We Losing Our Edge?" Michael D. Lemonick talks about how America is starting to slack when it comes things like science, technology and research and development while the rest of the world is improving. He discusses how more and more often people are coming to the United States to receive their degree and then leaving back to other countries to use them. He states that "America is starting to lose ground to other nations."(464). This means that after being on top for so long other countries are starting to catch up to America in terms of science and technology. This has very harmful consequences as Stanford University president John Hennessy states in Lemonick's essay " 'Imagine that the next round of innovations in networking is done in India or China. How many years is it before either Cisco relocates to India or China and grows most of its new jobs there or the next Cisco is actually created there?' "(468). That statement means that if we keep being sluggish about these issues we are going to lose jobs and corporations to other nations. Lemonick accounts for the pause in America to three things: the federal government cutting back funding for research and development, the short term product goals for corporations and the drop in quality of education in math and science at the elementary and high school levels. (465). He describes how these three forces contributed to 9/11. Lemonick then describes how the competition between democrats and republicans to address the issue of how bad our situation had become after not really being involved. He argues that the United States used to be ahead of the game but is now slacking. There is an upside, according to Lemonick, people in America are now starting to see our problem and make changes. Let's just hope we keep up our enthusiasm.

Summary #2

In "The World is Flat" Thomas L. Friedman compares his trip to Bangalore, India to Christopher Columbus's trip to America. He does, however, find one difference: when Columbus sailed to America he discovered that the world is round and when Friedman flies to India he comes to the conclusion that the world is flat. He comes to this conclusion because he discovers that the "playing field is being flattened." (427). Technology has produced equal opportunities for people all over the world and has made the time it takes for someone in a different country to do something for someone else much faster. This realization makes the author nervous and excited at the same time. He is nervous because it allows terrorists to converse faster, easier and with more people around the world. On the other hand, Friedman also views this as a positive thing because as he says, "what the flattening of the world means is that we are now connecting all the knowledge centers of the planet into a single global network, which - if politics and terrorism do not get in the way - could usher an amazing era of prosperity and innovation." (428). He is saying that globalization will allow us new and faster ways of improvement. Friedman explains how each of his three eras of globalization are different than the last and how each era makes the world smaller and flatter He goes on to express how the last era changed "rules, roles and relationships more quickly than we could have imagined." (438). Friedman believes that our task now, due to this inevitable actualization, is to absorb this change in a way that is not overwhelming but that does not leave people behind.

Summary #1

I chose to summarize the first essay "A Fire in the Bathroom" by Bob Herbert. The essays introduction was about an eleven year old little girl who was talking to the police. He uses this story, which included the girl getting wrongly convicted and put in jail for three years, to hint at his thesis which is that the United States is collapsing. He is not saying that the United States is folding in just one specific ways but in many ways.
He uses stories like an actor in New York being arrested, although he did nothing wrong, because the police did not want to take the time out to perform the investigation at the time. He continues by describing how the war with Iraq is harmful to the United States. He discusses how the war "will not be characterized by history as the noble campaign of a powerful nation striding toward greatness"(399). He is saying that the war will not be remembered as a righteous war that was constructive.
Herbert explains how funding is going to the war while middle class families are struggling to survive. He also presents the example of an Oregon School district being shut down because of budget problems and the statement from the physics teacher he interviewed that "During the Great Depression we didn't close schools...We didn't close schools during World War II" to show the struggle going on in America(396). He is saying that the problems now are causing effects that some of the major issues of the past didn't cause.
Herbert uses different accounts to show that with the United States the way it is now the rich is getting richer while the lower class is forced into desperate and often illegal means to carry on. He states "That can-do era sputtered to an end, and we let the selfish, the vain, the greedy, and the incompetent take control of our nation"(402). He is saying that we used to strive for greatness and now we have let people who don't have good values control our counrty.
Bob Herbert ends by stating that "There's a fire in the basement of the United States and we're behaving as if we cannot even smell the smoke." (403). He is insisting that there is a danger within our country that needs to be addressed before it progresses.