Grimes ENGL1304 Blog

Wide Ranging Topics for Analysis

jaycgrimes — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 02:41:24 +0000

-Legalizing Marijuana
-Cap and Trade
-Government Subsidies for Alternative Means Transit
-Radical Islamic Religion vs. American Values in the Constitution
-Universal Healthcare
-Making the Internet Free
-Government Subsidies for Alternative Energy Implementation
-Mandatory Birth control for teenagers
-Easing US Adoption Rules and Regulations
-Video and Music Piracy

Edited a bit…

jaycgrimes — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:05:38 +0000

In 2009, Men’s Fitness magazine surveyed all the major cities in the United States and labeled Houston the 6th fattest city in America. One of the largest contributing factors to this most undesirable accolade is the local commute, which is 42 percent more oppressive than most cities, leaving very little time to exercise (Men’s Fitness). As the fourth largest city in America, Houston needs to be known for more than its overweight population and abundance of fast food restaurants per capita. Houston also needs real solutions for our over-populated roadways and overall outlook of the city, in general. Rather than constantly trying to building wider roads and accommodate more traffic, Houston has a ripe opportunity to take advantage of its already vast freeway system and cut down on daily commuting nightmares. Houston has a huge city center as well as many great landmarks, all of which are hardly accessible by pedestrian or bicycle traffic. The city should endorse monthly “Bike to Work” days as a means to encourage fitness and health, attract tourism, and ultimately provide relief for its major traffic congestion problems.
To provide fitness opportunities for Houstonians, the city should designate a particular day each month to make it safe for bicycling commuters to ride to work. These city government sanctioned events would set up barricaded lanes on our freeways to protect the pedestrians from the hundreds of thousands of motor vehicles that use the freeway twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. At first, this task may appear daunting, but by starting with a small area, inner city cyclists can take advantage of this new idea. Setting up roadway access on in-bound lanes of I-10, US-59, US-288, and IH-45 within the 610 loop,

Making the 4th Largest City Bike Friendly

jaycgrimes — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:39:13 +0000

In 2009, Men’s fitness magazine surveyed all the major cities in the US and labeled Houston the 6th fattest city in America (MensFitness). One of the largest contributing factors to this most undesirable accolade is that the local commute is 42 percent more oppressive than most cities, leaving very little time to exercise (MensFitness). As the fourth largest city in America, we need to be known for more than our overweight population and abundance of fast food restaurants per capita. We also need real solutions for our over-populated roadways, and overall outlook of our city in general. Rather than constantly trying to building wider roads in accommodate more traffic, Houston has a ripe opportunity to take advantage of its already vast freeway system and cut down on daily commuting nightmares. We have a huge city center as well as many great landmarks, all of which are hardly accessible by pedestrian or bicycle traffic. The city of Houston should endorse monthly “Bike to Work” days as a means to encourage fitness and health, attract tourism, and ultimately provide relief for its major traffic congestion problems.
To provide fitness opportunities for Houstonians, the city needs to designate a particular day each month to make it safe for bicycling commuters to ride to work. These city government sanctioned events would set up barricaded lanes on our freeways to protect our pedestrians from the hundreds of thousands of motor vehicles that use the freeway twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. This sounds like a daunting task for a city so wide spread therefore the effort would need to start small. By setting up roadway access on inbound lanes of I-10, US-59, US-288, and IH-45 within the 610 loop,

The other Left and Right Issue

jaycgrimes — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:46:40 +0000

My desired topic for the practical proposal paper is the blatant discrimination of the left handed student body at the University of Houston. I am personally affected by this discrimination and have been for almost my entire academic career. This issue is less prevalent in grade school as tables and chairs or over-sized desks are typically utilized. Our history books tell how developing left handed children had their hands tied behind their backs to prevent writing with the “devils hand”. It is amazing that in 21st century we are still dealing with this gross discrimination. Desks are the first line of discrimination for young developing students who may think in order to fit in, they need to write with their right hand.
Student’s desks in college are noticeably different than those found in a typical high school and they are unabashedly biased towards the right handed population. There is most certainly a problem at the University where left handed desks are very few and far between. It is common place to walk into a classroom and not see one left-handed accessible desk. This particular problem causes major concern for a left-handers ability to concentrate and take accurate notes while fidgeting to find a comfortable position to write. Besides the quantity of desk available, those available in larger auditoriums are only positioned on the outside rows sometimes at the very edge of the class. Not one auditorium has a left-handed desk in the center of the class. Another problem is that hardly anyone notices there is a problem until it is pointed out. The issue sometimes brings surprise to the faces of right handed folks who have never noticed their favorability with the University’s purchasing department.
My proposed solution to this ever present –likely national- issue is to make the University update their registration questionnaire to include a column or check box to indicate ones hand preference. The update would be similar to indicating handicapped access and be simple enough for an IT technician to write in. The selection would be coupled with the particular class apportionment and indicate how many students need left handed accommodations.
I do not consider this solution too drastic unless it causes to the University to purchase a considerable number of left handed desks. In this case, if it be necessary to make a large purchase off the bottom line, it would be entirely necessary to avoid a potential discrimination lawsuit. Approximately 13% of the world’s population is left handed so not everyone at the University is affected. The lefties are most certainly underrepresented. In our constant ambition to maintain equality for all, it would stand to reason the half the desk at the University be made left hand accessible.

Causal 1st Page…in progress

jaycgrimes — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 20:37:23 +0000

An emboldened headline across the front pages of CNN.com reads “Britney Spears latest single is released.” Debuting at #1 on the billboard 100 charts, the song “3” is sweeping the clubs, gaining airtime on the radio, and becoming a smash hit for the pop star. “Three is a charm, Two is not the same, I don’t see the harm, So are you game?” Very provocative lyric made to convey a clear message that multiple sexual partners are harmless and acceptable common practice. This veers drastically from the traditional idea of one woman and one man relationships, much less marriage. And in this one instance, the digital media managed to advertise the song to millions of people across the world, the major radio stations are beginning to play the song, and within a matter of days there will be a music video released where sexual limits will be pushed and will be sure to cause a stir at the FCC. Is it possible that the media’s portrayal of relationships is leading to the ever-climbing divorce rate in young Americans? I believe this is truer today than has ever been in our history. With nearly every available media outlet directly or indirectly reinforcing this free loving, seemingly inconsequential behavior, it would be impossible to not assume a correlation between the two. With the constant bombardment from music, television and cinema, and digital/printed media there is almost no place for a married, faithful couple to turn for positive reinforcement regarding there commitment to marriage and faithfulness outside the Church.
The music available to on the airwaves is free to anyone with a FM tuner. About the only genres of music non-associated with promiscuity are gospel and classical. Up and coming alternative rock band Hinder wrote and performed a song entitled “Lips of an Angel”. This intoxicating rock ballad is set to the story of an intimate conversation held between a man and his ex-girlfriend, while his current girlfriend is sleeping in the other room. The deceitful boyfriend is doting on his ex-lover and expresses his desire to be with her again, effectively setting up his adulterous encounter. With adultery being the #1 cause for divorce in America, one can sometimes wonder how the idea or notion gets brought up within a marriage. The album has sold [??] million copies, which means at least [??] million people (not counting free radio play) have been immediately exposed to this glorified and arbitrary infidelity.

Casual Paper Proposal Assignment

jaycgrimes — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 23:50:22 +0000

I’m interested in writing a causal paper that deals with the rising health care cost and its association with the treatment of illegal immigrants. One of the largest contributing factors to the spiraling cost of healthcare in America is the mandatory treatment of anyone regardless of citizenship, legal status, or ability to pay. I believe one method of lowering the outrageous cost of health care would be to crack down on exactly who is getting treatment, specifically illegal immigrants.

One question I would pose for gaining researched insight into my topic is “Would ceasing free care to non-taxpaying illegal immigrants provide relief in health care cost?” Can a line be drawn to remove care for illegal immigrants? I am not 100% on my audience at this point, but my instincts have me gravitating toward the governing body of Harris County and its US representatives in congress. This is a group of elected officials that deal with cities income, expenditures, and well-being, all the while keeping their names and positions favorable for re-election.

I am personally interested in this case because I am one of the millions of legal, taxpaying citizens who see the rising cost of healthcare in my dwindling check stub. Knowing that my hard earned money and tax dollars are being spent to medically treat someone who is illegally in the country is like a slap in the face by someone I trust. It almost acts to degrade our citizenship by proving you don’t have to pay taxes to receive quality healthcare.

Some of the ideas I have for this paper are to integrate some anecdotal support with a recent example experienced in my family. For instance, my wife and I spent 8 hours in our local emergency room to deal with some leg cramps my wife had after a flight. A couple of blood pressure checks, a saline drip, and one leg ultrasound later, we are on the hook for $1500 dollars…after the insurance company has paid its part! I’d personally like to know how much of that bill goes to paying for the non-payers. If the hospital would itemize our bills to indicate how much of the cost is associated with treatment of non-taxpaying illegal immigrants, I believe there would be a vicious uprising. The number would actually be easy to come by for the resident hospital bean counters because every time they collect personal data and the social security number they are given comes up false, they’d know to categorize all the expenses associated with the treatment of that individual into the “everyone else pays” column.

Water Safety PSA

jaycgrimes — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:37:30 +0000

Water Safety Flyer

jaycgrimes — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:23:38 +0000

Water Safety Flyer

jaycgrimes — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 02:22:58 +0000

Water Safety Flyer

Glee – New Direction

jaycgrimes — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 02:05:19 +0000

Glee, the new Fox TV show, strides in a new direction and wins as it combines America’s love for comedy and drama with the rampant success of televised singing competition in the form of American Idol and America’s Got Talent. Taking on numerous contenders for the coveted 18-49 year old demographic, this is a show that is not afraid to reach beyond TV’s current landscape and try something new.

For its first show entitled “Pilot” it draws viewers in with the use of high definition camera, bright colors, and a fresh batch of new faces unseen in the current TV panorama. It must be noted that Glee is presented in stunning quality via 720P HD broadcast which is the latest lucrative push from corporate America. Those fortunate enough to own high definition televisions sets will be especially pleased with the clarity and sharpness, presented from start to finish, that only today’s high definition cameras could capture. Fox is putting a lot of effort into gaining a following and this is certainly a step in the right direction. The young technically savvy populace these days are hungry for programming that allows their TV’s (typically costing thousands of dollars just to get in the door) to prove their worth and give their eyes and ears a rewarding experience. Even with this technology readily available, many TV shows just do not start out with this high definition kick. Gossip Girls, 90210, Melrose Place are all shows aimed at the same demographic and will take a back seat to the financial backing of the Fox network, and this show soars from the opening scene to the closing credits. The rival school’s blue and black uniforms are richer, the lowly home teams red shirt and jeans pop on the screen, the gold star behind Rachael’s name, Ms. Pillsbury’s auburn locks, even the music is crisp and well recorded. It is certainly worth mentioning that all of cast, so far, are excellent vocalist.
Mentioning shows like 90210 or Melrose Place show just how uninspired some executive are, unashamedly using old shows with the exact same titles and premise all the while expecting viewer to believe it is all new because of some young actors with new clothes. Glee introduced a whole cast of new characters not typically associated with glamorous stick figure high-school Prima Donnas. In promising originality, the creators chose to introduce many hot-button current events in the form a child born and raised by homosexual parents, a son raised by his single mother who was made a widow from the Iraqi war, and the ill-advised and inappropriate teacher/student relationship plaguing today’s school. Introducing characters with more than superficial flaws portrays the shows diversity. Rather than being forced to watch ditzy promiscuous supermodel high-schoolers with limitless funds and unrealistic problems, we have real students and teachers with financial woes, a goth-rock Asian, a disabled guitar jazz expert, and a sassy black woman destined to be a star in her own right.
These examples prove the willingness of Fox and its producers, writers, and creators to branch out and tread on new ground all the while disproving the theory that you must use tried and true formulas and recognizable 20-year-old concepts to be relevant and gain an audience today. Expect Glee to have legs if it continues to utilize current popular music (slightly retooled for an ensemble cast) to make striking hits that are downloadable on iTunes. Even the older generation will get into it because who doesn’t enjoy a solid take on Journey?