Britta Peterson's Weblog

The movie Shattered Glass was pretty good and also dealt with the unethical issue of honesty. Stephen Glass, a reporter to The New Republic, wrote an article on hacking. I did not get to finish the movie but I assume he gets caught for not writing a truthful article. I the beginning of the film, I kind of liked Stephen Glass, even though he was kind of nerdy, he had a way to relate to people. His coworkers seemed to like him as well. When he was pitching his story about the hackers, he was really funny and everyone seemed to like his article. Towards the end he kind of his pitch, he sat back and tried to be modest. It’s not that good, I’m just going to toss it, he says. After he writes the article, another magazine gets a hold of it and questions the sources and if the story is even true. Stephen Glass makes up this huge lie and even resorts to making fake business cards and websites to make his story look legitimate. I do not think it would have been that bad is Stephen just admitted the story was false but it was unethical for him to create this big lie. His boss, Chuck also had to deal with the issue. Chuck was kind of in a weird position because his job is to back up his journalist, Stephen Glass, and make The New Republic look good, but then again he was also presented with the fact that Stephen make wrote a fictitious story and claimed it was true.

For project two I and going to research ethical issues in the film Crash. This film, which debuted in 2004, explored many ethical issues in today’s world. The ethical issue explored most in this file is racial discrimination. “Crash tells interlocking stories of whites, blacks, Latinos, Koreans, Iranians, cops and criminals, the rich and the poor, the powerful and powerless, all defined in one way or another by racism. All are victims of it, and all are guilty it. Sometimes, yes, they rise above it, although it is never that simple. Their negative impulses may be instinctive, their positive impulses may be dangerous, and who knows what the other person is thinking?” Racism, in today’s world, is considered a very unethical or not the right thing to do. This ethical issue is presented very well in this movie. Every character is a victim of racism and also guilty of racism towards others. What makes this a good movie is all of the little side stories going on. The way the movie goes you think that it is about individual situations but in the end each character is brought together by one crash and everyone is affected by it. One of my favorite quotes from the movie is “It’s the sense of touch. In any real city, you walk, you know? You brush past people, people bump into you. In L.A., nobody touches you. We’re always behind this metal and glass. I think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something.” I think this a very awesome quote from the movie. It kind of sums everything up. I took part of it to mean, from an ethical point of view, that even though everyone is so different, Black, White, Hispanic, we all are connected somehow, even if it takes a crash to figure that out.

Let me tell you about my Monday. I am never excited about Mondays. Mainly because it is the start of the week and I know I have fore more days ahead of me. This particular Monday was one of my worst. It actually started out kind of normal. My alarm went off at 10:00am. I turned on Martha. I do not know why I watch her show but I do. I got in the shower, had some breakfast, or what I call breakfast anyways, brushed my teeth and headed for my bike. Generally, I enjoy biking to class, but on this particular day it was kind of overcast so I wasn’t too hopeful that I would make it to class dry. I got to class with few sprinkles on my shirt, but dreaded what was to come. Another boring lecture in a class that is not interesting to me at all. After making it through the class without drooling, I headed back to my apartment. The one thing that I looked forward to on Mondays was next. B-I-N-G-O! I got into my car and drove south about an hour to my grandma’s trailer park. Every Monday is Bingo night and my grandma usually gives me the winnings so YAY for Bingo. Well, surprisingly, neither my grandma nor I won. For the first time I left her house with no money, but I did get to spend some time with her. Then, I got in my car and headed back to Temple Terrace. I thought I was doing fine until I notice a car riding my tail on I75. I was really nervous because every time I switched lanes to let the car go by, it just followed me into that lane. Finally, the car turned on red and blue flashing lights and I was like “Man, what did I do now?” Come to find out I was speeding on the on-ramp to I75. Who knew there was a speed limit on an on-ramp? Well, a $150 ticket was the perfect conclusion to just another manic Monday.

Just like any other college student, I have an after school job. It’s is unlike most part time jobs. Let me list the things I do and maybe you can guess.
When I first get to work, I sit around waiting for someone to approach my cart. If I am lucky I will get a customer. I will most likely have to come up with a brilliant design for this customer and then engrave in onto a plate for them. Then, the customer and I will debate about the price and we’ll end up at the price we started with, because I’m good like that. The customer will leave and I’ll go back to waiting for something to happen. My friend Shawn, at Vonage, might see me bored out of my mind and come to rescue me from boredom.
If I have not laid it out plain enough, I sell license plates. No, I am not a prisoner, they stamp the back plates. I sell, or try to anyway, decorative front plates. I sit at a kiosk in the mall for hours, next to the obnoxious carousel. I have worked here for nearly six months. After sitting and people watching for five to six hours a shift, I have become rather good with reading people. I have gotten to the point where I can tell if the customer is actually going to buy something or not. I have also met some pretty interesting people. There is the Vonage guys that keep my occupied all night, Aleshia that works the carousel and plays Kid Bop as loud as possible, and the security guards who act like FBI agents but do not even carry night sticks.
Overall, it is a pretty nice job. I people watch the whole night in the air conditioning and maybe, every once in a while sell something.

When I first heard about actor Heath Ledger dying I was really shocked. He never came off as the kind of guy that would over dose on pills. When I found this article on accidental deaths I was relieve to find out Heath Ledger was not really an abuser. Accidental deaths are common among wounded and recovering soldiers and the number of these deaths has risen more than 68 percent between 1999 and 2004.
Dr. Edward V. Craig, an attending surgeon at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York said that “Many patients, particularly older people suffering from multiple health problems, may take six or seven medications to combat their symptoms. Even young people may accumulate a considerable pharmacopoeia.” Craig even mentions cases where patients are consuming ten to twelve different medications at once.
The reason many of these patients are dying is because doctors are not paying enough attention to what they are prescribing and completely ignoring any other medications that patient is already on. The legal prescription oxycodone is one of the leading drugs to these accidental overdoses.
Someone taking prescriptions and additionally taking over the counter medication for a cold or even drinking a glass of wine can be lethal to someone. This combination of drugs leads to depressing respiration which, in other terms, that person falls asleep, stops breathing, and never wakes up. This is what occurred in Heath Ledger’s case.
“Better oversight by doctors and the development of portable electronic medical records that don’t rely on patients for accuracy are solutions to the growing problem,” Craig said. Patients also need to be informed of the effects of any drugs they are taking.

Aleccia, Jonel. “Ignorance Blamed for Prescription Drug Deaths.” MSNBC (2008). 8 Feb. 2008 .

One of the best shows on television, Lost is full adventure and suspense. With season four just taking off, it is not too late to join in on the Lost bandwagon. If you have not been tuning in for the past three seasons, I will be happy to sum them up for you.
Season one starts when a commercial airplane crashes on an uncharted island. The survivors from the crash scope out the island and start to find out who the fellow passengers really are. Of the most interesting, a convict, a doctor, a Middle Eastern interrogator, and a drug addict. The flight manifest was discovered and it was found out that one of the acclaimed survivors was not on the plane. A hidden hatch is also found with another non survivor living there.
In season two the secrets of the hatch are revealed and more survivors from the original plane crash are discovered and make their way to meet with the other survivors. One of the survivor’s son is kidnapped, but by who? A mysterious skydiver if found by the survivors and is then interrogated. We find out that he is not a skydiver, but one of “The Others” and in fact kidnapped the son of a survivor.
In season three a few of the survivors become prisoners of “The Others”. Jack, the doctor, is given an ultimatum to perform surgery of The Others leader. Jack finds out the real reason “The Others” are there. The survivors find a way to get rescued but there is something jamming the signal. A survivor unblocks the signal allowing the survivors to make contact with rescuers but dies in the attempt.
Now we are up to season four are you are all caught up. Over the past couple seasons Lost has become one of my favorite shows. If you are looking to get involved in the action just tune in on Thursday nights at 9:00pm.

I think everyone has been in the position of getting a new cell phone. I never imagined that picking out a new cell phone could be so difficult. Let me break it down for you. My family and I have had AT&T for two years and of course it came with the Motorola Razr. But, if you are like me, you drop the phone one million and one times, the screen breaks, and you get no service. You want a new phone but you have to upgrade the service to get free ones otherwise they are three hundred dollars. Well, that’s where having an AT&T guy as a friend comes in handy. His offer, any phone we want for free with a two year extended service. Oh the different phones that are available. You would think that a choice of any phone available would be easy, but it is not that simple. My first choices were of the smart phone family. There is the Blackberry Curve, the Motorola Q, and the Samsung Blackjack. Outside the smart phone family there is the Sony Ericcson. Now, these are all awesome phones so, it comes down to what they can do. What was so attractive about the smart phones was the internet capability. I am not a big fan of Motorolas because I have not had good experience with them and the and with the blackberry you must purchase a specific data plan. Therefore my decision is between the Samsung Blackjack and the Sony Ericcson. Which one will I end up getting? We will see.

During our class discussion the other day the subject of giving a dollar to a homeless person was presented. Would I give a homeless person a dollar if they asked? Up until this point I probably would have just ignored the request and kept on my way, but after hearing some others point of view, I’ll reconsider. I was in the “Not usually, but” group and I think I my beliefs fit in best there. I would not usually give a homeless person a dollar because they might be buying alcohol, not actually be homeless, mug you, have a disease and cough it on you, or just keep asking for more, but it could be the holidays, cold outside, they could be feeding a family, be a war veteran, hungry, just trying to get a bus, or disabled. Besides, it’s just a dollar and you are trying to be a good person. When I look back at that list I notice that there are more “but’s” than “not usually’s”. I understand that some of these homeless people have problems. There are shelters for the homeless and for veterans to go to. And some of them are just faking it, which I never thought possible until Danielle mentioned the story about the homeless woman that drove a Mercedes Benz. I guess people can really make a chunk of change just by standing on the side of a road. But, back to the point, everyone could use a little help now and then. I know if I were in a stitch and needed a dollar to make a call or get a bus, I would hope someone would be kind enough to help me out.

Well, Gasparilla is this weekend and I do not know about most of you but I am super excited. Over the past years the tradition of Gasparilla has pretty much become an excuse for old people to get drunk, dress up like pirates, and throw beads. But who would have thought there was more behind it? For the few of you who do not know where the Gasparilla tradition started, I will give you a brief history.
It all started when Jose Gaspar, a lieutenant in the Royal Spanish Navy, decided he needed to be more adventurous and became a pirate assuming the name of Gasparilla. In 1783, he got a crew together started capturing ships off the coast of Florida, 36 ships during his first 12 years as a pirate. In 1812, Gasparilla and his Buccaneers had decided to retire from piracy, divide their fortunes up, and disband elsewhere to live their lives in fortune. But soon after a ship appeared, The U.S.S. Enterprise. The Buccaneers could not resist this last chance to be adventurous so the tried to seize this ship but lost. As a final gesture of defiance, Gasparilla tied his feet with chain and jumped from his burning ship, his sword plunging into the water below.
Supposedly, when Jose Gaspar died, he left behind treasure buried along the coast of Florida. No one has found it to this day. As a Tribute to Gasparilla, the city of Tampa assumed the pirate as their mascot. In 1904, the “Ye Mystic Krewe of Gasparilla” put together a surprise mock pirate attack on Tampa in the spirit of Jose Gaspar and his Buccaneers. This attack of pirates still occurs to this day on the last Saturday in January.

HISTORY OF GASPARILLA– The Legend

http://gasparillapiratefest.com/history.shtml

I analyzed Mike Huckabee’s campaign commercial. With my political preference aside, I actually think his commercial is very effective. The ad opens up with Mike Huckabee claiming that his solution to boarder control is simply Chuck Norris. Then the camera pans in on Mr. Norris giving him a chance to compliment Huckabee. From then on it is just the two of them praising one another.

Norris: “Mike Huckabee is a life long hunter who will protect our 2nd Amendment right.”
Huckabee: “There is no chin under Chuck Norris’ beard…… just another fist!”
Norris: “Mike Huckabee wants to put the IRS out of business.”
Huckabee: “When Chuck Norris does a push up. He isn’t lifting himself up. He’s pushing the earth down!”
Norris: “Mikes a principled, authentic, conservative.”
Huckabee: “Chuck Norris doesn’t endorse…. He tells America how it’s gonna be!”

I think this message is effective because of its use of pathos. As opposed to other campaign commercials this one has comic relief. After watching so many of these boring political ads, comedy really stands out. People relate more to comedy and especially relate to Chuck Norris. Ethos is also used in this message. Huckabee states, “My plan to secure the boarder…. Two words, Chuck! Norris!” Although you might question his statement, it does give reasoning to vote for Huckabee. If Chuck Norris were to guard the U.S. Mexican boarder I would feel so much safer and would make me that much more supportive of Mike Huckabee. The use of ethos and pathos shows authority and gives Huckabee credibility. At the end of the commercial, Norris gives his stamp of approval. “I’m Chuck Norris and I approve this message!” This also shows authority. If Chuck Norris approves Mike Huckabee you know the people will approve.

YouTube – Mike Huckabee Ad: “Chuck Norris Approved”