My Narrative

Intro: Despite having a major academic interest in history, one of my passions I seldom have the opportunity to engage in is acting.
Body: Discuss several childhood anecdotes and stories about how I discovered this interest.
Discuss my 9th and 10th grade acting teacher Mr. Andreassi, and acting throughout high school

Conclusion: Discuss my future in this interest and my limitations.

Dieting: Huge Conspiracy?

I found this essay to be very interesting because the author dove right into a problem that is not very obvious, the relation between Nutrition and poor Health. Modern medicine and numerous dieting pills and supplements have successfully masked the real problem of our diets – the “super” nutritious foods that we eat daily. The author makes a strong argument because he established the history of the nutrition movement. At first I thought I was reading his argument wrong when he claimed that isolated nutrients were the root of the problem. We’re so used to going to the supermarket and buying cereals that boldly claim 50% MORE CALCIUM, or orange juice brands laced with vitamin C without actually considering the implications of these nutrients. Some of us may know exactly what these nutrients “theoretically” are supposed to do, but in reality, the majority of people focus on these items because they look healthy. Pollan addresses the issue of these isolated nutrients well, showing that the supposed benefits of these nutrients are not necessarily guaranteed, but they are just what the scientists expect to happen. Like Pollan said, science is sometimes based around the notion that once things are broken down they can be better understood. Unfortunately, like Pollan explained, the rules of understanding science are not compatible with diet. His theory of interconnectedness and the webbing structure of foods, digestion and genetics seems to be much more plausible than the current “isolated variable” theory of scientists.
Pollan ended his essay well, proposing several ways for you to gain control of your diet. The only idea I felt he could have expanded more upon was the idea of the nutrition system being beneficial to capitalism and vice versa. If everyone ate well, there would not be as many dieting pills and schemes in the market. Therefore these schemes and pills don’t attack the root of the problem; they skim the surface to enable more productivity.

Abortion: Who do you choose to kill?

Abortion has been a hotly debated topic ever since its legalization in Colorado and Colorado in 1967. It usually seems to be a fight between conservative Christians and liberals. I believe abortion is usually hotly contested because it is an argument based on ambiguous definitions. A person’s definition for human, life, soul and person significantly influences a person’s stance on abortion. There are no universal definitions that cross the lines of the argument. For this reason, finding middle ground in this debate would be virtually impossible. Theoretically, there is a scientific definition for human life, which conflicts with the pro-choice stance. According to science, human life is “any living cell or collection of living cells that contains DNA from the species homo sapiens”. So, according to the law, since murder is ending human life, many consider abortion to be murder. This is not the case. Though the embryo being aborted may be considered human life because it is a mass of cells, is it sentient? Does it have a soul? Is it a person? The answer is no. By this definition of human life, the skin scraped of your hand after a hard accident is human life. Even a strand of hair can be considered human life based on this definition. None of these things are sentient, so therefore, why do they deserve human life?
Some against abortion like to take middle ground and say that abortion should be legal in the case of rape or incest. I completely disagree. Laws in this case should be universal. What makes the resulting embryo from a rape victim of any less value than the embryo of a loving couple? The answer is that there is no difference. You can’t have it both ways. If you consider it murder to terminate an embryo, then if you terminate the embryo of a rape victim, what makes it justifiable? Based on your own pro-life rules, you have committed murder. So if abortion is legal, it should be legal in all cases, and if made illegal, the same law should stand based on moral responsibility.
Abortion would also be beneficial when it comes to saving the life of the pregnant woman. In some cases it comes to choosing between the woman and the unborn fetus inside of her. Because I do not believe abortion to be murder, I can go in and take the embryo out without any qualms. You, on the other hand, must choose between taking the life of the woman, and based on your moral code, the life of the embryo. Which one do you choose to kill?