Breakthrough Writer

1A Lesson Plan for “Mate de Coca: Never Say No” by Taras Grescoe (235)

 

Part One. Lexicon

1. cultural hubris: imposing rules and regulations when you’re ignorant of other cultures
2. soroche, mountain sickness, which is best assuaged through coca.
3. The economy of Bolivia is built on Mate de coca and it is given to dignitaries, including the Pope. For the US government to be ignorant of this fact is cultural hubris.
4. Mallku, sacred community service of married couples which involves carrying coca with them at all times and administering comfort to ailing people. Ignorant of this practice, the US government wars against coca. This is an example of cultural hubris. See page 237, bottom.
5. arbitrary drug policy: We say no to this and that drug, but yes to many others with no logic behind what’s legal or illegal. The matter is arbitrary or worse determined by money and profit.
6. Mate de coca, sometimes ingested in tea form. See page 236.
7. Media can stigmatize Mate de coca but celebrate coffee. Both have similar effects on nervous systems. See page 236.
8. The US attempt to rid coca from Latin America is like an invading country trying to wipe out all of America’s coffee, tobacco, and Communion wafers. See page 237, top.
9. What is your definition of insanity? Please see page 237, top. This is not only insane; it’s a waste of US tax money.
10. Two espressos are more potent than one serving of mate de coca. See page 238. This underscores how arbitrary the “war on drugs” is.
11. Salubrious herbs and organic foods in the market place described on pages 239 and 240 are a healthy part of life in Bolivia but in the US government these items are called “drugs.” Absurd. In fact, a common saying in La Paz: “La hoja de coca no es droga”—the coco leaf is not a drug.
12. The War on Drugs is in reality The War on Plants (good essay title)
13. The Rush Limbaugh drug comes from poppies. See page 241.
14. Why are plants so powerful? They cannot move so they must survive by altering chemicals inside themselves. They’re stationary chemistry labs. See page 241.
15. A critical thinker knows that the word “drug” does not pertain to substance but quantity or dosage. In unhealthy dosages, they’re even poisons. In smaller dosages they’re medicines. See page 242 top.
16. Sugar in small quantities boosts energy and is a food. In large quantities in can cause your pancreas to shut down and becomes a poison.
17. Plants were once the domain of pagans and priests. Now they’re the domain of pharmacists, chemists, and medical researchers. See page 244.
18. Plants can be addictive. People who quit drinking coffee or even Diet Coke suffer withdrawals, including irritability, lethargy, fatigue, inability to focus or concentrate, and severe headaches.
19. We often have stereotypes of plant use. For example, we have a stereotype of the marijuana user, as a lazy hippy but that’s a narrow perception.
20. The War on Drugs is doomed to futility because it’s really the War on Plants and how sane is it to attempt to eradicate the world’s harvests?

 

Part Two. Writing assignment, in the way of a sample thesis, based on today’s reading:

 

 

Thesis (mapping statements provided):

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is doomed to futility because _____________________________, _____________________________, _________________________________, ________________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

McMahon’s Thesis:

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is an absurdity wrought with contradictions, hypocrisy, cultural insensitivity, scientific humbug, and arbitrary notions of what constitutes health and pestilence to society.

 

The mapping components would pertain to “contradictions,” “hypocrisy,” “cultural insensitivity,” scientific humbug,” and “arbitrary notions of what constitutes good health to society” on one hand and “pestilence to society” on the other.

 

Part One. Lexicon

1. cultural hubris: imposing rules and regulations when you’re ignorant of other cultures
2. soroche, mountain sickness, which is best assuaged through coca.
3. The economy of Bolivia is built on Mate de coca and it is given to dignitaries, including the Pope. For the US government to be ignorant of this fact is cultural hubris.
4. Mallku, sacred community service of married couples which involves carrying coca with them at all times and administering comfort to ailing people. Ignorant of this practice, the US government wars against coca. This is an example of cultural hubris. See page 237, bottom.
5. arbitrary drug policy: We say no to this and that drug, but yes to many others with no logic behind what’s legal or illegal. The matter is arbitrary or worse determined by money and profit.
6. Mate de coca, sometimes ingested in tea form. See page 236.
7. Media can stigmatize Mate de coca but celebrate coffee. Both have similar effects on nervous systems. See page 236.
8. The US attempt to rid coca from Latin America is like an invading country trying to wipe out all of America’s coffee, tobacco, and Communion wafers. See page 237, top.
9. What is your definition of insanity? Please see page 237, top. This is not only insane; it’s a waste of US tax money.
10. Two espressos are more potent than one serving of mate de coca. See page 238. This underscores how arbitrary the “war on drugs” is.
11. Salubrious herbs and organic foods in the market place described on pages 239 and 240 are a healthy part of life in Bolivia but in the US government these items are called “drugs.” Absurd. In fact, a common saying in La Paz: “La hoja de coca no es droga”—the coco leaf is not a drug.
12. The War on Drugs is in reality The War on Plants (good essay title)
13. The Rush Limbaugh drug comes from poppies. See page 241.
14. Why are plants so powerful? They cannot move so they must survive by altering chemicals inside themselves. They’re stationary chemistry labs. See page 241.
15. A critical thinker knows that the word “drug” does not pertain to substance but quantity or dosage. In unhealthy dosages, they’re even poisons. In smaller dosages they’re medicines. See page 242 top.
16. Sugar in small quantities boosts energy and is a food. In large quantities in can cause your pancreas to shut down and becomes a poison.
17. Plants were once the domain of pagans and priests. Now they’re the domain of pharmacists, chemists, and medical researchers. See page 244.
18. Plants can be addictive. People who quit drinking coffee or even Diet Coke suffer withdrawals, including irritability, lethargy, fatigue, inability to focus or concentrate, and severe headaches.
19. We often have stereotypes of plant use. For example, we have a stereotype of the marijuana user, as a lazy hippy but that’s a narrow perception.
20. The War on Drugs is doomed to futility because it’s really the War on Plants and how sane is it to attempt to eradicate the world’s harvests?

 

Part Two. Writing assignment, in the way of a sample thesis, based on today’s reading:

 

 

Thesis (mapping statements provided):

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is doomed to futility because _____________________________, _____________________________, _________________________________, ________________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

McMahon’s Thesis:

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is an absurdity wrought with contradictions, hypocrisy, cultural insensitivity, scientific humbug, and arbitrary notions of what constitutes health and pestilence to society.

 

The mapping components would pertain to “contradictions,” “hypocrisy,” “cultural insensitivity,” scientific humbug,” and “arbitrary notions of what constitutes good health to society” on one hand and “pestilence to society” on the other.

 

Part One. Lexicon

1. cultural hubris: imposing rules and regulations when you’re ignorant of other cultures
2. soroche, mountain sickness, which is best assuaged through coca.
3. The economy of Bolivia is built on Mate de coca and it is given to dignitaries, including the Pope. For the US government to be ignorant of this fact is cultural hubris.
4. Mallku, sacred community service of married couples which involves carrying coca with them at all times and administering comfort to ailing people. Ignorant of this practice, the US government wars against coca. This is an example of cultural hubris. See page 237, bottom.
5. arbitrary drug policy: We say no to this and that drug, but yes to many others with no logic behind what’s legal or illegal. The matter is arbitrary or worse determined by money and profit.
6. Mate de coca, sometimes ingested in tea form. See page 236.
7. Media can stigmatize Mate de coca but celebrate coffee. Both have similar effects on nervous systems. See page 236.
8. The US attempt to rid coca from Latin America is like an invading country trying to wipe out all of America’s coffee, tobacco, and Communion wafers. See page 237, top.
9. What is your definition of insanity? Please see page 237, top. This is not only insane; it’s a waste of US tax money.
10. Two espressos are more potent than one serving of mate de coca. See page 238. This underscores how arbitrary the “war on drugs” is.
11. Salubrious herbs and organic foods in the market place described on pages 239 and 240 are a healthy part of life in Bolivia but in the US government these items are called “drugs.” Absurd. In fact, a common saying in La Paz: “La hoja de coca no es droga”—the coco leaf is not a drug.
12. The War on Drugs is in reality The War on Plants (good essay title)
13. The Rush Limbaugh drug comes from poppies. See page 241.
14. Why are plants so powerful? They cannot move so they must survive by altering chemicals inside themselves. They’re stationary chemistry labs. See page 241.
15. A critical thinker knows that the word “drug” does not pertain to substance but quantity or dosage. In unhealthy dosages, they’re even poisons. In smaller dosages they’re medicines. See page 242 top.
16. Sugar in small quantities boosts energy and is a food. In large quantities in can cause your pancreas to shut down and becomes a poison.
17. Plants were once the domain of pagans and priests. Now they’re the domain of pharmacists, chemists, and medical researchers. See page 244.
18. Plants can be addictive. People who quit drinking coffee or even Diet Coke suffer withdrawals, including irritability, lethargy, fatigue, inability to focus or concentrate, and severe headaches.
19. We often have stereotypes of plant use. For example, we have a stereotype of the marijuana user, as a lazy hippy but that’s a narrow perception.
20. The War on Drugs is doomed to futility because it’s really the War on Plants and how sane is it to attempt to eradicate the world’s harvests?

 

Part Two. Writing assignment, in the way of a sample thesis, based on today’s reading:

 

 

Thesis (mapping statements provided):

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is doomed to futility because _____________________________, _____________________________, _________________________________, ________________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

McMahon’s Thesis:

 

Taras Grescoe’s essay convincingly shows that the “War on Drugs” is an absurdity wrought with contradictions, hypocrisy, cultural insensitivity, scientific humbug, and arbitrary notions of what constitutes health and pestilence to society.

 

The mapping components would pertain to “contradictions,” “hypocrisy,” “cultural insensitivity,” scientific humbug,” and “arbitrary notions of what constitutes good health to society” on one hand and “pestilence to society” on the other.

1A Quiz Question for Summer 2009

Referring to "Love and War in Cyberspace," explain in a 150-word paragraph the following sentence: The quest for community at Walden was a failed quest that resulted in not only a failed paradise, but a hell rich in self-destructive behavior."

1A Study Guide for “The Baby Genius Edutainment Complex” by Alissa Quart 450

 

 

Question One: How does the author define the term “complex”?

 

It has two meanings. First, it is the intricate network of entrepreneurial innovations designed to bilk as much money as possible from well-intentioned albeit grossly insecure parents.

 

Therefore a complex, the first definition we face, is an overproduced industry designed to aggressively market a product often resulting in a gross exaggeration of the product’s “need” for the consumer.

 

The second meaning refers to the psychological condition known as a “complex” in which one has an exaggerated notion of one’s perceived strengths and/or weaknesses. Parents are fearful that their children will be left behind so they over-compensate with extreme, obsessive, and neurotic behavior.

 

This second definition of “complex,” then refers to the ongoing sense of inferiority and inadequacy that compels people to compensate for their perceived shortcomings by behaving in irrational, self-destructive ways.

 

 

Question Two: What forces make the Baby Genius Edutainment Complex so profitable?

 

One. The first factor: narcissism, a form of vanity and self-centeredness so severe that the narcissist only acts in self-interest so that all other human beings, including the narcissist’s children, are pawns whose sole purpose is to feed the narcissist’s ego.

 

Pertaining to the BGE, narcissistic parents want their children to “succeed” in order that their children bring them glory and in effect make the children extensions of themselves and their own egos.

 

Narcissists are never happy because their egos can never be sated (satisfied). This insatiable ego results in a futile quest to feel “big enough” or “great enough” so that no amount of monetary success or social status can feed the beastly ego sufficiently. As a result, narcissists are bitter, competitive. They tend to see all other people as “opponents” in their ego quest. As a result, narcissists derive great glee from the failures and misfortunes of others.

 

Two. The second factor is social Darwinism, the condition in which the strong get stronger and the weak fall behind and eventually die off. Our instincts know this to be true so that we are possessed by a fierce competitive streak that, if left unchecked, can actually destroy us. We must find the golden mean between competitiveness and altruism (compassion for others). If we error too much in one extreme, we will pay a heavy price.

 

In the context of the BEC, parents fear their children will be left behind.

 

Three. A perverted sense of love. We don’t feel “loved” unless we perform in a certain way, unless we have the Wow Factor. This fear of not being loved compels us to embrace programs that promise to make us spectacular or “geniuses.”

 

Four. Many of us have, knowingly or not, embraced the idea of “giftedness” as described on page 455. “Giftedness” is the idea that hard work and ingenuity can awaken the dormant genius that is within every child. “Giftedness” is compatible with the very American idea that we are not stuck in life but have the freedom or free will to be master’s of our own destiny. Other cultures, in contrast, embrace fate, the idea that we cannot change our life course.

 

Five. The clever marketing of the Mozart Effect, the belief that we can stimulate brain growth by playing music in the womb and in early infancy. This belief has reached religious proportions.

 

Six. Fear makes parents controlling and not surprisingly this need for control has made parents embrace controlled play over free play. See page 459. Of course, controlled play costs money and there is an industry to meet this need.

 

 

Writing a Thesis for Today’s Topic

 

 

 

 

Weak Thesis:

 

Alissa Quart’s essay is about parents who suffocate their children with “genius products.”

 

True, but too obvious and too broad. And not really a thesis at all but a fact.

 

Better:

 

It’s clear that Quart’s thesis has hit a nerve because it’s all too true that parents hell-bent on making their children into “geniuses” are behaving in a morally bankrupt way. This egregious moral bankruptcy is evidenced by __________________, ____________________, ____________________, and ______________________.

 

Here’s another thesis:

 

Who’s McMahon to knock the fact that parents want the best for their children. I think raising a genius is a good thing.

 

Better:

 

In his haste to jump on the Alissa Quart bandwagon, McMahon fails to sympathize with well-intentioned parents who are using these so-called baby genius products, understandably, because they want to __________________, ________________________, ___________________, and ___________________.

 

 

 

Another thesis:

 

I’m tired of McMahon being a parent hater. If parents want to immerse their children in baby genius products, more power to them. Hey, man, it beats making them dumb. Right?

 

 

Here’s another thesis.

 

It’s all a matter of avoiding extremes. I’m sure if parents want to use some of these so-called baby genius products, it will do their children some good. Let’s not throw away the baby with the bath water.

 

Rebuttal to the above thesis:

 

The writer’s point, that baby genius products, can be beneficial, is an obfuscation of the real issue, namely, that the majority of parents using these products are doing so in a misguided way evidenced by ___________________, _____________________, ___________________, and _______________________.

 

 

 

Another Good Thesis:

 

While certainly Quart identifies extreme and neurotic behavior, her alarmist essay fails to see that the baby genius complex can be a healthy alternative to the infantile, dumbed-down entertainments that too many American children embrace. Contrary to the portrayal of the “complex” that Quart so robustly demonizes, the genius industry is beneficial to children evidenced by ____________________, ______________________, ____________________, and _________________________.

 

Another Effective Thesis:

 

Poor McMahon is a misguided soul whose rigorous defense of the baby genius industry evidences his blind eye to ______________________, ________________________, __________________________, and _______________________________.

 

1A Study Guide for “Love and War in Cyberspace” by Katy Vine 380

 

Part One. Lexicon.

 

1. savvy, the ability to navigate in social circles with poise, confidence, and tact; you have social awareness so that you know you have a pasta noodle dangling from your oily chin in a restaurant. 
2. socially inept, the opposite of savvy (see paragraph 1); see 383, bottom paragraph
3. promise of modernity, see paragraph 3: Technology will fulfill all your emotional and materialistic needs, yet it’s a lie: you’re bored, your life is in a vacuum and you seek even greater technology to quiet your restless soul.
4. Slippery slope: one misguided step towards happiness leads to several misguided steps until one descends into madness: this is the essay in a nutshell.
5. T-3 Pipe: fiber-optic data line that can handle the telecommunication needs of a small country. “Come for the bandwidth, Stay for the Community” 381 bottom
6. Monolithic group: 383, second to last paragraph and 386 bottom and 387 top
7. Four Basic emotional needs: sense of belonging, sense of personal distinction and identity, a job that interest you and utilizes your deepest talents, to love and to be loved; see page 383 top: Walden promises a sense of belonging and identity and even love and many people work in the computer industry so that Walden is everything to them. See bottom of 390 in which Bosch buys a house, but moves back to Walden; see how close-knit the group is on page 391, tackling burglars, for example.
8. Protocols; rules needed for social interaction to preserve respect and order. Without protocols there is chaos and disrespect. These adult children have no social etiquette, see page 385 and 386, the violent language.
9. Anomie; breakdown of social norms and values resulting in chaos; see 392-394; it becomes necessary for property owner Birney to issue new rules at bottom of 394.
10. Hedonism; the desperate attempt to overcome one’s sense of loneliness and emptiness through pleasure-seeking; it always results in an emotional hangover and a feeling of emptiness that’s greater than before.
11. Virtual World (from Wikipedia): A Virtual World is a computer-based simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. These avatars are usually depicted as textual, two-dimensional, or three-dimensional graphical representations, although other forms are possible[1] (auditory[2] and touch sensations for example). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users. 

 

 

Part Two. A Failed Experiment in Unlimited Freedom. We learn that real freedom requires conditions. Therefore unlimited freedom, the kind we see at Walden, is a false freedom.

 

 

Unlimited Freedom at Walden Is a False Freedom

 

1. E-mail communication is not free. There must be face-to-face accountability; if you can’t say what you have to say to another human’s face, you are a coward and a fraud. Too many people hiding behind their computers speaking reckless thoughts from their mind.
2. E-mail communication is dangerous because you’re hiding under the delusional safety of your computer. In fact, your raw unedited thoughts are dangerous and inappropriate. Your thoughts should be measured, contemplated, and edited. That’s what makes you a mature, thinking person. The stream of consciousness that spews forth in an e-mail is the rant and tantrum of a spoiled child.

 

3. Squandering all your free time on an addiction is not freedom; it’s enslavement and the Multi-User Dungeon gamers are slaves to their addiction. See 380
4. Technology without wisdom will kill you. These renters have the broadest band-width in the world, but they can’t handle it. The computer modem attaches to their brain and their minds become warped; they go insane. See page 383
5. Walden gives the loners and computer geeks a sense of belonging, which you need to be free, but this is false belonging. This is symbiosis; an unhealthy mutual dependence that results in retarding your emotional growth. See 381
6. A cohesive healthy community must have protocols of etiquette to create a sense of safety, respect, and dignity. But there are no boundaries at Walden. See the “bombastic” and violent language on page 386.
7. A healthy community has diversity of people with diversity of ideas to challenge one’s way of seeing the world. But the people at Walden are a monolithic tribe. They’re all the same and as a result they’re maladapted to the real world, which is diverse. The world isn’t a bunch of computer geeks and hiding in a cell with other computer geeks isn’t the answer. See page 383
8. See page 390 in which we learn that hedonism leads to despair. That kind of extreme behavior is always followed by a crash. Your whole life can’t be a party. You’ll burn-out. You’ll find yourself lost. People who party all the time age faster than the rest of us. They look old. Hedonism wears you out. It’s not freedom. It’s a desperate attempt to escape your sense of loneliness and isolation and it never works. Read Erich Fromm’s The Art of Loving.
9. There are no moral absolutes and no sense that this is right and this is wrong; as a result, Walden is a place of chaos and confusion.
10. A Virtual World is a place where you don’t find freedom. You lose yourself to insanity. 

 

Part Three. The 8 Characteristics of Virtual World

 

1. The VW allows you to escape your daily frustrations.
2. The VW allows you to escape from the intense pain of having no intimacy in your life, both romantic and social.
3. The VW becomes a way of procrastinating your responsibilities.
4. The VW can incite chemical reactions in your brain that become addictive.
5. The VW presents you with manageable challenges, giving you a sense of control and achievement when you would otherwise feel overwhelmed by a lack of control and a sense of personal failure.
6. It’s easier to go back and delete your mistakes in a VW and star all over again than it is in real life.
7. The VW allows you to erase or hide your real self, the one you either despise or feel is inadequate or both, and it allows you to recreate yourself with bells and whistles so that you have more confidence.
8. The VW provides you with a sense of belonging in the “online community” when in the real world you’re overcome by a sense of constant loneliness and isolation. 

 

Part Four Defining the foundation of your essay—your thesis

 

1.  One sentence that declares or asserts a position that can be demonstrated with examples.

2.    The examples can be expressed in mapping statements or mapping components.

3.    Avoids being self-evident or obvious but creates new insights.

4.    A good thesis is visceral, from the gut, meaning you have an immediate emotional connection to it. The intellect comes later.

 

Examples:

 

Not a thesis, a fact:

During the final years of the Bush Administration, 80 % of Americans polled believe that America is on the “wrong track.”

 

Americans’ pessimistic attitude regarding the direction of our country can be attributed to _________________, _____________________, _____________________, and _________________________.

 

The cost of the war in Iraq in both blood and treasure.

The national debt.

Increased gas costs and price of crude oil.

Biggest jobless rate jump in month in 20 years. (5 to 5.5 %)

 

 

McMahon’s thesis for “Love and War in Cyberspace”

 

Cause and Effect Thesis Uses "can be attributed to" and "and results in"

Example:

The swine flu hysteria can be attributed to its unpredictable mutability, disproportionate coverage of a few deaths (far less than the common flu), the stigma of an animal-to-human contagion and this hysteria will result in wild rumors inflaming public anxiety, overreactions (canceled cruises, abstaining from pork, etc.) and hypochondria (people misinterpreting every sniffle or cough as a sign of "sure death").

The organic food movement, as chronicled in Michael Pollan's masterful essay, can be attributed to ___________________, ________________, ________________, and results in ___________________, __________________, and ____________________. 

The intoxicating, addictive nature of war, Hedges argues, can be attributed to ________________, _________________, and ___________________, and results in ______________________, ___________________, and _________________________.

Walden is a failed experiment in the promise of unlimited freedom through technology. This woeful failure can be attributed to ________________, ___________________, and ____________________, and results in ___________________, ___________________, and __________________________________.

 

Katy Vine’s essay shows us the dangers of living in a Virtual World, which include __________________, ___________________, _________________, and _________________________.

 

“Love and War in Cyberspace” 380. 5-page outline: In the first 2 pages, analyze the causes of social dysfunction described in the essay. Then in about 3 pages, use research to show how the apartment complex is a microcosm for an emerging social dysfunction in our Age of Information. As such the thesis would like this: The apartment complex is a microcosm for an emerging social dysfunction emerging in our Information Age, which consists of __________________, ___________________, ___________________, and _______________________. You would flesh out the mapping components for the essay's last 3 pages.

 

 

More Stylized Thesis with a More Distinct Writing Voice:

Take a bunch of socially dysfunctional computer nerds in desperate search of belonging, stick them in a yuppie techno-apartment flexing its steroidal broadband muscles and you’ve got Walden, a microcosm of the types of addictions Americans will face in the near future. These addictions will include a sick attachment to trumped-up, often noxious alter egos, the need to vent without boundaries, the preference of virtual worlds to the real world and all the chemicals the body requires to stay up in a ghoul-like existence where sleep is little more than an afterthought.

Research Links:

Virtual Reality: Danger Ahead

Real Hope in a Virtual World (unrealistic expectations)

Geeking Out (addiction)

Second Skin Documentary

CNN (addiction)

 

 

1A Students Who Write About Obesity Causes Should Avoid the Obvious

If you're writing about the causes of obesity, you should avoid obvious, general analysis that a fourth grader could perform.

Some good obesity causes worthy of research for your paper include the connection between obesity and the following:

1. sleep deprivation
2. low self-esteem as a vicious cycle
3. ethnicity (some ethnic groups tend to be more obese than others)
4. economic class (rich people tend to be skinny; poor people tend to be more fat)
5. prescription drugs, many of which result in weight gain.

Here's a link for students who are writing that obesity is immoral. The link is titled Narcisissism Epidemic.

1A Lesson Plan for Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem 217

One. Principle of the Successful Thesis: A strong thesis is the answer to a compelling question.

 

Two. Why is starvation an addiction for Caroline Knapp and perhaps for others?

 

One. She retreats from life and withdraws into a sense of calm. She feels safe, but she is not living. When we retreat from life to defend our self, we choose death over life. I’m thinking of the woman whose husband left her and she became bitter and “undateable.” See page 217.

 

Two. Rigid routine makes her feel safe from wanton, self-destructive behavior. Of course, she’s blind from the fact that the rigid routine is a form of self-destruction.

 

Three. Starvation becomes a “silent protest” against ridiculous feminine ideals that are forced upon women. Starving both aspired to the ideal and “mocks” it. See page 218. Also see page 223 in which the Kate Moss look replaces the Marilyn Monroe look.

 

Four. Starvation alleviates the discomfort of “inhabiting the female body.”

 

Five. Starvation is an attempt to invert the food obsession as a positive symbol of nurturing and care-taking; in its place, starvation is about self-rejection and “self-inflicted cruelty.” See page 218.

 

Six. Starvation becomes a way of avoiding self-recriminations: “I’m such a hog” for having eaten that chocolate cake. See page 219.

 

Seven. Starvation has become a Faustian Bargain, a deal with the Devil, in which women trade eating satisfaction so that they can enjoy self-esteem. See page 220.

Eight. Mastering and controlling one’s appetites becomes a way of feeling empowered. This empowerment becomes a form of compensation for feelings of loneliness, self-doubt, and consuming dread and desperation. See page 221 bottom.

 

Nine. Starvation becomes a way of surrendering to the “backlash” against the rise of feminine power. See 223 and 224.

Ten. Starvation is a reaction to an unnatural hatred of fat. See page 224 and 225.

 

Eleven. Starvation is an attempt to withdraw from the overwhelming choices that are part of a woman’s new freedom: See page 227.

Twelve. Starvation is a reaction to a woman’s new freedom on the one hand and her lack of political power on the other. See page 228.

Thirteen. Starvation is a reaction to a world that “mobilizes in the service of male appetite.” See page 228.

 

Three. Lexicon

1. Addiction to starvation 217 first paragraph

2. Obsessive compulsive rituals second paragraph

3. Anorexia 217 bottom and 218 top

4. Silent protest 218 top

5. Core cause of anorexia 218 middle and 221 second paragraph and 223 top paragraph and 225 middle paragraph

6. Internalized caveats and rules 218 and 219 top 2 paragraphs and 221 middle paragraph

7. Female math 220 top

8. Dangerous form of hunger 222 top

9. Cardinal violation of appetite 222 bottom

10. New female aesthetic 223 second and third paragraph; Marilyn Monroe trumped by Kate Moss

11. Backlash against feminine strength 223 bottom and 224 top

12. Visceral knee-jerk hostility to fat women and people in general 224 bottom and 225 top

13. Buffet hostility 225 bottom and 226 top

14. Buffet as metaphor or microcosm for Knapp's neurosis 230

 

 

Four. Study Questions

 

One. What is the "lure of starving"? 217

 

Two. What contradiction does Knapp identify on page 217? 

 

Three. What made Knapp feel safe? 217

 

Four. What does Knapp mean when she writes that anorexia both "capitulates to the ideal and also mocks it" in the context of idealized feminine beauty? 218

 

Five. What overwhelming anxiety do anorexics suffer from? 218, 221, 223

 

Six. Why does Knapp make the distinction between "female hunger" and "male hunger"? (Good essay topic, 218)

 

Seven. Describe the "dance of vigilance and self-restraint" on page 219.

 

Eight. Explain the essay's title. 220

 

Nine. What gives Knapp a "perverse sense of pleasure"? 220 bottom.

 

Ten. How does dieting make us go crazy? 222 top and bottom.

 

Eleven. What happens when hunger is "divorced from the body"? 223 top.

 

Twelve. What does caloric intake have to do with a woman's "self-worth and power and identity"? 223, 227, 228

 

Thirteen. What is represented in the shift of feminine ideal from Marilyn Monroe to Kate Moss? 223, 224

 

Fourteen. Do you agree with Knapp that the obsession with hating fat is a "gender issue" or does the body image obsession afflict both men and women equally? To answer, consider the term "bigorexia."

 

Part Five. Writing Option:

 

Defend or refute the following:

 

While Caroline Knapp's essay "Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem" is chockfull of insights about her fear of being overtaken by the appetites and the rigid rules and rituals she enforced to allay her fears, her attempt to make the obsession with body fat a "woman's issue" collapses under the weight of growing evidence that men are burdened with the same body image pressures. In particular, we can look to the equivalent of anorexia in men, bigorexia, which contains the same tyranny Knapp so adroitly explains in her essay. 

 

Another Writing Option:

Analyze a person you know who suffers the "self-inflicted cruelty" of anorexia and look at the disease in terms of its major components as laid out by Caroline Knapp.

 

These components include the following:

 

1. anorexia is a "silent protest" against the draconian ideal of female beauty

2. the love of rules as a way of soothing anxiety and overwhelming fear of one's appetites (223 top)

3. an obsession with "math" that makes one calculate calories in and calories out (220 top)

4. the loss of balance between gluttony and restraint (222 and 226 top)

5. a sense of "confused hunger" (222 bottom)

6. fear of food becomes a metaphor for the fear of freedom (223 and 227 and 228-230)

7. the Kate Moss look became an unconscious way for men to control women when they were enjoying their new freedom (223 bottom and 224 top)

8. peer pressure among women, veering on meanness, to be thin (224 and 225 top)

9. self-disgust (227)

 

 

 

 

Part Six. McMahon’s Commentary on “Add Cake, Subtract Self-Esteem” by Caroline Knapp

 

Whether they are bingeing or purging, irrational eaters are in a most damnable condition--the state of having no self-control and being helpless and fearful in the face of overwhelming appetites. These inflamed irrational passions are so devastating that binge eaters must tiptoe through life fearing that at any moment they will fall into the abyss of their avarice.

 

Most irrational eaters, especially the women described by Knapp, suffer shame for several reasons, including a sense of anxiety over the disparity of their new freedoms but limited power; their internalized "theme of vigilance and self-restraint" that often backfires and is counterbalanced by compulsive appetites that eradicate all the "gains" rendered from the meticulous adherence to eating rules; the state of hunger that "becomes divorced from the body" and becomes "loaded with alternative meanings" that have to do with unfulfilled emotional longings; and their knowledge that violating the slender female aesthetic will cause them to be held in tacit contempt by both men and women alike.  

 

 

This sense of shame and self-loathing becomes exacerbated when obesity is looked at through a religious prism which would have us condemn over-eaters as gluttons, sinners indulging their appetites, reprobates putting their desires before God, miscreants violating our space with their grotesque corpulence. 

 

Scapegoated by society for putting an undue strain on medical costs, despised for taking up our space, an unloved for not inciting the kind of desire that we associate with Kate-Moss slenderness, fat people represent the possibility of human failure and rejection that we fear in ourselves. Thus many of us, overreacting to our fears, develop a myriad of eating disorders so chronic that once ensnared in these irrational eating habits, it is nearly impossible for many of us to free ourselves from them and lead relatively normal lives. 

 

Part Seven. Quiz Question:

 

In a 150-word paragraph, analyze the psychological causes behind Caroline Knapp’s addiction to self-starvation.

 

 

1A Lesson Plan for “The Wages of Sin” by Francine Prose (197)

 

Part One. Lexicon:

 

One. The Nanny State, paragraphs 1 and 2: people are dumbed-down troglodytes who are so helpless to fend themselves it is necessary for the government to be a Big Nanny that cares for the infantile, incontinent appetites of the people by imposing stringent laws and regulations.

 

Two. Paternalistic; when someone takes on a parental role. This word often has a negative meaning, for it often suggests someone being presumptuous enough to be an authority over another.

 

Three. Obesity burden; tax payers have to absorb half the medical costs incurred by obesity-related ailments. Is that fair?

 

Four. Fat Tax dilemma. If taxing fat people and putting a “fat tax” on “fatty” items were to be effective, people would live longer and old age increase would put a NEW tax burden on tax payer.

 

Five. Stigma vs. the Nanny State; see page 198: the sense of shame, which is more powerful than any government regulations.

 

Six. Gluttony: the sin of overeating as a form of self-indulgence

 

Seven. The moral case against obesity:  Gluttony shows a disrespect for the body and an excessive pandering to one’s ego.

 

Eight. Latent hostility against obese people: See page 198 at bottom: We claim to be compassionate towards the obese but in reality we are not when obesity inconveniences us. Airplane seats, for example.

 

Nine: The sin of the obese: To impose a burden on others by taking up an unfair amount of space. See 199 top.

 

Ten. Oversimplification: Attributing complex problem to simple cause: to blame obesity on sin or indulgence or ego is absurd. Obesity may be partly these things, but they don’t tell the whole story.

 

Eleven. Ubiquity of cheap, calorie-dense food: Ubiquity means “everywhere.”

 

Twelve. Either/Or Fallacy: to reduce an argument to two possibilities, either/or. For example to address the obesity crisis as either a sin or an illness is absurd. The problem is more complex.

 

Part Two. New Essay Option: Write a research paper that argues that the obesity crisis is neither a sin or an illness, but a complex problem that cannot be explained by a simple diagnosis. Your 6 mapping statements will explore 6 major causes of obesity. No doubt, a 5 or 6-page essay can’t address all 15 causes. That would require a book.

 

Part Three: The Two Best Books about Food I’ve Ever Read That Will Change Your Life:

 

1. Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink
2. In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

 

Both writers discourage going on a diet. Instead, they encourage eating real foods that we like in moderation. Their information is priceless. Read their books and you will never get “punk-fed” again. Don’t let The Man poison your body or manipulate your eating habits.

 

 

Part Four. The 15 Causes of Obesity:

 

1. There is an abundance of convenient, cheap, calorie-rich food everywhere we go.
2. We move less than we did generations ago. Do we chase the animals we eat? No.
3. Mindless eating; not even knowing the quantity of what we consume every day, much of it done while talking, watching TV, or surfing the Internet, all forms of Mindless Eating. See book of same title by Brian Wansink.
4. Poverty; there is a relationship between poverty and obesity. This is due to a lack of education combined with reliance on cheap fast food.
5. Parents. Children eat what their parents eat. If the parents eat a “fat lifestyle,” so will their children.
6. Friends. We eat and look similar to our friends. We often call this “social eating.”
7. Eating processed foods instead of real foods and not knowing the difference. Please see In Defense of Eating: An Eater’s Manifesto by Michael Pollan. In short, only shop at the far left and right of supermarkets; avoid the middle; or shop at the Farmer’s Market.
8. Super-sized portions are marketed as a “good deal.” See the film Super Size Me and read the book Fast Food Nation by Erich Schlosser
9. Boredom; stay at home with nothing to do and you’ll overeat
10. Emotional eating; eating to feel “love” or “self-esteem” or because you feel lonely.
11. Lack of sleep. The more tired you are, the more you feed your blood sugar to compensate.
12. Education; knowing how to enjoy good healthy food should be very practical but too few people know how to prepare food for themselves that they both crave and that is good for them.
13. Learned helplessness
14. Dieting; it leads to weight gain, splurging, neuroses, and messes up the metabolism which rebels and goes on “shut down.”
15. Fast food is marketed to children in an aggressive way; see Fast Food Nation.

 

Part Five. Sample Thesis Statements (all of these are pretty good and take note they contradict each other as they go back and forth):

 

One: It’s morally wrong to be fat, for even though many are obese because of biological and environmental reasons, the majority of people submit to their fatness because of major character flaws, including __________________________, _______________________, ________________________, and ____________________.

 

Two: To condemn fat people as immoral is an outrageous oversimplification that ignores the many complex causes behind obesity. These so-called “character flaws” are really a reaction to deeper factors, which include ________________________, _______________________, _______________________, and ____________________________.

 

Three: To justify obesity as a “complex issue” is to enable fat people to go on with their immoral lives. In other words, justifying fatness is as immoral as fatness itself.

 

Four: To condemn defenders of the obese by calling these defenders enablers evidences a gross blindness to the deeper root causes of obesity, which these morally unrighteous prigs are determined to ignore. These causes include _______________________, ___________________________, _________________________, and _________________________.

 

Five: Calling me a “prig” for my stance against fat people does not change the fact that the obese population would be well served to embrace my moral prescription, which will not only alleviate their obesity but make them better, happier, responsible citizens. Thus, I am doing fat people a service, sir, while you, taking the role as paternalistic sympathizer, are actually helping to perpetuate their obese, moribund, morally bankrupt condition.  Let us therefore proceed with my salubrious prescription, which entails ________________________, _______________________, __________________________, and ___________________________.

 

 

 

An A Paragraph Must Contain:

 

1. Topic sentence
2. Supporting details
3. Transitions
4. Passionate distinctive writing voice
5. Concrete, colorful varied language

 

Sample Quiz Question: What is Francine Prose’s main point, or thesis, in “The Wages of Sin”? and how does she support it?

 

Sample A Paragraph Response

 

Pulpit thumpers decry that religion is dead in America and that a revival must sweep the nation soon lest we suffer the fiery annihilation of Sodom and Gomorra. These doomsday prophets are wrong. Religion is alive and well.  As Francine Prose renders in her acute and trenchant essay “The Wages of Sin,” the Supercilious Fat Police and their acolytes who look upon fat people as a breed of bloated sinners have co-opted religious language and metaphor to divide society into two sides: The reedy svelte souls bound for heaven and the scandalously obese souls bound for hell. To reinforce this polarization, the Fat Police, and even self-loathing fat people themselves, assert big government micromanagement of “fat behavior,” so that there are fat taxes imposed on lovers of movie popcorn, colossal burritos, super-sized buckets of ice cream and soda, and other foods that pose a threat to one’s salvation. The Fat Police and their disciples have also proselytized the gospel that moral depravity, “immoral self-indulgence,” is at the root of obesity, so that it is clear that fat people are not helpless victims of the environment or genetic hard-wiring but the result of their own damnable sloth, gluttony, and avarice. Another category that insures fat people suffer the stamp of stigmatization is society’s collective resentment that corpulent fleshy souls are guilty of hogging or usurping other people’s personal space.  What kind of wickedness allows the fat person to assert his gargantuan belly into our area when he squeezes next to us on a train, a bus, or an airplane? His rude and selfish sin so egregious that he and his obese brothers and sisters should pay for not one but two airline or bus tickets to accommodate their elephantine rumps.  Finally, if fat people can be saved at all, they must resort to a Higher Power: Their countless tons of unwanted flab can only be shed if they throw themselves upon the Alter of God’s Mercy and embrace a variety of spiritual rehabilitations—Twelve Step Programs, revivalist gospel tracts,  and other motivational tools rooted in the language of God, the devil, sin, and divine providence.

 

1A Research Links for “The Wages of Sin” by Francine Prose (197)

 

Research Links 

Ten New Obesity Causes

Social Causes of Obesity

New Data Challenges Set Point

Researchers Link Obesity to Flaw in Gene

 

 

 

Research Links 

Ten New Obesity Causes

Social Causes of Obesity

New Data Challenges Set Point

Researchers Link Obesity to Flaw in Gene

 

 

 

Research Links 

Ten New Obesity Causes

Social Causes of Obesity

New Data Challenges Set Point

Researchers Link Obesity to Flaw in Gene

 

 

1A Lesson Plan for “Big Organic” by Michael Pollan 174

 

 

One. Lexicon

 

1. Edenic Quest: Shoppers want more than food. They want to engage in a narrative in which their buying of certain foods affords them a trip to Eden, or Paradise, in which they can return to a world that is free of corruption, cruelty, and toxins. They seek purity and bliss through “healthy eating.” They seek the tranquility of green pastoral glades and meadows over the stress and anxiety of urban life.
2. Self-Congratulatory Shoppers: They seek to massage ego buy purchasing organic foods.  Their food items have “stories” attached, little pamphlets about how cows are given shiatsu massage before yielding their milk and how chickens jog five miles a day in the crisp outdoors and hydrate themselves with spring water before squeezing out an egg. Buying food that tells these heart-warming stories empowers organic shoppers and makes them feel superior to the troglodytes who shop at Ralph’s and other pedestrian low-brow stores. Self-congratulatory shoppers exit Whole Foods with little halos over their heads.
3. Organic Shopping as Us Vs. Them Therapy: Shoppers buy organic to belong to an exclusive club that differentiates them from those Loser Shoppers Who’ve Given In to the Man, the crude Industrial Food Complex. In contrast, organic shoppers patronize small farmers and good-hearted artisans who raise food, not for profit, but to bring love and bounty to planet Earth.
4. Organic Food Hustle (177): Maintaining an image as a small operation when in fact the organic industry imitates the same business practices of the Evil Industrial Food Machine. It’s the same B.S. but marketed to look pure and superior.
5. Supermarket Pastoral: The fiction, story, or lie—whatever you want to call it—that creates the image of organic food being harvested in a way that is morally superior to the Evil Industrial Food Machine.
6. Brown Food Vs. White Food; brown symbolizes pure, unmolested food while white represents food that is processed, bleached, and contaminated . Eggs, wheat, rice, sugar, bread should all be brown. Hipsters eat brown food. Troglodytes (ignorant cave dwellers) eat white food. See page 181.
7. Causality vs. Correlation: Is organic eating the cause of good health or does it coincide with the fact that people who shop organic are health conscious in general and belong to an economic class that reduces certain health risks, such as obesity? Fact: The richer, the skinnier, and skinny means fewer obesity-related health problems. Fact: People who eat organic are healthier, not because they eat organic, but because they eat real food, vs. processed food. 
   
8. Operative word is not "organic"; it's "real" food vs. processed food.
9. Mindless eater: one with limited cooking skills, nonexistent nutrition knowledge. He tends to eat animal protein, animal fats, and processed food. The bulk of his diet is cheeseburgers, pizza, and Doritos. His beverage is soda. The Mindless Eater refers to the majority of Americans. 
   
10. Mindful eater: He eats thoughtfully, planning his meals, making his own meals and his very sensitive about being "punk-fed" by "The Man." He eats mostly real food. About 40% of his daily food intake is fruits and vegetables. Another 40% is grains, beans, legumes, and nuts; the remaining 20% is protein, either animal or vegetable. He has a wide range of cooking skills. He rarely eats in front of the computer or television, which creates a "mindless eating situation." 
11. The Self-Reliant Eater: he or she knows how to make a handful or even several good, healthy dishes that are easy to prepare and sate the appetites. If we sate our appetites, we're more likely to stick with our eating program. McMahon's eating program is semi-vegetarian and is about 2,500 calories a day.
    

 

 

Two. What is Michael Pollan’s thesis? See 177, second paragraph.

 

The organic movement has less in common with its marketing image and more in common with the very industry it attempts to differ from. In other words, “Supermarket Pastoral is more fiction than fact.” See 178 top.

 

Pollan restates his thesis in his conclusion on page 194.

 

Three. What are Pollan’s mapping components?

 

1. The idea of cows on the farm is a myth. See 178.
2. The idea of free-range is a myth. See 178 bottom
3. Organic farming has to imitate industrial methods in order to stay competitive. See 187 and 188 bottom.
4. The superiority of organic food is in many ways negligible and not dramatic for the extra money one spends. See 188 bottom
5. Organic food is no better for the environment than other industrialized foods. See 193. 

 

 

Four. Questions

 

1. How is food connected to meaning and identity? 174 P1; 175 P3
2. How does the marketing of food confuse shoppers? 175 P2
3. How did organic food become a marketing bonanza? 176 P2-4. It communicates a story or narrative that pulls our heartstrings as the narrative has all to do with the pastoral fantasy.
4. How is organic food a good guy vs. bad guy movie? 176 P3: The story of Supermarket Pastoral makes us feel more “authentic.” 177 top.
5. What contradiction must Whole Foods reconcile and how does it fail? 177 P2; 178 top; 178 P3 in which cows “never see a blade of grass.” And “free-range” is a fraud as well on 178 bottom. Also see 187 top paragraph in which organic method more and more resembles the industrial method.
6. What is “countercuisine”? 181 P3.
7. What does the organic food movement, especially the one connected with Whole Foods, have in common with Starbucks?
8. How was food radically compromised and degraded by the “scientific method”? 184 P2 and 3.
9. What is the opposite of “reductionist science”? 186 top. “Imitating whole natural systems.” See the evolution of organic farmer Gene Kahn whose business becomes more and more like the private model he once demonized: 187 P2-end of the page. And see what he says on bottom of 188.
10. Is there definitive proof that organic is superior to non-organic? See 188-190. Consider correlation over causality: People who seek healthy foods are living healthier lives in general. Produce may be healthier. See 192 bottom.
11. Is organic food better for the environment? See 193 and 194. It appears not much if at all.

 

 Five. What are the 6 principles of effectively marketing “organic food”?

 

 

1. Create an easy to follow narrative about the food chain when in fact the food chain is very complex. See 175 bottom and 176 middle.
2. Create a good guy—the organic farmer—and a bad guy—the evil agribusinessman and make customers feel they are on the right side, namely the side of the “counter culture.” See 176.
3. Create a bond between consumer and producer that creates a sense of intimacy, authenticity, bonding, and good will. See 176 bottom and 177 top.
4. Rely on the supermarket pastoral myth. See 175 middle and 177 top. Create the Garden of Eden or Paradise when people and animals lived in harmony.
5. Use certification to create a story, authenticity, and 2-way communication between shopper and farmer: See 176 top.
6. Convince shoppers that by choosing “countercuisine” and chemical-free food (181) they are improving their health and saving themselves from the dangers of the evil food industry.

 

 

Six. Writing Assignment on Today’s Reading

 

Option 5: In the context of Michael Pollan’s essay “Big Organic” (174), analyze the fraud and deception the food industry uses to market foods that are allegedly “organic” and “natural.” 5-page outline: In 2 pages, summarize Pollan's major points. Then write a thesis. As my research and Michael Pollan's essay show, the idea of "organic" is a marketing fraud evidenced by _________________, _____________________, ___________________, and ______________________. Your last 3 pages would flesh out these mapping components.

  

Contrary Opinion:

 

Let’s not be so quick to dismiss and disparage those who are on an Organic Quest. While the organic food industry is overpriced and often teeming with false promises, those who embrace the organic lifestyle are better off for their efforts. Their superior wellbeing is evidenced by ________________________, __________________________, ___________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

Another Thesis Option:

Answer this question: Do the health benefits from eating organic justify the extra cost of shopping for organic foods?

 

Sample Thesis in favor of organic food:

 

While some claims from the organic food industry are exaggerated and while organic food is no panacea for good health, the research clearly shows that a diet that emphasizes organic foods will result in superior health evidenced by _______________________, _______________________________, __________________________________, and ____________________________________.

 

Contrary Thesis Example:

I concede that shoppers who buy organic are more health conscious than those who don’t, but this does not mean that organic food, per se, is worth the extra cost. In fact, healthy eating is not predicated on buying organic food. Worse, the misguided organic shopper can wreak havoc on himself when he ____________________________, ______________________, ___________________________, and _________________________________.

Alternative thesis: 

Organic food is for the Prius-driving, soy latte-drinking upper class who need to look down on nonorganic eaters. In other words, organic food is not an authentic movement but a superficial pose doomed to go to extinction as all fads do.

Contrary thesis: 

While there are a lot of organic food eating posers, the fact is organic eating represents a legitimate, healthy, and egalitarian rebellion against the evil Industrial Food Machine. 

Resources

Naturally Dangerous

Eating Organic Offers No Benefits

Buying Organic Food Can Harm the Planet

Organic Food Not More Nutritional

Organic Food No Healthier

The Great Organic Myths

Organic Milk Is Not Healthier

Is Whole Foods Wholesome? (Dark Secrets Exposed)

 

 

One. Lexicon

 

1. Edenic Quest: Shoppers want more than food. They want to engage in a narrative in which their buying of certain foods affords them a trip to Eden, or Paradise, in which they can return to a world that is free of corruption, cruelty, and toxins. They seek purity and bliss through “healthy eating.” They seek the tranquility of green pastoral glades and meadows over the stress and anxiety of urban life.
2. Self-Congratulatory Shoppers: They seek to massage ego buy purchasing organic foods.  Their food items have “stories” attached, little pamphlets about how cows are given shiatsu massage before yielding their milk and how chickens jog five miles a day in the crisp outdoors and hydrate themselves with spring water before squeezing out an egg. Buying food that tells these heart-warming stories empowers organic shoppers and makes them feel superior to the troglodytes who shop at Ralph’s and other pedestrian low-brow stores. Self-congratulatory shoppers exit Whole Foods with little halos over their heads.
3. Organic Shopping as Us Vs. Them Therapy: Shoppers buy organic to belong to an exclusive club that differentiates them from those Loser Shoppers Who’ve Given In to the Man, the crude Industrial Food Complex. In contrast, organic shoppers patronize small farmers and good-hearted artisans who raise food, not for profit, but to bring love and bounty to planet Earth.
4. Organic Food Hustle (177): Maintaining an image as a small operation when in fact the organic industry imitates the same business practices of the Evil Industrial Food Machine. It’s the same B.S. but marketed to look pure and superior.
5. Supermarket Pastoral: The fiction, story, or lie—whatever you want to call it—that creates the image of organic food being harvested in a way that is morally superior to the Evil Industrial Food Machine.
6. Brown Food Vs. White Food; brown symbolizes pure, unmolested food while white represents food that is processed, bleached, and contaminated . Eggs, wheat, rice, sugar, bread should all be brown. Hipsters eat brown food. Troglodytes (ignorant cave dwellers) eat white food. See page 181.
7. Causality vs. Correlation: Is organic eating the cause of good health or does it coincide with the fact that people who shop organic are health conscious in general and belong to an economic class that reduces certain health risks, such as obesity? Fact: The richer, the skinnier, and skinny means fewer obesity-related health problems. Fact: People who eat organic are healthier, not because they eat organic, but because they eat real food, vs. processed food. 
   
8. Operative word is not "organic"; it's "real" food vs. processed food.
9. Mindless eater: one with limited cooking skills, nonexistent nutrition knowledge. He tends to eat animal protein, animal fats, and processed food. The bulk of his diet is cheeseburgers, pizza, and Doritos. His beverage is soda. The Mindless Eater refers to the majority of Americans. 
   
10. Mindful eater: He eats thoughtfully, planning his meals, making his own meals and his very sensitive about being "punk-fed" by "The Man." He eats mostly real food. About 40% of his daily food intake is fruits and vegetables. Another 40% is grains, beans, legumes, and nuts; the remaining 20% is protein, either animal or vegetable. He has a wide range of cooking skills. He rarely eats in front of the computer or television, which creates a "mindless eating situation." 
11. The Self-Reliant Eater: he or she knows how to make a handful or even several good, healthy dishes that are easy to prepare and sate the appetites. If we sate our appetites, we're more likely to stick with our eating program. McMahon's eating program is semi-vegetarian and is about 2,500 calories a day.
    

 

 

Two. What is Michael Pollan’s thesis? See 177, second paragraph.

 

The organic movement has less in common with its marketing image and more in common with the very industry it attempts to differ from. In other words, “Supermarket Pastoral is more fiction than fact.” See 178 top.

 

Pollan restates his thesis in his conclusion on page 194.

 

Three. What are Pollan’s mapping components?

 

1. The idea of cows on the farm is a myth. See 178.
2. The idea of free-range is a myth. See 178 bottom
3. Organic farming has to imitate industrial methods in order to stay competitive. See 187 and 188 bottom.
4. The superiority of organic food is in many ways negligible and not dramatic for the extra money one spends. See 188 bottom
5. Organic food is no better for the environment than other industrialized foods. See 193. 

 

 

Four. Questions

 

1. How is food connected to meaning and identity? 174 P1; 175 P3
2. How does the marketing of food confuse shoppers? 175 P2
3. How did organic food become a marketing bonanza? 176 P2-4. It communicates a story or narrative that pulls our heartstrings as the narrative has all to do with the pastoral fantasy.
4. How is organic food a good guy vs. bad guy movie? 176 P3: The story of Supermarket Pastoral makes us feel more “authentic.” 177 top.
5. What contradiction must Whole Foods reconcile and how does it fail? 177 P2; 178 top; 178 P3 in which cows “never see a blade of grass.” And “free-range” is a fraud as well on 178 bottom. Also see 187 top paragraph in which organic method more and more resembles the industrial method.
6. What is “countercuisine”? 181 P3.
7. What does the organic food movement, especially the one connected with Whole Foods, have in common with Starbucks?
8. How was food radically compromised and degraded by the “scientific method”? 184 P2 and 3.
9. What is the opposite of “reductionist science”? 186 top. “Imitating whole natural systems.” See the evolution of organic farmer Gene Kahn whose business becomes more and more like the private model he once demonized: 187 P2-end of the page. And see what he says on bottom of 188.
10. Is there definitive proof that organic is superior to non-organic? See 188-190. Consider correlation over causality: People who seek healthy foods are living healthier lives in general. Produce may be healthier. See 192 bottom.
11. Is organic food better for the environment? See 193 and 194. It appears not much if at all.

 

 Five. What are the 6 principles of effectively marketing “organic food”?

 

 

1. Create an easy to follow narrative about the food chain when in fact the food chain is very complex. See 175 bottom and 176 middle.
2. Create a good guy—the organic farmer—and a bad guy—the evil agribusinessman and make customers feel they are on the right side, namely the side of the “counter culture.” See 176.
3. Create a bond between consumer and producer that creates a sense of intimacy, authenticity, bonding, and good will. See 176 bottom and 177 top.
4. Rely on the supermarket pastoral myth. See 175 middle and 177 top. Create the Garden of Eden or Paradise when people and animals lived in harmony.
5. Use certification to create a story, authenticity, and 2-way communication between shopper and farmer: See 176 top.
6. Convince shoppers that by choosing “countercuisine” and chemical-free food (181) they are improving their health and saving themselves from the dangers of the evil food industry.

 

 

Six. Writing Assignment on Today’s Reading

 

Option 5: In the context of Michael Pollan’s essay “Big Organic” (174), analyze the fraud and deception the food industry uses to market foods that are allegedly “organic” and “natural.” 5-page outline: In 2 pages, summarize Pollan's major points. Then write a thesis. As my research and Michael Pollan's essay show, the idea of "organic" is a marketing fraud evidenced by _________________, _____________________, ___________________, and ______________________. Your last 3 pages would flesh out these mapping components.

  

Contrary Opinion:

 

Let’s not be so quick to dismiss and disparage those who are on an Organic Quest. While the organic food industry is overpriced and often teeming with false promises, those who embrace the organic lifestyle are better off for their efforts. Their superior wellbeing is evidenced by ________________________, __________________________, ___________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

Another Thesis Option:

Answer this question: Do the health benefits from eating organic justify the extra cost of shopping for organic foods?

 

Sample Thesis in favor of organic food:

 

While some claims from the organic food industry are exaggerated and while organic food is no panacea for good health, the research clearly shows that a diet that emphasizes organic foods will result in superior health evidenced by _______________________, _______________________________, __________________________________, and ____________________________________.

 

Contrary Thesis Example:

I concede that shoppers who buy organic are more health conscious than those who don’t, but this does not mean that organic food, per se, is worth the extra cost. In fact, healthy eating is not predicated on buying organic food. Worse, the misguided organic shopper can wreak havoc on himself when he ____________________________, ______________________, ___________________________, and _________________________________.

Alternative thesis: 

Organic food is for the Prius-driving, soy latte-drinking upper class who need to look down on nonorganic eaters. In other words, organic food is not an authentic movement but a superficial pose doomed to go to extinction as all fads do.

Contrary thesis: 

While there are a lot of organic food eating posers, the fact is organic eating represents a legitimate, healthy, and egalitarian rebellion against the evil Industrial Food Machine. 

Resources

Naturally Dangerous

Eating Organic Offers No Benefits

Buying Organic Food Can Harm the Planet

Organic Food Not More Nutritional

Organic Food No Healthier

The Great Organic Myths

Organic Milk Is Not Healthier

Is Whole Foods Wholesome? (Dark Secrets Exposed)

 

 

One. Lexicon

 

1. Edenic Quest: Shoppers want more than food. They want to engage in a narrative in which their buying of certain foods affords them a trip to Eden, or Paradise, in which they can return to a world that is free of corruption, cruelty, and toxins. They seek purity and bliss through “healthy eating.” They seek the tranquility of green pastoral glades and meadows over the stress and anxiety of urban life.
2. Self-Congratulatory Shoppers: They seek to massage ego buy purchasing organic foods.  Their food items have “stories” attached, little pamphlets about how cows are given shiatsu massage before yielding their milk and how chickens jog five miles a day in the crisp outdoors and hydrate themselves with spring water before squeezing out an egg. Buying food that tells these heart-warming stories empowers organic shoppers and makes them feel superior to the troglodytes who shop at Ralph’s and other pedestrian low-brow stores. Self-congratulatory shoppers exit Whole Foods with little halos over their heads.
3. Organic Shopping as Us Vs. Them Therapy: Shoppers buy organic to belong to an exclusive club that differentiates them from those Loser Shoppers Who’ve Given In to the Man, the crude Industrial Food Complex. In contrast, organic shoppers patronize small farmers and good-hearted artisans who raise food, not for profit, but to bring love and bounty to planet Earth.
4. Organic Food Hustle (177): Maintaining an image as a small operation when in fact the organic industry imitates the same business practices of the Evil Industrial Food Machine. It’s the same B.S. but marketed to look pure and superior.
5. Supermarket Pastoral: The fiction, story, or lie—whatever you want to call it—that creates the image of organic food being harvested in a way that is morally superior to the Evil Industrial Food Machine.
6. Brown Food Vs. White Food; brown symbolizes pure, unmolested food while white represents food that is processed, bleached, and contaminated . Eggs, wheat, rice, sugar, bread should all be brown. Hipsters eat brown food. Troglodytes (ignorant cave dwellers) eat white food. See page 181.
7. Causality vs. Correlation: Is organic eating the cause of good health or does it coincide with the fact that people who shop organic are health conscious in general and belong to an economic class that reduces certain health risks, such as obesity? Fact: The richer, the skinnier, and skinny means fewer obesity-related health problems. Fact: People who eat organic are healthier, not because they eat organic, but because they eat real food, vs. processed food. 
   
8. Operative word is not "organic"; it's "real" food vs. processed food.
9. Mindless eater: one with limited cooking skills, nonexistent nutrition knowledge. He tends to eat animal protein, animal fats, and processed food. The bulk of his diet is cheeseburgers, pizza, and Doritos. His beverage is soda. The Mindless Eater refers to the majority of Americans. 
   
10. Mindful eater: He eats thoughtfully, planning his meals, making his own meals and his very sensitive about being "punk-fed" by "The Man." He eats mostly real food. About 40% of his daily food intake is fruits and vegetables. Another 40% is grains, beans, legumes, and nuts; the remaining 20% is protein, either animal or vegetable. He has a wide range of cooking skills. He rarely eats in front of the computer or television, which creates a "mindless eating situation." 
11. The Self-Reliant Eater: he or she knows how to make a handful or even several good, healthy dishes that are easy to prepare and sate the appetites. If we sate our appetites, we're more likely to stick with our eating program. McMahon's eating program is semi-vegetarian and is about 2,500 calories a day.
    

 

 

Two. What is Michael Pollan’s thesis? See 177, second paragraph.

 

The organic movement has less in common with its marketing image and more in common with the very industry it attempts to differ from. In other words, “Supermarket Pastoral is more fiction than fact.” See 178 top.

 

Pollan restates his thesis in his conclusion on page 194.

 

Three. What are Pollan’s mapping components?

 

1. The idea of cows on the farm is a myth. See 178.
2. The idea of free-range is a myth. See 178 bottom
3. Organic farming has to imitate industrial methods in order to stay competitive. See 187 and 188 bottom.
4. The superiority of organic food is in many ways negligible and not dramatic for the extra money one spends. See 188 bottom
5. Organic food is no better for the environment than other industrialized foods. See 193. 

 

 

Four. Questions

 

1. How is food connected to meaning and identity? 174 P1; 175 P3
2. How does the marketing of food confuse shoppers? 175 P2
3. How did organic food become a marketing bonanza? 176 P2-4. It communicates a story or narrative that pulls our heartstrings as the narrative has all to do with the pastoral fantasy.
4. How is organic food a good guy vs. bad guy movie? 176 P3: The story of Supermarket Pastoral makes us feel more “authentic.” 177 top.
5. What contradiction must Whole Foods reconcile and how does it fail? 177 P2; 178 top; 178 P3 in which cows “never see a blade of grass.” And “free-range” is a fraud as well on 178 bottom. Also see 187 top paragraph in which organic method more and more resembles the industrial method.
6. What is “countercuisine”? 181 P3.
7. What does the organic food movement, especially the one connected with Whole Foods, have in common with Starbucks?
8. How was food radically compromised and degraded by the “scientific method”? 184 P2 and 3.
9. What is the opposite of “reductionist science”? 186 top. “Imitating whole natural systems.” See the evolution of organic farmer Gene Kahn whose business becomes more and more like the private model he once demonized: 187 P2-end of the page. And see what he says on bottom of 188.
10. Is there definitive proof that organic is superior to non-organic? See 188-190. Consider correlation over causality: People who seek healthy foods are living healthier lives in general. Produce may be healthier. See 192 bottom.
11. Is organic food better for the environment? See 193 and 194. It appears not much if at all.

 

 Five. What are the 6 principles of effectively marketing “organic food”?

 

 

1. Create an easy to follow narrative about the food chain when in fact the food chain is very complex. See 175 bottom and 176 middle.
2. Create a good guy—the organic farmer—and a bad guy—the evil agribusinessman and make customers feel they are on the right side, namely the side of the “counter culture.” See 176.
3. Create a bond between consumer and producer that creates a sense of intimacy, authenticity, bonding, and good will. See 176 bottom and 177 top.
4. Rely on the supermarket pastoral myth. See 175 middle and 177 top. Create the Garden of Eden or Paradise when people and animals lived in harmony.
5. Use certification to create a story, authenticity, and 2-way communication between shopper and farmer: See 176 top.
6. Convince shoppers that by choosing “countercuisine” and chemical-free food (181) they are improving their health and saving themselves from the dangers of the evil food industry.

 

 

Six. Writing Assignment on Today’s Reading

 

Option 5: In the context of Michael Pollan’s essay “Big Organic” (174), analyze the fraud and deception the food industry uses to market foods that are allegedly “organic” and “natural.” 5-page outline: In 2 pages, summarize Pollan's major points. Then write a thesis. As my research and Michael Pollan's essay show, the idea of "organic" is a marketing fraud evidenced by _________________, _____________________, ___________________, and ______________________. Your last 3 pages would flesh out these mapping components.

  

Contrary Opinion:

 

Let’s not be so quick to dismiss and disparage those who are on an Organic Quest. While the organic food industry is overpriced and often teeming with false promises, those who embrace the organic lifestyle are better off for their efforts. Their superior wellbeing is evidenced by ________________________, __________________________, ___________________________, and ___________________________________.

 

Another Thesis Option:

Answer this question: Do the health benefits from eating organic justify the extra cost of shopping for organic foods?

 

Sample Thesis in favor of organic food:

 

While some claims from the organic food industry are exaggerated and while organic food is no panacea for good health, the research clearly shows that a diet that emphasizes organic foods will result in superior health evidenced by _______________________, _______________________________, __________________________________, and ____________________________________.

 

Contrary Thesis Example:

I concede that shoppers who buy organic are more health conscious than those who don’t, but this does not mean that organic food, per se, is worth the extra cost. In fact, healthy eating is not predicated on buying organic food. Worse, the misguided organic shopper can wreak havoc on himself when he ____________________________, ______________________, ___________________________, and _________________________________.

Alternative thesis: 

Organic food is for the Prius-driving, soy latte-drinking upper class who need to look down on nonorganic eaters. In other words, organic food is not an authentic movement but a superficial pose doomed to go to extinction as all fads do.

Contrary thesis: 

While there are a lot of organic food eating posers, the fact is organic eating represents a legitimate, healthy, and egalitarian rebellion against the evil Industrial Food Machine. 

Resources

Naturally Dangerous

Eating Organic Offers No Benefits

Buying Organic Food Can Harm the Planet

Organic Food Not More Nutritional

Organic Food No Healthier

The Great Organic Myths

Organic Milk Is Not Healthier

Is Whole Foods Wholesome? (Dark Secrets Exposed)

1A Lesson #4 for Cooked: The Cure for Jeff Henderson’s Concupiscence and a Major Cause and Outcome of His Redemption: Flourishing.

One. Flourishing

 

Flourishing is the opposite of concupiscence flourishing, from the Greek word eudaimonia: means to blossom, to become who we were meant to be.

 When Jeff Henderson becomes an illegal “business man” being followed by the feds, rationalizing his illegal activities, and living on easy money, he’s not the person he was meant to be. He is rather a grotesque variation. We see his misshapen character in prison when he becomes the enraged, nihilistic, disaffected victim.

 Only when he learns a passion and accepts his responsibilities as an adult, does he begin to flourish and he becomes happier than he was as a concupiscent drug dealer.

 Two. Ascent: Building One’s Character During the Redemption Process

 

1. Cruel Awakening; the brutality of seeing reality for what it really is.
2. Replacing victimization with accountability
3. Finding a passion.
4. Taking pride in not just work but one’s integrity and honesty
5. Fortitude
6. Becoming a mentor

 Three.  Taking a Close Look at Fortitude: The strength and tenacity to push forward in the presence of ever surmounting obstacles. What are Jeff Henderson’s obstacles to starting over?

 

1. Jeff Henderson discovers that the world is full of “haters and dream crushers” (crabs in a bucket). These are the haters who don’t want people with good intentions to be afforded a clean, fresh start because they want everyone to share in their failure and misery.
2. Others don’t trust us. Nor do they forgive us for our past deeds.
3. Often we have an inability to forgive ourselves for our past deeds creates baggage
4. Often we lack of confidence:  We fear that we may backslide into our old ways
5. Often a past label like “convicted felon” creates a stigma that is extremely difficult to erase. We see the felon. We don’t see the husband trying to support his wife and two kids.
6. Jeff Henderson has to tone down his “stroll” and his muscles with baggy clothes to remove the hard gangsta look. See page 2
7. Jeff Henderson has to remain gracious and poised when he gets pooh-poohed by Caesar’s Palace, the very place that was happy to take his money when he was a dealer “back in the day.”  Now Caesar’s is playing all high and mighty.