Who Killed The Electric Car?

Our blogging assignment this week was to write about the documentary we saw in class, Who Killed The Electric Car?. This is one of my favorite documentaries, another that I actually own (even though I seem to have misplaced it currently). I like it because it talks about an interesting subject and because it's more balanced and even-handed than many documentaries that I tend to watch. Although it comes from an obvious pro-environmentalist POV, it also tries to show all sides of the issue. It interviews not only electric car owners but oil & car company representatives as well as politicians who were responsible for killing the electric car mandate.

One thing that I mentioned in class was that the movie did not spend a lot of time talking about electric/gasoline hybrid cars. Since the beginning of this decade hybrid car ownership has skyrocketed in this country, mostly due to the success of the Toyota Prius. I felt like the filmmakers could have talked about how many people who would potentially buy an electric car have instead settled for buying hybrids, and how that's not a perfect solution but at least it's a step in the right direction.

Third Paper

For this blog assignment, we were to watch a fourth documentary on our own, in addition to the three we are watching in class, and write a reflective blog post on it.

For my fourth documentary to watch for this assignment, I chose March of the Penguins, a documentary that chronicles the journey emperor penguins go through to mate and reproduce. I chose this movie for a couple reasons. For one, it's one of my favorites - I've owned it since it first came on DVD (it was a Christmas present) and have seen it a bunch of times, so I'm familiar with it. For another, I wanted to do my paper on a documentary that was less incendiary and controversial than some of my other favorites, such as Outfoxed or pretty much everything by Michael Moore.

At any rate. The film begins with stunning cinematography of Antarctica, where the emperor penguins live. It was structured as a story, telling how the penguins "march" or walk to their ancestral breeding grounds to find a mate.

The conflict is how the penguins fight against the harsh elements of Antarctica to hatch their young. For example some of the eggs get exposed to the harsh winds, and freeze, killing the baby penguin. Also, once the babies are born, some freeze to death. There is one particularly moving scene in which a mother penguin finds her frozen baby and she starts trumpeting her anguish.

A recurring theme in this movie is that these penguins are trying to live and reproduce in the harshest place on earth. Survival is hard for all animals, who have to fight against the elements and other predators, but it is especially hard for animals trying to survive in Antarctica.

The film concludes with the parent and now older baby penguins seperating, and gives the impression that soon these baby penguins will be making their own journey or "March". It's a very satisfying end.

Supersize Me

This week's blogging assignment was to talk about the movie we watched in class, Supersize Me. That's pretty easy for me, because I actually own that movie and have seen it at least half a dozen times.

In Supersize Me, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock eats nothing but McDonald's for a month and documents how it effects him. Along the way, Spurlock talks about the obesity epidemic in the United States, especially as it pertains to our nation's children. It's a fascinating journey. I remember the first time I watched this movie, I thought, "wow, now I'm never gonna eat McDonald's again". Haha, that didn't last very long. But the movie definitely makes you think twice before you order that Extra Value Meal.

I think the most powerful moment in the portion of the film we've seen so far is when Spurlock vomits after having eaten McDonald's.... and the camera pans out to show the actual vomit. It makes you recoil in horror.

One question the movie raises is whether it's appropriate to sue the fast food companies for making us fat. I definitely think no, because there's a point when personal responsibility is supposed to kick in, but at the same time the fast food companies bear some of the responsibility too. Not enough that they should be sued, but enough that they should be blamed. There's a lot of factors that go into the obesity epidemic and the fast food companies are definitely part of that problem.

Documentaries

Our blogging assignment this week was to read from the film Making Documentary Films and Videos and write a reflective post about our reading.

The chapters we were to read mostly dealt with defining what a documentary is and isn't. There was a lot of discussion about programs or movies that are like documentaries, but are not in fact real documentaries. For example, tv news and reality tv programs are most definitely not documentaries.

One thing I had a little problem with was that the author talked about programs he called docugandas. These are programs that purport to be documentaries but are in fact forms of propaganda. He used one of my favorite film-makers, Michael Moore, as an example of someone who was presenting docuganda instead of true documentaries. I could see the author's point - Michael Moore is very one-sided and not neccesarily very fair in covering all sides of an issue. Another example was a favorite movie of mine, Outfoxed. This is a documentary on how Fox News is consistantly biased and - according to the filmmakers - something of a tool of the Republican party. I tend to agree with that assesment. Also, the movie is very informative and provacative... as well as being very entertaining. But yeah, it's definitely not very "fair and balanced" as it were. The author talks about how CNN has a similar bias to the Democratic party, which I completely disagree with. I've never seen an example of liberal bias on CNN. On MSNBC, yes, but not CNN.

Fallacies

For this blog assignment we were to read in chapter nine of our texts about fallacies. Dictionary.com defines fallacy as:

1. a deceptive, misleading, or false notion, belief, etc.: That the world is flat was at one time a popular fallacy.

and

4. Logic. any of various types of erroneous reasoning that render arguments logically unsound.

Our text dealt primarily with the second definition, or how fallacies are used in logic, with arguments.

One of the methods of using a fallacy in an argument that I see used most often in my political debates with friends or relatives is the slippery slope argument. An example of this was used in our textbook, discussing how some people believe if we have handgun registration, it's only a slippery slope down towards no rights for gun owners and soon we'll be in a police state. I hear this argument all the time from my stepdad, who is a hunter and favors strong rights for gun owners. I am in favor of common sense handgun laws, but whenever I argue for them, my stepdad will say "If we allow that [registration, more stringent background checks, limits on how many guns someone can buy in a month] than the next thing you know they'll want to take away our guns alltogether."

In all, I understood the basic principle behind fallacies but I'm not looking forward to whatever assignment we'll be doing that requires us to write about them. I'm sure our professor had us read this chapter because our next paper will deal with fallacies. Oh well. :)

Chapter Six

For this blogging assignment we were to read chapter six and analyze it. I enjoyed this chapter, and even though it was rather long (like 40 pages) it was highly readable. It dealt with developing your own argument and translating that to essay form.

One of the points the authors really stressed was knowing who your audience was for your papers - mainly, your teacher and your fellow students. They also talked about not assuming your audience knew everything about the topic you were discussing.

I found the section on asking questions, such as "What is X?" and "What should we do about X?" to find out where you stand on an issue to be very helpful. I will use this strategy when I write my next paper.

I found the essay by a student at the end of the chapter to be interesting and well written, especially because it was written in first person. I am more accustomed to writing in first person, what with all the blogging I do, but I didn't know it was ever appropriate in formal essays or papers.

My Topic for The Next Paper

For this blog assignment we were supposed to talk about what topic we will do for our next paper, in which we craft an argument (using visuals) about a controversial topic. I briefly considered doing my paper on abortion, but two things are stopping me: one, our professor specifically said "Don't everyone do it on abortion, because grading twenty papers on the same topic will get old fast", and two, I can't think of any appealing visuals one could possibly utilize on the abortion debate. Also, there's the fact that I am sort of conflicted on abortion... I believe life begins at conception and could never have an abortion myself, but I am fiercly pro-choice for everyone else. It's probably not best to chose an issue I am not 100% one way or another about.

So I'm going with another issue - universal health care. It's an issue I care deeply about, being that I am currently uninsured. Even when I was insured, dealing with the insurance companies was such a hassle, and there were lots of things they either didn't cover or only partially coveraged. I have literally thousands of dollars in medical debt. Meanwhile, I have friends in Canada, the U.K. and other countries that have free universal health care for all citizens, and they can't comprehend how someone like me can be too broke to go see the doctor. I care about a lot of issues politically, but this is one of the most important to me. I would seriously vote for a candidate that I disagreed with about every other thing if they could just get universal health care for our citizens.

Since I am passionate about this issue I think it will translate well into an argumentative paper for me.