Research Project Finished

Playing sports is something that many of us are brought up participating in or watching. Whether it’s going down to the park to shoot some hoops or play catch or watching Sports Center on the couch, sports are a huge part of our day to day lives. This invariably transfers, for a lot of people, to playing organized sports at our high schools, and a select few even make it on to college teams. Once you are on the collegiate level, there is a realization that you could become a professional athlete, playing the game you love for a living and also making a ton of money. That is a dream shared by all of the 420000 student athletes that the NCAA currently encompasses. Unfortunately, no more than 2% of athletes in any major sport (except baseball as 11.6%) actually make it to the pro level in the United States. (Manfred) So what about the student athletes? Many of whom have taken up studies in degrees some classify as “bird courses” just so they can spend 40 to 50 hours a week on athletics. Or how about those students that suffer severe injuries and have their scholarships stripped away? Not only are they left with debt from going to these universities, whose scholarships don’t cover all of the cost of tuition, who will be paying for the long lasting medical visits they face in the future stemming from injuries suffered from college athletics? These student athletes need a voice, and they need rights. The NCAA has exploited these students long enough, and it’s time for change. It’s time to unionize and collectively bargain for rights from these universities making millions of dollars on laborers they don’t have to pay or compensate in any other way except an scholarship that they can terminate whenever they please.

Many who oppose the idea of compensating college athletes beyond the scholarships they receive will argue that a free education compensates these athletes more than adequately. But once you research the nature of athletic scholarships a bit, you will soon realize that these students aren’t exactly getting a free ride through a university. For starters, only those students in division I or division II universities can receive athletic scholarships, division III schools and lower cannot. There is also absolutely nothing guaranteeing that your scholarship will be honored by your university for longer than one year. (Peterson’s Staff) If the athlete does nothing detrimental to himself, others or the university, he can still have his scholarship terminated to no fault of his own. Say a team changes coaches and the new one doesn’t want you on his team, scholarship terminated. Or your university needs to cut back on scholarships to save costs (even though college athletics are a virtual money tree) there goes your scholarship. And lastly, and the biggest reason there needs to be reform in college athletics, is injury. If you suffer a substantial injury, the college has every right to not only terminate your scholarship, but also is not legally responsible for covering any medical bills in the short or long term. Essentially, college teams are nothing better than an employer who has full time workers with zero rights, zero job security and zero benefits, something that you don’t see in any other field of business in this nation, but college athletes are exploited to this horrible business practice.

You may be thinking at this point how can a college cover medical bills of all there athletes? It’s not like they have millions upon millions of spending money right? Well, not exactly. Taking a look at one of the biggest colleges in the nation will show you a microcosm of the issue in college athletic spending. Everything is bigger in Texas, and college athletics is no exception. The athletic department brought in $163.3 million in revenue in the school year of 2012-2013, and only had expenses totaling in $138.3 million for the athletic department, leaving a “profit” of $25 million. (Gaines) Because the university is a public school, this extra money does go back into the school in one way shape or form, but it’s definitely not going into helping these student athletes. Perhaps the biggest eye opener in the Texas Longhorns athletic budget and expenses is the discrepancy of how money is spent. In particular, one third of all revenue is spent on coaches’ salaries, while only six percent is spent ion student scholarships. Shortening up the huge gap between these two expenses would greatly help the students receive the kind of compensation they deserve for all they give to these universities.

After the all of these unfair scenarios I’ve laid out for you when it comes to the amount universities are making off of these students, you’d expect someone to step up to the plate and ask for changes right? Well that is exactly what has begun to happen in this past year, as Northwestern University’s football players have won a bid to unionize after a court hearing in Chicago where Judge Ohr wrote in his ruling that the players “fall squarely within the National Labor Relations Act’s broad definition of ’employee’ when one considers the common law definition of ’employee.'” (Bennett)  This could be a potentially huge decision when it comes to college sports, because if they are to successfully unionize and collectively bargain with the NCAA, it could open the door for other universities to do the same. With a strong togetherness between the student athletes nationwide, they will finally be able to receive proper compensation for all of their hard work, and hopefully get a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to the millions upon millions that these colleges make off of their student athletes.

A whole lot of people are mistaking this move to unionize as players desire to become paid athletes. This could not be farther from the truth. The Northwestern football team’s terms that they plan to collectively bargain on have absolutely nothing to do with monetary gain, instead they have to do with insuring college athletes are safer and taken care of by these universities that they give a great deal of their time to. There are ten points of discussion on their website , and they are as follows :  Minimize college athletes’ brain trauma risks, Raise the scholarship amount, Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses, Increase graduation rates, Increase graduation rates, Prohibit universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship, Establish and enforce uniform safety guidelines in all sports to help prevent serious injuries and avoidable deaths, Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities, Prohibit the punishment of college athletes that have not committed a violation, and lastly Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from their university if they wish to transfer schools.(Kirk) Now, anyone who is not directly  benefiting from the current system in place and anyone with some common sense can tell from these point that there is no desire to be paid shown by these players. Simply wanting the security that any other employee would have in any workplace is not asking much of these money-making universities. Hopefully, Northwestern University is successful with their push to unionize and collectively bargain, and more schools should follow suit. Colleges have benefited from this free labor for long enough, and it’s time to change the system , and get these kids the representation and compensation that they deserve.

Works Cited

Manfred,Tony.Odds College Athletes Become Pro.businessinsider.com. Web. Feb 10. 2012. May 10. 2014.

Petersin’s Staff.Understand Athletic Scholarships.petersons.com. Web. April 10. 2014. May 5. 2014.

Gaines, Cork. How The richest School In The Country Spends Its Money. businessinsider.com. Web. Sep 17. 2013. May 04. 2014.

Bennett, Brian. Northwestern Wildcats Football Team Wins Bid To Unionize. Web. Mar 27. 2014. May 01. 2014.

Kirk, Jason. Not Wanting Pay-For- Play , Want Rights. Web. Jan 28. 2014. May 07. 2014

Research Project Primary Research

For this part of the assignement I asked a few friends different questions based on the subject of college players unionizing, and gave the possible answers of Agree or Disagree.

College athletes are compensated enough through scholarships by their Universities.

Agree – 1

Disagree 4

College athletes should be paid by their universities.

Agree – 1

Disagree – 4

College athletes should be allowed to unionize.

Agree – 5

Disagree – 0

There is nothing more universitites can do to protect their students on the field/court.

Agree – 2

Disagree – 3

Universities will eventually be paying there student athletes.

Agree – 3

DIsagree – 2

Non-representation/compensation for student athletes negatively effects their college experiences

Agree – 4

Disagree – 1

You would vote for the Northwestern bid to unionize

Agree – 5

Disagree – 0

Some of the money generated by the NCAA should go to the students after graduation.

Agree – 2

Disagree – 3

You would be part of the push to unionize if you were a college athlete

Agree – 5

Disagree- 0

 

Cover Letter

Dear Portfolio Committee,

I’ll be totally honest in telling you that I’ve never been a fan of writing essays or English class in general.Throughout high school, I always felt i wasn’t learning anything new and the whole subject as a whole became very stagnant.Just the same setup as every other year, a boring old writing prompt and five paragraph essays.Not exactly the most interesting class of the day as you can imagine,But I found out very early that English 101 in my first semester at BCC was going to be a different animal.For starters, the whole blog setup of writing was very intriguing to me.It had somewhat of a social media type feel to it, with my and my peers writings all shared together in one place.Aside from the setup, the prompts and assignments were very interesting and new, which helped me become more interested in writing professional looking documents in an MLA format.All and all, English 101 has definitely helped me become a more well rounded writer,and also has made me become someone who can enjoy writing an assignment as opposed to just trying to get it done.I feel  that the following three essays I have here for you are some of the best writing I have ever done in my academic career, and I hope you enjoy reading just as much as i enjoyed writing them.

My first essay I have here for you was the one I took the most time to compose.It was a new kind of assignment for me, as I’ve never really written a research paper before,and also never heard of an “annotation” essay.I chose to have this essay first in my portfolio because I believe it demonstrates my development and a coming together of many different skills in writing in the best way.I chose the very popular subject of legalizing medical marijuana because the argument is a reflection on the shift of attitude that is happening in the world when it comes to marijuana.While writing this essay and researching the topic, i wanted to make sure a conveyed the message that whether or not you agree with legalization, you have to acknowledge the cultural shift that is happening across the nation, and that topic is very interesting to me.I would like for you to pay closer attention to my final paragraph,as I believe it is the paragraph that can sway your opinion one way or the other the best.

The next piece was a memoir about my experiences replacing the engine on my old vehicle.This was my favorite essay to write as it gave me a chance to recollect on a past experience that was very important to me.I love working on cars and this experience gave me an opportunity to decide on whether I’d be continuing on in the trade as a career.It was a trying project and took a lot of determination and persistence.Its that very word persistence that this piece was centered around, as the assignment was to take the reader through your experience with great detail and have them feel as if they were in the room with you while everything was unfolding.I show this concept of detail and displaying persistence the best in my second paragraph after the dialogue in the beginning of this essay.Paying attention to the descriptive nature of the paragraph, I hope you formulate a mental image of my struggle as I work underneath my vehicle and also hope you can feel that I grasp the concept of a descriptive type essay.

Finally, I thought of it only fitting to be my first essay of the semester last, so that after reading through my portfolio you can understand how much I’ve progressed throughout the year.The assignment was to focus on the idea of Persistence and to research a question regarding it.I chose whether or not Persistence is an acquired trait or a tool that we all are born with.This essay blends together very well not only researching for a paper but also work citing.Another interesting twist to this assignment was using one of my peers essays as source of reference,which helped bring together all of our ideas on the concept of persistence.This essay displays my skills in the area of researching and organizing an essay around an idea, which are skills you will see throughout my blog and the other essays in my portfolio.

All and all , my portfolio is a good display of my somewhat of an evolution as a writer. Coming.Coming from not having many of the skills required yo pass this course to actually displaying them as a regular basis and being confident in my abilities as a writer.Also progressed from someone who disliked English class writing assignments to enjoying composing essays in this course.The plan is to build upon this year and to continue gaining skills and developing myself as a writer.All the skills I’ve learned so far like development, organization, mechanics, and research skills are my base as a writer now.They are tools that I can say I have in my tool belt,and skills that are clearly defined in my three essays i have here for you.I appreciate you reading and taking the time out to give my portfolio a look over, thank you.

Sincerely,

Dillon Antone Pinto

 

 

 

The Marijuana Debate (Annotation)

The Marijuana Debate

          weeed

Dillon Pinto

English 101

Weed, Pot, Marijuana, and Bud. All synonyms for the drug that is extracted from the herb hemp. Even though the debate over legalizing medical marijuana or legalizing recreational use have just started to become prevalent in our lives in the past few decades, there have been many diverse uses for this plant and the drug Cannabis over thousands of years in human history. Whether it be the ancient Egyptians doctors subscribing Cannabis to treat eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas (Lise Manniche) or in the present, when a severe cancer patient is being administered marijuana to treat her terminal pain, or even your local, stereotypical stoner munching on his Fritos in-between joints, weed has a wide variety of uses all around the world and throughout history. People debate on the matter of marijuana being legalized on a federal level, either recreationally or medically. They will even debate if medical marijuana really is a viable source of medicine for patients. There are also individuals who believe marijuana being legalized is no different than tobacco or alcohol legalization, stating that those two legalized drugs and vices have even more profound negative effects on your health than smoking a blunt, as far as recreational use is concerned. But no one can debate on the fact that the legalization of marijuana discussion is very prevalent in our society, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, with more and more countries across the world starting to decriminalize marijuana, and have a dramatically different attitude toward marijuana legalization than even just a mere 40 years ago.

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Marijuana being used in the medical field is not a new concept in the history of medicine, it is now just being revisited after years of being outlawed in medicine in the United States. In fact , is was actually added into the US Pharmacopeia(an official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the counter medicines) in the year 1850, listed as being a medicine for numerous afflictions, including: neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, among others.(Boire and Feeney) It wasn’t until 61 years later that any state began to outlaw Cannabis, when Massachusetts added it into legislature in 1911,and then were followed by Maine, Wyoming and Indiana in 1913; New York City in 1914; Utah and Vermont in 1915; and Colorado and Nevada in 1917.This was brought upon by a ”Progressive Era faith in big government, the 1910s marked a high tide of prohibitionist sentiment in America. In 1914 and 1916, alcohol prohibition initiatives would make the state ballots. Meanwhile, the legislature was tackling such morals issues as prostitution, racetrack gambling, prizefighting, and liquor. Amidst this profusion of vices, Indian hemp [aka cannabis] was but a minor afterthought.”(Gieringer).Throughout the next few decades, a number of different factors led to the use of marijuana being minimized, with very high taxes and enforced time behind bars for possession of the drug, all of this culminating in President Nixon’s “War on Drugs” which he stated At a June 17, 1971 press conference. Over 24 years after Nixon’s speech and 84 years after medical marijuana was first outlawed, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1995.From 1995 on to the present, more and more states have begun to legalize medicinal marijuana, where as of now there are 20 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana, and even two states, Colorado and Washington, which have legalized recreational use of weed.

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As far as laws across the world in places other than America, only one country has absolutely no laws regarding marijuana as illegal, and that country is North Korea. There are a number of countries who have decriminalized marijuana so much to the point that there are only laws regulating the amount of marijuana you are allowed to grow and have in your possession. Uruguay, for example, laws state that each household is allowed to grow 6 plants and harvest 480 grams of marijuana per year, must be 18 years of age, and can only purchase marijuana from federally licensed pharmacies. (Castillo) The Netherlands is another country where marijuana is federally illegal, but there is a law called “Gedoogbeleid” which translates to a Policy of Tolerance. The actual wording of the law is difficult, but in street terms you can just explain it as an official ‘closing of the eyes’ by law enforcement.

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Now that we have a layout of the history of medicinal marijuana and laws across this nation and globally, we can look at the actual uses of and whether or not licensed doctors agree or disagree on the actual value of medicinal cannabis. Throughout the 20 states and D.C with legalized medicinal cannabis, the symptoms it is listed as treating vary from very specific ailments, like HIV/AIDS, or very broad “ailments”, some being listed as just “pain” or a migraine headache. Some doctors believe these disparate state lists are evidence that there’s a lack of evidence, when it comes to widely using marijuana for palliative care. (Mogul)“There are some things we know it works well on, like relieving certain kinds of pain or increasing appetite,” Haney said, citing cancer and HIV treatment as areas that clearly benefit from either smoking marijuana or taking a prescription pill called Marinol, that uses a synthetic version of THC, a key compound found in cannabis. “But the data is much weaker for many of the other indications.”(Haney) The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) official stance on marijuana is that of a Schedule 1 controlled substance – in other words, an illegal narcotic. But the FDA and the federal government essentially look the other way at the state programs of Washington and Colorado. (Mogul)

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There are other doctors that believe that a wide spectrum of ailments for medical marijuana use are similar to the gray area that surrounds other off-label use of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. “Many different drugs are approved for one indication but more often are used for something else. In the hospital here, we have patients that we treat for pain using Gabapentin. It’s really a seizure medicine, but hardly anyone uses it for anti-seizure medicine, even though that’s what the label says.”(Aggarwal) Overall, not only across America about in other countries, most doctors would approve of medical marijuana, according to a CBS News survey. Doctors surveyed were given a hypothetical case about a woman named “Marilyn,” a 68-year-old woman with breast cancer that had metastasized — or spread — to her lungs, chest cavity and spine. They were asked if they would give her medical marijuana to help her with her symptoms. More than three-quarters of the North American physicians approved the use of medical marijuana in this scenario. About 78 percent of doctors outside the U.S. who responded supported the use as well. (Castillo) These results were from a pool of 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. The debate is ongoing, but supporters of medicinal marijuana, as far as those people in the medical field, have always leaned toward the side of having at least the option to subscribe medicinal marijuana in their arsenal. Will the rest of the nation, and those in positions of legalization power, particularly the 30 states without legalized medicinal marijuana, begin to lean and agree with these doctors? Time will tell, but the indications is that they will begin to, with decriminalization very prevalent in this nation and across the world.

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Works Cited

 

Aggarwal, Sunil. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Castillo, Michelle. Survey: 76 percent of doctors approve of medical marijuana usecbsnews.com. Web. May 31. 2013. April 15. 2013.

 

Gieringer, Dale. “The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California” Contemporary Drug Problems. Summer 1999. Text. 15 April. 2014.

 

Haney, Margaret. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Manniche, Lise. An Ancient Egyptian Herbal. 1989. Text. 15 April. 2014.

 

Mariano, Castillo. Legalizing weed: the Uruguayan model. CNN.com. August 20. 2013. 15 April 2014.

 

Mogul, Fred. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Richard Boire and Kevin Feeny. Medical Marijuana Law. 2007. Text. 15 April 2014.

Grease Monkey 101: Making Money (CCP: Memoir)

Dillon Pinto

English 101

                                    Grease Monkey 101: Making Money

 

“I’m starting to think it’s not even worth all of this work man” I say to my cousin Victor as I become more and more frustrated with my car.

“Grease Monkey 101?” he asks with a smile.

“Making Money” I reply.

It’s the middle of August, my garage is sticky and humid and being covered in dirt and grease isn’t exactly making me feel any better, and neither is the fact that my car hasn’t been running for over a week now.

You see, I had a 98 Honda Civic with over 200,000 miles on it. I went to Diman and was in the Automotive Tech shop, so I was constantly doing little repairs to my car on my own. From replacing Alternators to exhaust work, I’ve done almost everything to my car besides major engine work; and then my head gasket went. So I figured replacing my entire engine makes more sense than taking apart the top end of an engine with 200k on it.

“This is what I do, I work on cars” I say to myself. ”I can do this on my own and save hundreds of dollars on labor.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t exactly realize how involved this job was going to be. Now, I won’t go into great detail about the process of taking out an engine and putting another in its place, but I’ll try to make you understand how big of a process this is and how much patience and persistence goes into accomplishing my ultimate goal of having a fully functioning car, and saving tons of money on mechanical work.

Every little bolt on this car tried my patience and continuously had me cursing at my car as if it were an actual person. I’m on this old wooden creeper underneath my car, with rust and debris constantly falling onto my face as I try to loosen up bolts on my original exhaust system. Only mechanics can understand the frustration of being hot and sweaty under a car and having bolt after bolt deny your wrench and socket. And as if it’s not hot enough, every mechanic knows the only way to get a stuck bolt off without damaging it is to heat it up with a blow torch. Next time someone wants to go into a sauna, instead of spending all that money at a spa or hotel, heat up some bolts under your car in the middle of summer. Trust me, it does the job just as well.

A few days of working for 10 minutes on every bolt that connects to my engine finally makes me realize I need some help. My cousin Victor was a Tech at Viti Mercedes for years and now runs his own garage. Who better to ask? So he agrees to help me out on the upcoming Saturday. Meanwhile during the week, I’m slowly but surely, piece by piece and bolt by bolt getting this engine ready to be lifted out of my baby.  

He arrives just on time, as I’m beginning to lose faith that I’m going to be able to finish the job and do it right before I lose my mind. I remember on the night before, it’s about 7:30 PM, and I’ve been working on my motor mounts, which basically support the engine. They are full of rust, stripped and rounded like crazy, my socket is just flying off this thing with no luck. I’ve heated it up about four or five times, and I’m just about to lose it. Now, a lot of times when you are focused on one thing you forget little details about the job. Like the fact that my bolts on the motor mount were right-hand threaded. So, everyone’s heard of the old saying of “Lefty loosey Righty tighty” when it comes to unscrewing something right? Well right hand threaded bolts are the exact opposite. In my rush to finish up on the disassembling I forgot this little detail and set myself back about an hour. I’m sure you can imagine how frustrating this was for me, knowing that I could have been showered and relaxing in bed already if it wasn’t for my screw up. But instead, I’m in this humid garage, throwing my tools around in frustration.

Luckily for me, my cousin Victor made the rest of this process relatively headache-free. After a few small problems at first; like trying to jack up a few hundred pound engine with just a car jack, and trying to get the engine mounted in the engine crane right, we were on our way. We were able to lift the old engine out, and reassemble my car with my new engine in place pretty quick and easy with the help of Victor. Now, I’m making it seem like dropping a new engine inside of a car is a piece of cake, but compared to the rest of this job, it somewhat was. The biggest issue is trying to line up everything right so that you get the engine inside without banging against any other parts that are still under the hood. Every inch to the left or right counts, and it’s really just a test of patience to get it right before you begin to lower the engine. From that point on, I’ve dealt with all the headaches of this job already, and reassembling new parts is like cutting through butter with a hot knife, smooth and easy. Once everything was pretty squared away, and I was looking at my essentially brand new car, I felt a feeling of accomplishment. All those hours spent banging my knuckles against metal as I tried to loosen a bolt in a tricky spot and all those shirts that went in the garbage from being covered in grease all seemed worth it. I was able to not only to get my car back into proper shape, but gain experience and save myself quite a bit of money .I did some research on engine replacement jobs and realize I saved myself about 600-700 dollars by doing this job on my own. The funny part about this, though, is about two months later I sold my car and purchased a 2004 VW Jetta.

”What did I come over for and help you with it if you just turned around and sold it?!” my cousin said to me a few weeks later.

“I would’ve gotten near nothing for that car with a head gasket issue, and instead I got 2,500$ and put that as a down payment on my new car bro” I replied.

“Wow, you made out pretty well then huh buddy?” he said.

“Grease monkey 101?” I said with a smirk.

“Making money” he replied.

Persistence At The Ready (CCP: Idea)

Persistence.Its a concept we’ve all dealt with many times before throughout our lives.Whether it be when you’re a small child learning to ride a bike or swim,and your mom says “just keep trying you’ll get it.” Or when you’re a bit older, trying to graduate college and the work seems to be becoming a bit too much for you, but you know that all of the hard work you put in will eventually pay off.Persistence is the key to achieving your goals, small or large, it doesn’t matter.But what about those people who just seem to lack the desire to persist when the going gets tough? Is being a persistent person just something you are born with? Or is persistence a skill that can be practiced,attacked methodically,and eventually mastered? With persistence being such a desired trait in the workplace by potential employers or just in life in general, its no wonder individuals are looking for ways to perfect the skill and become more persistent beings.

There are a number of different websites you can go on to look for methods and ways to become persistent, but the one I found to layout the best argument and way persistence can be mastered was posted on lifehack.org by Lou Macabasco. His plan of mastering and becoming a more persistent individual lies on six key components,and they are to identify your wants and desires, determine your motivation, outline your definitive action step, keeping a positive mental attitude,building your mastermind group and lastly developing discipline and habit.Now, it may seem to some that Lou is trying to organize and plan out steps to a characteristic trait that can’t be aught, but when you think about it, he really is not.Essentially, he is just stating the steps that a persistent individual goes through subconsciously , and instead stating them in writing.These six steps come naturally to persistent individuals, but when a non persistent individual is given directions on how to be persistent, and with enough practice, can they not become just as persistent? Lou firmly believes that any individual can set up these steps in their own personal situation, but many don’t attain their goals because of various reasons,none of which being that they are unable to master persistence, other factors come into play.”Developing persistence is a master skill to success.  It is easier to relax and do nothing, or just live in our comfort zone, rather than face the uncertainty and discomfort of sailing threw our goals.  Plus, the idea of failure and hardship is unbearable.But if you want to create change in your life and achieve success, now is the time to develop and master persistence.”(Macabasco)

“Persistence is essential. In fact, persistence is one of the most important characteristics successful people share in common. There is no other way to succeed but by developing persistence in our life, and here I’d like to share seven ways to develop it.”(Latumahina) Yet another individual who believes not only in that having persistence is a quality trait that will separate you from the pack, but that it can also be an acquired skill that can be mastered with a methodical approach.His seven steps share some similarities with Lou Macabasco’s above steps, showing that a organized approach to developing persistence is starting to become accepted and preached internationally to developing minds.Developing persistence at a young age will make it easier for the individual to one day master the craft with set steps and guidelines to follow.

So is methodical,procedural,and time tasking step by step process the only way one can begin to develop persistence? Or can certain situations speed up the process, there fore giving even more proof that persistence is far from  a rare trait only few have the ability to possess , and more of a universal trait that just needs to be developed and exploited to reach your individual goals? Is persistence just a tool that is buried deep deep inside your tool box that only surfaces when you have a personal desire for it? Jeremy’s situation seems to support this as he states “A few months into the shop, I began to realize how I needed to get my rear in gear or I was going to fail. This is where my persistence began to come through.” (Souza) Did he lack the trait of persistence, or was it just waiting to be used? I think the latter is true.Persistence is a trait that not only everyone possesses internally,but also is a skill that everyone can develop and master when the need for it arrives.Some have long-term goals that give them time to methodically develop there persistence, while others , like Jeremy , need that persistence to peek through so they can grab it and run with it.Both scenarios require a mastering of skills and a set steps for attaining persistence, but each proves the overall theory: Persistence is not just an acquired trait,something only a select few are born with and can use.But instead, it is a tool that is in everyone’s tool belt.Everyone can develop and harness their own personal persistence.All it takes is a plan,and a need for that ever valuable tool called persistence.

Works Cited

Lathumahina, Donald. “7  Sure-Fire Ways To Develop Persistence” Lifeoptimizer.org. 19 Nov. 2007.  Web. 7  Mar. 2014

Macabasco , Lou. “6 Effective Way to Become Persistent” LifeHack.org.  4 Aug. Web. 7 Mar. 2014

Souza, Jeremy. “Forced Persistence” jsouza99.edublogs.org

Edublogs 2014.  25 Feb. 2014. Web. 7 Mar. 2014

Brainstorming Research Project

Playing sports is something that many of us are brought up participating in or watching. Whether its going down to the park to shoot some hoops or play catch or watching SportsCenter on the couch, sports are a huge part of our day to day lives.This invariably transfers, for a lot of people, to playing organized sports at our high schools,and a select few even make it on to college teams.Once you are on the collegiate level, there is a realization that you could become a professional athlete, playing the game you love for a living and also making a ton of money.That is a dream shared by all of the 420000 student athletes that the NCAA currently encompasses. Unfortunately, no more than 2% of athletes in any major sport(except baseball as 11.6%) actually make it to the pro level in the United States.(Manfred) So what about the student athletes? Many of whom have taken up studies in degrees some classify as “bird courses” just so they can spend 40 to 50 hours a week on athletics.Or how about those students that suffer severe injuries and have their scholarships stripped away? Not only are they left with debt from going to these universities, whose scholarships don’t cover all of the cost of tuition, who will be paying for the long lasting medical visits they face in the future stemming from injuries suffered from college athletics? These student athletes need a voice, and they need rights.The NCAA has exploited these students long enough, and its time for change.Its time to unionize and collectively bargain for rights from these universities making millions of dollars on laborers they don’t have to pay or compensate in any other way except an scholarship that they can terminate whenever they please.

Many who oppose the idea of compensating college atheletes beyond the scholarships they recieve will argue that a free education compensates these athletes more than adequately.But once you research the nature of athletic scholarships a bit, you will soon realize that these students aren’t exactly getting a free ride through a university.For starters, only those students in division I or division II universities can receive athletic scholarships, division III schools and lower cannot.There is also absolutely nothing guranteeing that your scholarship will be honored by your university for longer than one year.(Peterson’s Staff) If the athelete does nothing detrimental to himself,others or the university, he can still have his scholarship terminated to no fault of his own.Say a team changes coaches and the new one doesn’t want you on his team, scholarship terminated.Or your university needs to cut back on scholarships to save costs ( even though college athletics are a virtual money tree) there goes your scholarship.And lastly, and the biggest reason there needs to be reform in college athletics, is injury.If you suffer a substantial injury,the college has every right to not only terminate your scholarship,but also is not legally responsible for covering any medical bills in the short or long term.Essentially,  college teams are nothing better than an employer who has full time workers with zero rights,zero job security and zero benefits,something that you don’t see in any other field of business in this nation,but college athletes are exploited to this horrible business practice.

You may be thinking at this point how can a college cover medical bills of all there athletes? Its not like they have millions upon millions of spending money right? Well, not exactly.Taking a look at one of the biggest colleges in the nation will show you a microcosm of the issue in college athletic spending.Everything is bigger in Texas,and college athletics is no exception.The athletic department brought in $163.3 million in revenue in the school year of 2012-2013, and only had expenses totalling in $138.3 million for the athletic department, leaving a “profit” of $25 million.(Gaines) Because the university is a public school, this extra money does go back into the school in one way shape or form,but its definetly noit going into helping these student athletes.Perhaps the biggest eye opener in the Texas Longhorns athletic budget and expenses is the discrepency of how money is spent.In particular, one third of all revenue is spent on coaches salaries, while only six percent is spent ion studenet scholarships.Shortening up the hugegap between these two expenses would gretly help the students recieve the kind of compensation they deserve for all they give to these universities.

After the all of these unfair senarios I’ve laid out for you when it comes to the amount universities are making off of these students, you’d expect someone to syep up to the plate and ask for changes right? Well that is exactly what has begun to happen in this past year, as Northwestern Universities football players have won a bid to unionize after a court hearing in Chicago where Judge Ohr wrote in his ruling that the players “fall squarely within the National Labor Relations Act’s broad definition of ’employee’ when one considers the common law definition of ’employee.'” (Bennett)  This coult be a potentially huge decision when it comes to college sports, because if they are to succefully unionize and collectively bargain with the NCAA , it could open the door for other universities to do the same.With a strong togetherness between the student athletes nationwide, they will finally be abke to recieve proper compensation for all of their hard work,and hopefully get a bigger piece of the pie when it comes to the millions upon millionsthat these colleges make off of their student athletes.

A whole lot of people are mistaking this move to unionize as players desire to become paid athletes.This coult not be farther from the truth.The Northwestern football team’s terms thtat they plan to collectively bargain on have absolutely nothing to do with monetary gain,instead they have to do with insuring college athletes are safer and taken care of by these universities that they give a great deal of their time to.There are ten points of discussion on their website , and they are as follows :  Minimize college athletes’ brain trauma risks, Raise the scholarship amount, Prevent players from being stuck paying sports-related medical expenses,Increase graduation rates,Increase graduation rates,Prohibit universities from using a permanent injury suffered during athletics as a reason to reduce/eliminate a scholarship,Establish and enforce uniform safety guidelines in all sports to help prevent serious injuries and avoidable deaths,Eliminate restrictions on legitimate employment and players ability to directly benefit from commercial opportunities,Prohibit the punishment of college athletes that have not committed a violation, and lastly Guarantee that college athletes are granted an athletic release from their university if they wish to transfer schools.(Kirk) Now, anyone who is not directly  benefiting from the current system in place and anyone with some common sense can tell from these point that there is no desire to be paid shown by these players.Simply wanting the security that any other employee would have in any workplace is not asking much of these money-making universities.Hopefully, Northwestern University is succesfuk with there push to unionize and collectively bargain,and more schools should follow suit.Colleges have benefited from this free labor for long enough,and its time to change the system , and get these kids the represetation and compensation that they deserve.

Works Cited

Manfred,Tony.Odds College Athletes Become Pro.businessinsider.com. Web. Feb 10. 2012. May 10. 2014.

Petersin’s Staff.Understand Athletic Scholarships.petersons.com. Web. April 10. 2014. May 5. 2014.

Gaines, Cork. How The richest School In The Country Spends Its Money. businessinsider.com. Web. Sep 17. 2013. May 04. 2014.

Bennett, Brian. Northwestern Wildcats Football Team Wins Bid To Unionize. Web. Mar 27. 2014. may 01. 2014.

Kirk, Jason. Not Wanting Pay-For- Play , Want Rights. Web. Jan 28. 2014. May 07. 2014

Should College Athletes be allowed to unionize and/or payed by the university they play for? Sources

 Sources

Annotation Project Finished

The Marijuana Debate

          weeed

Dillon Pinto

English 101

Weed, Pot, Marijuana, and Bud. All synonyms for the drug that is extracted from the herb hemp. Even though the debate over legalizing medical marijuana or legalizing recreational use have just started to become prevalent in our lives in the past few decades, there have been many diverse uses for this plant and the drug Cannabis over thousands of years in human history. Whether it be the ancient Egyptians doctors subscribing Cannabis to treat eyes (glaucoma), inflammation, cooling the uterus, as well as administering enemas (Lise Manniche) or in the present, when a severe cancer patient is being administered marijuana to treat her terminal pain, or even your local, stereotypical stoner munching on his Fritos in-between joints, weed has a wide variety of uses all around the world and throughout history. People debate on the matter of marijuana being legalized on a federal level, either recreationally or medically. They will even debate if medical marijuana really is a viable source of medicine for patients. There are also individuals who believe marijuana being legalized is no different than tobacco or alcohol legalization, stating that those two legalized drugs and vices have even more profound negative effects on your health than smoking a blunt, as far as recreational use is concerned. But no one can debate on the fact that the legalization of marijuana discussion is very prevalent in our society, and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, with more and more countries across the world starting to decriminalize marijuana, and have a dramatically different attitude toward marijuana legalization than even just a mere 40 years ago.

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Marijuana being used in the medical field is not a new concept in the history of medicine, it is now just being revisited after years of being outlawed in medicine in the United States. In fact , is was actually added into the US Pharmacopeia(an official public standards-setting authority for all prescription and over-the counter medicines) in the year 1850, listed as being a medicine for numerous afflictions, including: neuralgia, tetanus, typhus, cholera, rabies, dysentery, alcoholism, opiate addiction, anthrax, leprosy, incontinence, gout, convulsive disorders, tonsillitis, insanity, excessive menstrual bleeding, and uterine bleeding, among others.(Boire and Feeney) It wasn’t until 61 years later that any state began to outlaw Cannabis, when Massachusetts added it into legislature in 1911,and then were followed by Maine, Wyoming and Indiana in 1913; New York City in 1914; Utah and Vermont in 1915; and Colorado and Nevada in 1917.This was brought upon by a ”Progressive Era faith in big government, the 1910s marked a high tide of prohibitionist sentiment in America. In 1914 and 1916, alcohol prohibition initiatives would make the state ballots. Meanwhile, the legislature was tackling such morals issues as prostitution, racetrack gambling, prizefighting, and liquor. Amidst this profusion of vices, Indian hemp [aka cannabis] was but a minor afterthought.”(Gieringer).Throughout the next few decades, a number of different factors led to the use of marijuana being minimized, with very high taxes and enforced time behind bars for possession of the drug, all of this culminating in President Nixon’s “War on Drugs” which he stated At a June 17, 1971 press conference. Over 24 years after Nixon’s speech and 84 years after medical marijuana was first outlawed, California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1995.From 1995 on to the present, more and more states have begun to legalize medicinal marijuana, where as of now there are 20 states that have legalized medicinal marijuana, and even two states, Colorado and Washington, which have legalized recreational use of weed.

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As far as laws across the world in places other than America, only one country has absolutely no laws regarding marijuana as illegal, and that country is North Korea. There are a number of countries who have decriminalized marijuana so much to the point that there are only laws regulating the amount of marijuana you are allowed to grow and have in your possession. Uruguay, for example, laws state that each household is allowed to grow 6 plants and harvest 480 grams of marijuana per year, must be 18 years of age, and can only purchase marijuana from federally licensed pharmacies. (Castillo) The Netherlands is another country where marijuana is federally illegal, but there is a law called “Gedoogbeleid” which translates to a Policy of Tolerance. The actual wording of the law is difficult, but in street terms you can just explain it as an official ‘closing of the eyes’ by law enforcement.

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Now that we have a layout of the history of medicinal marijuana and laws across this nation and globally, we can look at the actual uses of and whether or not licensed doctors agree or disagree on the actual value of medicinal cannabis. Throughout the 20 states and D.C with legalized medicinal cannabis, the symptoms it is listed as treating vary from very specific ailments, like HIV/AIDS, or very broad “ailments”, some being listed as just “pain” or a migraine headache. Some doctors believe these disparate state lists are evidence that there’s a lack of evidence, when it comes to widely using marijuana for palliative care. (Mogul)“There are some things we know it works well on, like relieving certain kinds of pain or increasing appetite,” Haney said, citing cancer and HIV treatment as areas that clearly benefit from either smoking marijuana or taking a prescription pill called Marinol, that uses a synthetic version of THC, a key compound found in cannabis. “But the data is much weaker for many of the other indications.”(Haney) The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) official stance on marijuana is that of a Schedule 1 controlled substance – in other words, an illegal narcotic. But the FDA and the federal government essentially look the other way at the state programs of Washington and Colorado. (Mogul)

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There are other doctors that believe that a wide spectrum of ailments for medical marijuana use are similar to the gray area that surrounds other off-label use of FDA-approved pharmaceuticals. “Many different drugs are approved for one indication but more often are used for something else. In the hospital here, we have patients that we treat for pain using Gabapentin. It’s really a seizure medicine, but hardly anyone uses it for anti-seizure medicine, even though that’s what the label says.”(Aggarwal) Overall, not only across America about in other countries, most doctors would approve of medical marijuana, according to a CBS News survey. Doctors surveyed were given a hypothetical case about a woman named “Marilyn,” a 68-year-old woman with breast cancer that had metastasized — or spread — to her lungs, chest cavity and spine. They were asked if they would give her medical marijuana to help her with her symptoms. More than three-quarters of the North American physicians approved the use of medical marijuana in this scenario. About 78 percent of doctors outside the U.S. who responded supported the use as well. (Castillo) These results were from a pool of 1,446 doctors from 72 different countries and 56 different states and provinces in North America. The debate is ongoing, but supporters of medicinal marijuana, as far as those people in the medical field, have always leaned toward the side of having at least the option to subscribe medicinal marijuana in their arsenal. Will the rest of the nation, and those in positions of legalization power, particularly the 30 states without legalized medicinal marijuana, begin to lean and agree with these doctors? Time will tell, but the indications is that they will begin to, with decriminalization very prevalent in this nation and across the world.

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Works Cited

 

Aggarwal, Sunil. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Castillo, Michelle. Survey: 76 percent of doctors approve of medical marijuana use. cbsnews.com. Web. May 31. 2013. April 15. 2013.

 

Gieringer, Dale. “The Forgotten Origins of Cannabis Prohibition in California” Contemporary Drug Problems. Summer 1999. Text. 15 April. 2014.

 

Haney, Margaret. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Manniche, Lise. An Ancient Egyptian Herbal. 1989. Text. 15 April. 2014.

 

Mariano, Castillo. Legalizing weed: the Uruguayan model. CNN.com. August 20. 2013. 15 April 2014.

 

Mogul, Fred. Does Medical Marijuana Work? The Experts Are Divided. wnyc.org. Web. May 07. 2013. April 15. 2014.

 

Richard Boire and Kevin Feeny. Medical Marijuana Law. 2007. Text. 15 April 2014.