Canned Laughter

The reading by Chuck Klosterman was incredibly intriguing.  I enjoyed how unconventional and purely from the heart his writing was.  His discussion was about canned laughter and laugh tracks in today's media.  If I had to choose a side i would agree with Chuck.  I believe that laugh tracks are stupid.  He hits the nail on the head when he explains that these tracks are forcing people to think what they are hearing is entertaining and funny.  The majority of the shows that he has mentioned I have seen at least once, but I never caught the laugh tracks until now.  Another point that Chuck made was that Americans seem to almost be programmed to laugh at things for no reason.  I myself have laughed at a joke or comment before without thinking it was funny.  Chuck visited Germany and when he went there he claimed that German people do not laugh unless something is genuinely funny to them, if it is not, they show no expression.  I found it very odd that by listening to these laugh tracks, he said we actually could be listening to "dead" laughter.  This means that the people who recorded that laugh track at least one of them could be dead already.  This writing was different, but good.  I enjoyed listening to his opinions and the argument that he engaged.

fast food industry, is it making americans fat?

Everyone loves the Big Mac, the Whopper, a chicken sandwich, or a spicy burrito.  These things are delicious and we all know it, but what kind of health risks are there when these things become a main choice of our daily diet?  A recent documentary called "Super Size Me" shows the effects of fast food diets and how they can effect your health.  It is about a man who strictly eats only McDonald's food for every meal he has, no salads, just the menu from McDonald's.  Throughout the documentary you can see the health risks that he gains just from dieting for one month on only fast food.  As a research topic I would like to introduce this dilemma as my topic for discussion.  I truly believe that fast food corporations are the main contributor to the increase in obesity of Americans .  I am looking forward to finding out more information and supporting my argument.

Annotated Bibliography

Ferguson, Lon and James Ramsay. "Professional Safety: Role of Certification and Education in the Future of the Safety Professional." October 2010 edition.

The Authors of this edition of Professional Safety article explain the importance of various components of education that are important to a successful safety professional.  They also discuss what the safety profession entails and the importance of the job itself, such as the safety of our workers and to ensure that everyone goes home safely at the end of the day.  They talk about the future of the safety professional in regards to job outlooks and how in most cases, the current safety professionals are behind their time and are increasingly retiring at a fast pace.  I believe that the information that was talked about in this article will further my own research of this profession due to the current facts about safety and how each of these things plays a certain role to the professionals success.

Attached to Technology and Paying the Price

After reading the Richtell article, I came to believe that their is some truth in what the article discussed.  I enjoyed reading the story about Matt and his family and how crazy things can get when he is working and the things he forgets about while doing it.  I do believe people of the modern age now are to caught up in their technology.  The argument that I would like to pose is why everything is so technological these days then.  What I mean by this is, from work, to school, to catching up with old friends, these things demand technology, sometimes more than we ask for.  I think if people could put a hold on some of the things that "make life easier" maybe there wouldn't be such a mad craze for technology.