Peer Response

Mari posted a blog recently about a meal she prepared for herself and a few friends. She said she prepared gnocchi pasta with Italian red sauce, Cesar salad, and garlic bread. She cut up the gnocchi pasta, boiled it, and drained it. She then heated the red sauce and poured it in a bowl with the pasta. She put the garlic bread in the pasta until golden brown and tossed the salad. This makes me hungry just writing this.

As I do agree with Mari that the meal would definitely be enjoyable and very appetizing I think that after reading Michael Pollan's book I would probably have to rethink a few of the sets of preparing a meal. I understand that most people do not want to or cannot eat strictly healthy meals, as defined in Pollan's book, all of the time. However, I think I would have looked more carefully in the ingredients of all of the things I bought. Maybe that is what Mari did and just did not add that fact in her post. I definitely have made similar meals with I believe to be very healthy but I think that next time I will be a little more cautious about what I perceive as truly healthy.

Demonstration Speech Evaluation

I think that the introduction section of my speech was most likely the worst possible beginning I could have started off with. I did not capture the audience in an effective manner. I was not very enthusiastic which in turn did not make my audience very interested in my topic. However, I think I did explain the basic relevance of my topic.

In terms of my physical presentation, I think that some parts were bad and others were good. Like I said, my energy seemed to be very low and I did not convey much enthusiasm. However, I think I had good enough volume for being partially ill with a sore throat. I did not have very good body language with my hands and I think my eye contact could have been better. At the same time, I think my physical demonstration of the topic was satisfactory.

I believe I used my visual aid in a positive way that was effective. I think my visual aid probably produced more interest than the speech itself. The organization of the speech was good. I think I presented the steps of the demonstration in an organized manner that was east for the audience to remember and effective in explaining my topic.

If I had to do a demonstration speech over, I think I would keep the same topic because it had some interest from the audience. I think that I would keep the introduction shorter so that I would not forget part of it and stand in silence for ten seconds. I would keep the visual aid but maybe prop it up a little higher for the whole audience to see. The biggest thing I would change would be having a positive attitude and have better body language.

Two Opposing Online Articles on the Morality of Abortion

The two articles I found on the Internet have to do with the topic of abortion. The first article puts forth a nonreligious argument against why abortion is immoral. The author of this article, Don Marquis argues that we have to start with the question of if we are actually killing a person or a thing. He says that we must evaluate whether a fetus has the right to live. In his main argument, Marquis states, "having a future of value is the basis for the right not to be killed and fetuses have a future of value, therefore fetuses have the right not to be killed." This means that he believes that abortion is immoral because we are when a person aborts a baby, they are actually killing the future aspirations of a human adult.

The second article is in opposition to Marquis statements. It points out various flaws in the support that Don Marquis has put forth in his article. In this article, the author, C Strong, points out that a fetus does not necessarily have a "future value" that Marquis bases his article on. He says that there is no interruption of ongoing plans for the fetus and states, "a morally significant part of the wrongness of killing an adult is that it deprives the person of the continuation of projects of value." From this he says that since a fetus is being deprived of something different than this, a fetus can not be related to an adult or in sense a human being.

I think that the first article is more convincing because uses more support and has an overall better argument. I think that the second author uses the petitio principle which means he uses a lot of circular arguments.

The articles overall did not really change my stance on the controversial topic but rather made me think about it in new, different ways. If I had to add to the argument I would pose the question to Marquis, when he says we are taking away from the fetus "future value" asking (1) how do we measure that value and (2) if that fetus contributes negative does that put itself into the equation?