The SAT Written Essay By Sean Ruhlman 7th Grade April 22, 2008
Well, I blew the SAT essay! The essay question was, "Do you feel Junk Food should be sold at school?" Why or Why not? This is a typical, easy to answer SAT question. So why did I blow it? It may be that I just spent four days in bed with the flu or that I got up at 5:00 A.M. to write this silly thing before school. Anyway, I was brain dead. I wish I would have written:
The oxymoron, Junk Food, contains its own answer. Although this essay requires a more superfluous answer, I will do my best to be direct. Our generation and the American society is facing an epidemic of obesity. which is seeded in the permissiveness of our society. In a recent news report the number one vegetable eaten by 3 year olds to teenagers is the French fry. In a government study it was found that more children could identify Ronald McDonald on a 75 to 1 ratio over Jesus. Junk Food is now a wild beast loosed on our society that needs to be controlled and caged.
Junk food and obesity are Siamese twins, joined at the hip. Obesity is the leading cause of many life-threatening diseases. Heart disease and diabetes in 20-40 year olds has increase by 300% since 1959, the year McDonalds began it’s expansion. Childhood obesity has had even more rapid growth. Our ‘be liked’ versus ‘teach right’ mentality has diminished our basic nutritional standards. And standards are near the bottom of an acceptable scale, we need to excel in basic nutrition in order to excel in any other endeavor.
Any school that would allow arbitrary access to Junk Food via vending machines should be found morally and ethically deficient. It is important that adults maintain their role in giving sound, prudent guidance and fight the tide of permissiveness in our society. The answer to this query should be a resounding no, Junk Food should not be allowed availability in our schools.
A Genetic Slippery Slope By Sean Ruhlman 7th Grade
In the past few weeks there have been three major events that have coincided with human development and genetics. I don’t believe I can effectively talk about the ethics of two of the events and the third I can only theorize was a result of radiation. The first event was the reprogramming of skin cells to “act like” stem cells. What that means, is theoretically you can re-grow fingers, a pancreas, or a spinal chord. Think about it, a lab created heart was produced in the past 6 months (Researchers at the University of Minnesota were able to create a beating heart using the outer structure of one heart and injecting heart cells from another rat. CNN article) .
The second event, of course, is cloning of a human embryo. I do understand this somewhat. I understand that a women’s egg was fertilized and the genetic material in that egg was destroyed in order to be replaced by “wanted” genetic material.
The third event, although random, plays into the first two events. The third event is that “Blue Eyes” are a genetic mutation that can be traced backed to one, single common ancestor. No one knows what caused this genetic mutation, but we have learned in science that there are only three ways mutation occurs; Adaptation, Hybridization, or Radiation. My theory is radiation.
I recently saw a movie with Will Smith called "I Am Legend". To be honest, it scared me worse than any movie I have seen in my life. I’ve seen ELE (extinction level-events) movies like Armageddon with Bruce Willis or Day After Tomorrow with Denis Quaid. But, "I Am Legend" combined with these three events becomes very real to me. As I learn about the history of mankind I am certain of two things; the first is “If we don’t learn from the past, we are destined to repeat the future” (Herodotus) and “knowledge without wisdom is dangerous to possess” (Sun Tzu). We worry about global warming, disease, a cataclysmic event or a drunk driver. We as humans, should be very concerned about the lack of wisdom demonstrated by two of these three events continuing on a global scale, because it can only take one random event (the third event), such as radiation to change or mutate human life and wipe out the majority of humanity in only a few short years. We are gaining knowledge at a geometrical rate and wisdom is falling far behind. Those are my thoughts.
There are links below to the stories:
The following exert is from the Charlie Rose show that airs on PBS. The subject is Human Cloning and how it is done.
