Author: jeprr1271

Visual Rewrite – jeprr1271

End Family Fire | Gun Safety

00. The first second looks like a cartoon animation riding a train carrying over what looks like yellow blocks as cargo. There is black smoke coming out of the train. The character seems to be happy. The train just exited a tunnel and seems to exit out into an open marsh field. The whole frame seems to look like it’s being shown in a TV.

02. There’s a little boy laying down on the floor. The boy seems to be playing with his toys and now switched to watching TV seeing all the toys all over the floor. Some couch pillows are also all over the floor which suggests that the kid likes to make a mess. The table has notebooks and writing utensils. Looks like the kid in the video is either doing his homework or he’s doodling. It looks like it’s late morning to early afternoon and the family seems to be part of the average middle-class. They have a couple paintings, a chandelier hanging over the dining table and some nice organic decoration by the TV. It also seems that the kid rides a skateboard which is placed next to the door. The father goes up to his son.

03. The father seems to be bonding with his son. The ad shows the father tickling his son. It seems that the father caught his son by surprise.

11. The frame shows that the father is going to the kitchen. The kitchen windows seem to have curtains. The table has a half glass of what seems to be water.

14. The father goes to the sink and wants to go and wash his hands.

15. The father looks which suggests that someone or something caught his attention. The father also has a concerned look on his face as well.

16. The kid seems to be asking his father for something and is concerned as well.

17. Based on the messages that were displayed, it seems the kid is asking his dad something related to the topic of firearms.

Enough About You – jeprr1271

Revised Version:

Money seems to have a big role in our society. It is a necessity and nothing much can be done without it. It’s value can be represented in different ways. In order for this to work, faith in the government and the banking system that our money is being handled correctly is required. Either trust has to be placed in some organization or not. If it’s the latter, money has to be hidden while its value being recognized. Banks say that they handle money correctly but no one can be sure if that’s 100% the case. Yep Fei, US gold, French francs, Brazilian cruzeros, and debit accounts now seem similar. The owner of his/her money don’t actually see what goes behind the scenes with their transactions. For example, whenever someone gets paid, they aren’t handed a check and they aren’t paid in cash. The payment is a deposit into their bank account and trust has to be placed in the banking system that their deposit is handled correctly.

Robust Verbs – jeprr1271

Heroin addicts in Vancouver commit crimes such as breaking, entering, and stealing and do whatever they can to get their hands on the drug. The program offers free “legal” heroin so that these addicts commit less crimes. This will also keep more heroin users out of the hospital by reducing the encountering of people who want to use bad drugs, unsanitary needles, or people who can’t afford hospital bills. This program can lower crime rates of these addicts, however, it will not fix their heroin addiction.

Visual Rhetoric – jeprr1271

End Family Fire | Gun Safety

00. The first second looks like a cartoon animation riding a train carrying over what looks like yellow blocks as cargo. There is black smoke coming out of the train. The character seems to be happy. The train just exited a tunnel and seems to exit out into an open marsh field.
02. There’s a little boy laying down on the floor. The boy seems to be playing with his toys and now switched to watching T.V. seeing all the toys all over the floor. Some couch pillows are also all over the floor which suggests that the kid likes to make a mess. It looks like it’s late morning to early afternoon and the family seems to be part of the average middle-class. They have a couple paintings, a chandelier hanging over the dining table and some nice organic decoration by the T.V. The father goes seems to go up to his son.
03. The father seems to be bonding with his son. The ad shows the father tickling his son. It seems that the father caught his son by surprise.
11. The frame shows that the father is going to the kitchen. The kitchen windows seem to have curtains. The table has a half glass of what seems to be water.
14. The father goes to the sink and wants to go and wash his hands.
15. The father looks which suggests that someone or something caught his attention. The father also has a concerned look on his face as well.
16. The kid seems to be asking his father for something and is concerned as well.

Stone Money – Jeprr

The concept of money is not as concrete as it seems. Money is not the same everywhere. How it’s accepted is called a currency. Over many centuries, the physical attributes of money has changed. In the paper by Friedman in his “The Island of Stone Money” he mentions the people of Yap using ring shaped stones as currency. The value of the stones come from the labor that the workers put in. So, if we consider our paper system in the U.S. to have some “value” and the people of Yap recognize their stones to have “value” as well, then what’s the difference? Money is an abstract where people define its wealth. People as a whole within a society have to recognize the value of that abstract and such object has to be transferable one way or another. If something is not seen as something valuable then it cannot be considered as money.

I have known that the U.S. currency is based off of nothing. Before, the U.S. currency was based on how much gold was available. This is not all that different from what the people of Yap did. Both used one or more than one mixture of metals as their object of currency. The U.S., as well as other countries, used gold because it was rare. Whoever had the most gold had the most “money”. The people of Yap could not use this same concept because stone isn’t rare so, they brought a new concept: labor. The idea is that even though stone is abundant they crafted these stones into giant discs with a hole in the middle in various sizes. This required a lot of labor which drived the value of these giant disc shaped structures. A common aspect of both currencies is that the objects that they use are rare. An abundance of something is not valuable but something of rarity can be recognized to have value. And, if two parties recognize the object’s value then it can be used as currency. Gold is rare and the stones that the people of Yap are not found everywhere because they are handcrafted. The U.S. produces the dollar, a currency based off of nothing. But, if the dollar is made out of just paper and lint, then how is it rare and how can it be money? The U.S. Mint limits the amount of dollar bills produced. The dollar bills also have security features to make it harder to be reproduced. This produces a form of “rarity”. The more of these dollar bills are produced the more value of the dollar is reduced. In order for paper money like the U.S. dollar to have value we, as a society, have to accept the value of a dollar as such value and worth.

Cryptocurrency is a new form of currency that is digitally based. This form of currency takes the same idea from paper currency where it’s based off of nothing but it has a limited total amount. The difference with this currency is that this isn’t managed by a central bank. The most well known cryptocurrency is Bitcoin. The formation of Bitcoin can be seen as something similar to what the people of Yap did with their stone money. Bitcoin has been made as an alternate, baseless form of currency without the need of some central organization. People in today’s society have to recognize the value of a unit of Bitcoin to give it real meaning. The uniqueness of Bitcoin and other forms of cryptocurrency is that it is built to prevent inflation, meaning the Bitcoin will never lose its value because more time would be needed as more Bitcoin is made. This is the nature of mining Bitcoin. The issue with Bitcoin is its perceived value. The value of Bitcoin is not a fixed set which makes it volatile. This is usually caused by the lack of trust and a uniformed agreement about this new concept of a currency. Investors are scared off by the media thinking this is a bad investment. However, Bitcoin is a good concept and a step forward to a global currency where it is not managed by our governments with the potential to inflate its value.

Unlike cryptocurrency or even our fiat currency, gold had a major issue where its global supply grew too slowly which could potentially cause nations to overspend and approach inflation. With our current fiat currency, we aren’t much different from the people of Yap. One group uses stones and the other uses paper. Other than that, both are not backed by a physical commodity but rather given intrinsic value by the people who uses them. If we are to still use the fiat currency then I do see cryptocurrency as a better alternative to our current system, just not established enough. This new system has to be polished for more people to place their trust and their recognition of value.

 

References

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Counterintuitive, Stanford University, Feb 1991. https://counterintuitive2015.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/stonemoneyessay.pdf

Glass, Ira. “The Invention of Money.” This American Life, 19 Feb. 2018, https://www.thisamericanlife.org/423/the-invention-of-money

Renaut, Anne. “The bubble bursts on e-currency Bitcoin.”, 13 Apr. 2013, https://sg.news.yahoo.com/bubble-bursts-e-currency-bitcoin-064913387–finance.html

Summaries-jeprr1271

Purposeful Summary #1: Go to Trial: Crash the System

It seems counter-intuitive that fighting for your Sixth Amendment right is better than pleading guilty for what seems a lesser sentence. Our judicial system seems rigged because criminals who are charged with minor crimes are recommended to plead guilty and pay a lesser sentence. At first, this seems like a better option since you can suffer a larger sentence when you lose in a trial. But the truth of the matter is that there are other unknown consequences when you choose to plead. After you serve your time in prison/probation, you have to pay your fines and you are known as a felony. Food stamps, financial aid, housing, etc. all get stripped. You practically are in a worse state than you were before. So, instead, criminals should fight for their Sixth Amendment right where they can hold a trial and a lawyer to, not only lessen a sentence, but to reduce consequences that would arrive after your sentence.

Purposeful Summary #2: Happiness Cannot be Pursued; It Must Ensue

It seems counter-intuitive that happiness should be ensued, not pursued. In the American culture, we are ordered to be happy and search for this happiness. But, in reality, happiness is a product of purposefulness. There has to be a reason for you to be happy. You have to find meaning in life in order for the possibility to obtain that happiness to show and through suffering, hardship, and responsibility, you should be able to obtain it.

Purposeful Summary #3: Humane Food Labels?

It seems counter-intuitive that following Humane Food labels are not what they seem to be. Many companies use different labels to confuse the average consumer. Even with a label companies find loopholes to manage their livestock which, uncovered, people would find inhumane. Some companies would perform false advertising. Typically, these are performed by industry-produced quality assurance programs. Independent assurance programs usually have foundations that sprout from programs with the objective to end inhumane treatment of livestock. But, in the end, the best way to find whether a produce is of organic and humane quality is for the consumer to do their research and ask the source about the produce.