Fast Food Nation

Fast Food Nation is a book written by Eric Schlosser that focuses on the fast food industry in the United States. A lot of the book is focused on McDonald’s and the effect that it has had. Other main industries that are discussed and fast food chains such as Pizza Hut, KFC, and Taco Bell.

There was a lot of research that was done in order for this book to be made. This book gives a lot of different facts that were discovered through research that was done by Eric Schlosser. For example, Schlosser found out that McDonald’s sponsored Bozo’s Circus in 1960, but decided that this clown was “too overweight; McDonald’s wanted someone thinner to sell its burgers, shakes, and fries.” (41)

I thought that this is quite ironic given the fact that McDonald’s contributes to a large amount of obesity in America but thought that this particular clown was to heavy. Schlosser also pointed out the fact that “one-third of the cigarettes illegally sold to minors were Camels.” (43) The reason for this is because the corporations discovered that children can be very easily influenced by the right mascot, in this case a cool and hip camel.

Overall, I thought that this book was interesting and very informative. It is not necessarily a story being told so much as it is facts being presented, but still managed to avoid becoming boring.

blog #17

Neil Caponi

April 21, 2008

English 202

Nas and Bill O’Reilly

A week or so after the Virginia Tech disaster

I’m flipping the channels and land on the O’Reilly Factor

Similar to every channel at the moment

The shooting was the shows main component

But compared to the others this one wasn’t the same

Bill was bashing someone and couldn’t correctly pronounce his name

Several artists were putting on a concert for free

To help the students momentarily escape reality

Which is easy to see it was for a good cause

But O’Reilly took this chance to single out Nas

It was obvious O’Reilly just wanted ratings for his show

And attacking the rapper was the easiest way to go

Nas is one of the most talented rappers of all time

But O’Reilly viewed his forthcoming performance as a crime

O’Reilly insulted Nas and basically called him a crook

Only discussing songs like Thief’s Theme and Made You Look

He disregarded songs like One Mic and I Can

And made Nas look like the world’s most violent man

O’Reilly said he was speaking for the outrage from their parents

But to think Nas would perform violent songs insults his intelligence

No way would he discuss shootings with that audience

It’s obvious that rap made for an easier attack

Personally I couldn’t wait for Nas’ response back

A day or so later MTV conducted an interview

And Nas said he could relate to what the kids been through

Nas also said he wouldn’t honor what O’Reilly had to say

And he realized that he gets more viewers that way

Nas had experiences like these students in his past

And, unlike O’Reilly, proved that he had class

Nas could have used that chance to repeatedly insult O’Reilly back

But he showed that he was too smart to fall for O’Reilly’s trap

 

Research Paper

Control is out of my hands and I feel like a kid again

So I listen to a certain white rapper from Michigan

No idea how to make to make this topic work for me

Looking through every last journal nervously

Not a single one of them fits my sports topic

The first draft is due soon and I’m getting nauseous

The way that Eminem makes it look so easy makes me angry

But I still happen to laugh when he says something crazy

Start to realize that I better start to research

I wonder if it’s nice enough to just wear a t-shirt

What the hell am I doing my mind keeps drifting off

 And this Pittsburgh sports topic is starting to piss me off

Maybe I just need a break and clear my head

Watch some TV and get myself fed

Maybe take a nap and do some work later

Even though I don’t think I can write this paper

Don’t worry even though I don’t know what to do

Just go and relax and turn on some Wu

Maybe I just need to look harder for and I’ll discover something

But I’m just starting to believe that I’m going to find nothing

This paper feels like it puts the world on my shoulders

And that line alone makes me think of Eminem’s song Soldier

So what do I do? I put on that song

Maybe it’ll help me get this paper moving along

I’m tired of this I’m going to bed

Maybe tomorrow will be better after I clear my head

It is now tomorrow and I still haven’t started

Worrying about this I feel like Leo in the Departed

Still can’t believe Nas’ Thief’s Theme was in that

How come I keep getting sidetracked with rap

I still can’t believe what O’Reilly said on The O’Reilly Factor

And the fact that he had the nerve to single out the rapper

He clearly did that all on purpose

Attacking a good cause like that, that man is worthless

All he did was bring up stereotypes in rap

I bet I’d be able to find a lot of research on that

I look for a second and find a lot really quick

I guess I just found a new research paper topic

transition

A main focal point of my research paper was the incident that occurred between Nas and Bill O’Reilly. The argument arose from Nas participating in a Virginia Tech benefit concert and O’Reilly openly criticizing him for it.

In order to make a transition from my research to a creative writing, I am going to use this incident as the topic of my creative writing. In order to have it reflect my original topic more, I am going to have all of what I type up be in rhyme form. This will be the most difficult part of my creative writing but I think I will be able to handle it.

If this is not enough for me to be able to completely fulfill this assignment, I will have other topics that I will be able to discuss from my research paper. I might put together lyrics from some of my favorite rappers. These lyrics will be ones that I feel are extremely well written or show significance to something about me.

free writing

Nas vs O’Reilly

I am going to talk about the argument between O’Reilly and Nas over Nas’ decision to perform at virginia tech. I am going to talk about it from my perspective and my opinion will be given. To make it all work with my topic, it will be similiar to song lyrics.

Songs do not really take up that much room in total so how will I write a decent length of lyrics?

I am going to do pretty good on this paper if i do say so myself. the reason i feel this way is because i have a good vocabulary even though i am concerned with the length of the entire writing. I might have to flip the script and divulge into additional topics because i do not know if i can pull of a five or so page paper in regards to one topic all rhyming. this is my biggest concern about this paper. my biggest concern at this moment though is the pens going up 3-0 on the senators which believe me i have a strong feeling they will unless by typing  this i just jinxed the shit out of them but to be honest sidneys too good to allow jinxs to mess him up. what else is goin on i do not know completely the pirates swept the reds which is good but theyre still swimming around .500 which is bullshit cause they havent had a winning season in and im pretty sure it is this length 16 years. and if i was a betting man which im not but if i was id throw some money on them finishing below .500 again this year. im not trying to be negative or anything like that, but they just are not good and i gotta be honest it is making me mad. i mean somehow the marlins always trade away their good players and in a year or two, they are right back into every playoff race come the end of the season. the pirates havent been anywhere near a playoff run in i dont even wanna talk about how long it has been. i dont know i guess i really shouldnt complain because look at the penguins and the steelers who have been succesful for a little bit now. i just think it would be cool if the pirates could make a world series run maybe im biased in that because baseball is my favorite sport but i still think it would be nice. our management sucks though. we constantly draft the wrong players, young pitchers who throw their arms out in a year, or people who never hit anywhere near where they were supposed to. it gets annoying and aggrivating. i dont know what else to rock out about right now. i guess i can just keep goin for a little cause there is less than a minute left im starving right now not literally but i am pretty hungry and cant wait to eat something good.

blog 16

The main issues in this creative writing process will be using the information that I have already gathered and being able to interestingly convert it into a writing. I do not really see this as being as much of a problem because the topic I have chosen is interesting to me.

Another issue with this paper as compaired to the reasearch paper is that there is a lot less time to finish this one. I will not have as much time to go over everything like the other paper, but this paper does require a lot less actual work and alot more creative work.

Blog 15

To do this paper correctly and accurately, I will need to go back to my original research. The reason I will need to do this is so that I will be 100% sure that what I am saying is exactly what happened.

Unlike the research paper, I already have everything that I need research wise to create this novel. All I will have to do is simply look back at everything that I have already gathered and go from there.

Also unlike the research paper, I now have the freedom to be creative with the information that I have already gathered. I think that this will make this entire process a lot easier for me.

Blog 14

My research paper is going to help me with my novel because what I am going to write about comes directly from my research. The main topic of my paper will be a conversation between Bill O’Reilly and Nas.

Without doing the research for my paper, I would not be able to do this particular topic. The reason for this is because I would not have known exactly what happened between the to of them. Now that I know, I can accuratley describe the situation.

The novels that I have read will also help me in creating this novel. I now have knowledge on the different ways that I can use the research that I have gathered to create something around it.

blog #13

I am having trouble deciding what to write about for my creative writing. I have a couple ideas, but i have not got a specific one yet. I do think though that I am going to be the topic of my paper.

What I am thinking about writing is a story of how my writing process was for my research paper. Orignally I had a topic in mind but I quickly realized that I was not going to be able to successfully complete it, so I chose a different topic that I feel worked out well.

My topic was some of the misconceptions in rap music and I used examples of rappers such as Nas and Eminem. What I think I can do with this is discuss writing my research paper but have what I say be similiar to a song.

blog 12

I am pretty much done with my research paper. I am very relieved by this and I feel good about the work I have done. I am also glad that I was able to write a good paper after changing my topic.

I felt pretty cofident about my initial topic but I quickly realized that I had to change it. This was the most difficult aspect of the paper because I was pretty far behind everyone else. After I picked a topic that I was confident with, it was a lot easier to complete the paper.

I think that the creative writing will be alot easier than the research  paper was. The reason for this is that I already have a topic and I personally think I am a pretty creative person. I am looking forward to finishing this paper so that I do not have to worry about major papers anymore.

Reflective Letter

I am almost done with my second year of college and my final english class. This class has taught me a much better way to write a paper. I usually wait until the last day to start writing my paper and even though I could do this, it was always difficult to do so. This class taught me that it is a lot easier to write a paper in pieces and the most important thing about learning this is that it was required which is forced me to write it in pieces.