Medicinal Marijuana Reduces Patients Need for Opioid Painkillers

Recently in Time magazine, there has been a couple articles published regarding studies on medicinal marijuana. This week, a study performed by Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics backs up a long standing claim that medicinal marijuana can be safely used along with opioid painkillers, such as morphine or Oxycontin, and that the patient could potentially even take less of the addictive pills because of it. The study concluded that patients that took medicinal marijuana along with the pain medication had reduced pain by an average of 27% while their blood pressure remained unaffected. The key component to this data is that if the blood pressure was drastically affected, it could have increased overdose risk. Since this isn't the case, the use of medicinal marijuana as a pain killer seems to be effective and could provide patients with lower doses of opioids with less side effects. After a five day study, no medical problems occurred. However, the side effects of opioid painkillers have been proven to be potentially harmful; recently, "the death toll associated with prescription painkillers has recently surpassed that of traffic accidents" (Szalavitz). The positive data for medicinal marijuana seems to be slowly emerging as less biased sources and study have become more prevalent in the last few decades. However, despite all the positive data that has come about, "the Obama administration is currently engaged in a crackdown on marijuana dispensaries in the 16 states that have legalized medical use" causing researchers difficulties finding funding to conduct studies on medicinal marijuana (Szalavitz). Considering all the risk factors of both drugs, the present legal situation makes hardly any sense. Cracking down on the beneficial medicinal marijuana while trying to prevent drug overdose seems counterproductive. Overall, considering that I have found two articles on medicinal marijuana for this current blog post and my last blog post in just a week or so, I thoroughly look forward to medicinal marijuana getting more publicity and to see how the country handles the new data presented. Clearly, these articles are intended for the American public to become more informed on the issues of medicinal marijuana.
Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/12/could-medical-marijuana-reduce-patients-need-for-opioid-painkillers/#ixzz1gMTPI8qW

Medicinal Marijuana Legalization Helps Reduce Traffic Deaths

The use of marijuana in society today has caused one of the most controversial debates to date. Marijuana under the classification of a schedule I drug has no medical benefits. However, in sixteen states and the District of Columbia, marijuana has been legalized under medicinal marijuana. This means that if you qualify for certain medical conditions, a doctor can prescribe the patient a card to legally smoke marijuana. A new study conducted by IZA, a nonprofit labor research organization associated with the University of Bonn in Germany, and data collected by National Household Survey on Drug Use and Health and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration used government data from 1990-2009 claim that fatal car accidents dropped by 9% in those states that legalized medicinal marijuana. The analysts believe this is due to the decline in drunk driving in those states. However, these marijuana laws hardly affected daytime driving accidents and those without alcohol involved. Yet after medicinal marijuana was legalized alcohol related crashes dropped 12% and high B.A.C. crashes dropped 14%. In terms of fatal car accidents, the effect of legalizing medicinal marijuana is comparable to when the minimum drinking age established at 21 years old. The analysts conclude this drastic drop is due to the fact that those in their 20’s, mostly college students, have decreased their use of alcohol and are smoking weed instead. Research on driving under the influence of marijuana is inconsistent; some believe that it causes impairment while other found little effect. However, clearly the date on drunk driving apparently portrays that alcohol drastically alters ones driving abilities. It is obvious that driving under the influence of marijuana is less risky because the driver is more aware of the effects and they compensate for the effects while driving while drunk increases recklessness and causes one a false confidence. This article is directed towards those who live in states both with and without medicinal marijuana to show that the effects of legalization medicinal marijuana are positive.

http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/why-medical-marijuana-laws-reduce-traffic-deaths/ <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
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Alternative Energies in America: Are We Overspending or Under Spending?

Recently, there has been a large debate over weather or not we should increase or decrease spending on government funded alternative energy resources. Companies like Solyndra, have received over $535 million in federal aid in order to push forward to a greener energy. However, Solyndra has recently filed for bankruptcy even after receiving the millions in aid. This failing business has left taxpayers furious and enraged, claiming that the government is wasting their money. Recently, another alternative energy company called NRG Energy is establishing a 4,000 acre solar energy plant northwest of Los Angles, in San Luis Obispo County. This plant, costing 1.6 billion to set up, with approximately million solar panels will only be able to power 100,000 homes. With stats like these, it appears that alternative energies will never gain the spotlight from the traditional fossil fuels. However, the amount of spending on fossil fuels compared to alternative energies is approximately six times as much. In 2010, fossil fuels received 409 billion dollars in subsides while renewable energy sources obtained a mere 66 billion in federal funds. In the past, multiple companies have failed to find an alternative source of energy before we have found one successful company. Bryan Welsh, author of the article, believes that if we are to better our climate, environment, reduce pollution, and become independent of foreign oil it will take enormous changes to our energy system. And not just by a few billion dollar change, but one in the trillion dollar range. Clearly, the author is trying to reach out to the public of America to expose the need to find an alternative source of oil. This desirable change will only come in time, but hopefully sooner than later.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2099480,00.html

11/11/11 The coolest birth date of the century

11/11/11: a day that occurs only once a century. This rare occurrence has pregnant women all across the world giddy, hoping that their child will be privileged enough to be born on this day. With more than 4 million babies born each year, only a select few thousand will be lucky enough to have claimed this as their special birth date. Julie Madayag, a mother expecting a daughter on 11/11, felt that this date was “a very cool due date” and that when she went into get an ultrasound, even her technician even was excited about it. This epic date has created quite the buzz on twitter. Folks all around the world tweeted about 11:11 on 11/11/11, along with many parenting sources on twitter such as parenting.com. They claim that pregnant women “in Korea are scheduling c-sections to ensure 11/11 b-days. (Wow.)” ( Rochman). Obviously the uncommon date has moms all over the world taking the necessary action to ensure birthing their children on this date, permitting the baby has reached the proper 39 week incubation period. Recently a study published in the journal Birth, claims that many full-term pregnant women try to induce labor with myths such as walking, having sex, and eating spicy foods. Madayag, being one of the women to participate in these myths, claimed that she ate Thai food the night before 11/11/11. This once in a lifetime experience will make memories for many mothers as they bring their children into the world, along with the life-long claim of their children being born on this extraordinary day. 

http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/11/being-born-on-111111-the-coolest-of-due-dates-can-thai-food-nudge-things-along/

Frankenstein Blog Post Four

If I were to rewrite Shelley's last chapter of Frankenstein, I would definitely include a final battle.  I like how Shelley has Frankenstein chase his monster all across different terrains, being taunted by little clues, but  I would have ended the book with an epic fight scene. Frankenstein would have found the monster in the North and they would duel. The monster, being unarmed, would inflict near fatal wounds to Frankenstein. However, Frankenstein came prepared. He would have an arsenal of small handguns, knives, and a rifle. Frankenstein would shoot the monster multiple times but it would prove ineffective. The monster is simply too big and too strong. With the monster charging at him, Frankenstein would pull one of his multiple knives out and throw it at the monster. He would make a direct hit in the shoulder. This would simply stun the monster and he would continue his charge.Frankenstein wouldn't have enough time to reload so he would resort to his second to last knife. He would throw and land another hit, but this time it would be in the thy. The monster, being a complete B.A., would withdraw the knife from his thy and lick the blood. Afterwards he would tackle Frankenstein and begin to beat him to death. Barely hanging on to life, Frankenstein would remove his last knife and slit the monster's throat. This would end the monster's wrath. Frankenstein would descend from the cold, snowy, north only to be found half alive by Walton. He then would retell his tale as set up by the letters in the beginning of the book.

Frankenstein Blog Post Three

In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein brought his monster to life without fully understanding the discoveries that he made. Frankenstein, even though he believed what he was doing was simply making scientific advances, was conceiving an unnaturally made child. Although he was not technically produced in the natural way, Frankenstein’s monster still developed in ways similar to that of a normal human. When the monster was first brought to life, he was a confused “child” that didn’t know his place in the world. When Frankenstein ran and hid in horror, this cruelty was one of the first things that the monster was exposed to. In some ways, Victor Frankenstein abandoned his “child” at his “birth”. Right from the start the monster was exposed to injustices that shaped his new, undeveloped mind. In parallel to modern times, if a parent isn’t present during the early stages of their child’s life then the abandoned child is likely to be in a bad living situation and engage in risky behavior. Frankenstein was that “parent”; he left the monster homeless, and without a family to nurture him so he was exposed to the hardships of the real world very early in life. As the monster was living on his own in the woods, he again found the cruelties of the world when he tried to connect with the blind, old man. Without being able to see the monster, the man was accepting of Frankenstein’s monster because he could not see the imperfections that others would exploit. However, once his family returned they exposed him for being the yellow skinned, black lipped, eight foot tall creature that he truly was out of fear and paranoia. Again the monster was wronged; but the cruelty doesn’t end here in the novel. When he comes in contact with William Frankenstein, the child is terrified for his life because of the gruesome features of the monster. Here, another human judged him for his exterior. Later in the novel, after Frankenstein revokes his promise that he will make a companion for the monster, he has finally been betrayed by all humans that the monster has encountered. I believe that if the monster had someone like him to keep him company that they would live peacefully in exile together. The only reason that the monster committed any of the crimes he did was to get revenge against the one who wronged and abandoned him from the moment he was brought to life. Overall, I feel that the monster’s actions were justified by the way he was treated by his creator and that Victor Frankenstein deserved the comeuppance that the doctor received.

Collaboration Reflection

I really wish I had realized that this blog post was a part of the collaboration grade on progress book, but I guess better late than never, right? Overall I thought the process in which we went about constructing our presentation was effective. We all collected our definitions into the google doc. Afterwards we then went through and pulled aspects of each individuals blog post that we all agreed would make up a good group definition. We added a few pictures and came up with questions to finalize our project. I felt that the mixing of classes made it some what difficult to collaborate because we weren't all in the same class. Not seeing everyone in our group on a daily basis was definetely out of my comfort zone but it was a good type of discomfort. Online interactions without seeing the other group members was definately a taste of what the real world would be like cause not all confrontations will be face to face with the rapid change of technology and society.

Frankenstein Post Two

At the beginning of section two, chapter one, Victor Frankenstein is vastly devastated at the loss of both William and Justine. Frankenstein feels that he is responsible for both of these deaths and sobs at what he has done, more so of what he didn’t do: face the truth about creating a monster which he believes is the murderer of William. Justine fell victim to this injustice and thus Frankenstein feels her execution is also his wrong doing. After retiring to his house at Belrive, Frankenstein spends time after Elizabeth and his father have gone to sleep went out on the lake and "passed many hours upon the water" (Shelly 94). While he was adrift on the lake he allowed the boat to occasionally take its own course. Here on the lake, with "the only unquiet thing that wandered restless in a scene so beautiful and heavenly", Frankenstein found peace and tranquility as he escaped the horrors of Williams’s death and Justine’s execution (Shelly 94). By connection nature to tranquility, Shelly is trying to portray that nature can lift a human's spirits after suffering from a low period in their life.

Shelly's connection of peace and nature can be seen multiple other times throughout the section. At the beginning of chapter two, Frankenstein is embracing a journey into the mountain. It is here that natural scenes of the mountains and valleys gave "[Frankenstein] the greatest consolation [he] was capable of receiving" (Shelly 99). These natural wonders "elevate [Frankenstein] from all littleness of feeling; and although they did not remove my grief, they subdued and tranquillized" the sorrows of his losses (Shelly 99). From the context of the novel, it is apparent that Shelly's perception of nature can be concluded that she believes nature can be a mood brightener.

Not only does Dr. Frankenstein's mood become uplifted from nature, but also his monster's mood evolves into a happier one as well. Before the monster fled from Dr. Frankenstein's apartment, "on a sensation of cold, [the monster] had covered [himself] with some clothes; but these were insufficient to secure [him] from the dews of night" (Shelly 105). The monster, confused and unaware of his surrounding as a newborn child fresh from the womb, was "poor helpless, and miserable wretch; [he] knew, and could distinguish, nothing; but feeling pain invade [him] on all sides, [he] sat down and wept" (Shelly 105-106). The monster was a train wreck; he had no idea the original era of his being, was isolated from his "family" and society as a whole, and had no shelter or "mother" to nurture him into society’s formalities. As he was sitting alone, weeping his eyes out, "a gentle light stole over the heavens, and gave [him] a sensation of pleasure" (Shelly 106). This light was obviously the moon as revealed from an author’s footnote. This natural occurrence provided a sensation happiness that motivated the monster to get up find berries for food and a cloak to warm him. Shelly's use of nature in the novel is clearly apparent that she is implying that nature can equate to one's happiness.

Clearly, Shelly's perception of nature is vastly expressed in the novel. The three examples I provided are only a few of which Shelly's message is presented. The use of the lake on which Dr. Frankenstein wanders, the mountains and valleys that he explores, and the moon that Frankenstein's monster gains strength from all clue to her main belief of nature: that the natural wonders of this diverse and interesting world can bring one happiness and relief from the tradgedies in their lives.

Frankenstein Post One

In chapter two of Shelly's Frankenstein, Victor Frankenstein establishes the setting of where he grew up. Frankenstein, being about five years old at this point in the novel, is a very happy child as he lived in Geneva, an area of Switzerland. He lived in a campagne on Belrive, an eastern shore of a lake, which was a league from the nearest city. This secluded home to grow up where a young child has all the room to romp and play  sets up a positive mood as Frankenstein reminisces fond memories of his times with Elizabeth, and his schoolmate Henry Clerval. At this point in the novel Frankenstein claims "no human being could have passed a happier childhood than myself" (Shelly 39).

By chapter four in Frankenstein, Dr. Frankenstein has been studying at Ingolstadt under M. Krempe and M. Waldman. Theses two professors taught natural philosophy to Frankenstein. Here at Ingolstadt, Dr. Frankenstein becomes so indulged in his work that he completely forgets about his friends and family. Because this portion of the novel takes place at an university, it establishes a serious and studious mood as Frankenstein looses track of time while he spends countless hours working and studying natural philosophy. While Frankenstein is fostering toward his studies "two years had passed in this manner, during which [Frankenstein] paid no visit to Geneva, but was engaged, heart and soul, in the pursuit of some discoveries which [Frankenstein] hoped to make" (Shelly 51).

After months of gathering and assembling body parts, Frankenstein made a peculiar discovery. "It was on a dreary night of November, that [Frankenstein] beheld the accomplishments of [his] toils"; he had finally figured out how to give life to an assembly of random body parts from different places (Shelly 58). The wet and cold night of November inculcates a creepy mood that suits the erie monster that Frankenstein has brought to life. After nearly two years of hard work, Frankenstein creates a monster that even he wants to flee from. Rather than a beautiful creation, Frankenstein's yellow skinned, veiny, black lipped monster scares him as he cowers into his room.

Formalism Criticism

Literary criticism, being the analysis, evaluation, description, or interpretation of literary works, has nine main subcategories. One of the earliest forms of the nine criticisms that came about was formalism criticism. Formalism rose to eminence in the early twentieth century as a response against Romanticism theories of literature, which centered on the artist and individuals creativity and instead retained the text itself back into the spotlight, to demonstrate how the text was indebted to forms and other works that had followed it. Two types of formalist literary criticism were established, Russian formalism, and later Anglo-American New Criticism. Formalism criticism, also known as Russian formalism, focuses mainly on how the sentences, rather than the content, compose the literary works. Formalism completely disregards what the author is trying to portray as the essential message of the book to the reader and simply breaks down the sentences into literary devices for the whole novel. The formalist approach diminishes the significance of a text’s cultural or historical content. This style of criticism not only includes grammar and mechanics, but also literary devices such as repetition, oxymoron, alliteration, and many more. Formalism criticism takes a whole piece of literature and breaks it down as a whole into the different literary devices. I would like to thank http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formalism_(literature) for assisting me on constructing such a wonderful definition of Formalism Criticism.

Beowulf Vocab Story

Beowulf has a royal pedigree, coming from decendants of kings and warriors. Beowulf's spartan fighting techniques provided for him to slay Grendal and his mother in a disciplined, macabre fashion, leaving the scence with blood and limbs. He gained a severve amount of homage from the people of Herot after this feat. Along with the honor, he gained pittance of silver and gold.

 Unfortunately when he was younger, Beowulf has a gadfly for a sister, named Sheowulf, who would follow him around and pester him all day. One day Beowulf spurned her from his family because she tried to overthrow his kingdom. She felt this was preposterous punishment for such an insignificant action. Sheowulf made a farce reinactment of the scenario, using a bombastic speech filled with meaningless statements to make a point. This crossed the line so Beowulf killed Sheowulf with one mighty blow of his sword.

What purpose does literature serve us as readers?

Literature serves many purposes in today’s society. It can be used to satirize an aspect of society, retell an epic adventure, report current events around the world, and many more. Literature’s purpose, to me, is to keep knowledge alive. Without the use of literature and other print sources, our society would not be able to retain how much knowledge there is in the world. Being able to write down this information either on paper or via new methods like the internet is essential to advancing the knowledgebase of the world. Today, you can find just about anything surfing the web. It is a useful tool in developing and retaining knowledge. By widening our base of knowledge, we can discover new technologies, make medical advances, and learn from what we read. Most books we read in school have some sort of lesson, theme, or satire that the novel intends for the reader to learn from. By retelling these timeless novels, society can benefit by infusing these lesson into our everyday lives. Without the use of literature, the world today would not be able to benefit from the wonderful stories that writers compose from their experiences, views, and outlooks on society as a whole.