Evaluation of News Magazine Stories

Bayer, Tony. "FAST FOOD POLITICS" 07/31/12 via TonyBayerToons. Public Domain Dedication License. 

Our Absurd Tribal Politics

by Max Borders

1. Max Borders' opinion piece in Newsweek is his attempt to expose the falsified nature of American democracy through the means of revealing its primitive tribal characteristics. Borders reinforces his assertion by referencing a scientific psychological experiment (called the Kurzban-Cosmides-Tooby jersey experiment) and extending the metaphor to the relationship between the people, candidates, and overall political infrastructure. His reference, from a neurological perspective, is specifically referring to the human brain's natural circuits to classify people and the political process's consequence of essentially dividing the nation in two teams. The metaphor of the teams is furthered by Borders symbolizing the two teams on election day will participate in tug-of-war but both inevitably end up in the mud. The teams are the politicians, the fans are the voters, and the cheerleaders are the pundits. Furthermore, the brain's chemically-based self-serving bias creates a further divide in the supposed democratic nation because each person declares their own righteousness. All in all, this collectively contributes to the same tribal formations that occurred during the primitive stages of human society. 

2. The most sympathetic character of this story to me is the author himself. I cannot help but agree with his perspective in that the political system is more divisive and confrontational than collaborative and constructive. His appeal to ethos through his scientific references also resonates within me.

3. The least sympathetic characters are the voters and creators of the system he is ridiculing. Although not specific characters and an inevitable result of neurological tendencies, I see many people with what many consider radical ideologies and superiority complexes that result in them demeaning another's view simply because of it being different. I believe these types of people and their falsified self-righteousness hinders rather than progress American politics and growth.

How Junk Food Commercials Seduce The Brain and Aggravate Obesity

by John McQuaid

1. The dilemma in this piece is the causation of obesity in the relatively unhealthy population of the United States of America. John McQuaid of Forbes writes that obesity running amuck noticeably in adolescents can be attributed to advertisements capitalizing on neurological tendencies. McQuaid writes specifically regarding the appeal of the ads adding to the temptations and suppressing dietary will. Also, scientifically, when viewing the ads, the parts of the brain associated with attention, evaluation, craving, pleasure, gratification, taste, and flavor as well as the parts controlling the motor function of the tongue, mouth, and lips all showed significant activity. This neurological activity, as explained by the Dartmouth study, the corporations are attempting (and succeeding) a priming process that short-circuits impulses regarding the food. In conclusion, McQuaid asserts that the heart of the obesity problem lies here and additionally, if subjects can be primed for such a terrible thing, then they can be ideally primed for something good instead. 

2. The youth that are subject to these large corporation's manipulation have my sympathy in that they are still developing and do not know any better. However, I do sympathize with the corporation and the ideology as well in a sense because the party behind this advertising strategy has one sole job: to generate as much possible success (revenue) regardless of consequences. We live in a capitalistic society and using science to generate success is what the evolution of humans has consisted of, although this may be a bad example.

3. I do not sympathize with the people that should be regulating and making a concerted effort towards hindering obesity. The Food and Drug Administration or Health Department of the American government should identify that this is becoming a concern nationwide and regulate corporations; the corporations and people are only doing what they are supposed to in this capitalistic, consumer-based society.