Monica Lewinsky Questions

Pre Reading Discussion questions:

1. Why can shame and humiliation be the most powerful and potentially debilitating emotions?

Shame and humiliation, unlike sadness and anger, are almost completely personal emotions. Something that makes you sad can make another person just as sad, so you can share the emotions with someone else. But, something that humiliates you, can only humiliate you to the level that it humiliates you. Even if someone empathizes with you, it wouldn’t be the same as what you feel.

 

2. Do you think information on some sites, such as Snapchat is safe?

 

Absolutely not. Anything on the internet is never completely safe. Even if you delete something, it is possible to screencap or record. And, even if no one saves a copy of something you delete, it is still possible to access it.

 

Answer the following questions while you watch the video:

 

1. Why does Monica Lewinsky refer to herself in the TED Talk as “Patient Zero”?

 

She was possible the first case of real cyber bullying. Something that wasn’t really a concept before she experienced it. It was the first time the internet was used to spread a person’s information on a large scale.

 

2. What does Ms. Lewinsky mean when she describes, “A culture of humiliation”?

 

Shaming is popular. People eat gossip up. Magazines, websites, newspapers all spread gossip and enjoy shaming. It has become a part of our culture and entertainment to shame and spread gossip about people.

 

3. She describes the role of technology in cyberbullying as, “amplified, uncontained and permanently accessible.” What does she mean be this?

 

It allows normal people, literally anyone, to spread shame and humiliation without revealing themselves. Before the internet, the distance that a normal person could spread gossip and shame was limited to wherever they physically go, but now anyone can spread anything to the whole world, without limits. Furthermore, anything on the internet is permanent. Nothing leaves the public eye once it’s put online.

 

4. How do hacking of sites for sale in publications and websites illustrate how shame has become a commodity? (something to be bought and sold for profit)

 

People can steal other people’s private, personal, sensitive information and spread it for a profit. The public is curious about people, and they want the information they are denied. This information has become a product that people can to websites. “Hey you want these embarrassing and potentially life ruining pictures of this public figure?”, “Oh yeah that would give our website tonnes of traffic, here’s 50 bucks”. Websites and magazines will do whatever it takes to catch the public eye and keep it on them, whether that means shaming people or not.

 

5. What examples of changing beliefs does Ms Lewinsky cite? How does this relate to cyber bullying?

 

Ms. Lewinsky believes that people must have more compassion and empathy when they are online. She says that people online have an empathy deficit. She quotes Brene Brown saying “shame can’t survive empathy”.

 

6. What does Ms. Lewinsky mean when she says that people need to , “click with compassion?”

 

Have compassion online. It is difficult to do so online, since you are not face to face with whoever you may communicate with, and it is likely you don’t know anything about whoever you may spread gossip about. But, people need to try to have compassion for others online.

 

7. How can one become an upstander?

 

Don’t do nothing. Do something positive. Instead of staying outside of something and doing nothing positive or negative, post something that could help people, or make them happy.

 

Paragraph Answer Question /6

What insights does Monica Lewinsky give for enduring cyber bullying? How can you make a difference in the fight against Cyber bullying?

 

Ms. Lewinsky’s insights strongly suggest that enduring cyberbullying is something best not done alone. She speaks of her experiences with her parents, who supported her through every second of her struggle, worried she would harm herself to escape humiliation. This means that one should look to their family and friends to help them escape and overcome cyberbullying. As for making a difference, she basically says, care. People can pay attention to what they click on. Giving less traffic to sites which promote gossip and shaming can reduce the incentive to release people’s information. Not buying magazines that do the same also decreases incentive to shame people. People can also do their best to promote positivity. On the internet, you do not see people face to face most of the time, so it can be difficult to discern emotion from text. Regardless of whether they need it or not, leaving positive comments can improve people’s lives, and help them endure possible cyberbullying. Ms. Lewinsky believes that if people can translate their emotional sensitivity and empathy to the internet, cyberbullying can be stopped.

Whole Foods Questions

1. What are the two leading contributors to cancer?

 

According to John Mackey the two leading causes of cancer are diet and tobacco usage.

 

2. What is wrong with the American standard diet?

 

The standard American diet contains excessive amounts of processed foods and animal foods, while containing a miniscule amount of whole plant foods. Furthermore, the consumption of soft drinks is extremely high and seems to be increasing consistently. The consumption of cheese, a dairy product high in fat and salt, is very high as well.

 

3. What are refined foods?

 

Refined foods are things like grains and sugar that are heavily altered from their natural state. These foods are generally extremely lacking in nutrients in exchange for taste and shelf life. This includes sugar, white flour, white pasta, and all vegetable oils.

 

4. How much whole plant food does he recommend?

 

Mackey recommends that your diet should consist of closer to 80 to 90 or even 100 percent whole plant food, as opposed to the current measly 12.5 percent that most Americans consume.

 

5. Do you think companies should incentivize healthy eating habits? Why or Why not?

 

Yes. As it is right now, the incentive is on exercising more, and eating less calories, fats, and sugar. While exercise is good for you and eating less of the aforementioned things can help you lose weight it isn’t always healthy per say. Your weight is a good measurement of how healthy you are, but it isn’t always better to weigh less. Furthermore, I feel like exercise is promoted more than it should be. Now, I’m not saying that exercise is bad for you, but it is not the best way to lose weight or stay healthy. Lots of people don’t seem to realize this since exercise is always portrayed as a way to lose weight. For example, those boflex, tredclimber, whatever gimmicky exercise tool commercial you see, people are shown to lose weight through the use of the machine instead of their diet. This can be very misleading. The incentive to eat healthier should be pushed more than exercise. Eating healthier is undoubtable the best way to get healthy and stay healthy, and not many people realize it. Sure it doesn’t build muscles or make you lean and cut, but it is much more important, in my opinion, to a healthy lifestyle than exercise is. Again, I’m not trying to say people shouldn’t exercise, but diet should come first and big companies should push that ideology into the public eye.

 

6. What is a total health immersion? What kinds of results have resulted from these immersions?

 

A total health immersion is a program that lasts for around a week. It takes obese, diabetic, just overall unhealthy people and they undergo complete lifestyle changes to become healthier. According to Mackey, people have lost a hundred pounds in months, cured themselves of their diabetes, and just overall became more healthy after doing total health immersions.

 

7. What things does Mackey suggest are necessary for wellness?

 

Mackey suggests that, for wellness, one must raise consciousness, know their numbers, have a community of support, and make the food easy. People need to be educated. People like to be able to see improvement as it happens. Some people can make shifts by themselves, but most can not, so they need a community of support. Americans don’t like cooking, so the food must have easy food.

 

8. Compare and contrast the information provided by Mackey with information from the Canadian government.

 

Both cover the lack of proper nutrition in the average household. Mackey mentions how Americans like fatty foods, similarly, the Canadian government states that over a quarter of Canadians between 31-50 get 35% of their calories from fat. Both also mention that whole plant foods are consumed in amounts that are far below the recommendation. Mackey mentions how only 12.5% of the American diet consists of such foods, the Canadian government states that 7/10 children aged 4-8 and half of all adults do not meet the minimum recommended servings of fruits and vegetables. Mackey does not mention much about dairy, aside from cheese. He also mentions that he is vegan, meaning he does not consume dairy products. If he is proposing that his lifestyle is the healthiest, this means he believes that dairy is not part of the ideal diet. The Canadian government, on the other hand, mentions that 37% of children aged 4-9 don’t drink enough milk and that by age 30, more than ⅔ people do not get the recommended amount. This shows that Mackey and the Canadian government have conflicting opinions on dairy products. Finally, Mackey does not mention anything about income, but the Canadian government mentions that income seems to be directly related to diet in adults.

 

9. Mackey specially defines what he thinks is required for wellness. What thing do you think are required for wellness?

 

Sleep, education, motivation, mental stimulation, and ease of access.

 

Sleep – Sleep is important for any lifestyle. Lack of sleep would make it difficult to get anything accomplished efficiently, much less allow one to become healthier. It gives your body and mind time to heal and rest

 

Education – People need to know how to become well to do it. This would prevent someone from going about everything wrong, or possibly worsening their health with incorrect methods.

 

Motivation – If one has the right motivation, they could accomplish almost anything. Achieving wellness is no different. It is much easier to achieve it if you really want it. It is likely, during any lifestyle change, that one will doubt themselves or think of giving up, motivation can help alleviate that and make one work harder.

 

Mental Stimulation – I believe wellness extends past the physical and into the mental. For this reason, mental stimulation is imperative to wellness. Stimulating the mind can be just as important as the body.

 

Ease of Access – (This one isn’t completely necessary). One should have easy access to the things they need to achieve wellness. This includes healthy food, a place to exercise, etc. While it is possible to achieve wellness without having these things easily available to you, it is much more likely that one will be able to achieve it if it’s as easy as possible. This could prevent many people from giving up.

 

10. Review the core values on the Whole Foods website. Come up with three core values for yourself:

1. Work on my mind and body to become the best possible version of myself.
2. Support my friends, family, and community in any way I can, whether that means helping with menial tasks or volunteer work.
3. Contribute to society and do what I believe in.

 

Weed Documentary Questions

1. In the documentary how, specifically, was cannabis and cannabis users stigmatized?

The documentary describes that marijuana was stigmatized by a man named Harry Anslinger, the United States’ first drug Czar. Seeing a way to increase his department’s budget, Anslinger targeted weed, spreading propaganda about the drug. He claimed that it made its users crazy, and cause them to harass people. Furthermore, the documentary mentions a film called Reefer madness which established many of the stereotypes people believe about cannabis users, by portraying them as lazy, insane bottom dwellers. By the 1970s, the government had classified cannabis as a dangerous drug with no benefits.

2.  What ‘myths’ about cannabis do you think you have been taught about cannabis in your lifetime? Why do think these untruths have been taught?

I have been taught that cannabis has dangerous immediate effects, or that it could lead to be fatal if abused. I have no doubt that the stigmatization of the drug has played a big part in the things I’ve been taught, but I also believe it has been done to prevent people from using it. If the effects are exaggerated then it is less likely that someone would think to use it. Of course, this could also be a result of the stigmatization of the drug mentioned earlier. Regardless, it is likely these untruths are spread to prevent the use of marijuana.

3.  What part of the documentary was specifically relevant to the health of cannabis users your age?

The part about marijuana’s effects on the brain. It mentions how the chemicals in marijuana react on the parts of your brain responsible for reward, pleasure, and hunger. It causes a release of dopamine and alters your perception. It helps them be more creative and carefree, while causing paranoia, disorientation, panic attacks, or causing one to become overly analytic. It disrupts memory and inhibitory control, and slows cognitive functioning. The part that is most affected it the prefrontal cortex, where there are many receptors that marijuana acts on. As for teens, the documentary mentions that in undeveloped brains, the white matter of the brain is impaired. People who start smoking earlier are slower, less intelligent, and higher risk of strokes. It pretty much damages young brains.

4.  What health issue from smoking cannabis were not talked about in the documentary?

Possible lung damage from the smoke or what the smoke could do to your teeth is not addressed. These problems are probably why the family in the beginning of the documentary didn’t want their daughter smoking it.  

5.  Why do you think that the more powerful drugs that were prescribed to the patients in the documentary are prescribed by doctors.

Marijuana hasn’t been researched as much as other drugs, so it is possible many doctors aren’t willing to risk prescribing it and possibly deal with the consequences later on. The stigmatization of marijuana is likely also a factor to this. Furthermore, the marijuana industry isn’t as big as other drug industries since its use as medicine is an idea many people did not ponder for a long time. Other drugs have been used for a long time, people know they work somewhat. It is safer to the doctor for them to prescribe something traditional over something more unorthodox like marijuana.

6.  Do you think recreational ‘pot’ advocates help or hurt medical marijuana research and usage? How so?

They can do some of both. They advocate the drug so they can cause more people to buy marijuana or they could buy it themselves, so they put money into the marijuana industry which can be used for research. However, I’m sure many of them spread false information about the drug to promote it, which could be harmful to people who use it. For example, it is likely many people who smoke or ingest marijuana tell others it’s harmful or natural, while in reality it could cause mild to severe brain damage depending on the use. So, it really depends how you look at it, but it can go both ways.

7.  In a paragraph answer write a review on the Dr. Sanjay Gupta documentary ‘Weed’.  What did you learn?  What surprised you?  What do agree/disagree with you.

While I learned many of the things covered in the Weed documentary on my own beforehand, I did learn some new things. First of all, I learned that marijuana can be made into an oil for medical use. This is really interesting to me and opens up possibilities for the use of medical marijuana without having to smoke it, since that could lead to lung damage. Another thing I learned about which was not completely related to marijuana was Duvets syndrome. This was the first I’d ever heard of such, and it was interesting as well as shocking to see the lengths the Figgys were forced to go to in order to find relief for their daughter, which ties into what surprised me. I was surprised at how reluctant many people were to use marijuana medically. Even trained medical professional preferred dangerous and potentially fatal options over the relatively safe marijuana. While I do have some ideas for why this is the case, which I covered earlier, I was still surprised that they wouldn’t even consider trying it and that the families were forced to take action themselves.

 

I agree with many of the things mentioned in Weed, but I did have some gripes with it. For most of its runtime, the documentary seems very bias. For one thing, it does not go over the potential lung damage that could occur from smoking marijuana. However, this is pretty minor since it goes over many of the mental effects marijuana can have on someone, so it does still educate both sides of the argument for and against marijuana. Overall, I thought Weed was very informative and interesting.