Fast Food Nation Essay Example for Free

Fast Food Nation Essay As American as a small, rectangular, hand-held, frozen, and reheated apple pie.? (p. 3) Far from being a run of the mill expose on calories and fat grams in fast food, Fast Food Nation is a hard-hitting critique of the industrialization of America? s and, later, the world? s food supply. The consequences of this industrialization have far-reaching effects on working people around the world. Fast food chains are at the pinnacle of a giant food-industrial complex that controls the nation? s food supply. Schlosser begins with some thumb nail sketches of fast food?s ? founding fathers.? None of today? s fast food giants were started by large corporations. They were all started by people of very modest means. Harland Sanders is a good example. He ? left school at the age of twelve, worked as a farm hand, a mule tender, and a railway fireman. At various times he worked as a lawyer without having a law degree, delivered babies as a part-time obstetrician without having a medical degree, sold insurance door to door, sold Michelin tires, and operated a gas station . . .. and at the age of sixty-five became a traveling salesman once again, offering restaurant owners the secret recipe? for his fried chicken. The first Kentucky Fried Chicken Restaurant opened in 1952 . . . . Lacking money to promote the new chain, Sanders dressed up like a Kentucky colonel? (p. 23). But despite the modest beginnings of Harland Sanders, William Rosenberg (Dunkin? Donuts), Dave Thomas (Wendy? s), Thomas S. Monaghan (Domino? s) and others, they have created giant empires that brutally exploit millions of underpaid workers across the globe. Next, Eric Schlosser describes how McDonald? s and others market to children. Many of these companies have cradle-to-grave? advertising strategies.? Apparently, brand loyalty? may begin as early as age two. Indeed, market research has found that children often recognize a brand logo before they can recognize their own name? (p. 43). Under the heading ? mcteachers and coke dudes,? Schlosser describes the cradle-to-grave strategy that fast food chains use to market to children. This strategy reaches new highs (or lows) all the time. Not content to market ?to children through playgrounds, toys, cartoons, movies, videos, charities, and amusement parks, through contests, sweepstakes, games, and clubs, via television, radio, magazines, and the Internet, fast food chains are gaining access to the last advertising free outposts of American life? ( p. 51) public schools. In 1993, District 11 in Colorado Springs became the first school district in the U. S. to have ads for Burger King inside their schools and on their school buses. However, the school district netted little from this, gaining only $1 per student. In his next chapter, entitled ? Behind the Counter,? Schlosser describes the life of a young woman of sixteen by the name of Elisa, who gets up at 5:15 in the morning to get out the door by 5:30. She and the manager arrive at work, and for the next hour or two, they get the place ready. The two of them turn on the ovens and grills and get the food and supplies, cups, wrappers, styrofoam containers, and condiments, for the morning shift. They get frozen bacon, frozen pancakes, and frozen cinnamon rolls from the freezer. Plus, they bring out frozen hash browns, frozen biscuits, and frozen McMuffins. Then they get packages of orange juice mix and scrambled egg mix. The restaurant opens at seven and for the next couple of hours Elisa and the manager work alone, taking all the orders. Later, as more customers arrive, so do more employees. Elisa works the counter from breakfast through lunch. She then walks home after standing for seven hours at the cash register. Totally wiped out, her feet hurting, she plops in front of the tv and gets up the next morning at 5:15. The entire fast food industry seeks out teenage, part-time (no overtime, please), unskilled workers like Elisa, because they? re willing to accept low pay, are cheaper than adults, and are easier to control due to their inexperience. Although recently, middle class teenagers are shunning jobs at McDonalds and Burger King and are being replaced by poor immigrants and the elderly (The New York Times, January 8, 2001). ?The labor practices of the fast food industry have their origins in the assembly line systems adopted by American manufacturers in the early twentieth century? (p. 68). In a restaurant assembly line, tasks are broken up into small, repetitive bits requiring little or no skill, while machines and operating systems do the things that require timing and training (p. 69). In addition, the fast food industry generally pays minimum wage, moreso than any other industry. The result has been that the real value of laborers? wages have fallen for the last three decades. Worse yet, the industry almost never pays overtime. Bonuses for managers at many fast food restaurants are tied to holding down labor costs. The result being that many workers are forced to wait until the restaurant gets busy before punching in. Workers are forced to do clean-up after they? ve punched out. One Taco Bell employee ? regularly worked seventy to eighty hours a week but was paid for only forty? (p. 75). Taco Bell has been sued for this in a number of states. The fast food industry is not alone in doing this kind of thing. Wal-Mart is being sued in 28 states for forcing workers to work off the clock, as reported by Steven Greenhouse in his expose ? Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock,? in the June 25, 2002, New York Times. To add insult to injury, the status of fast food workers is so low that customers feel justified in heaping abuse on them. This writer was once told to his face that ? Your job is so simple that a monkey could do it.? Another customer grabbed me and ripped my shirt when he didn? t get a ? Jimmy Special.? There was no ? Jimmy Special? on the menu, nor did I know it was a sandwich. Incidents like this are so common that web sites are devoted to them. If low wages, no benefits, low status, and hard work are not bad enough, more restaurant workers are murdered on the job in the U. S. than are. police officers. Most restaurant crime is committed by current or former disgruntled employees. Out of the frying pan and into the fire If the life of a fast food worker is bad, workers in the meatpacking industry have it much worse. In 1961, two former Swift Co. executives, Currier Holman and A. D. Anderson, started Iowa Beef Packers better known as IBP. Over the course of twenty years, these two lead the meatpacking industry back to the days of Upton Sinclair? s The Jungle. IBP created ? a mass production system that employed a de-skilled workforce, . . . put its new slaughterhouses in rural areas . . . far away from the urban strongholds of the nation? s labor unions? (p 154). In 1970, the IBP broke its labor unions with the help of La Cosa Nostra, and the stage was set for sweatshop heaven. At a ConAgra slaughterhouse in Greeley , Colorado, the workers mainly come from Mexico, Central America, and Southeast Asia. Base pay is $9. 25 per hour; when adjusted for inflation, thats one-third lower than the same plant paid forty years ago (p. 160). The annual turnover rate is 400%. On average, a worker quits or is fired every three months. But ? far from being a liability, a high turnover rate in the meatpacking industryas in the fast food industry also helps maintain a workforce that is harder to unionize and much easier to control? (p161). Meatpacking is now the most dangerous job in the United States. The injury rate in a slaughterhouse is about three times higher than the rate in a typical American factory. Every year, more than one quarter of the meatpacking workers in this countryroughly forty thousand men and womensuffer an injury or a work related illness that requires medical attention beyond first aid? (p172). However, there are big incentives not to report injuries. ?The annual bonuses of plant foremen and supervisors are often based in part on the injury rate of their workers? (p175). The main cause of the high injury rate is the speed of the disassembly line. The list of the injuries is long and bloody. But, speaking of speed, it? s the speed of the disassembly line that? s one of the major causes of food borne illness from E. coli 0157:H7. The other major causes are crowded feedlots and industrial-size hamburger grinders. The stomachs and intestines of cattle, where the E. coli 0157:H7 live, are still removed by hand. This job takes about six months? practice to do well. But with high turnover and the high speed of the line, it? s not done well. Twenty percent of cattle can have their guts spilled onto the carcasses being processed on the line, which can then contaminate many others (p. 203). This willful disregard for the consumer? s health is all done in the name of profits. But, because capitalism lives by the profit, for the profit, and of the profit, decades go by, Republicans then Democrats rule, but still little or nothing gets done. However, if not for the sake of profit, the whole meatpacking industry could be cleaned up in just six months, yes, just six months! This according to David M. Theno, the man who cleaned up Jack in the Box after its outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 in 1993 (p. 210). If there? s one big weakness in Fast Food Nation, its while correctly criticizing the Republican? s support for agribusiness, he seldom attacks the Democrats. Eric Schlosser acknowledges this himself in an afterword. ?In retrospect, I could have been more critical of the Clinton administration? s ties to agribusiness. Had I devoted more space to the poultry industry, for example, I would have examined the close links between Bill Clinton and the Tyson family? (p. 277). Both the Democrats and Republicans are tools of big business. Only a system based on human need, and not on profit, can clean up our food supply and guarantee the well-being of workers. And that system is socialism! I strongly recommend that everyone who is for social justice read this book. It? s an eye-opener even for someone like me who? s worked in restaurants for 23 years. The article above was written by John Pottinger, and first appeared in the October issue of Socialist Action newspaper.

Book Report The Corona Project by Curtis Peebles :: essays research papers

THE CORONA PROJECT: AMERICA’S FIRST SPY SATELLITES Curtis Peebles is empowering readers with the newly declassified information on how the first American satellites were set into use for intelligence gathering. Through his book, â€Å"The Corona Project: America’s First Spy Satellites†, the author gives detailed information on the birth of the satellite program by watching the Corona project from its beginnings in the late 1940s to the declassification of the project and its exhibitions at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The book begins with a look into World War II and how the event of Pearl Harbor pressed the need for aerial reconnaissance. The first chapter gives the different technological challenges that had to be faced in order to achieve aerospace superiority. This chapter takes a close look into the development of the WS-117L reconnaissance satellite and how the two projects are related.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The main thrust that the project received was from the launch of Sputnik I. With the Soviets now seemingly ahead, the author explains how the project was taken away from the Air Force who was failing with the WS-117L and passed the mission onto the CIA for the development of the Corona satellites. Peebles explains that the difference between the two programs is that the WS-117L promised almost real-time through radio-transmitted imagery while the Corona missions would drop the film from the nose cone for development.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The engineering team faced numerous challenges in the task of getting the satellites into orbit as explained in chapter three. The chapter covers blundering trial after trial and the success finally achieved by Discoverer 13 after delivering its payload (an empty capsule) undamaged to the earth’s surface.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Peebles goes into depth about the first sets of films that were recovered and developed in chapters four through six and then goes into depth about how this new satellite program revolutionized the capabilities that the Americans now had in aerial reconnaissance. Peebles covers the continuing evolution of the KH or â€Å"Key Hole† cameras used aboard the Corona satellites. The author talks extensively about the Kennedy administration and the Corona project, which lead to the increase of security as the project grew.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The bread and butter of the information provided in the text can be found in chapters seven through nine. In these chapters the author provides detailed information about how the satellite preformed operations. Furthermore, Peebles begins sharing new information about recently declassified photography of Soviet (and a few other countries) installations.

Hiv/Aids Dbq

HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) and AIDS (Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome) are conditions in the human body that cause failure in the immune system leading to life threatening infections and tumors. HIV was first discovered 30 years ago on June 5th, 1981 in a group of young gay men. HIV began to spread through the entire population of people. Since then over 60 million people have been infected with HIV and more than 25 million have died form an AIDS related causes (www. emedicinehealth. com). HIV/AIDS is a big issue, because it’s affecting a large portion of today’s population. Creating a public health plan will help people who have HIV/AIDS, and ones at risk of being infected. With about 40,000 people becoming HIV positive each year, the financial costs for HIV/AIDS continue to increase (www. medicalnewstoday. com). Many individual are not covered by health insurance so they can’t afford the treatment needed(Document 3). For every HIV infection prevented, $355,000 is saved in the costs of providing lifelong HIV care and treatment (www. avert. org). Fundraising is a good way to raise money for HIV/AIDS. Having more HIV/AIDS walks throughout the United States, to raise money and make people aware of the effects it has on the population today would be a good way to raise money, and get people involved. Another good way to raise money would be to hold a telethon on nation television. Distributing flyers, postcards or door knob hangers will educate local residents about what they can do to help. This money will be used to help people with HIV/AIDS to pay for not only their medical bills and therapy, but their education as well. Most people who are putting themselves at risks of being infected with HIV/AIDS don’t know what it is, or how you can catch it. Some of the cancers and infections people can get from HIV/AIDS are Salmonellosis, Tuberculosis, and Lymphomas (Document 2). The low amount of publicity is one of the main reasons why people don’t know about HIV/AIDS. The first time there was ever publicity on this topic was on July 3, 1981 when New York Times published a news story on AIDS (timeline). There should be more advertisement informing people on how they can become infected, and how it is effecting people. Creating a campaign with eye-catching posters and billboards to be used as an educational platform is a good way to inform younger people. News articles posted online or in newspapers will help as well. An individual can become HIV positive by having sexual intercourse with an infected partner, injecting drugs using a needle that has been used by an HIV positive person, or a newborn can catch the virus form the mother during pregnancy, the birthing process, or through breastfeeding (Document 1). Most people don’t know how serious HIV/AIDS are, because they are not well educated on this topic. Every eight seconds someone dies from AIDS (A Closer Walk). Providing young people with basic AIDS education enables them to protect themselves from becoming infected. Peer education would be a great way to inform people on this topic. Peer education is when a group is given information by someone who is a member of the same community, and who has already been trained in the subject. It is proven that people are strongly influenced by the attitudes and actions of others their age. Testing is a very important part of HIV/AIDS. Most people continue to spread it because they don’t know they have it. In the United States, it is likely that 20% of HIV-positive individuals are unaware of their infection. ( www. emedicinehealth. com). It is impossible to tell if an individual is HIV positive just by looking at them (Document 5). The first HIV test licensed by the United States Food and Drug Administration detects antibodies to HIV in 1985(timeline). Testing should be a mandatory thing for all sexually active people. When a yearly physical is performed, HIV/AIDS and other STD’s testing should be done. If someone doesn’t go to the doctor for a yearly physical, most places will test for HIV and AIDS for little or no cost, without knowing any personal information. It is important to get tested, so that the virus doesn’t get spread to anyone else. Of all the countries in the world, America is home to the largest number of people living with HIV (www. vert. org ). Tens of thousands of people are newly infected with HIV in America every year. Creating new ideas for fundraising, publicity, education, and testing, will help lower this number, because people will be aware of the effects HIV and AIDS can cause. Rabbi David Saperstein once said, â€Å"AIDS destroys families, decimates communities and, particularly in the poorest areas of the world, threatens to destabilize the social, cultural, and economic fabric of e ntire nations†¦ â€Å"

Analyzing Meg And Marissa s Corporate Climate - 1366 Words

Analyzing Meg and Marissa’s corporate climate, we can infer that Meg is very close to the ideal leader profile - Hockey stick. She has been in the industry for quite long and sessioned her skills to become a great and successful leader. Whereas, Marissa is still learning and her profile explains her corporate actions and press sentiments towards decisions. Meg is more mature and clear on her long-term goals whereas Marissa focuses on short-term goals driven by reward. However, both understand and encourage openness within their organizations. Meg is very achievement-oriented; being forward-looking and seeing the company’s strategic opportunities. She is very competitive and challenging. She always shoots for best results and sets high standards. Her successes and achievements were set as an example for future leaders, women in leadership in particular. She inspired many people with her influential story. Meg’s affiliation level is very high. She built good relationships with her employees and had a great influence on them. She encourages her employees to think and act like leaders by finding the good in the organization not the bad. That pattern recognition is gained through experience and intuition. She stimulated an environment where perfection was time consuming and that good enough with iterations was ok. In her corporate life, Whitman was not very power-oriented, as she cared more about achievements and affiliation, but that did not prevent her from being a remarkableShow MoreRelatedFundamentals of Hrm263904 Words   |  1056 Pagesmoney From multiple study paths, to self-assessment, to a wealth of interactive visual and audio resources, WileyPLUS gives you everything you need to personalize the teaching and learning experience.  » F i n d o u t h ow t o M A K E I T YO U R S  » www.wileyplus.com ALL THE HELP, RESOURCES, AND PERSONAL SUPPORT YOU AND YOUR STUDENTS NEED! 2-Minute Tutorials and all of the resources you your students need to get started www.wileyplus.com/firstday Student support from an experienced