The Royal Wedding

Since we've been talking about social classes in class this past week, I thought I could relate it to an event that  has been dominating the news recently: the royal wedding. I think most people would agree that Prince William is at the very top of the upper class. A combination of tramendous wealth, social capital, education, and a respected career in the military as well as being a royal put him on the top of anyone's list as someone who rules the class system.

In class the other day we were also talking about how the American class system differs from that of other countries, especially England where the social classes are deeply rooted in history and very hard to change. So, are England's social classes becoming less prevalent, demonstrated by Prince William's choice of bride? Kate Middleton does not belong to the lower classes no matter how you look at it, but she is definitely not on the same level as the Prince. She does not have royal blood and comes from a much more low-profile family. The same is true for William's father, Prince Charles, who also married a "commoner".

So, could it be that England is just modernizing it's social class to be defined more on looks and the way one acts instead of family background and titles, or could the social class system be falling apart slowly all together?

Junior Theme #4

This weekend I have started the daunting task of writing my junior theme. I was a little bit caught off guard when I realized this week that we don't have unlimited time to research and put together information, and that I actually had to start putting my thoughts into words very soon. The hardest part about writing the paper is coming up with points and sections that include everything you want to mention. Right now from what I have written so far, I am thinking that my paper is only going to be two sections, the two most important reasons why I think America is divided over the issue of assisted suicide. Having only two sections instead of more, smaller points is a little bit scary. From the research I've done, I have found hundreds of reasons why people disagree on this issue, some bigger than others but all of them very important. I feel like by just focusing on two things, I'll be leaving something out. But there was so much information on assisted suicide that I am bound to leave something out, so I've decided that it's most important that I am choosing two things that are extremely important and presenting them in the best way I can.

This week, I also did my interview. Unfortunately, when it got time to call my interviewee the phone didn't work for a California phone number, so I had to use the phone I was planning to use to record my interview to call my person, and take notes instead. It was a really helpful interview, and I was able to write down a few quotes and a lot of notes. The person I interviewed is a law professor at University of Michigan and UC San Diego, and he was very knowledgeable and a true expert in the subject of assisted suicide. A lot of things that he said were points that I had been thinking about during my research, but I couldn't have put them into words without his help. I have been trying to ignore my own personal feelings about assisted suicide in the process of the paper, but it was interesting to interview someone who has close to the same views as me, because the view I hold isn't exactly on one side or the other, it's pretty unique.

Good luck writing everyone!

When Parenting Goes Wrong

Today, Alex S. showed me an article about a mother who refused to give her son chemotherapy drugs because, she claimed, she thought the side-effects were making him sicker. Read the article here.

While the mother said that she couldn't stand the horrible side-effects of her son's cancer medicine, the opposition accused her of withholding the drugs because her son's cancer was a burden on her financially and he wanted her to die. My personal opinion is that as a mother, she should have been able to see past the side-effects of the drugs and know that she would do anything to make her son better in the long run, so there was very little possibility that she actually withheld the drugs with the intention of making him better and actually knew that this lack of treatment would eventually kill him.

I can definitely connect this article to my junior theme topic of assisted suicide (as I can with most things these days). One argument against assisted suicide is that families of the terminally ill feel burdened financially by their dying relatives, and will use legalized assisted suicide to pressure family members into taking their lives in order to lift their burden. The extreme measures that this mother took to rid herself of her son is an example of how money can corrupt people into not caring about family members anymore and instead caring about the money involved in the situation.

Still, it might be possible that this mother could not stand her son's suffering with cancer, and decided to withhold his medicine out of mercy for him because she knew it would end his misery sooner. While I still think this is wrong, especially since her son probably did not ask to die, this would be better than the alternative of killing him just because he was a financial burden.

Junior Theme Blog #3

This week, I ran in to a few speed bumps with junior theme. My most pressing issue so far is my interview. First, I contacted an organization that connected me with a possible email interview candidate. I emailed her a couple questions, but the responses were pretty short. I'll have at least one or two quotes I can use in my paper, but I thought I should probably get another interviewee to supplement my paper. So far, I have emailed 11 candidates from Northwestern, Loyola University, University of Chicago, and other locations across the country, and none of them have responded. Very frustrating since we're supposed to have the interviews done by the end of next week. Hopefully I get a response soon.

My second problem is in structuring and beginning to write my paper. I began to write out possible points I could cover in my paper before spring break, but when I came back I realized that they are much to broad and I'm going to have to cut a lot of things out to make the paper fit in the 5-7 page range. For example, I was covering both the medical ethics of assisted suicide (having to do specifically with doctors and the healthcare system) and personal ethics (having to do with the patients and their families) within the same point. There is no way I could get all my information in that one paragraph.

Luckily, I've been finding some really great new articles and sources while I've been trying to start writing. One thing that I would really recommend is the library's new database, Project Muse. The first time I typed in my topic, I found a document giving the entire history of my topic. Of course I will have to corroborate my information, but it will be a great place to start putting together my historical look back. 

Spring Break & Junior Theme

Since I picked the topic of assisted suicide for my junior theme, an extremely heavy and depressing topic, I was hoping to distance myself from it over spring break so I could rest up and relax for fourth quarter. Unfortunately, I wasn't lucky enough to be free from thinking about my topic the entire break.


On the first  day of my vacation, my little brother asked what my junior theme topic was, and I carefully explained assisted suicide in a way that a 5th grader could understand. He told me that he thought it was never ok to kill someone, even if they want to die. A day later, my brother got the worst sunburn of his life. My parents were worried that he had gotten sun poisoning or had an allergic reaction because he was in so much pain and completely miserable. When it was all over, my brother told me that he had completely changed his position on assisted suicide. He said that if a person was in the amount of pain that he had been in for the rest of their life, he would understand if they wanted another way out.


For one, it was pretty concerning to me that my brother could change his position so quickly over a bad sunburn. I see his quick change in opinion as an argument against assisted suicide. Temporary pain can make people do irrational things, and having a way out in the form of an assisted suicide could be potentially dangerous to people who aren't thinking clearly. Sure, when a person has chronic pain that won't let up for the rest of their life it is a different situation, but with the option of assisted suicide already there for those people, its concerning that others may want to follow.


On a lighter note, I hope everyone had a great spring break! See you in class tomorrow!