2010+Unspun+Chapter+5+Precis+and+Powerpoint+Period+2

Chris Campos/Kelsey Maffett Chapter 5 Precis

Chris Campos/Kelsey Maffett MLA citation



Kelsey Maffett Prezi Link []

Tyler Hines, Zach Parton Clesson AP Lang 9:00 Keeping your facts straight is important to live a full life. If you look at the story of Daniel Bullock, a California physician, you can see how smooth talking swindlers can take advantage of you and your money. Bullock quite simply hated paying taxes, and when told by a salesman that he could avoid them through a “loop hole in the law”, he was all ears. The deal sounded so good, he didn’t bother looking for other evidence to prove the fraud. His money was shipped through various off shore bank accounts and while becoming hard to trace, was still highly illegal. Bullocks could have kept himself out of jail by remaining open-minded and asking himself some questions about the legitimacy of the operation. Thousands of people are damaged by frauds like this every year, and it demands a certain lesson is learned: Facts matter. While many people are under the assumption that high priced brands are of higher quality than low priced brands, this simply isn’t the case. What is now known as the Grey Goose effect, comes from a French Vodka that came to the US in 1997 at triple the prices of the Smirnoff brand currently leading sales. Vodka, which is more or less watered down alcohol, is a drink that is meant to have no taste. While Grey Goose may have a nicer bottle, a little bit more visual appeal, taste has virtually no difference, according to a test done by Andrea Harner. Sixteen tasters attempted to tell the difference between Smirnoff and Grey Goose vodka, and exactly eight of sixteen were correct. While many other factors come into play, the point is that the assumption of price equaling quality is simply not the case. Sometimes pricier goods aren’t the best options, and doing your research can be a good idea. Disregarding the facts can even land you in serious medical conditions. One example is that of Chuck Hysong of Hendersonville, North Carolina. Hysong, a cancer patient, had shown improvement after taking a recently prescribed medication, until he was bamboozled by a man claiming he had the cure. The seller promised a 100% cure rate for cancer, and Hysong, desperate for hope forked out $5000. Hours after taking the “cure”, Hysong, had diarrhea, constant discharge from the nose and hallucinations. He was taken to the hospital and left in the poorest condition he had been in months. Hysong died three months later, not because of the “cure”, but certainly worsened by its affects. Misinformation can be equally dangerous. In 1997 breast cancer was most likely to be named the leading killer of women. In reality, women are far less likely to die of it than other diseases such as heart and lung diseases. Breast cancer is dangerous for sure, and awareness has lead to many developments in the field, however concern about the aforementioned diseases is infinitely more important. We are often spun by the messages we hear, mistaking what we hear for actual rates of occurrence. In fact, breast cancer receives so much attention because comparatively high survival rate leads to advocates for the cause. In short, facts save lives. Many young people get the facts wrong about their peers. This misinformation has profound effects upon the way they act in situations in which they believe their peers would act in a certain way. In addition to being generally misinformed about the dangers of contracting venereal diseases through things such as oral sex, teenagers generally believed their fellow teens to be having sex more frequently than they actually were, with about a twenty-five percent gap in actual participating and perceived-participating. A similar issue was seen among college students in respect to their sexual and drinking habits. Studies have shown men believe women to be more comfortable with “hooking up” (sexual encounters without any prior or following commitment) than they actually are, and women believe others to be more comfortable with the practice than actually are. As well, particularly male subjects were convinced that more males were involved with drinking at heavier levels than accurate, for amount and rate. The result of this evidence is that individuals think others are more involved in certain activities and beliefs than they really are, leading the individual’s behavior to represent the more culturally accepted belief, even if it really is not the culturally accepted belief. Psychologists call this phenomena pluralistic ignorance. This pluralistic ignorance has a place in society and history. Those in the deep Southern area of the US believed that their fellow Southerners were more resistant to integration (with African Americans) than was the actual case. This could have resulted in a smoother and sooner integration. As well, among professionals, the notion of others being much more corrupt than accurate was a widely held belief among lawyers and business students and executives. Misinformation has led to military blunders in the past. No evidence was ever found to demonstrate considerable mass threat from Iraq after the US invasion, with some inquiries showing no true evidence of such before the war occurred. This resulted in tens of thousands of dead Iraqi’s and a US troop death toll topping 4500. Historically, the popular conception that the Spanish sunk the //Maine// led to a war with Spain. There was never any evidence of such, and a more recent military investigation demonstrated fairly objectively that it was an internal combustion that sunk the //Maine//, not a Spanish mine. The US military press in Vietnam was also caused by unverified information, that a second US ship was attacked in the countries water in the period of two days. There has been no evidence of this second attack, nor was there at the time. In the first Iraq invasion, supposedly to help defend Kuwaitis, testimony of a fifteen year old girl was given to congress and military personnel. This account detailed Iraqi soldiers killing infants by taking them out of their incubators, causing their proceeding death. This girl turned out to be a daughter of a wealthy Kuwaiti family, particularly the Royal Family, and was the daughter of their ambassador to D.C. at the time. The officials at the hospital in which the account was supposed to occur said the incident never occurred. Amnesty International in an investigation concluded the same thing. None of this information was available till after the US led invasion of Iraq was completed. ** Deliberately Misinformed Military **
 * Facts Can Save Your Life **
 * The “Grey Goose Effect” **
 * Selling False Hope **
 * What Really Kills Women? **
 * Misinformed Youth **
 * Misinformed Relations **
 * Misinformed Military **

In 1982 the British led a military expedition to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentina. The then commander assured British and subsequently, the world press, that there was to be no frontal invasion. This was not the case, and from what was secured with a frontal beach invasion, the islands were eventually recaptured. Though feelings of betrayal ran high, the commander assured the point was to deceive the enemy, which is what occurred. War has long since been about deception, and the classified nature of much military information will most likely keep it this way. Useful information in this Information Age is widely available though for concerned citizens and consumers from varieties of well informed and official sources. One only needs to search for it. Jacson, Brooks, and Kathleen Hall Jamison. “Facts Can Save Your Life.” //Unspun: Finding Facts in a World of Disinformation.// Illus. Signe Wilkinson. New York: Random, 2007. 83-101. Print