How does the fatality rate in skydiving compare to other common activities? Since most adults in America drive cars, let’s compare skydiving to driving. Roughly 40,000 people die each year in traffic accidents in the United States. That’s 1.7 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles. Therefore, if you drive 10,000 miles per year, your chance of dying in a car wreck in any given year is something like 1 in 6,000. In other words, we accept a higher level of risk by getting into our cars every day than people do by occasionally skydiving. You would have to jump 17 times per year for your risk of dying in a skydiving accident to equal your risk of dying in a car accident if you drive 10,000 miles per year.

Now lets look at what causes these 30 skydiving deaths per year to happen. Is it the first-time skydiver making a tandem jump that usually ends up dead? Nope. Is it the beginners that are learning how to fly a parachute and maintain proper distances from other skydivers and hazards? Sometimes. So what types of jupers have the most skydiving related deaths attributed to them?

Well, according to Skydive Magazine, Analysis of skydiving accidents show that most are caused by jumpers who make mistakes of procedure or judgment. Contrary to popular belief, very few skydiving accidents or injuries are caused by random or unexpected equipment failure.

Those skydivers who are trained well, who stay current and who take a conservative approach to the sport are involved in very few accidents and suffer few — if any — injuries.

Let me prove it to you by showing you what I spent last Saturday doing.

Nice chill Sunset Jump!

            Baseballs Great Experiment is a book that shows how much a couple of people under the right circumstances can literally change history.  Tygiel shows this by telling the story of how baseball started out segregated and allows the reader to relive the steps that Jackie Robinson, with the guidance and help of Branch Rickey, took to desegregate baseball and make it the game we know today.

The author’s thesis in this book is that Jackie Robinson was a great example of how to produce change in a society that has an unfair prejudice by maintaining his composure and class and not giving up in the face of racism and even bodily harm.  The author also comments about Robinson’s actions and inactions being a great example to other African-American baseball players who wanted to make it into the major leagues and African-Americans as a whole to change the unfair Jim Crow system.

One of the strengths in this book was the attention to detail.  Tygiel must have spent hours and hours researching to gather all of the data that was compiled in his book.  The author not only tells the story of Jackie Robinson but also brings to light all that was going on in African-American baseball in that time period.  Tygiel even traces the history of the Negro Leagues and discusses how desegregation in the Major League affected them.

One of the weaknesses in this book was the amount of time spent on baseball statistics.  For lovers of the sport of baseball this would probably be considered a strength of the book as those statistics would make sense and be relevant to them.  However, if the reader does not have a very deep understanding of baseball and baseball statistics it can be quite boring to read through the lists of numbers when the reader doesn’t understand what meaning or relevance they have.

Another strength of this book was how Tygiel shows that during the 1940’s and 1950’s the desegregation of baseball was taking place in the minor leagues.  Before reading Tygiel’s book many readers may have thought that Jackie Robinson just kind of magically appeared in the Major Leagues one year playing for the Dodgers.  However, in reality, as the author brings to light in his book, it was a pre-planned and slow process of introducing Jackie Robinson into the minor league baseball seen and gradually moving him through to the majors while trying not to make waves in the baseball establishment.  It is important to note that part of the reason this is a strength to the book is because the author is not only telling Jackie Robinson’s story but is also telling the story of Rickey Branch who was the architect behind the scenes bringing about desegregation in the Major Leagues.

One of the weaknesses of this book is that there was not enough credit given to Rachel Robinson, Jackie’s wife.  She is mentioned a few times throughout the book but one must give credit where credit is due.  As Jackie Robinson’s wife Rachel literally experienced all of the same problems that Jackie did.  The author could have spent a little bit more time explaining the difficulties that Rachel went through being moved all over the country and trying to get into games to watch her husband play.

In conclusion, reading Baseball’s Great Experiment was an extremely eye-opening experience for me.  I am not a sports fanatic I knew of Jackie Robinson and that he was one of the first African-American ball players but had no idea the planning, hard work and pain that went into getting him into Major League Baseball.  I enjoyed reading Tygiel’s book and have now passed it on to my father who has loved baseball since his youth.  I look forward to discussing it with him when he has finished reading it.

I have written a critical analysis of York’s book Fiction as Fact. 

Fiction as Fact is a book that shows how creativity and the need to make a buck can sometimes change how most of society views a historical event.  York proves this by going through the step-by-step process of how Grierson’s Raid ultimately turned into Marlowe’s romance with a southern belle in Ford’s The Hourse Soldiers. 

            The Authors thesis in this book is that historians tell relative truths and the actual or historical truth will always elude us but that does not mean we should stop searching for it.  The author brings up the concept of historical fiction or movies leading the reader or viewer to a study of actual history as a wonderful thing.  This recurring theme supports the author’s thesis. 

            One of the strengths in this book was the author’s chapter on The Horse Soldiers, the movie directed by Ford.  Reading Fiction as Fact before watching The Horse Soldiers was an eye opening experience.  It makes one realize just how much of the storyline of that movie was not true to actual events as we know them.  Another strength in this chapter is that it shows the authors objectivity.  The author never slams on Mahin or Rackin for the changes they made to the “actual” history, as we know it.  Neither does the author show any negativity towards John Ford himself for the many changes he made to what is perceived to be the “actual” history of the event. 

            One of the weaknesses in this book was that as I read it I didn’t really understand what the author’s goal was with this writing until more than half way through the book.  Reading the first chapter I was thinking it was a historical book about Grierson’s Raid during the civil war.  Then I thought it was a critique of Dee Brown’s book with some updated information.  By the time I got to the chapter on Sinclair’s book I was beginning to have good idea what the author was trying to do.  Perhaps if the author had put his thesis in the beginning of the book the reader could have gained more from the first couple of chapters. 

            Another one of the strengths from this book is the amount of research that the author had done to collect so much data and analyze it so thoroughly.  When you think of how much energy and time it would take to gather not only your own research but also the research of two other books and a film.  It shows that although the author understands the way history can become entangled with myth and changed for entertainment purposes obviously he is a true historian seeking the most information possible so that he can be as close to the truth as possible.  It made the book seem more authentic because there was documentation for everything that was read.

            Another one of the many strengths in this book is in the sixth chapter where the author goes over just how elusive the truth can be and how there is a battle going on between history and pop culture.  The author really gets the reader thinking by asking what the “facts” of history really are considering that even first hand information about an event is still coming from the perspective of that person.  Most interesting is the questions he poses as to who actually came up with the idea for Grierson’s Raid.  I think that by and through the information the author gives in this chapter he is displaying the differences in thinking between historians and those that create entertainment based on fiction mixed with history.   However, he does so in a way that states both strictly historical and fiction based historical writing are beneficial to society as a whole. 

            In conclusion, reading Fiction as Fact has been an eye opening experience.  It gives me the desire to look into other books and films that I have read and seen that are supposedly based on historical fact.  The author’s thesis that historians tell relative truths based on as much first hand information they can get but that the absolute truth will always elude us is a profound concept.  Next time I read a historical fiction novel, which is one of my favorite styles to read, or go to a film based on a historical event I will definitely be wondering what parts of the history have been changed.  As the author hoped it will lead me to the history books.

So that’s how I got into filming with my gopro hero hd.  For those who don’t know the gopro is a very sharp 1080p digital video camera that you can strap almost anywhere.  Gopro cameras are water proof up to 150 meters and are extremely durable.  In other words designed for the person who wants to film themself or a friend doing something very fun and sometimes dangerous.  I purchased mine right before leaving on a family cruise with my entire family.  Let’s back the train up I’m getting ahead of myself.  First I should explain the reason we went on this family cruise.  My mother was recently diagnosed with ALS better known as Lou Gehrig’s Disease.  The doctors told her and my father that if there was any vacations they wanted to go on it would be better to do it sooner because there may not be a later.  So I had the idea to film some stuff on our Mexican Riviera Cruise with my gopro camera then attempt to edit it into a short film my mother can watch years down the road and remember that fancy vacation we went on before the scientists found her cure.(cross your fingers)

So how did I learn to edit film…. cutting and pasting, lay down audio tracks etc. etc.  The Macboook Pro!  My computer came with a program called imovie.(real original name for your film editing software Apple)  Now I’m not here to tell you that Martin Scorsese or Steven Spielberg can just have the footage of their next film emailed to their Macbook actually quite the opposite.  The software was amazing and I found editing footage is kind of like writing an english paper.  You have to have a few drafts to get anything worth showing to anyone.  There were a few drawbacks to the software but I’m not a computer programmer.  However, the fact that I put a little film of my family on vacation together and it doesn’t suck all the way has made me feel pretty proud.  I have now put almost ten hours into the making of my little 12 minute film.   It has been a great time and a fun little experiment. but I may or may not be hooked on making movies.  It is not a quick process but quite fun!

So I have a new respect for anyone in the film industry.  The attention to detail alone can make you crazy at first but then you want it perfect and you start over or try a new idea.  I’m not sure that film writers, directors, producers, cameramen etc get enough recognition.  I do find it interesting that this form of communication used to be restricted to those businesses and people who could afford the equipment that used to be needed to make a film.  Now it is 2011 I have my own personal 1080p digital video camera and the ability to edit the footage myself with my laptop.  In the 50′s not very many of your average people were expressing themselves through film.

+Blue Skies

“The History of Drug Advertising: The Evolving Roles of Consumers and Consumer Protection”

          In this paper I will be writing a summary and analysis of the academic article “The History of Drug Advertising: The Evolving Roles of Consumers and Consumer Protection” (Donohue).  This article was written by Julie Donohue and covers several decades chronicling the movement toward Direct to Consumers Advertising also known as DTCA.  The author uses many sources such as legislation, the Food and Drug Administration, the American Medical Association and many other advocacy groups to give credence to her claims.  Donohue uses these different entities and a timeline of legislative history to show how the pharmaceutical industry was against Direct to Consumer Advertising in the past until realizing the profit margin was greater using the marketing methods they were previously against (Donohue).

Donohue starts her article by looking back to the past when there were virtually no regulations on pharmaceuticals and you could buy a bottle of opium if you had a headache.  The problem this was causing is that soon people were making home-brewed elixirs with outlandish claims to cure almost anything. Around 1905 there was legislation passed that all drugs had to meet a certain standard and drugs in a certain class had to be prescribed by a doctor.  The American Medical Association had a big influence on the drug industry changing.  The AMA believed the self -medicating was a threat to the medical industry(Donohue).

This shift in regulation turned the tide of marketing for companies designing and producing medications.  Instead of marketing directly to consumers drug producers turned to the physicians to market their products.  In 1958 over 3 billion pages of paid advertisement went into medical publishing’s, 700 pieces of direct mail and 20 million soliciting phone calls went to physicians (Donohue). They needed the doctors to prescribe the medication if they wanted to sell the products they were producing.  Over the next couple of decades patients were given very little information about the care they were receiving or the medications they were being prescribed.  The culture in America at the time seemed to just be Doctor knows best (Donohue).

By the 1970’s the Patient Movement had begun.  Donohue explains that the patient movement came about because the laws for patients’ rights were unfair due to the fact that physicians have a fiduciary duty to use their knowledge and skills only in the patients’ best interest.  The goal of the movement was to get medical professionals to release all the information concerning a patients’ treatment options so that the patient could choose which option was best for themselves with the guidance of their doctor (Donohue).

In the 1990’s what Donohue terms the Consumer Movement was taking shape.  Just as long as people have been buying selling or bartering consumers have had the right to research shop around and decide if they want to purchase an item.  Donohue believes that we are now at the point where patients’ rights and consumer rights standards are getting closer together (Donohue).

The conclusion of Donohue’s article she points to the fact that physicians control over the prescribing of medications has been challenged by Direct to Consumers Advertising by the many pharmaceutical companies bombarding us with commercials in today’s society.  The consumer’s role in health care along with Direct to Consumer Advertising has transformed the policy debate concerning prescription medications and health care as a whole.  Donohue points out that the European Parliament voted 494 to 42 to reject a proposal to allow Direct to Consumer Marketing.  Consumer groups in Europe believe DTCM would lead to a US-style spiral of unsustainable health care spending (Donohue).

To analyze this article from my point of view and the hours I have spent reading over the authors’ thoughts and ideas it seems to me the purpose of the article is to show how the pharmaceutical industry has come full circle and to realize the causes and effects of the changes that have taken place over the past few decades.  The industry started out marketing directly to consumers then shifting gears and marketing specifically to those in the medical profession and has now returned to Direct to Consumer Marketing.  The only difference now is the mediums in which these marketing campaigns can take place with the technology we have at our disposal today.

Donohue uses many types of evidence to support her claims and her thesis.  The most important of which is documented history itself.  Throughout her article she is quoting dates of when legislation pertaining to the pharmaceutical industry was passed and explaining the effect it had on every level of the industry.  I am not sure if it counts as evidence but she had several citation pages of where her statistics and information was coming from. The author shows proof of her thesis by going through the entire history of pharmaceutical marketing from the early 1900’s to the present.

The authors thesis in this article is: pharmaceutical promotion of prescription drugs to consumers was made possible by the rise of consumer oriented medications following the social movement of patients’ and consumers rights (Donohue).

The tone of this article is completely academic in nature.  I believe this article was written partially for those in the pharmaceutical and medical fields to give them an idea of how their industry got to it’s current state.  More importantly to provide policy and decision makers with a deeper understanding of how our countries health care system has become what it is today.  I believe that we learn most by studying the past and asking questions about why the past played out the way it did.  Donohue chose her audience carefully in hopes that those who read it may learn from the past and find the best way for the industries involved in this article to be more successful in the future.

Works Cited

Donohue, Julie. “A History of Drug Advertising: The Evolving Roles of Consumers and

And Consumer Protection.” The Millbank Quarterly Vol. 84, No. 4 (2006), pp. 659-699

The author Vincent Ryan Ruggiero who wrote Beyond Feelings: A Guide to Critical Thinking found that television programmers and movie makers use scene shifts that cause sensory appeal frequently to keep the audiences minds from wandering.  Strategic ways to keep the viewers interest from dimishing.  If you turn on your television to almost any station you will begin to notice how camera angles and plots shift to keep us watching and wondering what will happen next.  I feel like my generation is going to school or the workplace expecting to be provided the same excitement and constant entertainment we find in our television programs or movies.  Could this manipulation be leading to adults struggling to develope a mature attention span?