QTPC 28

Quotation:  “If we eat McDonald’s hamburgers and potatoes for a thousand years, we will become taller, our skin will become white,a dn our hair will be blonde.”

Talking Point:  Fujita said this quote and he is the person who brought McDonald’s over to Japan.  Fujita’s quote shows that people will say anything to sell their product.  Most advertisements now will say how their product is better than their competetors.  An example of this is Subway and Quizno’s.  Fujita is just one person who brought McDonald’s to a different country but McDonald’s has spread all over the world.

Connection:  I made a connection because when I went to my dad’s office there was a map showing all the places that sold the companies products.  I have seen maps showing all of the places where there is a McDonald’s.  On the map where there is a red dot there is a McDonald’s and the map I saw was almost completely red.

QTPC 27

Quotation:  “They’re trying to deter you, period, from going to the doctor.”

Talking Point:  The employers of the slaughter houses don’t want their workers to go to the doctors because they will have to provide information on the workers.  Some of the workers are underpaid immigrants and most of the workers are overworked.  The workers who cut the meat have to work fast so they don’t get behind and the faster they work the more likely they are to get a laceration.

Connection:  I made a connection because for my grandparents anniversary dinner I had to trim a large piece of meat and I know how much fat is cut from the meat.  The butcher that my parents bought the meat from said that if he would have cut it the piece of meat would have been half the size it was when we bought it.  The workers at the slaughter houses can’t work very fast for long hours without a large personal risk of hurting themselves.

QTPC 26

Quotation:  “Today the tipecal American eats about forty-nine pounds of fresh potatoes a year.”

Talking Point:  Americans have started eating more and more potatoes each year since McDonald’s started selling french fries.  Potatoes are one of the foods that Americans eat almost every day.  Also at McDonald’s the restaurant switched their fries to frozen fries and the customers couldn’t tell the difference.  Most Americans today eat too many fast food french fries and they can’t even tell if they are eating fresh fries or frozen.

Connection:  I made a connection to my job at Benners.  At my work we use potatoes every day.  We make all types of potatoes from french fries to mashed potatoes.  About half of the side dishes that we serve with our dinners are potatoes.  The book “Fast Food Nation” is right about Americans eating more and more potatoes and I think it will be the number one food that Americans eat if it isn’t already.

QTPC 25

Quotation:   “If they were drowning to death, I would put a hose in their mouth.”

Talking Point:  When McDonald’s started to use Ronald McDonald the man who they cast as him was too fat.  McDonald’s said that they wanted someone who was thin to play Ronald and sell their food.  I think this is wrong of them to sell fattening food and only allow thin people to play Ronald.  I know that they use a thin person so more people will eat at their restaurant.  Most restaurants use thin people to endorse their food because people like to see thin people endorse products not fat people.

Connection:  I made a connection to “Fast Food Nation” because my family and I would always go to a fast food restaurant when we would take a road trip because it was faster than going to a regular restaurant.  Now we don’t go to fast food restaurants as much because we know what will happen if we go too often.  We have seen the movie Fast Food Nation and we know how unhealthy a life eating fast food is.  People should eat less fast food and try to cook their own meals at home as much as possible in my oppinion.

QTPC 23

Quote:  “No one said that you could work hard -harder than you ever thought possible-and still find yourself sinking even deeper into poverty and debt.”

Talking Point:  The long time workers at Wal-Mart get health benefits but the part-time workers don’t.  So Wal-Mart decided to have more part-time workers so they wouldn’t have to pay healthcare for so many full-time workers.  Businesses try to lower the amount of money they have to spend on their workers by lowering the health care or lowering the amount of workers.

Connection:  At my dad’s job the owner decided to cut back on its healthcare to save money.  Also the owner had to lay off some people to save some money.  Just like Wal-Mart the owner looked for more part-time workers to hire so he wouldn’t have to pay health care benefits for them.

QTPC 22

Quote:  “So its interesting and more than a little disturbing, to see how Barb turned out.”

Talking Point:  Barbara is called Barb when she works at Walmart and she sees this as her being another person in a way.  When she looks back on herself while she is working as “Barb”  she realizes that she is more sly and holds a grudge better than she used to.   I believe that being away from her normal life and being put into this environment has changed how she acts in her new environment.

Connection:  I have made a connection with Barbara because I can see how she feels that she is a different person when she is working at Walmart than whe she was working at her old job.  When I work at my job in the kitchen of a restaraunt I act differently than when I am around people or when I am at home.  I believe that each person behaves differently depending on which environment they are in and what their background is.

QTPC 21

Quote:  “We’re nothing to these people.”

Talking Point:  The maids that Barbara works with are very poor and they have some kind of medical condition that limits how much they can do at the work site.  The home owners that Barbara and her team are employed by look down upon the maids like they are the dirt that they clean up.  Barbara compares herself and the maids to blacks because the way they are treated seems like the way the blacks were treated.  One of the maids doesn’t even have enough money to get a decent meal for herself on a daily basis.

Connection:  I made a connection to the nursing home that Barbara was working in.  My dad used to work at a nursing home and I have had a few family members who lived in a nursing home.  In the nursing home some of the residents would try to escape because of an illness or because they felt like they were in a form of prison.  One of my relatives actually threw a chair through a window and ran away from the nursing home.  Also the residents of the nursing homes would forget what your name was or they would wander the halls looking for something but they didn’t know what they were looking for.  Barbara had a similar experience in the nursing home when she would work with the Alzheimer’s  patients.

QTPC 20

Quote:  “It’s OK, baby, everyone does that sometime.”

Talking Point:  The women entering the work force have a really hard time because they don’t have the money to afford an apartment.  They can’t afford the apartments because they have children or they have a disability.  Also there are too many people looking for jobs to be able to have enough for all of the people to have a job.  The women also don’t earn enough money to keep up on their rent if they could afford an apartment.

Connection:  I work at a restaurant and when I started I would make some mistakes but the chef would help me out.  The new waitresses would also make mistakes and the chef or another waitress would help them out just like in the book.  In the book the waitresses get paid mainly in tips just like all the other waitresses.

QTPC 19

Quote:  ”Bush doesn’t care about black people.”

 Talking Point:  A few of the people who lived in New Orleans don’t like that Bush didn’t send help when the Hurricane hit.  Also they think that he didn’t send help because they are African American.  Bush should have sent help as soon as he heard about all the people stranded in New Orleans.  There is no excuse that he didn’t hear about the problems in New Orleans because the incidend was all over the news.

Connection:  When Fema stoped paying for the hotel rooms the people had to leave because they couldn’t afford to stay in the hotel.  I had a simmilar situation where my family got a large bill from the hospital because I had to stay in the hospital for about ten days.  Our insurance company couldn’t help with the bill because it was such a large bill and because it was a terrible insurance plan that was provided by work.  I feel that the government should have helped the citizens with the hotel bill because there is no way they could all find a new house to live in with the short ammount of time that they were given.

QTPC 18

Quote:  “It’s been five days.”

Talking Point:  The people who lived through the hurricane had to wait to be rescued for over a week.  The government and the president said that they didn’t hear about the hurricane and the people who were trapped by flood waters untill about five days after the incident.  Also a news reporter said that she was getting better information on the incident than the government officials.

Connection:  One of my friends was having trouble in school with her boyfriend who thought that she belonged to him and couldn’t hang out with other boys.  My friend went  to a teacher and told them about the problem but the teachers didn’t do anything about it the first few weeks.  Then when The boy tried to stop her from leaving a class room and she told a teacher about it the teachers did something.  Just like how the teachers didn’t help my friend very fast the government didn’t help the hurricane victims in a timely fashion.