Ten Years Gone

Ten Years Gone

Then as it was - then again it will be


And though the course may change sometimes

Rivers always reach the sea

Flying skies of fortune - each our separate way

On the wings of maybe - downy birds of prey

Kind of makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to go

But as the eagle leaves the nest it's got so far to go

Changes fill my time - baby, that's alright with me

In the midst I think of you and how it used to be

Do you ever really need somebody?

And really need 'em bad

Did you ever really want somebody?

The best love you ever had

Do you ever remember me, baby?

Did it feel so good?

'Cause it was just the first time

And you knew you would

Dewy eyes now sparkle - senses growing keen

Tasted love along the way - see your feathers preen

Kind of makes makes me feel sometimes, didn't have to go

We are eagles of one nest - the nest is in our soul



Pictured in my dreams, with great surprise to me

Never thought I'd see your face the way it used to be

Oh darlin' - oh darlin'



I'm never gonna leave you

I'm never gonna leave

Holdin' on, ten years gone

Ten years gone, holdin' on, ten years gone

Ten years gone, holdin' on, ten years gone



Ten Years Gone

Essay 4: Professional Athletes are Not Overpaid; Final

Stephanie Stebbing

Professor Kerr

EN 101-5

11/21/10

Professional Athletes are Not Overpaid

                Professional athletes such as Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Peyton Manning are some of the top paid athletes in the United States. Tiger Woods, pro golf player, tops the charts at an average salary of $127,902,706. Some people would argue that they are overpaid because of how much money they rake in on the surface; however there are crucial terms and consequences to working in such a high-paying career field. The first point to consider is that their salary is based on supply and demand. They have a high entertainment value in our society, and are simply supplying our demand for entertainment. Not only do they meet our demand for entertainment, they also contribute more funds to our government because they pay higher taxes than the average American white-collar and blue-collar worker. The last, and maybe the most important, point to consider is that their job requires that they continuously risk their health, their lives, and their career every time they compete.

                Because society places such a high importance on sports to meet our demand for entertainment, not to mention the star quality that fans give to the players themselves, athlete’s salaries have skyrocketed due to the increasing demand for their field of expertise. Football, basketball, and baseball are three of the most popular sports in America, and most Americans will happily spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars a year on fan paraphernalia and game tickets for themselves as well as for family and friends.

The average revenue generated per game at the Yankee Stadium on tickets, food, and merchandise is about $75,000. (B. Jennifer) Tickets for the Dallas Cowboys games can average from $90-$340, but the true, life-long fans spend anywhere from $16,000-$150,000 for a “personal seat license,” which guarantees the right to season tickets for 30 years.  (Answers.com) The large amounts of money that fans spend on their favorite teams’ game tickets and merchandise is the driving factor in why athletes are so highly paid. Jeremy Johnson, a columnist for Daily Vidette Sports, compared this argument to that of someone who believes Bill Gates is paid too highly but still buys a Microsoft Word Program. “If you do not want an athlete to make so much money, do not go give them money. You cannot buy a Microsoft Word program and then call Bill Gates overpaid,” Johnson commented (Johnson). Some may envy or dislike the fact that pro athletes are paid well above the average persons’ salary, but that complaint is not justifiable when most of these people are part of the society that contributes to the athlete’s wealth.

Professional athletes contribute more funds to government programs such as construction of roads, communities, and schools, as well as school supplies like computers, desks, and books, then the average white-collar, blue-collar workers do. This is because pro athletes are in a much higher tax bracket, which means their tax cut is a higher percentage than average. Taxation of a pro athlete is more complicated than that of most other professions, as it is based on the individual’s income, how many “duty days” they had for the season, and what state the individual completed their duty days. This formula is called the “Uniform Apportionment Formula”. Some states still rely solely on income, but many more states have adopted this formula for taxation of professional athletes. ("Zeisler, Zeisler & Rawson LLP").

California’s state tax is among the highest in rankings. In the year 2000, California and Wisconsin collected between $94 million and $11 million dollars in taxes from non-resident athletes on income they made while playing away games (“Tax Adviser”). 54 percent of the tax the government collects goes towards Mandatory Spending, which covers things like Medicare, social security, Medicaid, income security, and other retirement and disability funding ("Tax Policy Center"). The government also spends tax money on funding the war, repairing roads and bridges, education in schools and colleges, public health and safety, and support for companies and businesses. Most athletes fall within the 35% tax bracket, which is one of the highest brackets. This means that 35% of their salary each year is deducted and spent on all of the previously stated government funding, which is a great deal higher than the average workers such as teachers and medical assistants, whose deductions can fall in the 10-15% tax bracket. Professional athletes perform their job to the best of their ability, and get paid a lot for what they do. In return, they are one of the highest contributions to government funding, which is why it is reasonable that they get paid as much as they do.

In many sports such as football and basketball, there is a very high risk of injury every time the player steps out onto the field or the court. Most football players are often tall, heavy, and strong, and not to mention determined to make a great hit or sack while playing the game. This puts all possible recipients of a hit at high risk for injury, and even death. Of course, it is not the intention of the player to injure another player, but these athletes are being paid for their skills to defend their team, and when it comes to keeping a member of the opposing team away from the ball, they are going to do their job as best as they can, which can sometimes mean running at them at full speed and tackling them as hard as possible. The same goes for basketball players, except the risk of injury is more on the legs and knees, and does not happen quite as often as football injuries do.

When an athlete suffers from an injury, it is often detrimental to their career because it wares the body down, and makes them more vulnerable, resulting in less playing time, and an even higher risk of a second injury while playing. Sometimes if a more serious injury occurs, it can end the player’s career immediately, rather than causing a greater risk of ending it over time. For example, during the Buffalo Bills opening game of the season in 2007, tight end Kevin Everett suffered an injury to the neck and spinal cord which ended his career in the NFL. When asked at a media briefing if he thought Everett might regain full motion and be able to walk, his doctor answered, “By life, I'm an optimist, but as a scientist and a clinician, I have to tell you that statistically the chances of that occurring are very small," (Mihoces). Unlike other professions, professional athletes take the risk of not only being injured, but also losing their career, every time they compete. Once a player has suffered a serious injury, their chances of starting a new career are very slim because the injury can easily leave the player paralyzed or result in the player having to be in a wheelchair for the rest of their life. If athletes were offered a minimum of $7.25 per hour like the minimum wage-workers receive, there would be no NFL or NBA in existence. Anyone who is in a career field that requires you to expect the possibility of getting hurt, dying, or getting hurt so bad that it endangers your career should get paid more than the average American worker.

Some people will argue that athletes are overpaid because all they do is play a sport, and that given the chance, many people would go play for free (Lefebvre). However, most people are not ever given that chance. Professional athletes are where they are in their career because they earned their spot on the team. They have trained since they were young, and were the top players on their teams in high school and college. If it is someone’s life-long dream to play for their favorite team in the NFL and the coach handed them an opportunity to play for the team with no prior work required, of course they would play for free. However, professional football players didn’t just get their career handed to them; they trained hard for many years to earn it.

Another argument the opposing side might make is that professional athletes don’t have to do well on the field in order to make money, because they are paid the same, regardless, while others have to do well to get paid and keep their job ("ExampleEssays.com"). Although it is true that pro athletes have a contract which ensures that they will be paid a certain amount, and that amount does not vary due to their skills or lack thereof, why would any professional athlete not do their best while on the field? The reason these people are on a national sports team is because they have a passion for what they do, and therefore they want to do their best in order to feel good about themselves and the way they played the game. No professional athlete is on the team because they wanted to make a lot of money, or because they are really skilled but don’t care about the game. It is because they have a strong desire to play the game and they have a true dedication to their team.

In addition to that point, professional athletes can lose their career at any given moment during the season because of fatal injuries, which almost always means that they will not be able to find another career, and therefore, they have no income. Other people with jobs such as scientists, assistants, dentists, teachers, etc… can lose their career by failing, but always have the chance to find a new one because their loss is not due to injury, but rather, lack of skill.

Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Floyd Mayweather Jr., and Peyton Manning are some of the top paid professional athletes in the world. Although being a part of the team is a dream come true for every athlete in the nation, their careers also provide society with entertainment. Many fans spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars each year on tickets and team paraphernalia because they love their teams. If it wasn’t for society, athletes would not be in such a high demand for entertainment purposes, and in turn may not get paid as much as they do. Athletes pay higher taxes than average workers do because of their higher salaries. Because of their large contribution to government funding, schools are better prepared for educating students, soldiers who fight our wars are better equipped with the tools they need to defeat the enemy, Medicare and Medicaid is more affordable, and roads and highways are able to be repaired for public safety and convenience. Athletes risk their lives and their careers every day to do what they love to do, which is not required of most Americans in order to maintain their career. Although athletes are paid large sums of money each year, they contribute a lot to our society in various ways. They are highly skilled in their profession and have worked and trained since they were young, and even continue training during the offseason, so their work never ends. They risk their health, their lives, and their entire career every time they play a game. Athletes have a larger salary than the average American worker, but it is justified for all of these reasons.

Works Cited:

B., Jennifer. "ChaCha!." chacha.com. N.p., 19/09/2010. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.chacha.com/question/how-much-money-is-spent-on-tickets,-food,-and-merchandise-at-yankee-stadium-every-game>.

"WiKi Answers." Answers.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_revenue_does_a_NFL_stadium_make_each_game

Johnson, Jeremy. "Professional Athletes are Not Overpaid." Vidette Online (2009): n. pag. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.videtteonline.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=26489:professional-athletes-are-not-overpaid&catid=68:sportsarchive&Itemid=55>.

"Taxation of Professional Athletes." Zeisler, Zeisler & Rawson LLP n. pag. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://zzrllp.com/28.htm>.

"State Taxation of Professional Athletes and Entertainers." Tax Adviser (2004): n. pag. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://goliath.ecnext.com/coms2/gi_0199-688528/State-taxation-of-professional-athletes.html>.

Mihoces, Gary. "Paralysis Likely for Bills' Everett after Unfortunate Injury." USA Today 11 September 2007: n. pag. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/bills/2007-09-10-everett-injury_N.htm>.

"The Tax Policy Briefing Book." Tax Policy Center. N.p., 2008. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/background/numbers/expenses.cfm>.

Lefebvre, Matt. "Professional Athletes are Overpaid and Selfish." The Quinnipiac Chronicle. Worldpress and CoPress Managed Hosting, 1 April 2004. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.quchronicle.com/2004/04/professional-athletes-are-overpaid-and-selfish/>.

"Pro Athletes are Overpaid." ExampleEssays.com. ExampleEssays, n.d. Web. 5 Dec 2010. <http://www.exampleessays.com/viewpaper/36484.html>.

Essay 4 Topic

Are professional athletes overpaid?

I am going to argue that professional athletes such as Tiger Woods, LeBron James, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and Peyton Manning, etc... are overpaid when compared to other professionals in important fields such as teachers, engineers, doctors and dentists, etc...

The opposing side is that professional athletes are paid justly for their work and deserve all the money they are paid, while other professions such as those in the public health industry or education industry are not so deserving.

Essay 3 Rough Draft

Stephanie Stebbing
EN 101-5
Professor Kerr
10/25/10

Water Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay

The effects of water pollution directly affect the balance of nature, which ultimately has an impact on all humans and the way we live. The Chesapeake Bay and its rivers, wetlands, and forests provide a home, shelter, and food for many animals. Its nutrients are essential to the life and growth of these animals, but too much of them can be detrimental to the animals that live there. Excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus will degrade the water quality, and lead to algae blooms which can be harmful and even deadly to fish. Nitrogen can also be an airborne pollutant, and is the main cause of the bay’s poor health. Three types of pollution that affect the bay are pesticides, nitrogen, and sediments.


Pesticides and herbicides that wash off of fields, and the household chemical products that are washed down sewers pose a severe threat to the bay and the animal and human life in its region. Pesticides contaminate the water, which in turn makes it unusable to humans for drinking. It also gets into the fish because they drink the water, and when humans harvest the fish for food, we get the contaminated water in our system. A 2007 report done by the U.S. Geological Survey found a large amount of synthetic organic pesticides throughout the bay watershed (“Chesapeake Bay Program”). One type

of pesticide discovered in the bay was atrazine, which is widely used throughout the United States. Atrazine has been linked to the sexual abnormalities occurring in frogs. This pesticide contains a chemical which can cause reproductive anomalies. (“Chesapeake Bay Program”)

Sediments float throughout the water rather than falling to the bottom. When there is too much sediment, the water becomes cloudy, and it blocks the sunlight from reaching the bottom where many animals and underwater grasses grow. These underwater organisms need sunlight to live, so when it is blocked from coming through, they die. This also puts blue crabs and fish in danger because they depend on these grasses for shelter. Sediments can also be combined with nutrients and other chemical contaminants which get spread throughout the bay, contaminating organisms residing in these areas of the bay. Excess sediments also have a negative affect on commercial shipping and recreational boating because the ports can become clogged by accumulated sediment.

　

　
 Sediments are another contributing factor to the bay’s pollution. Sediment is made up of clay particles, silt, and sand. Nitrogen, among other nutrients, is one of the biggest pollutants to affect the Chesapeake Bay. A study was performed in the 1970’s which linked agricultural development, population growth, and sewage treatment plant discharges to the increase in nutrients in the waters. Nitrogen and Phosphorus are two necessary nutrients for the organisms in the bay to survive. However, when the bay becomes too enriched with these nutrients, it causes algae blooms and excessive growth of phytoplankton. This is a negative effect on the life in the waters for two reasons: it causes the excessive algae amounts to block out the sunlight in shallow areas, in which some aquatic grasses need that sunlight in order to grow, and the dead algae use up a lot of oxygen, which decreases the amount left for bottom-dwelling organisms such as oysters, clams, and worms ("Chesapeake Bay Foundation"). With the increased death of these organisms comes the increased starvation and death of other organisms who rely on these critters for food.

Works Cited

Works Cited:

Great Waters Program: Chesapeake Bay. , 2009. Web. 27 Oct 2010. <http://epa.gov/oar/oaqps/gr8water/xbrochure/chesapea.html

• This source is credible because it is from the Chesapeake Bay "Great Waters Program" under the Environmental Protection Agency
• The E.P.A. is a large, widely known organization which serves to "coordinate programs aimed at reducing pollution and protecting the environment". This section of the EPA (the Great Waters Program) was created to keep the Chesapeake Bay clean and help take the pollution out of it.
• I'm keeping this source because it informed me about point source and non point source pollution, which I did not discuss directly in my paper but it helped me understand where the pollution comes from and how it gets transferred into the bay.

"Chesapeake Bay Program." Chesapeake Bay Program. Chesapeake Bay Program, 08/19/2010. Web. 25 Oct 2010. http://www.chesapeakebay.net/comments.aspx.

• This source is credible, but not as credible as the first source because the author is not evident.
• It is credible because I found it on the Chesapeake Bay Program's website. The Chesapeake Bay Program is a foundation dedicated to conserving the bay and its waters, and keeping all the inhabitants of the bay healthy.
• I am keeping this source because it gave me a lot of information I did not previously know, and I referred to it several times in my essay.

"Chesapeake Bay Foundation." Chesapeake Bay Foundation. Chesapeake Bay Foundation, 2010. Web. 27 Oct 2010. http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=913.

• This source is credible because it came from another Chesapeake Bay Program.
• The source was from the Chesapeake Bay Foundation's website. It is not an essay or article, but the facts are listed out clearly and were written out by the creators of that program. It lists what kinds of pollutions are affecting the bay and what needs to be done in order to preserve the bay.
• I am keeping this source because I learned a lot about why nitrogen is a pollutant to the bay, which I didn't know before reading about it on the website, and I have one whole paragraph in my essay discussing nitrogen and other nutrients and how they contribute to the pollution in the bay.

Essay 3: Water Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay

Stephanie Stebbing
EN 101-5
Professor Kerr
10/25/10

Water Pollution in the Chesapeake Bay

The effects of water pollution directly affect the balance of nature, which ultimately has an impact on all humans and the way we live. The Chesapeake Bay and its rivers, wetlands, and forests provide a home, shelter, and food for many animals. Its nutrients are essential to the life and growth of these animals, but too much of them can be detrimental to the animals that live there. This is one type of water pollution in the bay. Excessive amounts of nitrogen and phosphorus will degrade the water quality, and lead to algae blooms which can be harmful and even deadly to fish. Nitrogen can also be an airborne pollutant, and is the main cause of the bay’s poor health ("Chesapeake Bay Program") . Three types of pollution that affect the bay are pesticides, nitrogen, and sediments.
Pesticides and herbicides that wash off of fields, and the household chemical products that are washed down sewers pose a severe threat to the bay and the animal and human life in its region. Pesticides contaminate the water, which in turn makes it unusable to humans for drinking. It also gets into the fish because they drink the water, and when humans harvest the fish for food, we get the contaminated water in our system. A 2007 report done by the U.S. Geological Survey found a large amount of synthetic organic pesticides throughout the bay watershed (“Chesapeake Bay Program”). One type

of pesticide discovered in the bay was atrazine, which is widely used throughout the United States. Atrazine has been linked to the sexual abnormalities occurring in frogs. This pesticide contains a chemical which can cause reproductive anomalies. (“Chesapeake Bay Program”)

Sediments float throughout the water rather than falling to the bottom. When there is too much sediment, the water becomes cloudy, and it blocks the sunlight from reaching the bottom where many animals and underwater grasses grow. These underwater organisms need sunlight to live, so when it is blocked from coming through, they die. This also puts blue crabs and fish in danger because they depend on these grasses for shelter. Sediments can also be combined with nutrients and other chemical contaminants which get spread throughout the bay, contaminating organisms residing in these areas of the bay. Excess sediments also have a negative affect on commercial shipping and recreational boating because the ports can become clogged by accumulated sediment.
Pollution takes many different forms, all of which are harmful and can be deadly to the life in the Chesapeake Bay. Nutrients are necessary to the growth and survival of most organisms in the bay, however, when nutrients such as nitrogen become too abundant in the water, it causes excessive algae growth which blocks the sunlight from other animals, often resulting in their death. Pesticides come from agricultural and commercial run-off, which contaminates the water and harms any organism-animal or human-who drinks it. Sediments cause the water to become cloudy, and allows less sunlight to reach the underwater grasses in the bay. All of these contaminants are polluting the bay’s waters, and though there are several different organizations providing care for the animals and waters and trying to keep the bay clean, there will always be some pollution in the Chesapeake.
　Sediments are another contributing factor to the bay’s pollution. Sediment is made up of clay particles, silt, and sand. It is a natural part of the bay’s watershed, but in excess can cloud the waters, causing harm to fish, oysters, and underwater grasses. Nitrogen, among other nutrients, is one of the biggest pollutants to affect the Chesapeake Bay. A study was performed in the 1970’s which linked agricultural development, population growth, and sewage treatment plant discharges to the increase in nutrients in the waters. These nutrients also come from point sources such as industrial waste water, non-point sources such as cropland and suburban run-off, and and airborne contaminants ("Great Waters Program: Chesapeake Bay"). Nitrogen and Phosphorus are two necessary nutrients for the organisms in the bay to survive. However, when the bay becomes too enriched with these nutrients, it causes algae blooms and excessive growth of phytoplankton. This is a negative effect on the life in the waters for two reasons: it causes the excessive algae amounts to block out the sunlight in shallow areas, in which some aquatic grasses need that sunlight in order to grow, and the dead algae use up a lot of oxygen, which decreases the amount left for bottom-dwelling organisms such as oysters, clams, and worms ("Chesapeake Bay Foundation"). With the increased death of these organisms comes the increased starvation and death of other organisms who rely on these critters for food.

Essay 3 Cause/Effect

I'm writing my paper on the causes of water pollution.
Three main causes: pesticides, oil and gasoline, and mining.
Some effects: poses problems for local wildlife, fishermen, and coastal businesses.

http://www.water-pollution.org.uk/

http://library.thinkquest.org/26026/Environmental_Problems/water_pollution_-_effects.html

http://greenliving.lovetoknow.com/Effects_of_Water_Pollution

Chesapeake Bay information:

http://www.chesapeakebay.net/airpollution.aspx?menuitem=14693

http://www.cbf.org/Page.aspx?pid=913

Essay 2: Long and Short-Term Memory

Stebbing

Stephanie Stebbing
Professor Kerr
En 101-5
10/4/10

Long and Short-Term Memory

A person’s capacity for long-term and short-term memory depends heavily on their age. Seniors often have a shorter capacity for memory storage than children and adults do because of memory loss and cognitive and memory diseases such as Alzheimer’s. Long-term and short-term memory differ in that long-term is used to store memories about the world and life, and these memories can be retrieved at any given time, while short-term memory is the working memory that is used to store all the current information for use right now. Both types are essential for survival to humans and even some animals because we rely on it to help us understand how to do things, it helps us to obtain higher-level thinking skills and speech, and it defines our person by giving us individuality and identity. Long-term memory includes memory for skills, habits, procedures, and instinctive reflex responses. Short-term memory includes memory for selective attention and gaining new current information. Memory is stored the easiest in adults and children, because children have not yet developed a sense of the world or put meaning to much information, and adults have a healthy working memory based on all their previous knowledge of the world.
Scientists and researchers used to believe that a child possessed absolutely no memory skills until they were about eight or nine months old. Recent studies have proved that babies and young children do, in fact, possess some memory skills. A study called Total Recall, published an article in American Baby Magazine in 2000, which shows that at six weeks old, babies can hold information in their long-term memory for up to 24 hours (Hollowell). Memory capacity increases in children as they get older. Jerome Kagan, a Starch research professor of Psychology at Harvard University, conducted experiments with the help of one of his senior students, Conor Liston, to find out when humans start to develop their long-term memory. Their findings showed that children have a hard time recalling the past before age one. "We interpret this to mean that, at 9 months, the human brain is too immature to firmly register experiences, while at 17-21 months it has developed enough to record and retrieve memories of single distinctive experiences," Kagan says (Cromie). Kagan and Liston’s studies, as well as hundreds of other research experimenter’s studies on memory development in children prove that children begin developing their long-term memory after age one.
The average person can hold seven bits of information in their short-term memory at once (Saundra K. Ciccarelli and J. Noland White). However, adults often have short-term memory problems due to an inability to filter out surrounding distractions. An fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) study done by researchers at the University of California, Berkley, show that adults’ short-term memory failure is an effect of interference from irrelevant information. Study leader, Dr. Adam Gazzaley, is the adjunct assistant professor of neuroscience at UC Berkley and newley appointed assistant professor of neurology physiology at UC San Francisco. Commenting on the subject, Gazzaley states, “These results reveal that efficiently focusing on relevant information is not enough to ensure successful memory. It is also necessary to filter distractions. Otherwise, our capacity-limited short-term memory system will be overloaded.” (Sanders)
Memory is classified by time (short-term and long-term) and type (what specific information you have to recall). Different types of information is stored in different parts of the brain, all of which are part of the nervous system. The hippocampus, a structure inside the brain, helps store your long-term memory. It is highly vulnerable to age-related deterioration and can have an effect on your ability to retain information. Neurons in the brain are lost, increasingly over time, which causes the activity of the neurotransmitters and their receptors to slow down. An older person usually processes nutrients that enhance brain activity less efficiently than a younger person. All of these are contributing factors to memory loss in senior citizens (Jaffe-Gill, and Kemp).
Long-term and short-term memory are both necessary to human survival. It defines us as individuals because we each have our own past and our own memories. It allows us to accomplish simple as well as complicated tasks, and allows us to remember processes in which we may need to remember for a job, writing a school paper, or even simple processes such as how to cook a meal. Memory capacity decreases with age, yet is close to nonexistent before the age of one. Children start developing long-term memories at twelve months of age. Adults can have a large capacity for long-term memories, but a small capacity for short-term memories due to distractions and stress. Seniors process information slower, so it takes longer to be stored in their long-term memory, and also fades quickly.