Conserve, reuse, and recycle.... YOURSELF!

1.  Semrau's main point is "Quite simply, use what you have until it can no long function."
2.   Semrau expressed his positive attitude toward recycling, without revealing his true intention until the end.  He kept his opinion broad, while using unspecific examples.  Semrau narrated the story of his job.  He spoke to Fred Keller, who said the first 50 years of life are for learning, and the next 25 are for giving back.  Semrau realized that he is past this point, so he decided it is time to "recycle himself".  He recalled his childhood dream of becoming a surgeon.  He looked forward to his future, until he saw a surgery on a television.  He discovered that is was not as neat and clean as he thought. As years passed by, he once again took up an interest in surgery.  He enjoyed watching surgeries, even if they were performed on him.  He then suddenly announced that he wanted to go to Harvard Medical School.  His shocking decision pieced together everything he had previously talked about.  His intention is to "recycle himself", and to restore his old interest in surgery.  His strategy in revealing his intention worked well.  He promoted recycling as a good thing to get the reader to agree with him, and then stated he is going to recycle himself.

Dangling decorational distractions of doom

1.  Anything that hangs from a rear view mirror is illegal.  Many people break this law all the time and now it is being considered to abolish or reform this law.
2.  "I call it a 'gotcha' law. It's an excuse to pull someone over."  Cops are not allowed to pull over somebody just because they think the driver is suspicious looking.  My dad has many stories on how he caught drug dealers because he them over for minor things such as a burnt out tail light.  Pulling someone over for hanging something from their mirror is a good way to help catch criminals, not innocent people who want fresh smelling air.
3.  I agree with the ban, not because it obstructs the vision of the driver, but because it is a good excuse for a cop to pull someone over if they think they look suspicious.  Also, if the ban were changed to only larger items, it would be hard for a cop to be able to tell how big an object is just by looking at it.  This would make many arguments between people and police and may result in more court cases, which causes tax payers to be taxed more.

Ego or Race?

1. Mitch Albom states how people often rely on their racial differences to attempt to get out of trouble.  Instead of taking the blame themselves, they blame it on their race.  LeBron James changed teams, only to bring attention to himself.  When some people were angered by the attention that he brought himself, LeBron replied by saying that people were being to hard on him because of his race, when they were actually ripping on him because of his big ego.

2. Mitch Albom has a great point.  Even an amazing athlete such as LeBron James falls back on the race card.  His massive ego is keeping him from seeing that people are not being hard on him because of his race, but because he has a gigantic ego that blocks him from seeing reality.  LeBron is surrounded by too many people who idolize him, which only makes him think greater of himself.  The bigger his ego gets, the less reality he sees, and the more he thinks that people are racist toward him when things go wrong.

3.  Albom clearly states that "ego knows no color."  This shows that no matter how popular you are or what race you are, your cockiness can always hurt you.  LeBron seems to think that he is too famous and well loved for anything bad to happen to him.  As soon as someone criticizes him, he immediately blames his race.  LeBron lets his ego get ahead of him by thinking that his fame will act as a cushion to any of his wrong acts or words.  Albom thinks that LeBron needs to re-think why people think of him the way they do: ego or race.