4th Quarter Blogging

There were two blogs which I thought were well done this quarter: the one about Facebook, and the one about Mr. Bolos' "TV Tokenism" talk. They were both well done, but for different reasons. I thought that my interpretation and ideas of the TV Tokenism lecture were well thought out, however, the actually writing is not that great. And I thought that my connection of Facebook and privacy to our class was well done, as well as the use of the actual text. Using quotes from the article to explain the question I posed at the end.

I'll be honest I did not do a great job of blogging this quarter, I sort of forgot about it during the junior theme and with everything else going on, but I'm not going to rush more together now.

"a white judge on Law and Order..."

During Mr. Bolos' "TV Tokenism" presentation, the 30 Rock clip was not only really funny, but really true and sort of weird to think about. The clip was about how the black characters were saying because there is a black man as president, and there was a "white judge on Law and Order" racism was okay again. In class Friday if you all remember we talked about why a black man is always "best-dressed" or the chief of something, so 30 Rock is poking fun at how this is changing, that a black man wasn't the authority figure. During class this year we talked about reparations and people wondered whether we have done enough to make amends for slavery and other racist activity.

Mr. Bolos showed us that this TV Tokenism is still very much there. When I though about racisim is back, I wonder if that could mean is racism gone. Because we have a black president for the first time, is that like saying the playing field is even; that now we can make fun of black people like we poke fun at white boys who can't jump? However, there are still racist people and programs like affirmative action which make it impossible to ignore the remaining separation between blacks and whites.

I wonder if it will it ever truly be even? It is that even possible or ethical to call it even after slavery and the prosecutions of minorities?

Hooked on Facebook

Throughout the year during class the topic of privacy has come up a few times. When we were looking at laws as well as in the Perilous Projects. In a Time magazine article they talk about how Facebook is "redefining privacy". There are almost 500 million people on Facebook today, and people are starting to get more and more skeptical wanting more privacy on the site. Many people are realizing how scary it is that people can see your pictures, know your relationship status and basically know anything that you're willing to put up. People are "friending" old college or high school friends, and for us at New Trier many people will accept a friend request from someone they barely know just because they are in the same NT network. Because of this, people who you barely know are seeing all these details of your life.

In the article they talk about how they want Facebook to crack down on their privacy modes. I think, especially as a teenage girl in a world full of some creeps, that's definitly a good idea. But right now you can hide everything from people who are not your friends. I think that should be enough. If you friend someone that should be like the invitation to stalk you basically, and it should mean that your okay with them looking at all your stuff.

But that is stuff we all know, and sometimes forget. This is where the article gets into how it's redefining privacy. Although everything thinks its a little weird at times how many people can see into your life, because of Facebook enough people are becoming accustom to this openness. The author Dan Flecther says, "Facebook did not invent social networking, but the company has fine-tuned it into a science". Founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, is not only breaking social networking down to a science he is trying to make the world more open.

Now some argue whether is it good to have a more open world. Do you agree with Zuckerberg? If not:
"Want to stop that trend? The onus, as always, is on you to pull your information. Starve the beast dead. None of Facebook's vision, be it for fostering peace and harmony or for generating ad revenue, is possible without our feeding in our thoughts and preferences" (Feltcher)

a good start

What was hardest for me was finding something I will actually be interested in studying. I knew I wanted to do something that had to do with psychology, but that is such a huge topic that I didn't know where to begin. Mr. Bolos suggested that I watch the Ted talks and I found the Zimbardo prison experiment interesting. But I knew something about that from psych class and the topic of why people become evil is sort of depressing to study for a month. I looked at the blue sheet for more ideas and noticed the topic about celebrities. After doing a little research it turns out there's psychology involved in why we love celebrities. There is actually stuff going on in our unconscious which is part of the reason we cannot wait to see our favorite show each week. Why we love gossip magazines, finding a picture of celebrities without makeup to see if they are as human as we are, and at the same time worshiping their A-list lifestyle. And it turns out this idea of celebrity started way before TV and the media craze that goes on today. Also, this week I found a book that is right on target with what I was looking for. Basically no speed bumps yet so somethings bound to happen soon.

3rd Quarter Blogging

One of my better blogs this quarter which also had to do with a topic we talked about in class was "Jesus as a Salesman". I thought our discussions about advertisements were interesting, and I know the quote from one of the packets we read struck up a little bit of controversy. In class we discussed the quote I have at the beginning of the post; however, in my post I found a way to think about this issue in a different way than those who shared in class. Most believed that people wouldn't want to see Jesus as a "salesman" or a business man. In my post I explain how he pretty much is exactly that, and why I think so. Also, I made a connection the inventor of freezer goods which we also talked about in class.

Women's Month

Before in class we talked about whether having black history month was a positive way to single out African Americans. Well March is Woman's History Month, which I didn't even know. It didn't really get recognized until the 70s and 80s. The first thing I thought of, why March? If women want recognition for the great things we've contributed, I'd say don't do it the same month as March Madness; when most men are consumed in how their brackets are doing and is just another reminder that most don't watch the woman's tournament. This slideshow shows women in sports, entertainment, politics and other fields who have contributed with their talents and success. One that I found kind of interesting was Mia Hamm who scored more goals than any soccer player female or male.

When reading a little more into woman's history month, it was women who were pushing to have this recognition, not men deciding they should honor woman's success. Any opinions on this?

more padding at the big dance

At the college and professional level, now more than ever more basketball players are wearing padding during games. Many of us are watching the March Madness, and compression shorts and other types of padding are more prevalent than in previous years. In this article, some wonder whether any of this is really necessary? Even though it is obvious the sport is getting more and more physical, some say that your bodies natural padding, like cartilage around your ribs to protect from elbows, is enough. But "players believe". For the professionals I get that they make money for endorsements simply by flashing a brand, so that's got to be part of the reason they do it. But for the college players they don't have the luxury of knowing they get paid through their season if they get injured. I completely get that some of these college players are trying to go pro, or just want to get through their college career as athletes. Even if compression shorts and other padding don't really do much, anything to give the players peace of mind that they are less likely to get injured makes sense. At the college level the guys get bigger, and especially during March Madness they get even more aggressive and fired up. However, if this "fad" trickles down to lower levels I think that's going a little over the top.

Jesus as a Salesman

"Some day...someone will write a book about Jesus. Every businesss man will read it and send it to his partners and his salesmen. For it will tell the story of the founder of modern business" (Bruce Barton).

During class we discussed this quote, and how the idea of "Jesus as a salesman" wouldn't fly today. Much of the class came to the conclusion that this is because people of any religion would not want to think of their religion as something that needed to be sold. Others said things like salesman aren't always completely honest in order to sell their product, and people would not want to think of their religion as something that was untrue in any way.

However, advertisements are used to sell a new idea, or something better about an older product. Not that they are always done in the most honorable ways, as we've seen advertisements target children in a debatable unfair ways, but they get the point across that their product is better. I do believe that Jesus did a similar thing. His ideas were new and different, and he was trying to get people to believe him and see his beliefs were good ones to follow. Of course now Jesus' ideas are not something novel, so we don't have to buy into it, we just believe it.

Similar to how Jesus "sold" the idea of Christianity, Clarence Birdseye sold the idea of a freezer. Now we wouldn't think about having a household without a freezer and refrigerator, but when it first started Birdseye needed to show people that they needed it and how it could be used. Like how Jesus' followers taught people about the teachings of Jesus.

This is not to say that Christianity is like a freezer exactly, but the way in which people believed in them is a similar process.

never see "cat fights" in mens sports...

I commented on BFlan's blog about how violence in women's sports is always seen an more outrageous, and is a shock to spectators; however, in men's sports people are not nearly as surprised. When I posted this video on Brian's post, I started thinking about why girls get so vicious during games. When you watch this video there's punching, kicking, slide tackling, and bringing a girl down by her ponytail. But some of these forms of aggression are part of soccer, for example slide tackling is okay when you know how to do it "within the rules". But sports like girls lacrosse are designed to be less contact than the boys. They wear a face guard which covers your eyes, and a mouth guard; unlike the boys who have shoulder pads and a helmet (besides the girls goalies they wear helmets too). The nature of boys lacrosse is much more agressive than girls, the checking requires more contact while the girls side has nit-picky rules on the right way to check. The girls however, get as enraged in a heated game, and possible more nasty to each other. Although society believes that girls sports should be treated differently than boys, the girls instead just come up with more vicious ways to bring their opponent down. If some of the aggressive moves built into boys games were also implemented in the girls games, would it change these nasty cat fights we see in girls athletics? Instead of coming up with these ways to hurt each other they would be shown how to do them the right and wrong way. Another direction this could be taken in is that women's sports get more attention and are sometimes seen as more entertaining when these "catfights" happen. So do people not want them to stop because it could cause greater publicity for the sports?

skaters fight through pressure and adversity

All the athletes in the Olympics feel some pressure, but during the woman's figuring skating that pressure seemed greater than usual for some of the skaters. The gold medal winner Kim Yu-Na from South Korea and silver medalist Mao Asada from Japan both felt extreme pressure from their countries. As long time competitors, both only 19 years old, they were fighting for gold, and only gold because anything less would be a disappointment for their country. This is what the announcers kept saying during their routines. And bronze medalist Joannie Rochette of Canada, competed only four days after her mother's death. Although, the anxiety she must have felt was different from Yu-Na and Asada, her routine brought tears to even the announcers as she was able to complete her routine even after the tragedy.
Although Rochette's mother's death was nothing she could have expected, the night of the competition she still had to fight to complete each jump and element in her routine. It seemed everyone was rooting for her because this meant much more than just the medals. The pressure Yu-Na and Asada's had to win gold seems unfair to lay on a 19 year old. If they did not win, not only were they letting down themselves, but their country. But they both did extremely well, "Queen Yu-Na" as she's referred to blew past all the woman's old records and Asada doing a solid performance as well. I wonder if they needed this pressure to do well, but it is still shocking that at their age they didn't choke when it counted most. It seems unfair to lay such a heavy burden on a teenager, but I guess it just goes to show what world class competitors these skaters are.

Let Canada Celebrate

Throughout these 2010 Vancouver Olympics there have been many mishaps such as the luge accident, the opening ceremony technical difficulties, and the weather in general. There is now controversy over the Canadian women's hockey team while they were celebrating their gold medal victory. However, in this case it was not an accident that the women were smoking cigars and drinking in the arena after the game. The legal drinkng age in British Columbia is 19, but there are some players who are 18. Steve Keough, a spokesman for the Canadian Olympic Committee was quoted, “We condone celebrations. … We don’t condone actions of irresponsibility. I think Canadians understand it’s quite an emotional moment for our team. It was not our intention to go against any IOC protocols.” Further comments were made saying things like the locker room celebration did not stay contained; however, for this to be so public was not the intention. There has been talk about how to punish the team, however penalties such banning the team from the closing ceremony, or the Olympic village which have been given for cheating, steroids and other offenses "hardly seems to be in the same league as a few puffs of cigar" (Chris Chase author of the article).

Because they did not act completely responsibly or within the law, I can see how some would say that this was not justifiable celebration. But I agree with the author of this article, that yes what they did was wrong and they have been reprimanded for their actions. But they won a gold medal in their home country, in hockey, which is the most important medal for Canada besides a gold for the men's hockey team. I say no one was hurt and no harm was done, so let them celebrate.

word that shall not be named

We have talked at length about the use of the N-word in Huck Finn. This article explains the apology made by John Mayer who used the word in a media interview. He gave a heart felt apology which even led some of his band members to end up in tears.
We have talked about in class, and Mayer talks about how strong and offensive the word is and that it should not be taken lightly when it is used. Early in debates about the use of the word we mentioned how many African American comedians, rappers etc. use the word freely, no apology necessary. But we came to a conclusion that if someone not of the African American race were to use the word it was clearly offensive.

Because of this, what I found more intriguing than the article were the comments about it. Which varied to both extremes, but what I thought was interesting was that many people who started with something along the lines of "I'm a black guy..." or "I'm a black girl from..." tended to say things that were more forgiving. One of which, "i'm a black chick from detroit, and seriously, john, relax, it'n not that deep. i got your point in the interview. you're not a racist dude. chill." Others made a point about how black rappers don't apologize or even acknowledge the use of the word so they wonder, why the double standard? There were over 2000 comments, and they all had different opinions. (Although some of those were just about John Mayer and not the N-word)

I wonder if there is ever going to be some sort of closure to this word? When it is used by African Americans, whites, or a person of any race. Closure being for example, a decision on if it is ever ok, or is it ok when only certain people say it?

re-calculate your "Math on Campus"

When we read The New Math on Campus we looked very closely at a passage with what we know to be a "questionable" percentage. "Out of that 40 percent, there are maybe 20 percent that we would consider...", quoted from "the girl seated across the table" as we said does not represent all women. Some people mentioned how this made it seem like some guys aren't even worth looking at, or not "date able". And we said that it is as if she was talking for all women by saying "we". Women who were described on the first page as, "[wearing] tight-fitting tops, hair sculpted, makeup just so...". I know that this is in some cases accurate because many girls, including myself and many other high school and college students, tend to do this at times to some extent. However, this is not some kind of "definition" for how women act and certainly not as often as they make it sound, if ever for some people. This article, in my opinion, made Jayne Dallas sound like she was saying the 60% of girls she was talking about are like this even though they were not said by the same people. This author set up each anecdote, as Mr. Bolos called them, to make women come across as these appearance obsessive, boy crazy pawns who will do anything for a date. I cannot say that it isn't true for some women because unlike Jayne Dallas I am not going to speak for all women. But it is degrading to clump every woman on a college campus into this category and just a really flawed argument with unrealistic statistics.

I mentioned myself in this article and I, obviously, am not a college student, but I believe this belief can be applied to high schools to a certain extent as well.

This is my opinion so feel free to respond, but I also had after thoughts like would if you're a lesbian? Because this article would be saying you are also fighting over those "10%" of guys. It is just stuff like that which just makes this article sound so uninformed because they don't even consider exceptions like this. Or any exception for that matter.

Mystery behind HeLa Immortal Cells

In an article I found called Henrietta Lacks' 'Immortal Cells' there is talk about a book that recently came out uncovering the mystery behind Henrietta Lacks' "immortal cells". I had not heard of any of this before until I read the article, but Lacks was a black, poor, tobacco farmer from southern Virginia who had a huge impact on the world of medicine. When she was 30 years old she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. A doctor from John Hopkins removed part of her tumor without telling her and sent it to scientists.
Those scientists had been trying to grow tissue for years, and as they were using Lacks' cells they never seemed to die for reasons they could not figure out. These cells were the first immortal cells to be grown in a culture, helped create a vaccine for polio, were brought into space to see how cells would act with zero gravity, and helped scientists with many other scientific landmarks.
However, the writer of this novel wanted to know more about Lacks and her family, and if they had any idea that a part of her was still alive doing these amazing things. There were several attempts to keep the actual name for which the cells initials came from (HeLa) a secret. However, eventually the truth got out. The doctors wanted to find out more about these cells and wanted to use DNA from her husband and daughter. However, this came to a shock especially to her daughter who was just an infant when Henrietta died and couldn't believe a part of her was still alive.

Is it right, even with all of the great things they did, that the doctor could use her cells without her or her family knowing?

Dress for Success

On Wednesday during class we were told to look out for a few things in Obama's State of the Union address, one of which was the way people dressed. I noticed many of the women in really bright clothes, but I didn't notice if they corresponded with party colors in anyway.
However, Obama was wearing a red tie. Coincidence? I think not. For much of his speech he talked about the division between the parties and how he really wanted to try to bring them back together. In his speech he says, "They're tired of the partisanship and the shouting and the pettiness." They're being the American people. Obama is telling the politicians enough with the childish fighting because we need to work together as one to get the job done. Obama also talks about how he wants to have talks with both parties, and makes a joke after it. These jokes which got even some of the Republicans to laugh, like an "inside joke" in Washington to loosen them up.
In class we talk about choices, and although one could also argue that he was just wearing the color to look patriotic, but blue would have also been patriotic. I think that this color choice was to show that he, a Democrat, was wearing red making a point that they can work together. Showing that there doesn't have to be this line between red and blue.

...than he'll want a glass of milk...

A story I liked as a child was, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie. To refresh your memory, this is about a little boy who is eating a cookie and sees a little mouse, and wonders what would happen if he gave the mouse the cookie. There are some lessons that you wouldn't really get as a child because they are either too confusing for a young child or the child is simply distracted by the cute mouse. One lesson is the effect of your actions, and predicting what those effects are. The boy predicts that when you give the mouse a cookie, he'll need a glass of milk. But to drink the glass of milk he'll need a straw and to wipe his mouth he'll need a napkin and so on and so forth. This is an appealing way for kids to learn cause and effect, whether they actually catch on to that is another thing.

An implicit message, which would really ruin this innocent, childhood story, would be to think about how the mouse is never satisfied and always needs something else. Not exactly the same but similar to what some people said in class how advertisements teach kids that there's always something to buy. Once you get a toy you get bored or a newer, cooler version comes out. When you get older there's a certain style you try to imitate, but once that fashion is out of style you always need something new to keep up. Not only are they selling a product but a lifestyle with the children and teens used in the adds. There are rarely unattractive kids in commercials, especially clothing commercials, and kids or teens might see it as they should look like the person in the commercial as well as have the product.

But it'd be nice to think that the little boy is simply thinking about the mouse..

Ringing in the New Year

To start the new year, the government as implemented new laws. I watched this short clip about that, and certain laws are specific to certain states. In Illinois, no texting while driving, and you cannot talk on your cell phone in a school zone. Other states have rules on tanning, gay marriage, and even the amount of trans fat in your foods. I wondered how they came up with these laws. Was it based on statistics? Why wouldn't every state want to pass a no texting law? In our own district talking on your cell phone or texting was only enforced in Winnetka, why didn't the other neigboring community enforce this as well? However, when I thought about the gay rights laws I wondered if something more controversial was based on the views of the state officials. Because that has more to do with believes, while texting and driving is an obvious safety hazard.

We talked in class a few months ago or so about state vs federal laws. Some of these laws do not seem as critical or important, but what makes a law worthy or crucial enough to be recognized throughout the country?