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?