May 18

I believe that experiencing other cultures and being open to them makes me a better person. It doesn’t just apply to me; I feel that everyone should experience other cultures. Other cultures not only open your eyes to differences in the world, but it keeps people from seeing that their culture isn’t the “BEST” and only culture in the world. It helps alleviate a lot of the ethnocentrism that happens especially in this country. I once had a friend that told me that everyone said good instead of well, which isn’t true. The unfortunate part of that assumption was that this girl had never experienced other cultures so she believed that everything that she did was what the rest of the world did as well. I find it extremely important to be open to other cultures because it doesn’t just open up a line of communication, but on a large scale it can be the difference between getting along with different cultures on a country to country basis. Not respecting a culture is like discriminating against a race, so people should always keep an open mind when meeting people from other cultures. 

May 11

I was in Beloit, Wisconsin the other day, aka the middle of nowhere. My dad and I went out to dinner and there was this couple there. The restaurant was pretty quiet except for their arguing. It all started because the man ordered seafood bisque and he was mad at his date because she didn’t tell him what it was. It turned into this huge long argument and the man ended up leaving the table. When he finally came back to the table she accused him of flirting with other girls and going outside, he couldn’t decide what this argument was going to be so he kept changing where he went. They finally ended up leaving when she said that she wanted the date to end. My dad and I had a quiet dinner after that, but I just couldn’t believe that people would go to a restaurant and make such a scene. 

May 8

I have this theory about socks. It all started over January term when I was doing an internship. I couldn’t decide what colors my socks should be. My aunt told me that your socks should always match your pants. Well, in my typical fashion, I had to prove this. I took note of all of the people I encountered and what color socks they were wearing. It was actually quite interesting (or as interesting as socks can be). My theory now is many people don’t have a rule they just choose the socks that are on top. As far as fancy socks go, people seem to interchange black, dark blue, dark green and brown socks no matter what color their shoes or pants are. People that are especially particular seem to buy their socks at the same time as their dress pants because they match exactly. My final thought is match nice pants with the same color socks and every other color of pants, just wear something fun!

May 7

I do agree with Joe’s desires to leave the hospital and experience the world. It seems that it is only fair that the hospital honor his requests since the doctors are keeping him alive without his permission. It is obvious that he would have died had the doctors not cut off his limbs and connected him to a bunch of machines. It seems like a small price for the hospital considering a man is living without the normal functions of humans. I would want the same thing if I were in that situation. I cannot imagine living without being able to enjoy the weather and the seasons and the people around me. Asking to go outside would probably be one of my first requests as well since my choices of activities would be limited. I would not want to be on display like Joe thought about because it seems horrible that he would basically have to “buy” his freedom to leave the hospital. 

May 5

I was driving by Spring Mill School yesterday on my way to the gym and I realized that I had not slowed down for the school zone. I then remembered that Spring Mill has been closed because of swine flu until next week. This led me to wondering if I needed to slow down in the school zone since technically school was not in session. The school zone sign says 7-4:30 on school days, so what constitutes a school day. Is it the fact that there are children in the building or is it any day that is a Monday through Friday? I ended up slowing down for the school zone speed limit because I didn’t want to find out what the true rule was, but I think that there needs to be more specific rules in school zones. If you think about it, there are many possible questions about when the lowered speed limit applies.  

May 4

The article The March of the Flag used some of the same ideas that Dalton Trumbo used in Johnny Got his Gun. Joe spends a lot of time talking about people who fight because they are fighting for liberty. In a way, the idea of spreading the flag throughout the world is the same idea. There is still an idea being spread without much thought being put into. The people that went to fight said they would fight because they wanted liberty when they didn’t really know what that was. The flag was being taken throughout the world to win over land, and then what? Both the article and book made the point that people are fighting for an idea, but they don’t really know why they are fighting for that idea or what it really means. There is a lack of knowledge that connects both of these ideas. 

May 1

I didn’t feel that the essay and Johnny Got his Gun were very similar; in fact I felt that they were quite opposite. The article talked mostly of the relations between the Muslims and the Americans and their differences in beliefs. The book talks of the aftermath of war in terms of Joe. At the end of the essay it says Americans are known to be “confident, self-reliant, tolerant, generous, future oriented” (page 779). This is the exact opposite of how Joe is portrayed as a character. He is experiencing the ill effects of war and he does not fit into any of the typical American characteristics. He is not self-reliant since he doesn’t have any limbs and he is not future oriented since he wants to die. These ideas did not match the essay at all. There were so many differences that I could not really find any similarities between the two although I liked both because they were so different. 

April 30

Joe, in Johnny Got his Gun, talks a lot about not understanding the effects of war when asked to join it. Since he is now without limbs and a face, he is reconsidering his decision to fight for liberty just because he was asked to fight. This point really tied into Henry David Thoreau’s Resistance to Civil Government. At one point, Thoreau says that the government puts men in the army “on a level with wood and earth and stones” (p. 838). This shows how the men were only a number and not truly that important to the government. This is why when asked to join the military; many people were told that it would help to get liberty because the army only wanted more people to fight. The people in charge didn’t care what the soldiers thought that they were fighting for because their only concern was whether or not they had enough people to fight. 

April 28

The swine flu is the latest and biggest virus that is going around. I don’t know if I was out of the loop or not, but I just heard about it the other day and now it is all I hear about. I was listening to NPR today and they were saying the president of Mexico has shut down all of the schools in Mexico until at least next Wednesday.  That is huge in my opinion, but I also think that is a step in the right direction. Like most people, I don’t want this to become the epidemic that everyone is talking about. The virus has now spread to Indiana, which means that now we have an ever better chance of getting swine flu. I saw a political cartoon in the paper and it was giving ways to greet someone without shaking their hands. It brought a comical approach to a serious subject by giving “the bump” as an example of how to greet someone. I got a good laugh from that. 

April 27

I really enjoyed the morning meeting this morning. I thought that Marta’s experiment was awesome! It was like a mad scientist from the movies, so I thought it was very impressive. I felt like someone should have appeared out to the smoke, it was eerie but cool. I also really liked Daniel’s. Burning circus peanuts was a pretty brilliant idea and I especially liked it since I hate circus peanuts. The toothpaste experiment was also impressive. I was not expecting it to explode out of the test tube. Toothpaste is something I had never thought of making before since it is a product that is more widely bought at the store than made at home. I now know that if worst comes to worst, I could make my own toothpaste! Or on second thought maybe not, it probably wouldn’t taste as good as the modern mint toothpaste!

April 24

Yesterday night I babysat. The kids and I decided to go to the playground since it was so nice out. After a long walk there we finally made it! There was another little boy there who was about 3 named Max. For some reason he didn’t want to play with the kids, he only wanted to play with me. He chased me around and I caught him at the bottom of the slide. The funniest part though was when he tried to jump rope. His dad showed him how to do it, but he still couldn’t figure it out. But when it was time to leave he didn’t want to leave that pink Barbie jump rope behind. We played for a while longer and then we walked back to the house. I had to carry one of the kids on my shoulders the whole way back because he was SO tired. Needless to say I am pretty sore today!

April 23

After school today, I went to a track meet for Creekside since I help out with their track team. It took me a really long time to get to Clay, where the meet was taking place, because the traffic was very heavy. I got to the meet late, but I only missed two events. I got there in time for my favorite event, which is the 1600. It is so exciting because the race is short enough that they have to run quickly, but long enough that they can hang back and overtake the top runner on the final lap. There are two guys on the team that run the mile together. Both of them were pretty far behind the leader on the last lap. In the final 200 one of the guys sprinted and was able to pass the leading man, it was a brilliant race. Races like that remind me why I love running so much. It was very exciting and I can’t wait to see them continue to improve as the season progresses. 

April 20

I believe that as a female I have the ability to do anything that a male can. This may sound really “cheesy,” but I feel that if I don’t believe that, them I am only limiting my ability as a female and as a human being. My parents and my grandma have had the strongest influence on this idea. My parents raised me to believe that I could do anything if I set my mind to it and worked extremely hard. I understood it and have even taken that advice and used it. My grandma also gave me these ideas, but she was not there everyday to reinforce them. Instead, I heard her stories. She raised a family of seven kids and my grandpa is in a wheelchair and can’t do anything for himself. She has done so many things in her lifetime that people said that females couldn’t do. She was lucky that she had the encouragement of her father and she has been an excellent role model for me growing up.  

April 17

Media plays a huge role in Cofer’s story. She is constantly being judged by images that people have seen of other Puerto Rican people. Media also portrays athletic people as strong, muscular and tall, where she was automatically looked down upon because she was short and skinny. When Cofer was going to go out with Ted and Ted’s father said he didn’t want him to go with a Puerto Rican, other pictures of Puerto Rican’s were being used to judge Cofer. Although media may not have been directly involved in this, the idea that all over Puerto Rican’s were portrayed like this shows that someone was getting this idea from the media. Media also influenced people looking at Cofer and saying that she was beautiful but that she was too skinny. She did not fit the “perfect” stereotype of a female so she was automatically looked down up. She only fit part of the media standards for a female. 

April 16

I do support gay marriage rights. To me, it is extremely ridiculous and selfish of people to restrict the rights of other people, when many people enjoy the benefits of being married. Marriage to me is not about who is married, but what it means to the people that are married. Gay couples have the same ability to have a relationship as straight couples, so why are these rights restricted? If married couples who oppose gay marriage were to be in the shoes of a gay couple, wouldn’t they want to be with the person that they love and raise a family? Just because they may not be the type of couple that the religious people talk about, they are still good people who deserve the right to be with the person that they love and want to raise a family with. I fully support gay marriage and I think that people need to stop being so selfish and let everyone have the rights of marriage. 

April 14

Wolfson uses an anecdote to explain why the prisoners took their marriage dilemma to the Supreme Court. It was effective in the fact that it grabbed the attention of the readers. The most effective part of the passage was listing the main ideas behind marriage. Turner vs. Safley was relevant to the argument about same-sex marriage. It is ridiculous that people in prison would have marriage rights when a same-sex couple could not. There is absolutely no logic behind it at all. This case made the reader think about the reasons that marriage is important. In thinking about this, it doesn’t make any sense that people are exempt from freedoms of an American. America is a free country, however, when it gives marriage rights to someone who is in prison because they failed to obey the law, it is absurd that America denies a perfectly acceptable same-sex couple from those same privileges.  

April 13

The metaphor that Dr. Horn uses is very interesting when you really think about what it means. He compares a single parent household and a married household to planes arriving. The fact that he says that one plane usually gets someone most of the way but not the whole way shows that there is something missing in the childhood of a single parent household. Horn implies that they can have a good childhood and learn a lot, but they are still falling short of what a person from a married household would have. The married household’s plane arrives safely more times than not. By this, Horn shows that children growing up with married parents are more successful in life and have fewer struggles than those children from single parent households. The final interpretation of the metaphor is that there is something that a married couple can offer to a child that a single parent lacks. 

April 10

Vazquez waits to tell the reader that Mickey and Brian are straight because many people would not take the issue seriously. Many people would think “oh this isn’t an issue of homophobia since the person was actually straight.” It is in fact an issue because it was an act of hate; any act of hate is a problem. So, by disclosing this information later, it helped Vazquez prove her point. She finally discloses this information because it shows that anyone could experience the effects of homophobia not just gays and lesbians. No, I don’t believe the issue of antigay violence is any different when it includes heterosexuals. There is a problem with hate crimes no matter the person, so the issue is not getting any better because heterosexuals get hurt as well. The issue is going to be equally as horrific no matter whom it is targeted against. 

April 9

Yes, through the discussions that we had today I do believe that Eustace was a transcendentalist. Gilbert as well believes that Eustace is a transcendentalist. She uses many different examples that show that she believes this. One example was when Eustace said, “man, you guys have a lot of material possessions” (p69). This quote shows how Eustace was trying to simplify the American lifestyle, which goes with the definition of transcendentalism. Dictionary.com defines it as “any system of philosophy emphasizing the intuitive and spiritual above the empirical and material.” The other examples that Gilbert uses also support this definition. I do agree with Gilbert that Eustace is a transcendentalist. He fit well into the definition of transcendentalism and he focused his life around living in nature. Even if he didn’t consider himself one, he displayed many of the characteristics of a transcendentalist, so I feel that he could be identified as one. 

April 7

“Whilst thus the poet animates nature with his own thoughts, he differs from the philosopher only herein, that the one proposes Beauty as his main end; the other Truth.”

 

These two lines from “Nature” by Ralph Waldo Emerson really caught my attention while I was reading. In this quote, Emerson is talking of the difference between being descriptive in a passage on nature versus being truly factual and straightforward. It is suggesting that the poet writes for people to enjoy his writing where the philosopher is writing for personal fulfillment. This line really caught my attention because I could relate it to my life in some ways. I took that the poet would use very flowery language to describe something in nature and that the philosopher would be very concrete and to the point. This really describes the relationship that my sister and I have with description and writing. She is very wordy and I very concrete. It was interesting to be able to relate something as famous as a passage by Emerson to my life. The passage not only connected to the rest of the passage on nature, but I was able to connect it to my everyday life. 

April 6

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to write of the independence that people can have. Eustace has a sense of independence that most of us don’t have. He has the ability to live off of the land and be completely free of the rest of the world. In a quote from Eustace, he says “I don’t want to talk about doing things, I want to be doing things, and I want to know the realities and limits of life by their measure! I don’t want my life to be nothing, to not make a difference. And people tell me all the time how I am doing so much but I feel I am not even scratching the surface. Hell no, I’m not! And life is so short, I could be gone tomorrow” (Gilbert 83). By using this passage, Gilbert is showing how Eustace has the ability to be completely independent, but with this he also wants to impart this wisdom on other people. He has a huge desire to have other people live the same way that he does and his free thinking and independence help push him in this direction. Gilbert uses a lot of the information from Eustace to explain his ability to be free, however, she doesn’t push his idea that people need to be like him. She discusses the idea, but she does not add any push from herself. This adds an interesting comparison between the life that Eustace lives and the life that most Americans live. 

March 19

 

Richard Wright is taught about morality from his actions. He either has a guilty feeling like when he was stealing from people, or he would get into trouble with his mother or father. Since Wright did not believe in religion, I do not believe that the church influenced his learning about morality in any way. He may have learned about morality a little bit in school by learning about the proper way to act. I had a hard time finding a direct connection from Wright’s life with the passage that we read, but the education that Wright received did teach him morality. When he went to a religious school, I felt that he learned less since he was against religion. When he went to a non-religious school, he was able to learn more from it about morality since he had a better attitude about it. 

March 16

Wright’s realization at the end of Black Boy is that the world is not and is never going be what he wants. He is never going to find the perfect place to live. By living in Chicago and the South he realizes that both places have downsides and they are not fully to his liking since they are not what he envisions as perfect. Wright also realizes that the people around him are not like him. He struggled throughout most of the book with relationships and by the end he realizes that he does not form the same types of relationships that other people do. On the last page of the book, Wright decides that the only ways to express his views to other people is to write them in words. He says that if people respond, even at all to his writings, then he will write more. It will be a sign to him that people understand him and his life experiences through his writing.  

March 13

I don’t fully agree with Wright that artists and politicians are at opposite poles. Both types of people can be open thinkers and make their work through their creative sides. Artists are always creating new pieces of work that no one has ever created before or done the same way that they have done it. Politicians are always coming up with new ideas to try to help people or make things better in different areas of the world. There is a lot of creativity involved in both jobs. Both jobs also allow them to influence other people either through art or decisions that are made. I do agree with Wright in the fact that the jobs that they do are complete opposites. The thinking is very different since one is a personal decision on what to create versus ones that can change something for many people like creating a law. 

March 12

Yes, I believe that it is possible that one voice can move a crowd to action. It takes an extremely determined person to do it, but it is possible. In Black Boy, Young was able to move the entire club with his ideas and the presentation of his ideas. He was extremely motivated to push his ideas to the club, so everyone heard and believed him. Even though he was presenting these ideas without knowing the truth, he was still able to get people to believe him. He was so determined to make people believe him that Wright was even fooled into thinking he was correct in what he said. The ridiculousness of his ideas also grabbed the attention of his audience. It is possible to move a crowd to action with one voice assuming that the person is motivated, determined, and has a strong enough presentation of ideas to gain the attention of the people they want to move to action. 

March 10

“(It was not until I had left the delicatessen job that I saw how grossly I had misread the motices and attitudes of Mr. Hoffman and his wife. I had not yet learned anything that would have helped me to threat my way through these perplexing racial relations. Accepting my environment at its face value, trapped by my own emotions, I kept asking myself what had black people done to bring this crazy world upon them?” (265)

 

My initial thought when reading this paragraph was that Wright was going to go on to say how badly Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman had treated him at the deli. It took me reading farther in the chapter to realize that they didn’t treat him badly; they just treated him differently than any other white person had ever treated him. It was interesting how he had for so long wanted whites to treat him differently, but when they finally did he didn’t know how to act and ended up secluding himself even more than before. Had someone treated him like this in the south, he would have been even more wary of him or her than he was of the Hoffman’s. He posed a good question at the end of the paragraph by asking what the black people did to deserve everything. He never goes on to answer the question because he doesn’t know the answer, but it got me thinking.  

March 6

Wright’s next move at the end of part one is to move to Chicago with his aunt and start a new life. He also wants to earn enough money to bring his mother and brother up as well. I think this will be a positive move for him. Although, he was successful in Memphis with a good paying job where he was able to get along with the whites and he had a nice place to stay, he wasn’t completely happy. If he didn’t take the chance to go to Chicago then he would never truly be happy. There may be a negative side to his actions, like not making it in the city or not making enough money to bring his mother and brother to the city. In general though, the actions will have a positive influence in his life and if nothing else, it will allow him to realize that he tried and that he couldn’t succeed. 

March 5

Yes, subservience is a necessary part of living. In Wright’s case it was necessary because the only way he could have a job and survive in the south was to do what the white people told him to do. He goes against subservience when it comes to how he treats his Uncle Tom and the other people around him, but the majority of his time is spent doing what other people want, whether he likes it or not. It also applies to everyday life for anyone. Following the law would be considered subservience because the law tells people what they can and can’t do. If subservience was not a part of everyday life than people would be running around doing whatever they wanted without caring about anyone else. Subservience isn’t just a necessary part of society, but it is a part of everyone’s life. 

March 3

When Wright says he had “begun coping with the white world too late,” he meant that he was at a disadvantage because he had not been taught what the other kids had been taught about “white” people. Griggs had warned him earlier in the book that the “white” people didn’t like him because of the way that he treated them. This shows up in these two chapters because Wright goes through many jobs and they are all ones where he has to be very careful with what he says or does. At one point, he works at the hotel where Griggs’ brother worked and was killed; this was one job where he had to be especially careful because he had to act differently than he ever had before. He learns a lot of lessons and he has to work harder than the other kids to keep jobs especially since he was saving money. 

March 2

I do believe that Wright was justified in not giving the speech at his graduation. It would not have meant anything to Wright had he given the speech that the principal had written for him. It also showed that he would give into any pressure that was pushed upon him, even from an adult. Wright did not want to show weakness and letting one sign of weakness slip would ruin his image forever. Pride was also an issue and I think that in his case, it was better that he not risk his pride than to give into the principal. Pride was one of the things that Wright was getting out of his education and giving that up would mean losing a huge part of his schooling. In the end, I think that it was better that Wright refused to give the speech than risk his image and his pride. 

February 27

Uncle Tom is angry with Wright because Wright is not allowing Uncle Tom to rule over him. Uncle Tom wants to punish Wright for having an attitude with him when he asked what time it was. Wright was not trying to be rude when replying, so he decided that he had no reason to be punished. A part of me also feels that Uncle Tom was mad because he wished that he could have stood up to authority when he was Wrights age. It seemed a bit like jealousy mixed with anger that caused Uncle Tom to react the way he did. Wright was upset with Tom because he was trying to rule Wright’s life when he had never done anything for him before. By standing up to Uncle Tom, Wright showed Tom and his family that he was strong and was not going to be ruled by him or anyone. This established Wright’s ability to be independent and responsible for himself. 

February 26

Wright feels gratified after sharing his writing with his neighbor because he sees that he can have an influence on the lives of other people. He has seen that he can get a positive emotional response from people, which is the opposite of what he gets from his family members. Wright realizes that he can impact other people with the stories that he writes. It not only gives him pleasure but it gives other people pleasure. It gives him the feeling of purpose in life because he has found something that he enjoys and that does not hurt or bother other people. He also feels gratified because he has the ability to read and write and not many of the other people around him can do that. So this in turn makes him even prouder of the stories he has written. 

February 24

At first, Wright was motivated to work when his mother became paralyzed. He got jobs working to make money and he kept track of his brother. He also did the household chores that his mother used to do. After a while, he became paralyzed as well. He as paralyzed because he was trying to act like an adult and take care of everything when really the responsibility was too much for him. Although the neighbors helped, Wright was still left with a huge burden of taking care of everything. Wright also refused food because he did not want to people to look down upon him because he wanted them to think that he was capable of getting his own food.. Another one of his responses was to write a letter to his grandmother asking for help. This showed his maturity and responsibility even if he could not take care of everything himself. 

February 23

Wright saying that disliking Jews was “part of his heritage” was just like the whites disliking the blacks. He had started to observe how white people treated black people and he wondered why people were treated that way. It was especially apparent in chapter one where he doesn’t see the problem with a “white” man beating a “black” boy because he thought it was a father and son. This is the first time he learns of the problems between the two groups. It interesting how he saw that situation to be different than him making fun of Jewish people especially those in the store. Wright was creating the same violence as the whites were, but he didn’t even know it. To him it was two totally different matters, but it seemed that it could be directly related to the situation betweens the blacks and whites which he didn’t understand. 

February 20

Wright is hungry because he lacks a figure in his life. Even though he knows both of his parents, he lacks a person with compassion. He needs someone that will be kind to him and teach him instead of treating him like an adult and beating him. Wright’s father was never kind to him, but he did spend less time whipping Wright than his mother did, so he associated a bit more kindness with his father. When his father left, he was left with sympathy from his mother, but with that sympathy also came emotional struggle. This in turn caused him more pain, which is why he was hungry. His grandmother visited them and brought money for food which was helped the actual hunger, but it also took away some of the struggle for him. This took away his true reason for being hungry. The hunger comes from needing a compassionate person in his life. 

February 18

I do agree to a point that we don’t need to go to school. I was able to relate to the article that many things that I learn in school will probably never help me in my everyday job, they are only teaching me to comply with the rules. Having come from a public school, I understand the need to entertain ones self when they are bored, it happened a lot and I just got used to dealing with it. With this boredom, it seems that it would be easier to skip school and simply learn by myself. On the other hand, if I didn’t go to school I would be unaware and unprepared for the “real” world. I have cousins that are home schooled, which I am neither agreeing nor disagreeing with. The problem with them though is that they are shocked by people having to follow the rules and deal with boredom like most students deal with everyday. There is a part of me that agrees that school is not necessary, however our culture is set up to revolve around school. If you don’t attend school than you are totally unprepared for the rest of the American culture you will experience. 

February 17

I do value my nonacademic education to a point. The idea of being successful and having a job is definitely something that I feel is part of the environment at school. If the teachers don’t have confidence in us outside of the classroom and tell us we can do anything, than we will not go on to be successful. Religious education is not something that I take advantage of. I don’t feel that it is a large part of my nonacademic life at school in large part because University is not affiliated with any religion. I personally believe that it is better that way, so I am not likely to value what little religious influence there is. The political influence plays quite a large role in my nonacademic education because of the environment that I live in and attend school. There is a huge push in one direction, so I feel that I learn quite a lot just from being around other students. It is something that I value because without discussions with other people, it would not have the same affect on me. 

February 12

The presentations today were very interesting. I especially liked Steve’s presentation on the pictures of his neighborhood. I thought that it was really interesting that there were so many restrictions for one neighborhood. I guess when you think about the reputation of Carmel it fits, but it is ridiculous when you really stop and think about it. My neighborhood has a few limitations, but eight pages seems extremely harsh for one neighborhood. There were two pictures of the clock towers in Carmel. I had never really thought about how pretentious the clock towers were, but once Marta explained her thoughts on it; it was amazing how pretentious that park in Carmel really is. The overall theme of the presentations today seemed to be that Carmel is extremely pretentious and that they spend a ton of money to make things look old in the arts and design district. 

February 9

I do agree with Kendall that the media changes our view on social equality. It is especially hard to see how different classes are living when the main people in the public eye are rich. Kendall does a good job of describing this and how lower class people are only displayed as homeless or something terrible instead of giving them credit for working as hard as they do. I do not think that watching TV makes Americans inclined to have credit card debt, but I think that TV shows validate it. Everyone seems to know that being in debt is bad or not ideal, but TV shows use it more as an afterthought than a serious dilemma. If debt was portrayed differently than I feel that people would react differently. The idea seems to be if everyone else has debt especially those on TV, than it’s ok for “me”, the ordinary person to have debt. I think debt will only be thought of as how it is portrayed on TV.

February 6

Yesterday I spent quite a bit of time thinking about where I wanted to go to get pictures for my rhetoric project. I ended up taking some pictures at my brother’s basketball game and of the JCC grounds. I think that the pictures I took will work out pretty well for the project, if need be I can go and take more. I tried to be creative with my pictures and think a lot about the rhetoric in them before I decided on them. This project has been a lot harder than I thought it would be because I have never actually applied and thought about rhetoric in my everyday life. I struggled yesterday with getting images that I thought displayed rhetoric and that I could explain in writing. 

February 5

Gitlin is saying that the American media appeals to the pathos of other people. At one point he says that English is the best language for different forms of media because it is so short and concise. This shows that the people that know English are going to be pulled into the American media bubble. Also, Gitlin says that Disney pulls many of their stories from stories of other countries. What better way to make people want to see American films than make them about stories that they grew up with? To a point I agree with Gitlin. I believe that people are more drawn to the American media because companies like Disney create movies off of stories from other countries. If I were living in another country and Disney made a movie of a story that I grew up with, I would most likely want to take part in watching that movie. It is a realistic idea that I can relate too. I am not as convinced about the idea that people are drawn to American media because of English. I’m sure that it helps, but there are plenty of other countries that produce movies in English.  

February 2

Kilbourne says that it is dangerous to depict men and women as sex objects because it is degrading to everyone and makes the outcome of the products unrealistic. Depicting women as sex objects is more degrading because the society displays women as property of men, therefore pushing that man should continue to rape and beat women. I do agree with Kilbourne that the advertisements promote harassment of women more than men. Beer commercials are especially big on promoting that idea. It seems ridiculous in my mind that people would create images that completely lower the confidence of women and promote hatred mentally or physically towards them. In my opinion, this encouragement of ideas is not worth putting people in danger for in order to sell products. Although most commercials put forward the idea of sex and women being property, the country should not be supportive of these products because it would force the companies to change their way of advertising. 

February 1

As I watch the Super Bowl commercials right now, I have found that the products that are being advertised are smaller, cheaper products than the normal Super Bowl products. I have seen all of the usual beer commercials, but there haven’t been as many car commercials. There have only been two car commercials and it is already half time. The 3D commercials were an interesting way to get people interested. I think that it drew a lot more attention to the movie commercials. They are usually overlooked during the Super Bowl. The 3D commercials were a bit of a let down because they weren’t really that special and they weren’t funny. Right now, during half time, the commercials seem to be getting worse, they aren’t displaying anything funny or different than the movie commercials. I am hoping for some better commercials in the second half. 

January 29

The Bias of Language, The Bias of Pictures brought back the idea that writing is one of the main ways in which we communicate with other people. When we write something in class, it has to be clear enough that anyone can understand it, especially the audience that we are catering towards. If I write something that is catered towards elementary students and it ends up being on a college level, it is not going to inform the elementary students of anything.  The article mentioned that newspapers could add more stories than news stations can, which brought up the point that writing can influence many people. This article also brings up pictures and videos. There is a major difference between reading something and looking at something. The videos display something different than the pictures, but can be equally informative.  It also talks about the idea that videos usually show destruction, where pictures and writing cover the other aspects of description and relating to stories.