Final Book Blog

Though I disagreed with his idea that there is no idea worth dying for, I still found the book to be very good and one of the better books we had read this year. Throughout the piece I had felt a sense of pity for him that would surge at certain points such as when he was constantly sedated to calm him down or when he was denied his ability to leave the hospital. I agreed with his final idea that if the entity pretending to protect your freedoms is actually distracting them then you should rebel but I also found it very curious because it forced a further analysis of any conflict the nation has entered in. You are forced to look and see if the fight was really necessary or if the nation had somehow taken away some of your rights in the name of that conflict. Though his initial idea was one that i disagreed with, in the end his conclusion was one that is hard to refute.

Something Interesting, blog for Tuesday

I found the slow progression of his realization about the full extent of his injuries to be interesting because it mirrored the slow formation of his opinions about the war and its effects upon him and his generation. As he realized how truly injured he was, he began to form a more concrete opinion about the war until he had decided it was a war that had forced many unwilling combatants to sacrifice their lives for what the “high up” people had deemed a worthy cause, but a cause that the true combatants felt no connection to. On another level, as he steadily became more aware of his increasingly worsening state, his opinions became more and more pessimistic. This led to him coming to the ultimately brutal conclusion that nothing was worth truly giving your life for because you would never be able to experience what you sacrificed for, a conclusion a man filled with depression could only draw. It seems to me that this would indicate the fact that Joe held no true love for anyone, because that is where a comparison to such a sacrifice can truly be drawn. Mothers say they will sacrifice themselves for their children. Loved ones will sacrifice for each other. If he views nothing as being worth a sacrifice then he never truly loved anything, making him a little less believable as a character.

March of the Flag

In The March of the Flag, the idea is given forth that the Philippines should be taken for a multitude of reasons. This includes the fact that it is a God given ideal that the United States should spread its influence as far as possible (manifest destiny) and that the United States should force its government on the Philippines because the Filipinos are incapable of governing themselves, just as a child is incapable of truly controlling himself. One of the primary reasons, however, is purely economical. He wants the natural resources the Philippines have to offer. These ideals would not sit well with Joe because, while he has the idea that nothing is truly worth dying for, these ideas are purely material. While I believe that there are some things worth dying for, none of these material reasons fall into that category, and Joe would find this idea even more repulsive and would view the author as one of the “them” who sent his generation off to die for mere money.

Johnny Got His Gun vs. America The Beautiful

In “Johnny Got His Gun”, Joe comes to the rather premature idea that there is nothing worth dying for because you cannot possibly experience that which you made the ultimate sacrifice for. This pokes a hole in the ideas put forth in “America the Beautiful” where D’Souza states that in order for a war to be won, people must believe deeply in the war and be willing to sacrifice greatly for it. I will not say these ideas clash, for they do not. D’Souza is not saying every cause is worth sacrificing everything for (which would go against Joe), but rather that for a fight to be victorious people must be willing to do so. I find myself fundamentally disagreeing with Joe’s conclusion. Not only can this not be applied on a large scale because Joe is a single individual but also because there are so many examples pointing in the other direction. For example, Harry’s mom sacrifices herself to try and help Harry survive Voldemort’s attacks, showing her willingness to make the ultimate sacrifice, directly clashing with Joe. No but really, on a serious level, if people didn’t think there were issues worth dying for then no one would sign up for the military. No one would act as a suicide bomber. No one would sacrifice their life for another’s. Joe’s view, while understandable due to his predicament, is a rather premature idea that would be hard to apply globally.

Civil Disobedience

According to Thoreau, resistance is a vital part of democracy. Though Thoreau holds contempt for most forms of government he realizes the necessity they sometimes hold for people but urges people not to take what the government tells them to do at point blank. Further, he believes that going through the general democratic political means set up in government is not the correct path either, feeling that if a law is felt to be wrong, then it should be ignored and broken rather than have people attack it legally. To Thoreau, the resistance to the government is what truly shapes it and forces its action to truly represent the will of the people. If the government knows its people will act when upset it will fear its populace and do as the populace wishes, which is what a government should be doing from the beginning in Thoreau’s eyes. Thus resistance is not a nuisance for government to deal with, but rather an integral part that protects the populace while shaping the government that represents them.

Gender Inequalities: A Two Way Street

Throughout the whole time on the gender topic we have constantly discussed the idea of “feminism” and “sexuality” without ever discussing the topic no one wants to touch, or that no one even wishes to acknowledge: masculinism. We have constantly talked about how women are paid 80 cents per dollar a man makes in an equal workload environment and how women are viewed as weaker, but have never talked about the disadvantages a man or father faces. Though I will admit that women are still disadvantaged in certain places of society, the point I am trying to raise with this blog is that it is not a one-way street. Though it may not be talked about as much, there are certain advantages women have and in a class discussing gender I feel it is only right to look at both sides of the argument.

One of the first topics is the fact that men are often sentenced to longer prison sentences than women for similar crimes. Along the same line, the idea that “women never lie” leads to a bias against males within cases of rape, and in some cases men are not allowed to face their accuser. Also, the idea that men have to pay higher premiums for life and disability insurance and in some countries, they have to pay higher income taxes. The last two concerns for general males is the increasing suicide rate among males which is not being addressed and the lack of health concerns shown for men (in that breast cancer awareness is constantly promoted but prostate cancer awareness isn’t promoted as much, despite similar mortality rates).

Applying to parents individually, however, there are several large concerns in what appear to be glaring double standards. The first of which is the way in which there is discrimination in child custody after a divorce, with the idea that a mom can take care of a kid better than the male counterpart. Also, the idea of alimony and child support where the male has to pay money to the wife or pay to support the kid, which I could understand if it applied to men who took custody or if it paying this support automatically entitled the father to visitation rights, which it does not. Possibly the most troubling, however, is when it comes to arguments over abortion. If a man wants to have a kid but the woman does not the man has no say. The woman can abort anytime she wants without the father’s consent. The bigger part of this, however, is the idea of male abortion. If a male does not want a kid, he should be allowed to renounce all legal ties to the child if it is still within the time of legal female abortion. This is exactly the same as if the woman had aborted the kid in that she would have no legal responsibilities or if she were to give the child up for adoption. She is able to sever all ties to the child, both legal and socially, but the father is not allowed to.

As stated above, I do not intend this to come off as misogynistic nor am I suggesting that a man’s life is hard while women get all the advantages, for that is not true. The point was merely to show that men have their own disadvantages and in a class such as ours it would be important to discuss both sides of the gender issue.

What is Marriage? Question 2

Wolfson deliberately explains marriage in an extended fashion to show the great power it truly holds. He uses this time to demonstrate, not only the social bond marriage holds in that people automatically understand what marriage means and don’t question what marriage truly means, but also the extending government benefits that go with the idea of marriage. He uses the definition that it is primarily a union between two people symbolizing their love for each other and their hope that the love will last. I find that his definition and summary of its benefits its fairly accurate, but he doesn’t include the definition anti-gay groups have given. While I don’t agree with the religious argument anti-gay groups often present and I am relatively sure he doesn’t as well, it should still have been presented in the argument to make a more balanced passage. Overall, his definition of marriage greatly aided his argument and seemed to be a decently fair and balanced representation of marriage.

It Takes a Family

In “It Takes a Family,” Rick Santorum uses the analogy of a plane to help reinforce his idea that a traditional marriage (meaning the union of a man and a woman) was superior to that of a “liberal” homosexual marriage. To this end he describes the traditional marriage as the perfect airplane, which always gets you to the correct destination. It is here that he stresses the idea of always in that the plane is reliable and will always do the best thing for its family. He then described a non-traditional family as a plane, which would sometimes get its family to the correct destination. He used the term sometimes to allow for what he would call anomalies, which better suits his tunnel-vision idea that only a traditional family can consistently turn out a good family. I believe this is a false assumption because every type of family will have its anomalies. Just because a family is headed by only one parent or by a gay couple doesn’t mean it will automatically fail, because they are just as capable of raising families as everyone else, however, many incorrect assumptions still prevent this truth from being common knowledge. It is also due to many of these misconceptions that the injustice of a ban on gay marriage has continued to permeate this country and prevent homosexual couples from reaching true equality. Thus, I find his analogy of planes to be an ill begotten and flawed argument, which did not help to prove his case of the “evils of gay marriage.”

Appearances

In the passage “Appearances,” the author delays revealing the fact that Brian and Mickey for very specific reasons. It allows the reader to develop the idea that “Oh that only happens to gay people,” which is then shattered with the revelation that these two men were in fact heterosexual. This disclosure and the timing of the disclosure are designed to help the reader realize that this is not just a problem for a small sect of people, but rather for everyone. This revelation changed the issue in that, not only did the issue now effect everyone, but the blatant categorization people apply to homosexuals. They assumed because of the dress of Brian and Mickey that they were gay and thus were beaten. This showed the mass ignorance of the people who attack them. The way the author was belatedly revealed the sexual orientation of the victims helped to show how widespread and bad the problem truly is and aided his argument greatly.

Gender Roles

From what I can remember, there has never been a time in my life where someone specifically outlined my role as a male, without it being part of the myriad of jokes I’ve heard on the matter. Instead, I think kids are slowly led to believe a certain way because of their surrounding environment growing up. When growing up you are never told, but you quickly learn the distinction between a guy playing with an action figure and a guy playing with a doll. Between a guys taking karate and a guy taking dancing. Aside from these more subtle lessons in gender roles the only outright mention I had ever heard of specified roles was in the jokes I’ve heard and that, truthfully, I’ve told. I don’t believe that these actually are sexist in the way I’ve heard them though. If someone had truly meant the joke then yes, it would be sexist but the way in which I have heard them tossed around and the way in which they are funny is because they are so flat out ridiculous that no one takes them seriously. These jokes maintain their humor because my friends and I don’t take them seriously and hold a certain measure of contempt for those who actually believe in the legitimacy of what the jokes say. Within my life, I have never been told what my specific role was in a truly serious manner, and I don’t think I’d be able to take someone seriously who tried to prescribe such roles to me based off my gender.

Eustace- Transcendentalism

I believe that Eustace is in some ways a Transcendentalist but he does not actively seek to be one. He shares many of the ideas of Transcendentalism, including the desire to understand nature and do hard work, and he also generally avoids religion, but he never preached nor actively sought to be a Transcendentalist. Some of these tenets of Transcendentalism, rather, came naturally with his own desire to be a true mountain man. His interest in surviving in the woods on his own, and his interest in Indians and their culture helped to give him the ideas he shared with Transcendentalists. His study of Indian culture and the reverence they showed the Earth along with his good-natured attitude are what led to him not only respecting the Earth but trying to understand Nature, one of the prime tenets of the Transcendentalists. Further, he forsook religion, however it was not for the reasons that the Transcendentalists did. He merely didn’t attend because he knew his beliefs already and felt no need to waste his time going to Sunday morning mass. Though he may have shared many basic tenets with a lot of Transcendentalists, I don’t believe that Eustace was ever actually an active seeker of their ideas.

Nature

Emerson presents many ideas on what nature truly is and what it means to be in tune with nature. One of the passages I like the most was when he stated, “The stars awaken a certain reverence, because though always present, they are inaccessible; but all natural objects make a kindred impression, when the mind is open to their influence.” I found this passage to be very interesting because it used something that they knew relatively little about but people held great admiration for to help get his point across. No matter your age, when you look up at the stars you feel awe that something so powerful exists and that it is so far away but still visible and bright. As he said they inspire a certain level of respect in people, but he believes this should be the same for all parts of nature, not just something as distant and high up as stars. Though there are certain objects in nature that can be more awe-inspiring than others, all facets of nature influence the mind in different ways and can be interesting.

Elizabeth Gilbert's Message

Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book, not only to help Eustace’s cause and show people that they can live a more simple life as Eustace did, but also to show people the side of Eustace they never see: the flawed human. People who only got a brief taste of Eustace would think of him as nearly superhuman, a person who would lead them into a better way of life, however, once they came to work for him they would see that he was demanding, controlling and that the life at Turtle Island was very strenuous. As she said “After such a glorified introduction, it can be mortifying to learn that life at Turtle Island is grueling and that Eustace is another flawed human being, with his own teeming brew of unanswered questions. Not many seeker survive this shock, a shock I’ve come to refer to as the Eustace Conway Whiplash Effect. (206)” This shows the extent to which, though initially pleasing, Eustace is able to piss people off. Elizabeth Gilbert wrote this book to not only spread Eustace’s ideology, but to enlighten people so that they would not naively run off to a camp where they would quickly become disillusioned.

Tocqueville- Men and Women's Equality

Europeans, through their actions of catering to a woman’s every need and constantly acting slavish towards her shows that they view the woman as being more fragile than the man and not as strong as the man. In the United States, however, there is less of the coddling and the women are trusted with more responsibility, even if it is house duty which feminists later criticized this allotment of work. This shows that the people of the United States had more respect for the women of the United States and the work that they could perform, seeing as how men didn’t act as overseers and trusted the women to fulfill their duties properly. Tocuqeville insists that both are given their separate spheres in America, but both are expected to be competent and control their sphere appropriately, and due to the democratic principles of America, a woman will never overturn and try to take over what is the “man’s sphere.” This idea, however, proved flawed because women have proven themselves capable of surviving in the “man’s sphere,” which is the work force.

Book vs. Poem

The essay and the book compare to each other in a number of ways, mostly in the fact that both writers have looked at the plight of African- Americans during their times and commented on it. Both were not happy with the current status of their peers and urged that they should work towards equal rights, though the poem seemed slightly more hopeful. The author of the poem seemed to think that the revolution would come soon as marked by his use of the term “tomorrow.” Wright, however, was a little more realistic and realized that the majority of African-Americans were not ready to force the issue of equal rights, though he still hoped that they would get their rights and believed that they would at some time. Though there were many parallels, the poem was definitely a more hopeful passage marking the arrival of equal rights as a definite soon occurrence.

Wright's Realization

Wright views himself as a thinker and artist who needs to continually challenge the world so that it can slowly learn. He believes that mankind eventually learns its errors but only slowly and in a painful manner. This is why he chooses to be this thinker because he thinks he can help mankind move forward. He also wants to do this by forming the so-called bridge between him and the outside world. I believe that Wright is correct in both his assumptions that it mankind does learn slowly and that it should be thinkers job to help reform this society. I think his views are supported by the fact that many facets of history continually repeat themselves and, despite people’s best efforts, tragedy like war and internal strife continue to this day.

Politicians vs. Artists

I don’t think that artists and politicians necessarily always stand at opposite poles, but it does seem to happen a lot. In Wright’s case, as in many others, the artists were attempting to create something for the revolution, which would aid the revolution and inspire others to follow it. The politicians, however, were unable to see the value of these contributions and wanted people to be giving the revolution itself not what they viewed as trivial pieces of writing. The politicians couldn’t understand why someone would want to write, and couldn’t see the value of writing thus they were alienated by Wright’s work. This led to disputes within the party as Wright slowly realized that the party he had joined because of its so-called freedom really was critical of his work and didn’t want him to do it. However, there are politicians who can understand what the artists are doing and even back up their work, they are just much rarer than those that stand opposite the artists.

Wright Speaking To Us

“(The essence of the irony of the plight of the Negro in America, to me, is that he is doomed to live in isolation while those who condemn him seek the basest goals of any people on the face of the earth. Perhaps it would be possible for the Negro to become reconciled to his plight if he could be made to believe that his sufferings were for some remote, high, sacrificial end; but sharing the culture that condemns him, and seeing that a lust for trash is what blinds the nation to his claims, is what sets storms to rolling in his soul.)”

In this passage, Wright reveals another one of his deep and groundbreaking thoughts. This is that, not only are the African Americans resigned to be shunned from those around them while the White people chase after material goods, but that this treatment torments the African Americans soul. Wright believes that if the African American population were to be told that they were suffering for a reason or cause (for example, that their suffering would somehow help their kids) then they would be able to accept this kind of discrimination more readily. However, they are not told this and do not believe this and as a result they see themselves pushed aside and left the bare bones while those that had oppressed them chase after material wealth (the “trash”). This sheds a great deal of light on the plight of the African Americans but it is not made clear if he realized this while he was still in Chicago or until much later.

Malcolm X: Learning to Read

The education Malcolm X received truly helped to liberate him, not only in the sense that it gave him a distraction from his prison life, but also allowed him to become more in tune with the world around him. He was soon able to write more fluently, but more importantly he learned how the history of those in the minority is covered up, as shown by the idea that the “Black” history was only about a paragraph long, while the “White” history took up an entire book. This allowed him to see and come to terms with the racism he found to be so rampant and he soon began working hard to overcome this racism. The effect books had for Richard, however, was far different. Whereas Malcolm X used the books as a mean to get in touch with the world around him, Richard used the stories books conveyed to escape from his life whenever it got really hard. Eventually Wright begins to use the books to understand the real world and come to terms with it, but in the beginning he merely uses them to escape his current life.

Wright's Decision

Wright’s decision to move is a positive move as it is allowing him to move forward with his life and escape from the South he has long viewed as oppressing his growth. He would now be able to move to an area he has dreamed as being more accepting of Africans and Americans and would be more likely to allow him to pursue goals he dreamed of, such as writing. Though he would be leaving his family yet again, in another environment hostile to them, it was the only possible move because it would take too long to save for them all moving at once. Also, he would only be separated from his family for a short time while he saved up money to send for them. This was a good move in the right direction and one of the only possible moves Wright had, with the other being staying in the South, an idea he found truly repugnant.

I'm Ahead of Blogs For Once

Yes, though Richard no longer lived in the Deep South, the subservience he expressed through his daily life was still necessary. Within the Deep South, many white people would use any excuse to beat an African-American like Richard. Though they were a little more tolerant in Memphis, they would still inflict a horrible punishment on Richard if they felt he had in any way disrespected them or slighted their authority. This is shown by the attitude change that occurs when he finally announces he is going North. As Wright states, their attitude towards him changed and began questioning him as to why he would go North, and he had to carefully word his answers so as not to imply any wrongdoing on their part. This sensitivity to small slights is exactly why Wright needed to maintain his subservient attitude throughout his life in the South.

Wright's Coping

Wright says that he began coping with the white world far too late. This means that he began to learn how to really act around white people far later than most of his compatriots, meaning he did not truly know how to act and thus got in trouble a lot for things that he feels, and most people now would feel, are no big deal. However, in the society of the Jim Crow South, complete subservience was expected and Wright was just never able to truly get the hang of it as his friend Griggs was. This manifests itself in the next few chapters in the form of all the jobs that Wright held and then lost due to his inability to perform as white people expected him to perform when in front of them. This is even further reinforced by the fact that he begins to take what could nearly be called lessons from Griggs on how to act. This is why Wright says he began coping in the white world too late.

Wright's Refusal

The question of if Wright was correct in refusing to recite the headmaster’s speech is all a matter of opinion. If you are thinking from the position of what would be best for his future then it would definitely have been better for him to say the headmaster’s speech because he would not have to deal with any possible consequences of white suppression and would get his credit for graduating from eighth grade. However, from a different more moralistic stand point, he was absolutely correct in refusing to read a blanket statement because, foremost it gave him the freedom to say what he wished. It was wrong of the headmaster to force him to read a statement when he didn’t even know what Richard would say, nor did he know if it would truly be inflammatory. Secondly, it was a great step in throwing off shackles that people placed on Richard when trying to force him to bend to their rules and more importantly struck against the white supremacy in the area, though the blow may have been small. Overall, I think it was right for Richard to deny his headmaster’s statement and make his own.

Uncle Tom

Richard is mad at Uncle Tom for a multitude of reasons. One of the predominant reasons is the fact that Uncle Tom woke Richard up from sleep just to ask about the time, an illegitimate reason for waking him in Richard’s opinion. Furthering this is the anger of the Uncle when he views Richard’s “approximation” as disobedience. Richard has never responded well to people attempting to beat him for what Richard perceives as bad reasons. He has already had two encounters with his Aunt over these wrongs and the encounter with the uncle is just an extension of this. He is tired of taking wrongful crap, not just from the white people who he knows will give him crap, but from his own family members whom he doesn’t expect to wrong him but are still attempting to do so.

At DePauw for weekend, posting Thursday

After writing his first real story, Wright is quick to share it with a neighbor of his. Though she didn’t understand why he was sharing it with her, he still felt good inside and pleased with himself. This is because this writing symbolized much more than a mere story. It was a piece of work he had poured himself into, a story that took him away from his reality and something he could reasonably be proud of. Since he had not done very little in his life that he was truly proud of, this stood out and made him treasure the story much more than others would. More than this, however, was the idea behind the story that it was his story and that no one could truly take it from him. They may disagree with the story and could share in the story, but no one could ever take it from him. Regardless of whether she understood the story or his intentions for sharing it, Wright was still justly proud of his creation.

The Mom's Stroke

At first both Wright and his brother were filled with fear over the unknown disease that struck their mother, but they soon reacted. This was done with Wright working hard to help his mom and listening obediently to what he was told to do, as well as picking up jobs to help pay for treatment. This was his immediate reaction to the mother’s sickness, but it had longer reaching effects for him. He said that he eventually became emotionally detached from the issue because he did not want to deal with that kind of rise in hope and then dashing of hope over and over again. He also said that he was never able to have the same connection with his mom as he had pre-stroke. Though there were obvious immediate issues it raised with him, the more over reaching effects were the ones that occurred further on in his life, when he had more time to process the problem.

Experience vs. Attitude Towards Jews

At one point in the book, Wright begins to describe the ways in which he would entertain himself during the long days when his mom was at work. This included the act of running with other children to different Jews within the community and making fun of them, either through names or through malicious chants. He explains this behavior by saying that it is part of his heritage to have this kind of attitude towards the Jews and make fun of them in this way. From this context, he seems to be doing to the Jews what white people would do to him, however he has not had to experience that kind of treatment (at least not as far as the book has described) so he may not know how it truly feels to be made fun of for differences in race, creed or religion. Once he begins to experience more racial pressures in his life, I think he would begin to regret those acts and realize how wrong they were, but for now they were just a way to entertain him on long days.

Chapter 1- His Hunger

Wright’s hunger not only represents the fact that his family was unable to garner enough money each week to pay for adequate meals for Wright and his brother, but also served to show his longing for something more. Wright had not only recently lost the support of his father, and thus a figure that, while he despised, also used as a model, but he had also lost his version of innocence when he murdered the little kitten in a fit of calculated rage against his father. Though this egregious act was supposed to incapacitate his father’s power, it turned on him when his mother began to slowly extract feelings of remorse from Wright himself. Thus Wright was not just a normal hungry boy looking for a meal to sate his appetite, but was also experiencing a far deeper hunger, a longing for his life before everything went to hell.

The Necessity of School

In the essay, the other offers the idea that we don’t actually need school. That is not to say that we do not need education, but rather that we do not need the rigid seven hour a day, five day a week, nine month a year compulsory schooling states require. Though many would bring up the idea that it gives the students the necessary abilities such as the three R’s, he rebuts this by saying that there are plenty of home-schooled people who know that stuff just as well, if not better. Instead, he says that schools are designed to train people to listen to directions, be grouped up and taught only so far as they need to be taught before being dropped into whatever job they go to. It is not meant merely to educate them, but to form them into a body of people more responsive to authority and resigned to whatever task they eventually take. Though I believe that it is true that schools may currently be influencing people in this way, I don’t think that is what schools are trying to do and I still believe that schools are necessary. It gives a place for adults to leave their kids while they go to work and know there kids will be in responsible hands. It gives a place for the kid to gain an education if the parents do not have enough time to home school them, as most do not. Finally, it aids the child in social development and the development of friendships. Without the social interaction, the kid would be socially handicapped throughout his whole life. It is due to these factors that school, while imperfect, is still necessary.

Non-Academic Knowledge

Though I don't believe that I value non-academic education in the sense that I think about it and appreciate, I do believe that it comes in use and is valued in that sense. For instance, no one at school ever told me “Don’t put your hand over a hot stove and don’t lean way over boiling stuff.” That kind of information, rather, came from either common sense or from personal experience. On a more subtle and less stupid level, non-academic education can be very valuable teaching different skills such as how to work together in teams better, how to better manage time or just teaching random abilities like how to play golf better. Without non-academic education I would not know nearly as much as I do about things such as set building in tech or how to steer properly in snow and control skids. It is through outside studies and personal experiences that we come to learn these types of things, and they can sometimes be just as important as normal education is.

Rhetorical Devices Presentation

I thought that the presentations today were very interesting for the most part, and displayed a wide variety of rhetorical devices. Two of the pictures I found the most interesting were Katie Griffin’s picture of the garden shop which had a spade as its sign and Jordan’s who had a picture of a shelf with kitchen ware on it. Katie’s was interesting because she was able to provide a personal story with it, about how it was effective because it had been able to draw her into the store and I also just found the idea of a giant spade being used as a sign entertaining. Jordan’s was interesting because no one else really used rhetorical devices that truly related to their own home. She was able to argue that the shelf was a rhetorical device because it made her family seem like the more classic family that cooks a lot and eats together, when she said the truth was the direct opposite. Both these pictures/presentations caught my attention, both due to the devices used within them and the personal stories behind them and they did a good job in presenting the pictures.

Framing Class

Though it is true that commercials can be very influential on people in a subliminal manner, I don’t think that the commercials themselves should be blamed. Kendall says that the media depicts certain classes in certain ways and that this then influences our perception of them. Though it is true that this can happen, and that people can begin to believe certain stereotypes such as the lower class tending to be dirtier and less hygienic, I think many of these stereotypes have already been put in place in our minds before the media even got a chance to do it. The media also uses this to push products, by stressing that proper households or proper people should have this product, or else your life will somehow be lacking. Though this kind of advertising can be influential upon people to buy products so they are part of this “middle class,” the media should not be punished or even scolded for this. They are merely doing what they are designed to do and what everyone wants to do: make money and advance themselves in the world. For just acting upon instincts they should not get in trouble, rather, it is the job of the viewer to realize that and spend their money wisely. If they so choose to go out and spend all their money on something they don’t need and don’t afford that is there fault and they should be held responsible for it. No company is holding a gun to a persons head and saying “buy this or else.” For this reason, people need to learn to be more responsible with their money and not blame the commercials and advertising for drawing them in.

Mickey Mouse

Within the Reading “Under the Sign of Mickey Mouse & Co.” by Todd Gitlin, he posits that America’s rhetorical output leads to a near dominance of other cultures because the well-known American icons are dominating their own culture. This is reinforced by the imagery he brings from the wine cellar in France, which does not have as many pictures of their own famous people, as they do of American icons such as Clint Eastwood. Several cultures understand this, and a few, including France resent this, but there is not much they can do to stop it. France had called America’s influence Cultural Imperialism, yet at the same time honored several American stars with French art awards. I believe that it would be very hard to stop the intense influence that America has because it is appealing to people on a level that makes them want what is being offered, even if they know what is happening and resent it. While I like other countries adopting American culture, I also dislike the fact that they are losing their own culture. This loss of culture is a sad thing to see, but one that cannot currently be stopped, leaving many other cultures open to the influence of American rhetoric.

Media Icon

After Martha Stewart had fallen out of favor due to her months served in jail for lying about stock sales, people looked for a new icon to follow. Though it would be hard to find someone as all encompassing as Martha Stewart, I think people attempted to find those most similar, which was why I began to see a lot more of Rachel Ray. Though she was much more hyper and out there than Martha Stewart she still brought about the same kind of desire to create great things for the home. However, she went about this in a much different matter, whereas Stewart would stress how the absolute best would take a long time, Ray would give tips on how to make quick good things and didn’t seem to care as much about the amount of work that went into it. Though she was not quite as large as Stewart, Ray was able to rise to a larger status due to Stewart’s incarceration and was able to attract a large amount of followers.

Sexism in Ads Blog

Kilbourne believes that it is very dangerous to depict not only women, but also men, as sex objects because it leads to people viewing the opposite gender as an object to be used, instead of an actual person. This then makes it much easier for the person to be hurt emotionally, or more often, physically. This disconnect makes people feel like they are not hurting a person, so much as they are using an object for their own gain. Though I do agree that this could be a side effect, I disliked the way in which Kilbourne made it seem like ads made everyone feel that way. She made it seem like sexual abuse was always happening and that these ads forced people to act that way instead of going after the fact that, while semi-influential, the ads are not forcing the attacks. Kilbourne thinks the objectification of women is more troubling because women are often viewed as the weaker of the two sexes and more likely to be abused, thus the images rub off on men and persuade them to attack women more often. I agree that it is more troubling because women are attacked more than men, but I don’t think it is necessarily due to all males being shit like she seemed to think and I further disliked the assumptions she would make in regards to commercials being wrong if genders were swapped. Though I think she did have a good point about the effect of commercials and the images they conveyed, I felt that she made many assumptions (mostly in regards to the commercials) and that she seemed like she was out to make all men look like shit throughout the whole thing.

Wanda Sykes Friday Assignment

For Friday night’s assignment I watched the Wanda Sykes Show from 11:00-11:30 PM. Seeing as how it was at a later time, I expected it to have slightly more adult content than shows on at prime time because more kids would be in bed and I also expected it to have a visible slant because it is hosted by a person who has guests on and they take turns expressing their opinions. On both accounts I turned out right, because on subjects they touched on they went more into the adult side such as their discussion on Tiger Woods where they did not focus on the wrongs he had committed but rather the fact that this should be expected from superstars like him because, as one guest said “he has poontang raining from the sky.” You could also tell that Wanda’s opinion was one of disgust for Tiger, but also for his wife who had, as Wanda said, gone snooping and was going to find something. Even the commercials seemed a lot more slanted towards adult audiences with commercials focusing around telephone dating services and bankruptcy lawyers. After the discussion on Friday regarding different ways of showing a slant it was obvious about the slant in this show.

The Bias of Language

The reading from The Bias of Language was a fairly interesting piece of writing, which examined how words and descriptors can be used to change people’s minds about certain subjects. It went further into depth when it talked about how we view the news as a source of true information, but how even the news uses different styles of words to portray the writers views. The beginning part about how everyone has a different way of telling the same story and their different views on it reminded me of the beginning of the year when we first began discussing truth and how everyone has their own separate truth. Just like there is no absolute truth, there is no absolute version of a story, instead everyone will retell it a different way. Furthermore, I enjoyed the writing about how there are words which are purely descriptive, words, which evaluate a situation, and words which infer something that is unknown. I had never really thought of this before and found it to be something to think about. Overall, though the reading was long and semi-tedious at parts, it was a fairly interesting piece to read.

News From Monday

Last night we had to watch the news for thirty minutes in order to better understand the media and its effect on the people and the government. I decided to watch the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams because, though some may allege that it is slightly left leaning, it is generally fairly unbiased. Throughout the thirty minutes they covered a variety of topics, ranging from the presidents State of the Union address to a Toyota recall of certain cars with sticking accelerators. They also covered the continuing tragedy in Haiti, the revealing of the iPad and the new PETA stance that angered many people. PETA now believes that the ground hog used for the national celebration of Ground Hog Day (Phil) is under stress and should actually be replaced with a robotic ground hog. Throughout this news cast I found no trace of the left leaning attitude people talk about, and in fact they were fairly critical of Obama’s first year, mainly due to the fact that they have to realistically look at his first year and critique him for it.