mmb009's blog

Summary:

These two articles that we read related to the recent Occupy Wall Street that has been going on. The first article was about how it is not just in the United States that this is happening, it is an issue all over the world. The second article pertained to the stories of some people that are involved with Occupy. In the first article, you learn that this issue has struck multiple people and many of them are becoming active, so that this problem gets fixed. The second article shows the stories of a handful of people and why they are there. Some are there because they have no jobs while others are there because they want their voice to be heard. All in all they want a difference to be made and will not stop until one comes about.

Evaluation/Analysis:

These two articles opened my eyes because I do not watch the news much anymore, so I have not been kept up-to-date with the Occupy situation. It was shocking to learn that so many countries around the world are having the same issues and that a solution still has not been made. The second article was interesting because it opened up different people’s point of view about the whole situation and you learned why people felt strongly about it. I thought these article were eye opening and allowed people to realize that this problem is not going to go away until a solution that will work is met.

Summary:

This article was about the good influence that the arts have on schools. It explains how the arts help to make kids see things in a different light, and how since art is not all about memorizing, it allows them to use their brains differently. This also allows them to expand their brains and use these tactics to solve other problems in life. This article expressed how we use art pretty much in our everyday lives. We use art when we are trying to explain a place to someone and we see it everywhere we go: buildings, signs, and even outfits are some examples of the art we see. This article also expressed how when schools have budget cuts, the arts should not be the first thing to go because they teach the students key lessons in life and how to expand their brain. Another key point the article makes is that the arts also help us relate to other cultures and makes it easier for cultures to express their ways.

Analysis/Evaluation:

Overall, I thought this article did a good job explaining why the arts are important and show how the arts help students. I agree with this article that the arts are important in the school curriculum and we should always have them. I remember in high school, we always had an art show the same night of the band and chorus concert, I am not a very good artist so I always enjoyed going to look at what the art students had done when I was done with band and chorus. Looking at all the artwork, it amazes me that my classmates could do this and gave me a great appreciation for artistic people. Also being in band and chorus for seven years, I can say that they have helped me become a better person and have a greater appreciation for life and other cultures. I hope that with all these budget cuts, that the arts programs do not get cut because I do believe they are a key part to student learning.

Summary:

The article about Urban Legends as Cultural Symbols focused on the aspects that urban legends have. The author shows how urban legends need three specific elements: a strong basic story appeal, a foundation in actual belief, and a meaningful message or “moral”. Another part to legends is the messages you get out of them. The primary messages tend to be clear and straightforward like a warning which always intrigues the listener and is what makes the legend worthwhile to tell again. A secondary message tend to be deeper meanings of the legend like criticizing the human behavior. Urban legends also tend to relate to cultures and so, in the making of an urban legend, it is a good idea to know the culture in which you are talking about. One of the most fascinating things about urban legends tends to be they rely around events that may never happen yet they drag you in because of their bizarreness and potentially frightening events. While skimming over the stories on the pages that followed, you got to see how stories changed by who was telling it and where that person was from so they could make it more believable for the people listening.

The podcast that we listened to about where have all the hitchhikers gone was highly interesting. They discussed how hitchhikers used to be more popular back in the day and now they hardly exist. One of the reasons they came up with for this phenomena is the fact that movies, media, and news show terrible things happening to hitchhikers that are picked up like Colleen Stan, or the kind people that pick up the hitchhiker. This caused people to not be so generous and therefore caused the hitchhikers to go extinct. One person they had on the show mentioned that maybe hitchhikers should come back because only 20% of our cars seating are being used daily so it would be more beneficial to carpool.

Analysis/Evaluation:

Reading the article about urban legends seemed interesting because I have never tried to evaluate what goes on behind an urban legend. Now, after reading this article, the next time I hear an urban legend I can try to figure out what it is really saying and look at the cultural aspect of it too. I found it interesting when looking at the other stories of how one story can have multiple different ones depending on who is telling the story. I would have to say the one that freaked me out the most was bout the guy following the lady home because he saw someone else in the back of her car; if I had been that lady, I would never drive by myself again! The podcast about hitchhikers being gone was also very interesting. I guess I have never really given any thought to hitchhikers no longer being around but I assume that has to do with me pretty much growing up without them. That story about Colleen Stan being abducted for seven years when she hitchhiked freaked me out and made me wonder why people ever thought hitchhiking was safe. I also found it interesting that one of the reasons why hitchhiking decreased was due to the influx of cars per home. After listening to the podcast, it makes you wonder if hitchhiking will ever become big again, and if it does, how safe it will be.

Summary:

This article that Forbes wrote is mainly about the history of Christmas and how it is not what we would expect. He focuses on three different areas throughout his article: the beginnings of Christmas, Christmas in early America, and Christmas and gift-giving. In the section about the beginnings of Christmas, you learn that Christmas did not evolve until the years 336 or 354. It also explained that the date for Christmas was related to three Roman mid winter festivals. The next section about Christmas in early America emphasized on how Christmas was not big in early America, in fact it was prohibited due to the fact that the English parliament was heavily protestant. In the mid 1800s, Christmas started to come back in America and was declared a legal holiday. Forbes also shares that the story of Santa Claus was started in New York. The last section about Christmas and gift-giving, we realize that Christmas was originally all about the activities the adults in the village provided for the church. But one of the key reasons that gift-giving started was due to the industrialization. These manufacturing companies figured they could make boo koo bucks by advertising gift-giving on Christmas. We also acquire the knowledge that the christmas tree and ornaments did not come around to be a Christmas tradition until the mid 1800s and late 1800s.

Analysis/Evaluation:

Before reading this article, I had always assumed that Christmas started way before it actually did and that it only varied slightly from how we celebrate it today. After reading this article, I found it very interesting to know that when Christmas first came around, it was 300 years after Christ came to Earth. I also found it intriguing that America did not always celebrate Christmas and that for a time it was prohibited. The fact that Christmas was about the adults activities in the church surprised me because that is way different from what we do today. I also enjoyed the fact that the Christmas traditions we all know about like the christmas tree, ornaments, and lights did not originate until the mid 1800s which means that has only been around for less than 200 years. One other fact that Forbes brought up that I found eye opening was the one about how the Bible has view stories about the Nativity. This shocked me because I just assumed there would be multiple stories due to the fact we have a holiday celebrating. Now when I actually think about it, there are only those few stories that we hear over and over every year at Christmas time. I thought this article was very interesting and enjoyable to read about the history of the Christmas holiday.

I found that all the articles we read had a theme about influence. The first article about the Cali was about influencing people to try it and if they liked it, they influenced them to keep the Cali. The second article about rhetoric influenced people on how rhetoric was a good thing and could help you out in the long run. This article was influencing people to have rhetoric when they spoke. The next article was about the sports, this one influenced men to be manly even if that meant putting your family second. The video we watched with this article influenced people to go above and beyond the normal goal making and try new ones. The next article about the fractals influenced people to try more things with math and to know that we do not know everything. They tried to influence people to want to explore more and discover new things like how the fractal was discovered. The last article we read were Vonnegut’s speeches. His first one did not necessarily influence the girls graduating class, but he made them think about their future careers and how to start out small, so he influenced them to not bite off more than they could chew. His second speech sort of influenced people to think for themselves because he speech was so sporadic yet it all made sense and tied in with each other. I also believed he influenced people to not care about what other people thought because just by reading Vonnegut’s speeches, you can tell that he did not give a rats behind to what people really thought of him. Overall I thought this articles were good ways to influence people and they show many different ways you can go about influencing people.

Summary:

The first Kurt Vonnegut speech was given to the graduating class of Bennington College. Vonnegut has a view main points which consist of them not putting too much on their shoulders, after all being that young they alone cannot change the world. Another main point he makes is we can no longer rely on science to move us forward. Science already moved us into the atomic bomb age and made people paranoid. Now we must examine things like palmistry and astrology since these relate to everyone. Under these two topics, no one is a nobody because everyone has something going for them. He also makes a claim about how America should try socialism and see how that develops, and if it fails completely, we can always go back to Free Enterprise.

The second Speech by Vonnegut was given at Clowes Hall in Indianapolis. One of the things he strives for is to find a statement that everyone believes is true; he came up with “Sugar is sweet”. Then he comes up with a more educated statement, “The Mona Lisa is a perfect painting”. From here, Vonnegut goes on to discuss how the Mona Lisa is NOT a perfect painting. He claims her nose is tilted to the right. Further on in his speech, he expresses his love for science since it provided answers to how the universe came about and how we and animals have the wonderful bodies we do. He makes a correlation between Karl Marx the father of communism and African Americans’ churches. He says Marx believed religion could ease your pain which Vonnegut believes the African Americans found useful during all the discrimination.

Analysis/Evaluation:

I believe Vonnegut’s first speech was educating since Vonnegut told the students not to take on too much. In my opinion, this is a good set of advice because when you are first starting out, you do not want to have that much pressure on your shoulders to save the world and there is not a high probability that you will succeed. I also thought his about palmistry and astrology was rather interesting. If you think about it, those two things are something that everyone in the whole world does have in common and therefore you are not a nobody. In his second speech, I thought is was creative that he came up with a relationship between Karl Marx and African Americans’ church. Once he brought your attention to that, it was hard not to see how the two correlated with each other. When he asks about the Mona Lisa being a perfect painting and then he goes on to divulge how it is not, it makes you wonder if anything is really perfect then. Overall I thought Vonnegut’s speeches were interesting to read and allowed me to see some things differently through a pessimists eyes.

Summary:

This video discussed the importance of fractals (a jagged repeating form) in our everyday lives. You may have never heard of a fractal before watching this video but they are something that is all around us; it is in nature, math, art, science, and even us. This video goes on to explain how Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractals, came about discovering them. A fractal is simply something that keeps repeating itself. For instance, with the whole triangle snowflake scenario, if you have an equilateral triangle and you add another equilateral triangle to each side, you should be able to continue forever and it will look the same. Also, if you take a segment of a whole, the segment will resemble the whole piece. At the end of the film, some scientists were experimenting to see if you could take one tree and figure out a whole forest by that one tree. After their experimenting, they found that there hypothesis was correct and you could figure out the structure of a forest by looking at an individual tree.

Analysis/Evaluation:

I found this video very entertaining and eye opening. Last year in my Calculus class, my teacher opened the door a little about fractals by showing us the snowflake and the black circle like thing that Mandelbrot created. I found it very interesting that a healthy human heartbeat is considered a fractal. The fact that something like that can be determined by mathematics is just so astonishing. This video really opened your eyes to what math can be used for. I also thought it was neat how we use fractals today in our cellphones; this alone just shows how important fractals are and how far they can go. Who knows what we will be using fractals for in the next 100 years. I found the whole idea of fractals beautiful because they relate so much to nature and art that it is almost impossible not to see something beautiful out of that. Overall I thought this video was a very good informative video and kept me wondering what all a fractal is found in.

Summary:

What’s ‘Manly’: This article was mainly about what spectators perceive as manly for athletes. It provided a great example about how Romo left his team for paternity leave when they were fighting for playoffs. It went on to discuss why there are not many women sports announcers- they do not know the game, their voice does not fit, and they should be in the kitchen. It also brought up the fact about athletes having fashion spreads; should that be considered masculine? The author Sanchez made valuable points about how the way an athlete dresses and the fact that he wants to be with his family during an important time should not reflect on how we see them as athletes during their games.

Televised Sports Manhood Formula: The main focus of this article was to figure out the Manhood Formula from sports television. They performed experiments on different sports programs (NFL, NBA, NLB, Wrestling, Extreme, Sports Center). They looked for things that the programs were hinting at what men and boys should act like. They concluded that they had to be tough, smart, strong, aggressive, be able to play when injured, make good choices on and off the field, and have a voice of authority. When they have achieved all of this, they have to be able to go back and do it all again the next day. This leads to many boys and men getting injured and becoming more aggressive. They also showed that women were mainly viewed as cheering the men on and being sexy to show that men should be heterosexual.

Top 10 Creative Hockey Goals: This was a very entertaining video to watch. It was about the top 10 creative hockey goals made. I found the goals very interesting and creative because some of them were unimaginable to me.

Evaluation/Analysis:

What’s ‘Manly’: When reading this article, I found it upsetting that fans got angry at the fact that Romo went on paternity leave. I would have assumed that fans would have been more understanding, especially if they had children of their own. I know that is was during the playoffs which causes people to become tense, but that does not mean he does not have the right to leave for his family. I also found it interesting that there were less female sports broadcasters; granted it does make sense in my head why there are less. I am kind of the same way, when I watch baseball, it just seems right that a male is talking about the game because I feel like he “fits in” better. I also think the whole voice thing was a good comment, it would see weird to me if a female started broadcasting for the NFL, that would just not sound right.

Televised Sports Manhood Formula: This article was also very interesting to read. It was a good experiment I think to figure out how sports society views boys and men. Once you looked at all the acquired data, it made sense that they want men to be more aggressive, strong, and play at all times. The one thing I had a problem with was the play at all times. I do not like watching someone play that is injured because I constantly think something will happen to them and they may never be able to play again. I thought the commercial statistics were interesting in the sense that they did not show blacks, latinos, or asians unless they were with white men. The fact that they showed men who were viewed as inferior to the athletes in commercials plays a key role in how young boys view themselves. After reading this article, I believe that society is harsh on men and boys to be manly at all times and keep going no matter what could happen.

Top 10 Creative Hockey Goals: I enjoyed watching this video because I thought the goals were indeed creative. Listening to the announcers talk about the goals and praising the athletes definitely would come off a plus for going above and beyond. The announcers are very important with games because what they say is what people pick up on, so if they are ecstatic about a creative goal, this will get people to want to come up with creative goals of their own. My favorite goals that they showed were the ones where the player got the puck onto the stick and bounced it into the goal. In the sense of beauty, I believe that these athletes were doing something beautiful because they were doing creative goals that were eye-catching and that had people speechless.

Summary: Cicero’s speech was about the eloquence of speeches. In his article he explained the pros and cons of this. Some of the pros he mentioned were the eloquence of speeches allowed our societies to grow and change over time from mad hunters to people who have wisdom and the power to change. Some of the cons he mentioned were it caused people to lie about having eloquence and lead to audacity. The more audacious people eventually seized the republic which lead to bad things happening due to their lack of eloquence.

Evaluation/Analysis: Cicero makes strong points about how the evolution of eloquent speakers changed our society forever. I do agree with him that it helped change society because this enabled us to become more efficient speakers which allowed us to improve other things like our government and businesses. Like everything that is a new concept though, it will have something bad things spring up with it. When Cicero mentioned that people began to lie about having eloquence, it made sense to me since when people do not have a new important thing, the lie about it. This is bad because it can cause people to become confused and they can end up going for something they may not want. All in all I believe that eloquence is a good thing and has helped us to expand our society.

Speech: I read Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Farewell Address. I could tell that his farewell speech was very thought out and very eloquent. Throughout his speech, you could tell that he had his heart set on the speech and wanted the citizens of America to believe him. The fact that his speech was so well written allowed the listener to be able to relate to what he was saying and understand why he chose to resign. He gave valid points about how we need to be careful with our freedom and respect other people that come from different areas and backgrounds than us. His speech was definitely eloquent because it showed a higher standard of education and fluency. This helps him to be able to convince people he knows what he is doing.

Summary- This reading was about a device called the calliagnosia which, when used, prevents you from seeing beauty in people’s faces. What this is supposed to enable you to do is not look at people because of their beauty but because of their personality. Some people mentioned in the story that they are all for calliagnosia because they believe it will better society and allow a more open field for jobs and friends. On the other hand, some people are against it because they believe it is wrong to take away someone’s ability to see beauty. They believe seeing beauty is a gift from God and should be allowed. The debate of the story was wether this school should make it mandatory for students to get calliagnosia. Towards the end, we see a problem that can arise by people messing with the brain and how this can later effect society.

Evaluative/Analytical- This article provided a lot of feedback on both sides of the story which helped the reader to choose which side they stood for. Both of the sides provided excellent facts and stories as to why they should/should not use calliagnosia. After reading the article, I am on the side of not using the calliagnosia because I just find it repulsing that someone would come up with this idea to make us not see beauty. I would never use this because I do not like the fact that something is put in your brain to prevent you from being you.

It would be nice to not judge people by the way they look, but once you grow mature, you should not care about what other people think (I know this will probably never happen which is sad). I believe that you should look at a person’s personality before you judge them or decide they are not good enough, granted most people think your personality correlates with your look, but that is only partially true. And if people can not get passed what you look like than it is there loss and you should move on. I do believe that we should be able to see something beautiful like art, otherwise this world would get boring and plan.

Honestly, if people would just get over the fact that they think everyone has to look a certain way, people would be way better off, but I do not believe it is right to force someone to put something in their brain to achieve this. If we can not get past the simple problem of what beauty is than I am not sure how other, more important things are going to play out in society today. Like Boyer said, it would be almost impossible for everyone to use calliagnosia and only then would the effects work. Also, by opening up the door to effect how people see beauty, other things are going to be affected and before you know it, you will not be living in a normal society, it will be a mechanical like society. So I believe people should not use calliagnosia and not worry so much about what is beautiful, after all, life is too short to waste on something so small.