sbr001's blog

This week we read about the Occupy movement and the protests that are happening all over the world. It is a really big problem everywhere and some people wont leave until things change. It seems as though everyone is getting involved.

To be honest I pretty much never watch the news so I don’t fully understand what is happening. It is crazy how huge of a deal this is and that it is affecting so many people. Something obviously needs to be done about it and with as many protestors as there are I think we might see some change.

This weeks article talked about how the arts impact our educations and how they are cutting funding for it. They say that the arts help us gain a different perspective than things such as math and science. They are cutting to funding in order to boost the math and science programs though. While the math and sciences are definitely important the arts help give meaning.

I think that the arts are very important. I agree that they do help you in the fields of math and science. Many people also say that when your involved in music your are better at math. I think that the arts are necessary because they allow kids to express in different ways. Music is sometimes the only way that kids know how to communicate with others so when you take it away your in a way silencing them.

This weeks reading was about how Christmas has changed over the years. He says how things we do today people never used to do. There was never a Santa Claus or a Jesus Christ. He also says how December 25 came to be known as Christmas day.

It’s weird to me to think that Christmas hasn’t always been the way it is today. I am a somewhat religious person so its way different for me to think that December 25th actually isn’t Jesus’ birthday and just a random date. I will definitely think of Christmas differently this year.

So far in this honors class we have been focusing on beauty and what it really is. We have read articles, read speeches, and watched videos on a variety of topics such as math and sports. Overall I think the main thing that stuck out to me was the different ways people think, they way each individual thinks. That is why I believe that perspective is definitely one of the main themes.

Many of us come from different ways of life which is the main reason, in my opinion, that many of us disagree with each other. During the discussion we had on sports for instance some opinions varies completely from own personal thoughts. While I understand that it would be difficult for people who had never played sports to find them beautiful I still find it hard to comprehend how they wouldn’t be. This is because I have grown up with sports all of my life so my perspective on them is completely different from that of a person who would perhaps rather cook, or something. Another article that we read where perspectives differed greatly was “liking what you see.” In this article they talked about something called Cali. Cali is a treatment of sorts that prevents people from seeing what is and isn’t beautiful. Some people thought that Cali would be a positive thing because not only would there be less judgement but they also thought that it would help people to mature. I disagree with that because I believe that by having Cali you would be just avoiding the subject and maturing at all.

There were many more circumstances that have arisen in class where perspective was a big deal too, but those are the main ones I could think of. Overall I think that we have learned much more about perspective than beauty in my opinion. We have see how people views on different subjects can very so much from our own views, and by seeing that I believe that we are better learning how to communicate with people who have opinions very different from our own.

This week we read two speeches my Kurt Vonnegut. Both of these speeches were really random and kept switching subjects without warning. He tells in these speeches that he is a pessimistic person. To me it seemed like he was just switching subjects without even thinking about it.

Although his speeches were random he did make some good points. One point that I like was about how if we pretend like we are the center of the universe then people might treat each other better. He also said something about how people are way to selfish and need to help each other out more. I agree with that because I feel like if everyone helped each other out then the world would be a lot better place.

When I first learned that we were doing math for this weeks topic I was really confused. For me personally math has always just big one huge pain, and never beautiful. The video this week opened my eyes. It talked about fractals and how there are everywhere. It’s crazy to think that nature can all be summed up into such a small thing.

I found the video to be really informative and surprisingly not boring. To me it is super crazy to think that everything around us in nature really does involve just some basic math when you break it down. I’m truly amazed by the whole idea of fractals and even though it’s probably the only thing I will ever find to be beautiful in math it has opened by eyes and given me a different perspective.

In the first article entitled “What’s ‘manly,’ what’s not for athletes” the writer talks about the different standards that people have in terms of athletes and non-athletes. One point brought up in this piece was about how Tony Romo chose to miss some time during the football season to be with his family. Some fans thought that him leaving was very unmanly and that he should have put his football career before his family.

In the second piece “The Televised Sports Manhood Formula” it discusses a lot about the host and narrators of sporting events. One of the main things that they bring up is how most of the hosts for sporting events are white males. They say the same thing for commercials. Another point they brought up is that when females are hosting/commenting they only have short time fragments, or they are accompanied by men. In this article they had a lot of statics to support these facts.

There also was a video about the 10 most creative hockey goals. In the video the announcers are male and yelling with excitement.

I think that the first article did make a good point about how fans have double standards when it comes to athletes. I think that they should be supportive of their decisions. The second article I disagreed with a little bit. Part of it said that they usually don’t have black men announcing but in the shows I watch, such as the NFL today, there are two black announcers. I do agree though that many of the sports aired on TV are the sports that guys play. They don’t usually air games that are part of the WNBA. In professional wresting they do focus a lot on the fights outside the rings because they are more exciting that what happens inside, that is another point that they made.

Cicero’s De Inventione is addressing the subject of eloquence and rhetoric. He points out that eloquence can be used for both good and evil, he also talks about how eloquence came to be. Cicero says how eloquence when accompanied with wisdom is a good thing but when you speak with eloquence but have no knowledge it is basically pointless. In this book Cicero also talks about the three different types of narration.

I also read JFK’s Houston Ministerial Association Speech. In this speech Kennedy is speaking about how people should not judge him because he is Catholic. Apparently at the time the newspapers were saying that Kennedy was the Catholic’s candidate for president and he said that he was Democrat’s candidate. In this speech Kennedy was using specific events, such as the Alamo, to support his argument that people if people were not going to vote for him it should be because they do not support his political beliefs and not because they think his religion will effect his decisions as president.

In response to the book written my Cicero, I agree with what he had to say about the value of eloquence being accompanied by knowledge. This piece reminded me of Hilter. He was a very convincing speaker and influenced a lot of people by what he said. I think that is an example of how speaking can be used in a negative way. When I read JFK’s speech I thought that everything he said was was powerful and to the point but not harsh in a way to make people think that they are being forced to do what he says. I think that eloquence in speech is a good thing in most cases but when the wrong people are able to convince a large group of individuals to do something it can be horrible.

“Liking What You See” is a story that focuses on a type of discrimination of sorts called “look-ism.” The article is saying that now days we place so much enfasis on what people look like that we can never really get to know what people are like because peoples beauty or lack of it gets in the way. This is the reason for “Calli.” It is a tool that works on peoples brain so that when they see people they can not tell whether or not they are attractive and therefore they form relationships with people based solely on personality alone. Throughout this piece many arguments are presented both in favor of making Calli a requirement at Pembleton and against it. Tamera Lyons is one of the main participants in this article. She was raised with Calli and got it shut off when she turned 18. In the end after many arguments were presented for making Calli a requirement it did not become one. Overall this piece was just about people in a way judging a book by its cover and not for whats on the inside or what that person might be capable of.

To me Calli seems like a way to avoid who you really are. I think that we should all learn to accept ourselves regardless of what you like. By using Calli you are just hiding from what you don’t like. Everyone is different and I think that, that is something that we should learn to embrace and not reject by trying to make everyone the same. The article did make a point when it said that we judge people a lot on what they look like before we even get to know them. I admit that it’s wrong to do that but trying to make us less judgmental by “hiding” is not the answer in my opinion.

There is no way that they ever could get the world to agree to Calli so no matter what there would be judgement somewhere you went. I think that the best way you could try and make people less judgmental is by encouraging them from a young age to get to know people before you make assumptions about what they are like. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so why would you want to use Calli? If you used it you wouldn’t have the ability to see what you find beautiful. Basically I think Calli is making us blind to the world around us. Differences are what make life exciting, why would you want to deprive yourself of that excitement?

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