Honors

This weeks article was over the deconstruction of superheros. It tied in the Watchmen and many other of the classic cartoons. It helped to explain the archetypes of superheros and how they work and how they work.

I liked how they explained everything with examples. Luckily I had watched the Watchmen movie before. It is probably not as good as the comic strip but it really helped me to visualize all of the examples and how they applied to the article. All of the superheros are like the heroes or myths of old. They have the same purpose as heroes of old. It was a great article which broke down superheros very well.

This week the article was about how the arts were an essential part to an education. It talked about how the arts taught how to think in multiple different ways and to see many solutions to problems in our lives. The arts complement the sciences and how it should not be the first thing that is cut from school systems.

I think this article is right. I do not think it should be just about the regular subjects we encounter in school systems nowadays. I think art is a key part to education whether it be the musical arts or the visual arts. I think they should stop cutting art programs because it does harm the children. I learned a lot in school through the musical arts that i couldn’t have learned anywhere else. It has helped me to think differently and to take on challenges in differently. One of the reasons i came to a liberal arts college is because i wanted to stay in music which i would not have been able to do anywhere else. I think it helps students in there day to day lives as well. I get a lot of stress relieved when i work on my music, sure it adds some as well but its not a huge amount. I think they should stop cutting art at school and should cut in general if the need arises but never to just cut out the arts.

This weeks article was on urban legends and how they affect society. It had lots of different urban legend stories which talked about how they taught kids and teenagers life lessons. There were stories about cooking babies, murdering babysitters children, “lover’s lanes” and hooks. These storyies all have major themes through out urban legend myths. Most of them have death, sexual content, and women. Most of the time the legend is happening to the women.

I think they were created to teach lessons. We have some very sick and demented stories which are intended to use fear in order to scare someone into behaving like there wanted to. I think this is a very good use of fear because everyone has it. This stories however are intended for a younger crowd not for adults. I have heard almost all of these stories before so non of them surprised me. The article also talks about how the Urban Legends are localized to where you live but the main idea or story is the same. I think that almost all places have ghost stories that are meant to scare and teach. I personally do not know if i believe in ghosts or not. I think that all of the stories are to nonfactual to either prove it or disprove it. I like to hear the ghost stories though because i like seeing everyone’s reactions to the stories.

This weeks article was about how beauty is in the body. It is about how picking a mate is somewhat instinctual of how your partner will look. Symmetry of the face and other features like the hip to breast to waist ratio all play a part in what we find attractive. It was about the trends over the years for what we have looked for in our partners. It does not have to be about how skinny you are though. This theme has been trending since the past couple decades. It talks about all the evidence that supports this theory of beauty depicting healthiness and good genes.

I do think this article is right in some aspects. Right now the media is pushing for a skinnier figure for both female and male alike. I think this is preposterous however because not all skinny people are good mates or have good genes. i believe the part about looking normal as attractive is a good thing. I would wish this trend would keep going. Though being beautiful may be a perk I do not believe it is what we do naturally. We do look for someone whom is healthy but I do not think this is what the human is naturally looking for. I think they should be looking for someone they can spend there life with. I think the Saying “Beauty is in the eyes of the beholder” should be more common then it is. I think that beauty does play a role in picking our spouse or mate but i do not think it should be the only thing we pick them for.

This weeks readings were two farewell addresses at two different school. The first one was about pessimism and how the military and the lawyers solve problems. The second article was about religion and how science works. He talks about Communism and how is son graduated form Harvard Medical School.

All in all these speeches jumped around a lot and were very hard to follow. They were funny but I struggled to see the main focus of the speeches. I thought the jumping around kept it interesting and would help the listener stay interested but i do not know if i am supposed to take, Go to church out of this or Lethal injection is good out of them. They were talking about very controversial issues of that time. Now a days some of it is not at hyped up as it is in the speeches. I liked the speeches but did not understand the point in either of them.

The first few weeks we had very different but interesting topics of discussion. They have been ranging from beauty to death and speaking to mathematical ratios. They have had varying results in interest levels and argumentative points. Some of the debating has been heated while others very calm and relaxed. I think that all of the topics were interesting in there own ways. I especially liked the death discussion because the talking all relaxed because most people agreeing on what it was and when they wanted to. We were very respectful and it seemed a little uncomfortable about it.  I think that all of these topics have been fun and I cannot wait to see what else we have in store.

The first part of the Cicero book was about how orating, being a good speaker, is something that puts certain men/women on top of others. He talks about how the development of speech and language has made man better then cave men. He talks about how it has progressively got better over time. The speech I listened to was “checkers” by Nixon. He is explaining things about budget of senators and his life. I think he is trying to show where the money went to that was allegedly stolen.

I think that being a good orator is an essential part of obtaining power. You can see this through history where all the leaders that could speak did the best to run the country. I think a very good movie to show this is King Speech. This movie talks about how a prince had a stutter and how it really hurt his governance ability. It is also shown in other movies that have battles. Before a big battle there is always a big speech that is said that is supposed to rouse the troops and warriors to win the battle. In running for presidency the candidates have to go around the country speaking of why they should be voted for. One of the reasons that Obama and Clinton got to become president was because they were such good orators. I think that Pastors do it every weekend to teach and also to get money for the poor and for the church.  In Nixon’s speech he is able to talk very fluently and it is understandable which gets his point across very well. If Nixon’s speech was stuttered and slurred it would not have done a very good job for him. Being a good orator is an essential thing in our society because we have to be able to talk to get a job at an interview. We also need to be able to talk to communicate with others. I think all in all, being able to orate is a major thing that people have over people who can not speak.

I read a couple of the articles which were about other peoples death experiences. One of the articles was about the experience of suicide. The father ended his life after years of depression by jumping off the top of a building. Another article I read was about the death of loved ones like mother, grandmother, and aunts. This story tells about how she moved on and had to just keep on living even though these people were not in her life.

I thought this was a very different topic to read about. Death is a very common subject that happens every single day. It is a naturally occurring thing which will happen to everyone. One of my big death experiences that I remember was after I lived in a new town for a couple years and I went back to my old town to see everyone on the fourth of July, which was exciting. One of the friends that I unexpectedly ran into was a girl I had crushed on before I had left. I finally got her phone number and contact information so we could keep in touch. The next day I came into town for a parade and learned that this same girl that I finally got to see and talk to had been killed in a hit in run accident that morning. It was a very sad event but I had to look at the bright side and move on with my life. Sure we could have had some fun conversations but I just had to live with her death. In some ways I just shrugged it off others it really hurt, but ironically this is Life. People take death in different ways and it is up to the person in how to handle it. Death does not really bother me. From the minute I was born, I live to die. It is more about how you live then the death itself. All in all I thought it was a different sort of read but it had some good points in it as well.

These two articles were about the golden ratio (GR) being used widely. The GR is supposedly used widely throughout history to construct structures ranging from music to architecture. The first article, The Myth That Will Not Go Away, it talks about how the GR is used in many things but writers use it to much for myths that are not really there. The author talks about humans being made from the GR is just a myth it is just coincidence we sometimes end up fitting into the ratio.  The second article, Did Mozart Use the Golden Section?, was about Mozart composing his pieces using the GR. It conspires that because Mozart was also a mathematician who used the GR to compose his pieces. At the end though it shows that Mozart did not use math to compose his music but his music ability.

Response:

These two articles brought to my attention that there is a golden ratio. I honestly did not know that it was this big of an issue. I had heard some of the stories but did not know it was such a hot topic through out so many fields. I do not think the GR is a big problem as its said to be but I can see where people could take it as a topic on which to base myths off of. Who does not like a good myth? So bringing the element of math into it helps to make it more believable. Mathematics is a proven thing that is usually true and can be proved many times over. Music is something that almost every culture has either for communication, entertainment, or for recording history. I enjoy music, I see math in it through counting measures and the length of notes. I did not know that there may be a ratio involved with it. Overall, I am just astonished that people can take conspiracies as far as they have. Saying that Mozart’s fame and music ability came through a ratio is just down right crazy.

Calliagnosia is a condition in which a person can not recognize beauty in a persons face. They can not tell who has good looks or who has bad looks. The story was about a school which was trying to adopt calliagnosia. The company who manufactures make up are trying to persuade people to not use it. Some of the parts of view are from the perspective of people who had calliagnosia their whole life.  When they first got off of the calliagnosia at first they loved it but after a while they became self conscious and got back on it. The media then came out with a new calliagnosia to block sound so it cant tell the difference between good sounding voices and bad sounding voices. This was put into place after the media started using perfect voices.

Response:

This whole article is about the media controlling people through looks and listening. Using beauty to try and get people to but their products. In my opinion the calliagnosia could be beneficial in the work place or against discrimination in school.  It should be able to be turned off whenever people are on there own time though. Towards the end of the story they started talking about the spex which could turn off and on at pleasure. I think this is a good idea to use because then you do not have to use it while your with your friends or family. The calliagnosia is a good idea when it is used in moderation but not to for an extended period of time.  People should be allowed to look at someone without there faces being changed to bland. This could be taken as a part of censoring which can harm more then hurt. Being human is what we do best and calliagnosia can take away from what being human is about.