David Beckham's Impact

You can ask anyone in the United States who is a famous soccer player and one of the first ones that will pop into their minds is David Beckham. This is due to the fact that he is the man that helped bring popularity and fans to Major League Soccer (MLS). When he came over from England to play for the LA Galaxy, his main purpose of being there, besides winning, was to bring fans and notoriety to professional soccer in the US and he did just that. Soccer players, like myself, owe a great deal of thanks to David Beckham because he sparked and inspired the sport of soccer to be pursued and perfected by Americans. Many countries around the world are way ahead of us in terms of how many stars and soccer players they produce but we are finally starting to catch up. Beckham was a huge part in this catch up and after playing his last game in America it is time for us all to say thank you. Personally, I wish him the best in his future endeavors and I hope he returns one day and make an appearance as a MLS soccer legend.

Public Nudity

Recently, there has been conversation and actually a vote in San Francisco over the right to public nudity. I found this out after reading an article on CNN's website titled "San Francisco approves nudity ban; protestors strip down" and I was quite fascinated by the debate because I did not think one would even exist. It seems like common sense that we would wear clothes in public and almost always in private too just because that’s the social norm. The people that were protesting the brought up an interesting point though by opposing this agreement amongst San Francisco authorities. I mean who is in charge of deciding what is right and wrong? Just because the social norm is to be properly clothed in public does not mean it is necessarily wrong to be nude in public. There was a time way back when where we did not necessarily wear clothes around. Now I am not really advocating being nude in public because, personally, I like to wear clothes in public and seeing people naked in public is a little awkward. But that does not mean that I necessarily dictate what other people can do in public. It is an interesting topic and I thought I would share this to get different point of views on the topic. 

Happy Holidays?

What ever happened to being happy and joyful during the holidays? My friend and I were discussing this yesterday at D-Hall during lunch and I was just dumfounded by how uptight and enraged people get around this type of year. By this type of year, I mean Black Friday and Cyber Monday in particular. Every year it seems to get worse and worse with the amount of injuries and fights that break out over merchandise that is meant to be given to someone as a happy gift. Scenes such as this black friday video make me question the civility of some people. During the holidays, everyone is wanting to spread Christmas cheer or holiday spirit and be happy, but in order to do that you have to create a mob and violently retrieve the best deals? I do not think so. This type of behavior is so hypocritical and it's embarrassing to think that I am the same species as the people that commit these crimes. To think that people have actually died over the last couple of years from this "holiday" is just ridiculous. This induced stress that we put on ourselves to buy the best deals and get the best presents for the lowest prices is unnecessary. Maybe I am old fashioned by saying that the holidays are meant to be more about just being giving and generous to others but that is what I feel is true. Whether you are giving a brand new car to your spouse or giving your time to volunteer at a local food pantry it is all the same in hindsight view. So, in the end, just think about how you prepare for the holidays this December and remember that we are a civil people or at least supposed to be.

Social Media's Insecurity

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9a9El93UhEw&feature=endscreen&NR=1

This PSA is definitely a great one that is applicable to my generation and all generations to come because it is about the internet. The internet creates this false sense of belief that you can make any information you put on it is secure, but it is not. Anything that is posted or downloaded or somehow put online can be accessed by billions of people and that makes it necessary to be careful with what people especially teens post on it. Social media has a lot of great benefits to it and if used properly can be a great way to keep in touch with people or gain knowledge about anything. However, when it is misused, it can create some serious consequences. In this PSA, the audience can see that Sara is shocked by how many random people knew stuff about her. But, this is the case for anyone who is not safe when it comes to social media. Facebook and Twitter and any other major social media site can be manipulated and used against a person so you must be careful. Like my father always told me, "If you do not want whatever you are posting on the internet put on the headlines of the press, don't post it." It may seem radical, but it is true. So use the media properly and don't seem surprised like Sara when people bring up what you post online.

Eatin' Your Vegies

After watching the documentary "Forks over Knives", I was thoroughly shocked with the type of research that was done over analyzing our modern day diet. The documentary, primarily focusing on Dr. Essyslten (received his B.A. from Yale University and his M.D. from Western Reserve University) and Dr. Campbell (the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor Emeritus of Nutritional Biochemistry at Cornell University and Project Director of the acclaimed China-Oxford-Cornell Diet and Health Project), talks about the terrible diet that many of the people across the world, especially Americans, consume on a daily basis. They say that the best and healthiest way to eat is by eating a plant based diet with no animal based products at all. Their research has proven that all of the essential nutrients/vitamins/minerals/whatever can be obtained by eating a variety of whole grains, vegetables, and fruits. There has been much research done by these two doctors that prove that meat products, dairy products, and any other food from animals lead to many health hazards including diabetes (type 2), heart disease, and any other health problem that relates to eating too much processed foods or fats or oils. 

The documentary “Forks over Knives” is quite an interesting insight on how blinded most of the public of not only the US but also the world by how our diet should be. Personally, I was raised where you needed to drink milk every morning and get your protein from meats from beef, chicken, or fish. Yes, eating vegetables was very important too but not as important as stressed in this research. I could not imagine that one could get all essential vitamins and minerals and other important aspects of food solely from plant based foods. The modern day society of the US has become so accustomed to eating meat and dairy products that seeing that this research was done and done a fairly long time ago is quite astounding. I feel as if it is almost too late for this research to be shown because the meat/dairy industry has been so ingrained in our diet that it is almost too radical of a change to ask people to make. I know personally that after watching this video I noticed that I am a cliché example of a person who is the targeted audience for this movie (an avid meat/dairy consumer). It would be nearly impossible for me to cut out all of the meat and dairy I consume because it makes up such a big part of my original diet, however I do agree with the researchers when they say we should at least utilize this study and moderate the amount of animal based foods we consume.

            Now the research is very shocking and new to me, however the more important evidence that I see in this movie is how much our government promotes animal based foods to be consumed. After seeing this research done by Dr. Esselstyn and Dr. Campbell, that the government would stop promoting diary and meat consumption, but it didn’t stop. The lobby men that are funded by the American meat industry or the representatives for the big dairy and meat corporations have seemingly corrupted our government to still push for this unhealthy diet we have adopted. As an American citizen, I am outraged that my own government is not making decisions that will better everyone’s homeostasis. The government has a very simple job in protecting the American people and by hiding this research or not promoting it just proves how poorly run our government currently is. This movie got me thinking about how ludicrous it is that our government still promotes animal based products and it makes me think even more on what else the government could be promoting that is truly not good. I don’t know who to believe in the government and I am almost too disappointed to have faith in our government anymore.

Evolution of Thought

After reading Nancy Sommer's "Between the Drafts", I am fully convinced that I found the reason or goal of receiving a college education. In this essay, Sommer addresses the problem that seems to be more prevalent in today's society. One of the most important points that I feel is made is this essay is when Sommer exposes that everything does not have to be an "either/or" proposition. There should be more than two solutions to a problem. In fact, there is. This mentality of only having two solutions to a problem is actually a stage of thinking that college students go through, according to William Perry. His "Perry scheme" is based on a study of Harvard students and this longitudinal study points out that college students have the potential to go through the four stages of thinking that leads to the ultimate goal that Sommer says by "having authority over what you say." These four stages include dualistic thinking (which is the "either/or" propositions), multiplistic thinking (which is the realization that there could be more than two solutions to a problem), relativistic thinking (the discovery of what the solutions to a certain problem actually are), and commitment to relativism (the "authority" that one declares for oneself). I feel that Nancy Sommer, throughout this essay, is bringing notice to this transformation through the Perry scheme that she and her students are going through. I feel that this transformation is key in order to become a fully functional member of society.

This is not the first class that has brought this point up to me in a lesson or article and that fact is the reason I feel that I realize why people receive a college education. Three of my professors, so far, have preached this evolution of thought from a dualistic thinker to an unconventional, independent thinker. Many problems with our society these days include the fact that many people are still stuck as dualistic thinkers where we cannot meet a middle ground and this leads to major conflict among people. Our government is a great example of dualistic thinkers. Just think about the candidates that we have running for our government positions, Republican or Democratic. That's it. There are some middle ground candidates, but very few get recognized by enough people to make them influential. We as a society need to step back from this type of thinking and start noticing that there are more than two sides to a story. Approaching any problem can include loads of solutions that all can be the "correct" solution. Nancy Sommer is also right when she points out that her past experiences has given her a unique authority to declare her opinion to people. This is a universal concept and it should be taken into consideration whenever there is a problem that needs to be solved. We need to stop being so close minded as a society and start giving the benefit of the doubt to any person who voices his/her opinion about a problem.

Racism in Advertising

After reading my last blog post, you all now know if you have not before that advertisements are usually just a scandal. However, after reading an article written by David C. named "RACISM IN ADVERTISING: 50 SHOCKING EXAMPLES", I have been opened up to a whole new problem in advertising. The amount of racism that is found in some ads broadcasted by companies is actually shocking to me. I figured that back in time when being racist was socially acceptable that advertisements would be racist to an extent, but the modern day ads that are racist make me question how smart some of these advertisers are. I do not understand how an advertiser can produce something like the ad shown to the left and not identify the possibility of it being racist. Anyone can clearly see that there are several black men seemingly bowing down to their white manager. Even the caption says "multiply computing performance and maximize the power of your employees." The racism is just too blatantly obvious to try and make the excuse that they did not notice the possibility of racism. Now this is a serious problem because racism cannot be advertised in modern day society just because it is not a good way to advertise. I am not saying racism is a good or bad thing because that is a personal choice but racism in advertising is bad. The point of advertising is to make a product look appealing and pissing people off by being racist is not a good way to make a product look appealing. For example, the Intel Core Processor being advertised in this ad just lost tons of sales to anyone who thinks racism is a bad part of society. It is an inefficient way to make sales and a waste of money because the end result is usually losing customers. So, in the end, I am not saying that racism is good or bad, that is a personal choice, but it is one of the worst strategies when it comes to advertising because the goal of advertising is to make your product appealing to as many people as possible.

Advertising: The Unconscious Influencer

Nike ad provided by graphics.technoezine.com

After reading Jean Kilbourne's article titled "Jesus is a Brand of Jeans", it became clear to me that advertisements promote a false sense of feelings in the consumers that they try to target. Whether it be a fashion magazine advertisement making women feel that they need a certain brand of clothes to feel beautiful or the ad to the right that sends the message that Nike clothing makes men athletes "invincible", they are all around us and all corrupting us. These type of photos are bombarded toward us everywhere we look all of the time and most of the time we do not know that the ad has affected us. A lot of male athletes will look at this advertisement and be fully convinced that they are not influenced by it, however Nike is one of the biggest sportswear producers in the world. We are unconsciously being swayed by these ads whether we like it or not. As Kilbourne describes in her article, very rarely are ads like this actually consciously noticed, but as they slowly make their logos and motos familiar to our eyes we will go to this product when we go shopping for athletic clothing. So technically speaking, these ads don't even need the ridiculous idea that Nike clothing makes you "invincible" but that term helps sway people away from competitors like Addidas and Champion and many others. Overall, this ad is a typical form of lie that we are exposed to everyday and consumers must start learning that they need to stop giving into this effective form of advertising and start making conscious decisions on what they want to purchase.

My Writing Conference

After going to my writing conference this week with two of my peers, I thought it went better than I originally planned it to go. I was a little nervous at first because I thought I would just be bombarded by criticisms and complaints about my paper, but it was not that bad. In addition, I was nervous to point out the flaws in my two peers' papers because I did not want to insult their intelligence, or be wrong and just look stupid. I went in with this mindset, but I came out with a whole new mindset about the conference. It was not that bad at all and if anything I wish my peers would have felt more comfortable in criticing my work, but I understand that they did not want to bash me. I hope from now on my peers take the liberty in scrutinizing my work because I am fine with scrutiny as long as it is somewhat positive.
As far as my professor being there, I thought it was great that she takes time out of her busy schedule to help us improve our writing and get the best grade possible. It is obvious that she wants us to do well in the class which I feel as very comforting because many other professors do not even give me the time of day. Her comments were very constructive and enlightening and I feel that with the proper corrections to my essay, I will turn this rough draft into a masterpiece. To improve my work, I need to cite my pictures because I did not orginally do so, but also make my photos and make them more emotional. Originally, they were very bland so I want to crop them in such a way to contribute to the ethos of my work. But, in the end, I know that my paper will be very well written all thanks to my conference.

Globalization- Taking No Prisoners

After reading Russ Rymer's call for attention of these disappearing languages in his piece "Vanishing Voices", I was left in a little bit of a inner conflict on whether I support his cause or not. Yes, all of these tragic stories of cultural uniqueness through languages dying is a depressing situation that deserves some sympathy, but I do not think it is all terribly bad. These languages are losing its speakers due to globalization, which is basically the movement towards a common culture or way of life that is shared throughout everyone on earth. Between television, the internet, and many other technological advances, globalization is a very fast paced movement and the seemingly irreversible movement is making people like Russ Rymer and the speakers of endangered languages worried. However, is this something to worry about? I believe it is not. If all of these people learn the more dominant langages in the world, I believe their chances toward a better more developed life rises drastically. The more developed societies can influence these people who live in desolate parts of the world to improve their way of life. Whether it be diet, medicine, judicial, or cultural improvements, globalization can only better the life of the people it affects. If these isolated people were to learn the more commonly spoken languages, they could adopt the other benefits of the culture that speaks this common language. In addition, they do not even really have to let go of their sacred language, but it will be hard to control not losing it once the children of the group learns the more dominant languages. Globalization is a powerful movement and whether many of these small language groups like it or not, globalization will get to them. It is up to these small groups whether the peacefully accept it and just try extra hard to keep their future generations educated on their sacred languages or try to fight globalization and eventually lose because, in the end, the fate of a language lies in the hands of the children born in the language. The children have the fate of language in their hands and it is only a matter of time until globalization reaches them too.

Where are the new stories?

After reading the book, Miss Peregrine's House for Peculiar Children, all I could think about was how I have heard this type of story before. After wondering about where I heard this story, I noticed that it seriously resembles the X-men storyline. They both include an outside mutant man that is introduced to many more mutants like him after years of struggling with the feeling of lonliness. Jacob and Wolverine both are shocked when introduced to the other mutants and both choose to live with the mutants instead of the outside world. The place where the mutants reside are both in desolate places, the X-men live in a big mansion in the middle of the woods and Miss Peregrine's house is in a time loop in a random European area. In both stories, the mutants are frowned upon and are labeled unwelcoming freaks that should be destroyed. The stories both include a group of people that want to annhilate their existence and it is up to the main character, Jacob and Wolverine, to save the mutant population. The amount of similarities are endless so I am not going to point every one out but it kind of worries me. Are we running out of ideas or stories for mass media? Books and movies have been around for the longest time and after all of these stories and adventures have been written, I think that the hardest job these days is for a writer to come up with a totally original plot. It is not like Ransom Riggs planned on having a story similar to X-men but it still happens. I feel that the amount of original ideas are shrinking and reptition amongst movies and books are becoming more and more noticeable. I do not know if I am necessarily worried that we are running out of new ideas or excited for the coming of the next big, new idea. Nonetheless, originality is more and more rare to find and awaiting the coming of a new genre is making me anxious.

First Blog Experience

I am going to be honest, when I first heard about the fact that this class would require us to blog and find a blog and do whatever else with blogs I was not happy. I am a very anti-blog person because my mother, would always tell me “Don’t care about what other people are saying unless it directly affects you.” So what I got out of that was don’t really care about other people’s opinion if it is on unimportant topics and I did not think my personal viewpoint of blogs would change after this assignment.

After reading Sullivan’s essay and reading this sports blog, however, I had a whole new world open up to me. The seemingly endless knowledge that came out of this site about baseball players, football scores, and any other big sports occurrence was quite eye opening. I learned a lot of new facts about my favorite football team, the New York Giants, and I read some comments from followers that really got me into the idea that blogging was a great way to learn about the world’s view on a topic. As I kept looking at this blog, sbnation.com, I found that there were some sports that I thought nobody even truly cared about. I did not know that people would be commenting on blogs about minor league baseball and/or mixed martial arts fights.

            This website was a gateway to over 300 different blogs made up by writers, sports fanatics, and everyday people. All I had to do was click on one of the 322 links and I could be receiving updates and opposing viewpoints on any sports event. Whether it was a trade between baseball teams, final putt in a golf match, or the reigning world MMA champion being challenged to a cage match, I could find it and read what people think about it. Yes, some of the comments were ignorant and mundane but overall I was intrigued and wanting to know more.