Favorite Blog

My favorite blog this year was definitely the one on the Civil Rights Data Collection Survey. It was not inly interesting to write on this subject but it allowed me to voice my opinion on something that was directly impacting my life. At first I had a hard time trying to get out exactly what I wanted to say on the subject. This blog tok m e the longest to write and to finally post the final draft because I wanted to make sure I expressed what I felt was important. I enjoyed writing this as well as further researching the topic since, again, it was directly impacting me. I usually write about current issues that are in the news or I see happening around me but I rarely find myself at the center of the issue. But when I can manage to write a blog about an issue that I myself am struggling with makes it all the more enjoyable and interesting to write about.

Immigration

In my spanish class, we have been studying immigration. Topped with this was the intersting presentation made by Maria Finitzo at AIS Day. A major issue today is the new law that was passed in Arizona which permits law inforcment to ask suspected legal immigrants for their papers without any evidence, other than their appearance, that they are illegal. It has been interesting for me to be exposed to both sides of the argument. On one hand, Arizona has been hit with soaring crime rates from the drug traders and criminals that have come from Mexico. On the other hand, you have the fathers and mothers desperate to find a better life for themselves and their children in a country where it seems possible to find that new life. In all the discussions and things I have learned about immigration this year, I am stilled puzzled with one question: Why does it take so long to become legal in our country? It seems like if the system allowed for these families to become legal more easily would slow down the illegal immigrants from crossing the boarder and allow Boarder partrol to focus more on the people coming here and comminting crimes instead of trying to make a better life.

What do you think would improve immigration in the United States? Why is it so difficult and take so many years to become legal in this country?

Multiracial

My mom recently received an email from the superintendent regarding a civil rights data collection survey from the US Department of Education our school must fill out. One part of this survey requires the school to report the races of all the students. The email informed my mother that her daughter (me) has reported herself as biracial based on the school records. However, the survey does not offer this option. Which leaves me forced to answer the question: what race am I? I have never identified myself with one race or the other (black or white). If I choose white, I'm neglecting the fact my father is a black man and vice-versa. I found it interesting that the Department of Education found it fitting to call their survey a "civil rights" survey when they force students like me to make a decision on which race they are over the other. I was born both races, and I am proud to be both, as anyone should be of their own race. Why is it that the Department of Education has, for forty years, decided to ignore the more than 6 million Americans who identify as multiracial. (Census Scope)?
The legal definition of the phrase "Civil Rights" is defined as many things, 'including the  "freedom from discrimination." To further clarify, the dictionary defines discrimination as "making a distinction in favor of or against, a person or thing based on the group, class, or category to which that person or thing belongs rather than on individual merit". In my opinion, the Civil Rights Data Collection survey is doing just this.

Not only can you not choose more than one, but there are only 5 options:

·         White

·         Black

·         American Indian/Alaska Native

·         Asian/Pacific Islander

·         Hispanic

Middle Eastern? Not an option.  But I guess they could just be Asian for this survey, right? 

Multiracial? Not an option.  Just choose one, it doesn't matter, right?

Do you think the civil rights survey is discriminatory? Why do you think they leave out multiracial as an option? Why do they only have five options and do not include an 'other' option for people to write in their race?

Junior Theme Blog #2

Now that I'm pretty far into my research and reading, I've realized how interested I am in my topic, which is hip hop music. I actually am enjoying researching and learning more about it. Some difficulties I have had is getting my ideas together and putting my research materials with my ideas. I have a lot of research material that I know will help at least one of my arguments but it becomes a little overwhelming to try to figure out where I want to use a research article in my paper. All the articles I have found have so much good information but, as I said, its hard to organize it all and link my arguments and thoughts with each article.


Another thing I was having trouble with was getting my bibliography together. I usually procrastinate on doing them and find myself trying to get back to links I used and things I wrote down to remind myself of a reference. But this time, I have been taking the time to put in every article I find valuable into my noodle tools account. Even if I'm not sure if i will use it, I still am putting it in there. This has helped a lot because sometimes, I will be looking over my bibliography and see a source I forgot about and realize I can use it in the paragraph I'm writing.

Starting the Junior Theme

When we started junior theme, I knew right away that I wanted to research something about music. I think the hardest part for me was trying to think of an acceptable 'why' question to research. At first, I was trying to focus on woman's struggle in the music idustry, but since this is a problem in all indsutries, I could only do this if I focused on buisness in general. Then I tried to focus on censourship in music but found it hard to make a why question relating to that theme and I realized I wasn't as interested in it as I thought I would be.
Then one day, I was looking through the music section in the library and came across a really interesting book called "The Hip Hop Wars" which discusses the conflicts and controversies surrounding the hip hop industry. As I began to read, I found that I was extremely interested in what the author had to say on this topic. I then came up with the question , 'Why is hip hop music mainstream and why has the media constructed it the way they have."
Right now I'm struggling with the wording of my question since it is kind of a long and wordy question at the moment. But besides for that, I think the most difficult thing so far with finding a theme was phrasing the question in a 'why' form.

Are You Middle Class?

In class a few weeks ago, we took a poll of the class to see which class we thought our families were in. In an article from US News, they break down the average "middle class' family and answer the question, "how to gauge your middle class status.
I think it is interesting to see that what this author believes are the marking points for a middle class family. Everything from your income to your free time is factored into the calculation. In our class, we discussed the middle class and many of us thought that there were gray areas in figuring your class level. However in this article, there seems to be set distinctions.

In my opinion, I think that there are many grey areas, however, the bench marks that the author of this article present seem to be realistic and broad enough to cover most families that fall under 'middle class' status.

Do you think that the specific numbers and statistics that the article brought up are reasonable to gauge class status or is class something based on opinion and not the numbers? Does this article change your idea of what class your family is?

 

Performance Enhancing Drugs in Sports

I was recently skimming through an article about why the United States isn't as interesting in soccer as many other countries in the world are. The article was interesting but what stood out to me was a comment made by a reader. They discussed the usage of performance enhancing drugs in the soccer league. The commenter brought up national soccer player Lional Messi and discussed his alleged drug use. They concluded , "We wouldn't have the world's best player if it wasn't for these kinds of drugs."

I think this statement is interesting because it seems to show how people view pro athletes. I'm not sure how an athlete can be considered the best when he or she is taking drugs to reach the level they are at. In my opinion, if an athlete is using drugs, they are in no way the "best player" since they are enhancing their performance the easy way. No work is necessary to become the best when you have an unfair advantage by taking drugs to enhance your game. I think it is more admirable to reach a level of athleticism on your own, without the use of illegal drugs. However, many athletes decide to use them anyway. Wikipedia states that "in 2009, nearly 1 in 10 retired NFL players polled in a confidential survey said they had used now-banned anabolic steroids while still playing"

Why do you think athletes take these drugs? Do you think there should be more pressure on them to not take drugs or is the pressure to be the best too high to stop them? What is your take on athletes like Micheal Phelps or Barry Bonds taking drugs and still being thought of as great athletes?

The Politics in Advertising

Today in class we had an interesting discussion on advertising in the United States. The thing that stuck out to me was the topic of sponsorships. In my marketing class, we talked a good deal about sponsorships and how they work. I thought it was interesting to hear the other side of them; the political side. I never thought about how deliberate certain sponsorships are. The basic strategy being sponsoring a person or event that is widely known to get the company name out. The strategy we discussed today was company imaging and reputation. Monsonto, an agricultural company, sponsors PBS for the reputation. Their controversial suing of small farmers gave them a bad image, however, by sponsoring a non-profit station, they were able to shine a good light on themselves.
Referring back to the articles we read, one author stated that advertising was art. I agree with this statement because advertising is something to master and get better at. It is something that not everyone can succeed at. It is also a very powerful way of gaining support of your idea or company. Today, advertising has become even more artistic and complex. Many companies spend millions of dollars to perfect their logo. This small piece of art can ultimately get you a customer or lose one. For example, in the LA Times article states "the  Coke label appeared to activate a memory region called the hippocampus, along with structures in the mid brain known to compare the likelihood of rewards." A thing as simple as a piece of art on your product can change the way people react to your product.

Do you think advertising has become an art? If so, what does this say about our society?

Google Suggestions

Many people are familiar with Google Suggestions. You start to type in your search item, and a number of suggestions appear. Recently, I began to realize that many of these suggestions are filled with racist, sexist, inappropriate terms. For example, try typing in "why are". The very first suggestion is "why are black people so loud". I was stunned that such stereotypical and racist suggestions would come up on Google, a search engine used by millions of people every day. Another astonishing thing I found was that many of the suggestions that appear on the images site are suggestive of child pornography, another obviously horrible and sick thing. If you type in "racism is", Google gladly finishes it with words like "good", "natural", and "funny".

After finding all these horrible Google suggestions, I decided I would voice my opinion and contact Google and

complain about the problem. I know my complaint wouldn't get all the inappropriate suggestions deleted, but I would have felt better if I could get my opinion on the problem to the source. After 20 minutes of trying to find a way to contact them, I decided to to just blog about it. I thought it was interesting that Google makes I difficult to contact them about a complaint or even just a comment.

Do you think Google should be held responsible for the suggestions on their website? Is it their fault or is it because of the people who use Google? What do you think Google should do about it, if anything?

Men Vs Women's sports

The discussion we had in class about the desparity in fan attendance for mens sports vs. womans sports interested me. As a class, it seemed that we came to the conclusion that men's sports is more interesting to watch because they are more "athletic" and play the sport at a higher level than the woman. I wondered if this was actually the case or if no matter how well the woman's teams play, the men's team will have a higher fan base. I think that the reason people support men's teams over woman's teams is because not only until a few hundred years ago have woman played professional sports. People have been watching men play sports for much longer than watching a woman play. I think this tradition is what people are grown up doing and continue to do as they get older. For me, I have grown up watching the men's Northwestern basketball team. I have been to many of their games yet I have never seen a woman's game. I think that because for generations people have been watching men play sports, that this has continued on into modern day.

Mens, Girls, Kids

When shopping online for clothing, as a customer, you expect to find tabs on the top of the web site where you can categorize the clothing by Mens Clothing, Woman's Clothing, and Kids or Children's Clothing. I was surfing threw clothing websites and came across Etnies.com. The site sells skate shoes and apparel for young adults and kids. I was shocked to find that instead of the normal "Men's, Woman's or Children" option, it was "Mens, GIRLS, and Kids." Astonished, i clicked on the Girls tab to find it was in fact clothes and shoes for woman, not girls. In class we discussed discrimination in corporate America against woman. This is a prime example of a company putting woman down and not even recognizing them as adults. In my own experience, i had never really witnessed discrimination based on gender in the real world. I knew it existed, but i wasn't aware it was as prevalent as it is. This type of advertisement should not be accepted in our modern society. 
Should Etnies change their website? For a woman working at Etnies, should she feel degraded by her company?

Sports Illustrated Cover Controversy

I recently came across an article which was in response to the cover  photo of the February issue of Sports Illustrated. The photo is of a female athlete on the USA Olympic skiing team. Critics of the photo say it is too provocative and that she shouldn't be portrayed as a sex symbol, but an athlete. In my opinion, the photo isn't racy at all. I think it is appropriate for the type of magazine that Sports Illustrated is and does not portray her in a negative way. I think that it is interesting that there is controversy over her being on the cover just because she is an athlete. The heading of the photo even portrays her as "America's Best Woman Skier Ever". I wonder why being an athlete sets her apart from other woman who have been on the cover. There have never been objections to other covers of the magazine which portray woman in a much more negative way than this photo. Many athletes, female and male, take advantage of the endorsements they can receive even if they are based on the way they look. For example, Anna Kornikova has been portrayed as a sex symbol ever since she started playing professional tennis. Why is she different from the skier being portrayed in a similar way? Is it because of the way she acts or presents herself or even the sport she plays that makes it less of a controversy?

Huck and the N-Word

After reading Mr. O'Connor's post on the N word, my thoughts on the word used in the book has changed. My first reaction to it was disgust. I didn't like looking at the word or even reading in my head. However, I am starting to understand the reasons why Mark Twain would use it. I think that by using the word, it makes the book more historically accurate because people used the word in every day conversation. The word was used by whites and blacks casually, even when everyone understood the harsh meaning behind it. I think that when Huck uses the word, he isn't completely ignorant to what it means and that it isn't just any word. I think we are giving Huck a 'straw man' quality by brushing off the fact that he is using racist language and blaming it on his ignorance. Huck uses the word most frequently around other white people and rarely or never uses it in the presence of Jim. I think this shows that Huck does know that the word is bad since he can say it around other whites, who obviously wouldn't have a problem with him using it.  The times Huck chooses to use the word give us a good peek into what Huck actually thinks about the meaning and the emotion behind the n word.

Favorite Blog: Second Quarter

My favorite blog this quarter is "Las Vegas: Suicide City?" I used a different approach with this blog post when finding information and the idea to write it. With past posts, I would search through articles on a news website to find an interesting article and then blog about it. For this blog, I started with what we were discussing in class. We were talking about children being affected by their environments and that the commercials they watch change who they grow up to be or how they think. This topic was interesting to me so I typed into Google "environmental effect on humans". This search gave me a bunch of studies. The one that stood out was the one about certain cities having higher suicide rates. Since this topic was so interesting to me, i decided to blog about it. I think i favor this post over others because i came across the idea in a different way than previous posts. Now, i have decided to start my search for a post idea by using topics we discuss in class and branch off of them.

This strategy has helped me think of good blog topics because i had been struggling with that in the past quarter. I have come to find that by blogging about topics that aren't just commenting on random articles makes the process much easier and enjoyable.

New Body Scanners Heading to O'Hare

I have written before about the diminishment of privacy in the United States. I recently found out that another part of our privacy is dissapearing in Chicago. A new security device is going to be used at O'Hare airport which uses a full body scan for supposed security purposes. The full body scan is a very controversial machine because it is a virtual strip search. The machine scans your entire body and spits out an image of your body to the operator. The image that the body scanner produces are said to "reveal the contours of a person's body with embarrassing clarity." (Daily Herald)
While passengers do have the option to be patted down by an officer instead of going through the body scan, many travelers may not even realize what the scanner is or how it is violating their privacy. I think security at airports is extreamly important, however, I don't think that investing in a machine that allows the oporators to see an image of you vertually naked is appropriate security measures.

Is "The Nagging Strategy " Ethical?

In todays class discussion, we talked about whether it was ethical for corporations to aim their ads towards children so that they nag their parents to purchase their product. I think that this is an ethical way of marketing because parents have the ultimate decision to buy the toy or not. I remember when I was younger, if I saw a cool toy on television, I would ask my mom and she would sometimes say yes or sometimes she wouldn't want me to have the toy, for whatever reason. If I kept nagging her she would get mad, not just give in and buy it for me. I think that if a parent can show their child that they wont always get what they want, the corporations marketing strategy wont have a negative effect on children.


I think it is a smart way of getting kids excited about their product and getting them to think they have to have it. However, I think it ultimately will be the parents jobs to make sure they can get them to begin to understand that they actually don't need the toy, they want it, and that there is a difference. They may not understand at young ages, but as they get older, they will ultimately learn a good lesson. I think that this strategy of marketing is ethical and has no real potential to harm the kids in any way.

Parental Control

There are so many ways that allow parents to keep an eye on what their kids are doing online and what they watch on TV. They can block channels, monitor key strokes, and install gps chips in their cell phones. I think that some of the ways that allow parents to monitor their kids is a violation of their privacy. Many would argue that its for their safety and the parent just wants to protect their child. However, with software enabling parents to read their child's emails, MySpace messages and text messages is taking it a step too far. I do agree with a parents need to block certain channels on the television or putting a parental control on the internet so their kids don't have access to adult websites, however when your reading a private conversation, it isn't right. If their kid is old enough to have their own cell phone, MySpace account, or email account, their parents shouldn't be secretly reading their messages. If their parents are so concerned about online predators or any danger to their child, they should set household rules such as no computer in their room or limited computer time so that they can monitor their children in a more respectful way.
Is it right for parents to monitor their kids secretly?

Bad Fan Base

On Saturday, I went to the Northwestern Vs. Michigan State basketball game. It was held at our own stadium, however, with all the Michigan fans and their support, it sounded like we were at their gym. It always suprises me at the lack of support our team gets at each game. Compare us to any other big ten fan base and we look like we don't even care wheather they win or lose. The overwhelming support that teams like U of I recive helps their team get pumped up and energized to win games against difficult teams. The energy our team had trying to play Michican State was depressing. We lost so horribly in our own court and i feel we could have plaed better if our fans were on their feet supporting the team. The few NU fans that do cheer were drowned out by the insessent clapping and cheering lead by Michigan fans.
Why is it that we can't seem to get a good enough fan base? Why is it that the season ticket holders rarley come to the games let alone cheer for the team?

Las Vegas: Suicide City?

I always knew that the environment you grow up in can mold you into the person you are. I think it is so interesting to think that if I had grown up and lived with my family in another town, I could potentially have been much different than the person I am today. When I began researching the topic, I found some startling information.

Where you live effects your mood directly. According to a study by Temple University, people who live in Las Vegas, Nevada have a significantly higher suicide rate than other cities. Their suicide rates are twice as high as the rest of the country. About one person per day commits suicide in Las Vegas (NPR). Plus, "people who die while visiting Las Vegas are twice as likely to die by suicide versus those who die traveling someplace else" (AOL Heath). The University's study suggested that the environment in Las Vegas could be 'suicidogenic' which means "unknown aspect of the urban lifestyle promotes suicide" (AOL Heath).

I wonder why people are at such a higher risk of committing suicide just based on where they are. Could it be that Las Vegas attracts those types of people or does the city's environment cause these high rates of suicide?