Justice ~ February 19,2010

At first glance this article is appalling to those reading or hearing it for the first. However to make a true unbiased judgment against one party, you have to know the circumstances surrounding the events that happened. The police officer could have seen something that he wanted to take care of and did not politely ask the three women to move. Sometimes people just want attention so they make a story out of nothing. Also how likely is it that the police officer knew that they were talking about funeral plans for their mutual friend? I do not know about you but I do not listen to conversations between the people walking in front of me on the way to class or any where else I happen to be going. People should get both sides of the story before making an opinion to which side they will take. If the police officer was wrong in his arresting, he will be correctly punished by the police force for his actions, however if he did have a right, the general public will never hear that the woman was wrong. If the tables were turned though, the public will hear about how the police was so prejudice and wrong in their actions and there will definitely be a court case to follow.
However, if this story is true and really did happen the way that these women portrayed it, it was wrong of the police officer. Discrimination of black, white, man, or woman needs to stop. Sometimes people do commit acts against other people just because of their sex or race. However, if you do not let it get to you or you stop looking for them, you will not be so offended all the time. People have to stop looking for arguments sometimes and just need to let things not bother them so much.


That's all for now!
~Ali

American Standard ~February 17,2010

I am writing on the Jay-Z song “On to the Next one”. This song really made me start to think about what kind of message this would send to other people who do not live in America, about the life style American s portray on a day to day basis. In this song, Jay-Z keeps telling his audience that he is on to bigger and better things each time something else comes along that is better than what he has. “Now double your money and make a stack”, in this line, he is not satisfied with the amount that he has. He has to go and double it to even think about making him happy with what he has. Then when he says “Niggas want my old shit, buy my old album, Niggas stuck on stupid, I gotta keep it movin’”. In saying that, he suggests that people are stuck on the old and that he wants them to experience the new and that if you do not then you are stupid. Then in the next line he says that other people make the same kind of stuff but he makes the blueprint of what every one else is making. The blueprint suggests that he is the original in music and no one could be newer than him. In a following line he states “ Came in the Range, hopped out that Lexus”, this makes the listener understand that he traded in his Range rover for something bigger and better and that is his Lexus. After that, he dises the Jonas Brothers saying that they are not grown up. Also makes fun of them because they are publicly virgins’ still, I think that is something to brag about personally. In his video, he has the latest and prettiest girl dancing behind him and the most up to date watch on his wrist. Also he brags about the people he knows and how he can get in touch with them any time he wants to.

That's all for now!

~Ali

Red neck woman ~ February 15, 2010

I chose to write on Gretchen Wilson’s song/ video of Redneck Woman. This song is interesting to me because I like the way she describes every stereotype of what a red neck woman are supposed to have and in some ways prove that “red neck” women really do not care what other people think about their life style. The video is a great representation for the words in the song because it starts out with her riding around on a 4 wheeler getting all muddy, which is something that a “classy” woman would not do. This is a great representation of the lyrics being sung because it is telling the audience how she really feels along with the visual of what is generally not expected from a woman. Also she uses footage of her driving a big pick-up truck and her going “muddin” with other red neck types of people. Lots of people perceive red neck women to be pregnant or with lots of children running at their feet in a trailer park. Gretchen is trying to tell people to think past that stereotype and say that she does not need fancy designer clothes to make her feel special or to make her man love her like other “classy” people. Another thing about her visual argument is when she is singing in the bar to all her “red neck sisters”. This adds to her visual argument because “classy” women usually do not step foot in a bar so this is where she chose to shoot the video. In her song some of the lyrics are that she prefers beer over wine, she can get the same stuff as any other person at Wal-mart for cheaper, and that she isn’t some prissy doll. These descriptions tend to make up a “red neck woman” but Gretchen is just telling her listeners that she is just as much a woman than someone who does the opposite as her.

That's all for now!
~Ali

David Bowie's argument ~ February 10,2010

I will be analyzing David Bowie’s video of Moonage Daydream. This particular clip was from Bowie’s farewell concert thus he is trying to remind the audience what they were going to be missing. This particular clip is an oral argument because of the lyrics he used in his songs. He said “Keep your mouth shut, you're squawking like a pink monkey bird And I'm busting up my brains for the words. Keep your 'lectric eye on me babe Put your ray gun to my head
Press your space face close to mine, love.” In his lyrics, he tries to get the woman to run away with him to a moonage daydream in which he is trying to come up with the words to tell the woman.
Also when scanning the crowd, you can tell that the fans are obviously upset that this is his final show. You see women crying and holding on to each other to try and comfort one another through this last show. Also you can see that the band is really trying hard and pouring their all into the last performance. The main singer is really trying to connect to his audience by singing directly to them and also my closing his eyes and meditating on the words. By closing his eyes, the artist is really focusing on trying to get the audience to feel the emotions he is putting into the song.
Finally, another visual argument that this artist is making during his final concert is his appearance. He has a big flowing shirt with no pants and long boots. The shirt could represent a kind of clothing that a person could slip into a day dream in. His hair is also kind of a mess and not really tamed. This hair style could represent that he just woke up from his “moonage daydream” or that he really just doesn’t care about his hair.

That's all for now!

~Ali

Op/Ed article ~February 12,2010

I chose to write on the article entitled “Principal forbids 5th grader to wear Obama shirt to school” off of the WISTV web site. The article is about a school in Sumter South Carolina that forbid its’ students to wear political paraphernalia to school until the president Obama was sworn in.
There has been a lot of debate surrounding this decision. One of the arguments was that they were not allowed to wear those t- shirts and other paraphernalia because the president is black and therefore the people in the state of South Carolina are racist because they do not want black people to rub it in that they have a black person in office. Another argument is that if the fifth grader did wear that shirt to school that he would have been expelled and people didn’t see why he would have been punished for just wearing a shirt.
This is where I start to get an opinion because of my future career. In Elementary school, when something happens or if they don’t want something to happen, the staff of the school is really good at notifying parents of these happenings. With proper warning from the school of what will happen if you do something against their will, and the student still decides to do it, I believe that the student and the parents have full responsibility to accept all punishment. The argument was that he was just in fifth grade and he didn’t know any better. Last time I checked, children learned how to read in kindergarten and sometimes even before then. Therefore the student should have been able to read the notification sent home and also been able to comprehend that it was against the rules for him to wear such a t- shirt.


That's all for now!
~Ali

Wanting what we can not have ~ February 8, 2010

Isn’t it funny that we humans, especially Americans, always wish for things that we don’t have right at that moment? Americans have always had the worst case of the stuff wanting. Back in the sixties we had to be the first to the moon and claim it as ours. Given that we were scared that other counties were going to put satellites into the sky so that they can spy on us. Even currently if we see a new version of a cell phone or a play station game, we have to run right out to the store and snatch it up real fast so we can have the best of the best all the time.
I caught myself just today wishing that it was spring or summer again just because I missed the nice warm weather. However when it is spring or summer experiencing the hottest pits of the seasons, we wish that it was winter or fall again just so we can cool off. We constantly wish for something we can not have, be it materialistic or emotionally.
Another example of wanting something we can not have is on an emotional level. For example, my best friend has this guy constantly around her asking her out, telling her that he loves her and that she is beautiful. He asked her out probably around 5 times and on the fifth time, she told him to go find someone else to date. So he took her advice and is now in a relationship with another girl. However since he does not pay attention to my friend anymore, she misses it and wants him to tell her how beautiful she is, but he does not! When trying to get someone to notice you, always play hard to get because if you give up too easily, you are not worth the chase and they will be board.

That's all for now!
~Ali

Visual Argument~ February 3, 2010

My favorite visual artwork is one with a road that doesn’t go straight but all different directions then after all the loops, it straightens back out again. I feel that this visual artwork makes the claim that though the path may seem unclear at the beginning; you are always going to get back on track to where you are supposed to be going. This is a claim that can be connected to life in general, relationships, school, or even work no matter the age of the person viewing it.
I enjoy this particular piece of visual art because it reminds me of my own life sometimes. Just when it seems like I am making all the right decisions that I need to get to my ultimate goals, my like decides to throw me a curve ball. For example, just when I thought that I had found the absolute love of my life and decided to make things official, he started doing drugs and hid it from me. My life was going to be great! He was from a well respected family and he showed me that he loved me in ways that I knew that it was true. Then after 2 years of dating, he told me that he had been doing drugs for 6 months and he was hiding it from me. Life threw me a curve ball so I decided to throw one back. I chose to break up with him and start over when I got to college and so far, I’m doing great!
I think that this visual argument is important because it shows that people can go a lot of different ways but then again find their way to the right path they were intended to go down. People from different ages, backgrounds, and cultures can all relate to this picture because everyone has taken a wrong turn at one point in their life and now they are on the right path one more.

Here is my pic

That's all for now!
~Ali

"Don't ask, Don't tell" ~February 5, 2010

I chose to write on the article “A Smoke the Bigots Out of the Closet” by Frank Rich in the Ney York Times opinion section. In this article, the author made it very clear of who really supported the men of the military no matter what it was made of. He reported that John McCain spoke out against the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy in the military. This made the republican side of the government look like they were against open gay and lesbian people into the military, when in fact it does quite the opposite.
The “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was implemented when Bill Clinton was elected after assuring the American people that the acts of harm against gay and lesbian men and women in the military. The case that Bill Clinton cited when campaigning the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy was that of U.S. Navy Radioman third class Schindler and shipmate Terry M. Helvey. This case was when Schindler beat and killed Shipmate Terry M. Helvey to the point that the corpse was not even recognizable. After implementing the policy, these acts of violence taking place in the military had a distinct punishment for this discriminatory act of violence.
.Some people are against repealing this policy because they feel that a person should be who they are without having to hide who they really are. Repealing this policy would mean that these acts of violence would not be as harshly punishable for the person who committed that crime. If people knew that these men and women who are openly gay or lesbian were gay, then that would open up so much more violence towards these men and women who are protecting our country. So if they are protecting us, why can’t we stand up and protect them?

That's all for now!
~Ali

link

Guido Lifestyle~ February 1, 2010

In both the show and the article, there is a certain stereotype in which Italian males and females try and squeeze themselves into. The males decide that having extremely tight shirts, muscular abs and enough hair gel in their hair to make all the children’s hair in America act right, makes them look like a Guido. Now Guidetts are a whole other species in themselves. These girls, from “Italian Decent”, walk around in tight clothes that make their fat stick out on their bodies, lots of lip gloss, hair as big as a mountain, and heels tall enough that if she accidently fell, she would twist her ankle. Appearance is key in a Guido world. If you don’t have the look, you do not have the right to call yourself a Guido. Also another similarity is that they both live on the Jersey Shore in beach houses. This gives them access to all the night life on the shore including night clubs, bars, and the beach. The way that they let others know about their house is also similar. In pumping the music up really loud and standing on the roof deck and yelling at “hot catches” from above. One more thing that makes the show and the article the same in Guido aspects is the fact that they all they really want to do is get drunk. Their life revolves around getting money for alcohol, spending the money on alcohol, and consuming the alcohol. Nothing else matters other than those few steps to getting drunk. Going to clubs, working , and getting chick all have something or another to do with their life’s goal, getting drunk.
In the article we read, the main difference from the TV show is that there are no girls living in the house, besides Moo’s girl, so there are no ugly cat fights over jealous house mates and slutty girls.

That's all for now!
~Ali

Sex Ed ~ January 29,2010

Sex protection or abstinence? This has been the question for teachers and parents alike who have to teach kids about sex. Parents often choose the abstinence choice because they do not want to become a grandparent at a young age. However everyone knows how teenage hormones tend to take control of their minds and make bad decisions for them. In the New York times opinion column, “Sex Ed in Washington” by Ross Douthat was written to raise the awareness of how the politicians in Washington plan to deal with this debate.
Blaming Bush, yet again, for the rise in teenage pregnancies, politicians believe that since Bush stressed the abstinence approach of birth control, more teenagers were not educated about “safe sex” and thus became pregnant. I don’t think that this problem is because of Bush. As it said in the article kids make their decisions based upon who they hang out with, what morals their parents taught them, and what kind of morals the kids themselves have.
In the topic of what we should teach our kids in school, I think we should teach both abstinence and protected sex. I was taught from a very young age that abstinence is the best choice because you don’t have to even think about becoming pregnant, unless your name is Mary and you have a baby because of Immaculate Conception. Kids should be taught with the emphasis on abstinence, but because kids do what they want when they want, they should also be taught on how to avoid becoming pregnant. I don’t believe there is such thing as “safe sex” but there are ways to increase your chances of not becoming pregnant. Also, when a girl does become pregnant, she has to know what to do and how to tell when she does become pregnant.

That's all for now!
~Ali

Campaign Financeing~ January 27,2010

With the ability to give huge financial donations, big corporations will have power over politicians. Giving money, especially large amounts of money, to any one person always blurs the line of if it should be considered bribery or not.
In the case of what happened in Florida, I can see what the bail makers were trying to do, save their own pay check; however, making a bigger pay check for yourself does not help any one else. If it saves the county or state large amounts of money and if it keeps prisoners a second chance to prove themselves, I think that they should think about the positive sides rather than just being self centered and think just about you and what this decision is for you.
When running a campaign for a political position, or any other position for that matter, you have to be very careful of things people are willing to give you and why. Normally people would jump at the chance to just accept a large amount of money; however, you have to think of the repercussions that accepting the money might bring along. If you do decide to accept the money, you have to see what the person or the company is associated with because what they are associated with, you magically become associated with. Also you have to read between the lines and see what they really want you to do. No person is going to do something for you without expecting something in return, it’s human nature. Why scratch someone else’s back if they won’t scratch yours? Finally before accepting money from an organization or a person, you have to be willing to do something for them. Being nice is all fine and dandy, but in order to keep the relationship on the right track to have to give a little to get a little.


That's all for now!
~Ali