U Down wit O-O-P?

What a way for the author to redeem himself with chapter five! I do not know what happened with chapter four with all the numbers and things, but I guess he too saw it was not his greatest chapter and reverted back to his old self.

I definitely enjoyed reading this chapter and could relate to it...not because I am a parent, but because I am a child of an obsessive parent...my DAD...and it seems like it is only getting worse over the years. Everything he hears on television, he wants me to do. They could say "studies found that taking five vitamins a day is good for your health," he wants me to take vitamins everyday, or that "drinking 10 cups of eggs will build strong bones and character," and guess what - he wants me to drink the eggs too (:()...I say that now, at the age that I am, where I am not as helpless as a newborn, my dad is doing it more out of love than fear...and I guess I am alright with that....

But aside from my personal life and back to the chapter...What Makes a Perfect Parent? I read some really interesting things...especially about being bad assessors of hazards....i believe the correct term was terrible risk assessors....and they gave an example about 8 year old Molly's parents not wanting her to go to one friend's house because their parent owned a gun but would let her go to another friend's house who had a swimming pool. This became interesting once they gave the statistics:

In a given year, there is one drowning of a child for every 11,000 residential pools in the United States. In a country with 6 million pools, roughly 550 children under the age of ten drown each year. Meanwhile, there is 1 child killed by a gun for every 1 million plus guns. In a country with an estimated 200 million guns, this means that roughly 175 children under ten die each year from guns. The likelihood of death by pool (1 in 11,000) versus death by gun (1 in 1 million-plus) isn't even close: [Therefore] Molly is more likely to die in a swimming accident than in gun-play, yet her parents would rather her at the friend's house with the swimming pool then with the gun!

TBC...

Q: Where Have All The Criminals Gone? A: The Clinic Trash Can.

For some reason, I just could not get into this chapter, Where Have All The Criminals Gone? which explains such the long delay in my blogging. I don't know, maybe it was because I'm not feeling well...um...no...uh it is definitely because the author for some reason decided to change lanes from his typical, laid back, easy to listen to self, into someone extremely technical, who wanted to throw a whole bunch of numbers and statistics at me that I could not comprehend. Okay so the comprehension wasn't that bad, but I was not used to this coming from him, so it was hard to stay focused on what he was trying to tell me. I mean one minute he was talking about increase number of police on the street, and a whole bunch of figures, then he jumped to good policing strategies, then gave me more numbers to think about, and then tougher gun control, I mean he was just all over the place with this one, and all the numbers he was filling my head up with was not making it any easier to follow him.

Fortunately for me, well him, I was able to stay attentive long enough to catch the beginnings and endings of what he was saying, to get the gist of what the chapter was about, and the purpose of it all. Abortion (in theory) had a significant impact on the rate at which the number of crimes had fallen in the United States. He said, when abortion was made legal after Roe. v Wade, the women who did not want children were able to receive abortions therefore not bringing a child into the world where they would be forced to grow up miserable due to having to live with a mother who resented them. In turn, no child had to grow up unwanted, poor, and struggling, which are the main ingredients for future criminals, which is why crime fell. With him, on this, I concur. Look at Romania, when Nicolae Ceausescu banned abortion to increase the population of Romania. Women were forced to have children that they did not want, and the children grew up living miserable, criminal lives. These children who were born after the ban, hated Ceausescu, and when Ceausescu met his violent death, a great part of it was because of the youth who wanted him dead, a great number or whom, were it not for his abortion ban, would never have been born at all.

[To go off topic a little bit, I just want to say that I was completely shocked about the Menstrual Police and the "celibacy tax"! The first thing that came to mind when I read that was WOW, what an invasion of privacy.]

But back to abortion = dropping crime rates, I think it's mere coincidence that when abortion was legalized, crime fell. I think with a little less numbers in the other parts of the chapter and more statistics about abortion and how it helped crime to fall would have made this theory a lot more concrete.

All in all, the read was a little dry, but he did an excellent job of tying the beginnings and ends of the chapter together. I just have one question though. He said that abortion [again in theory] helped crime to fall significantly, but did it really, because isn't ABORTION NOT A CRIME IN ITSELF??? [I mean it's just a question.]

Toy Soldiers

WOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW........all i could say is WOOOOOWWWWWWW! Foot soldiers...the ones that do the actual corner selling and killing and the risking of their lives (which life is priceless to begin with) only makes as little as three dollars and thirty cent an hour......WAYYY, WAYYY LESS THEN MINIMUM WAGE! I mean why not get a job at Wendys or McDonalds to get at least $7.25 an hour and won't have to worry about looking over your shoulder every five minutes in fear of someone coming to take your life for your "drug" territory or the cops to come and lock you up for most of your life on drug charges (:().

It's sad that they get paid that much but the ones at the top who barely does anything but sit back and collect...make the most money. Its also sad that they are recruiting teens so young to come and risk their lives for such a life style. Especially for J.T. who was a college graduate himself. I mean even though he live the life style that he does, he should have at least tried to stair the younger ones in the right direction...give them a better chance at life...and opportunity, you know tell them to go to college, as he had done, and make something of themselves... (but I guess he thought, if he tell the youngsters to make better choices, and stay away from the drugs, who would distribute his product (:()...sad).

Finally I was most amazed at how they had to pay to be foot soldiers. I mean what would possess any one to think that making three thirty an hour, plus paying to work was a good thing??? I mean the life of a foot soldier was not at all glamorous...I mean, they were posting up in smelly, pissy hallways twenty four hours a day seven days a week, not riding around in fancy cars and big apartments with king sized beds, and silk sheets.

All in all, unfortunately since this survey that Venkatesh conducted nothing has changed in the drug game...the pay may be a little higher, but the foot soldiers, who are actually on the streets, are still making less then the top dealers who just sit back and collect. Hopefully one day this cycle will end! It has too...or else there is no future....(:()!

"Kl"ever "Kl"an of Ameri"KKK"a

Its definitely true what they say, you do learn something new everyday and after reading chapter two of Freakonomics not only did I learn something new but something quite interesting, yet hard to believe at the same time, as well. That interesting something was the original purpose for the forming of the Ku Klux Klan!

It is said that the Klan was started by six young men after the Civil War, simply a circle of like-minded friends. Lie number one. Then it goes on to say that the activities were only to perform harmless midnight pranks - for instance, riding horses through the countryside while draped in white sheets and pillow - case hoods...and the lies just get bigger and more unbelievable from here. For a group that just started out to make prank fun its funny (in the shameful sense of the word funny) how drastically it changed to killing African Americans to keep them oppressed. In my opinion I believe from the very beginning this is what the Klan set out to do.

Something else I found interesting was that the Klan not only terrorized and killed African Americans but Catholics, Jews, communists, unionists, immigrants, agitators, and any other group other than themselves as well...and I thought my ancestors were the only one. = also took an interest to the codes they had as far as the Mr. Ayak (are you a Klansman) and Mr.Akai (a klansman am i)...i thought that was pretty clever on the Klansman part. As far as the graph and its trying to prove that when the Klansman were at its peak number of people and the number of lynching went down, i dont buy it. I say that because the Klan was in cahoots with so many things like the police station, and the court houses, that the lynchings were not being recorded so of course there is no record of them, therefore the number of recorded lynchings are higher when the Klan did not have members in high places.

All in all this chapter really taught me the power of information...i mean it scared even the scariest Klan into quietness and hiding! That is why now I am even more ready to take on this college "thing" gain all the information I can while I am here, that way no one or group will be able to scare me into oppression.

students cheat "TEACHERS CHEAT" numbers don't

First and foremost I must say that I absolutely enjoyed this reading. Not only was it informative but it was interesting as well. The read was so interesting, that I read all 50 pages non-stop. Not once did I have to put the book down to get a cup of juice, nor did I become tired and in desperate need of a 20 minute nap [even after taking a Benadryl – and those usually knock me out]!

Furthermore, it was interesting how the economist study at the daycare [charging $3 for late child pick - up] proved how incentives could provoke individuals to do the WRONG thing. But what I enjoyed most about this reading was the study on the school teachers in Chicago. My first reaction was if the cheating was happening in Chicago, there’s no telling where else it was taking place. I was also interested in if this form of teacher cheating was still taking place today.

I think Bush signing “No Child Left Behind” [the reason for the teachers beginning to cheat in the first place, when test scores became important to their salary and school funding] was the most hurtful gesture he could have made in a child’s education. All “No Child Left Behind” is doing is pushing children through school, giving them promotions to higher grades when clearly they are not ready for the next level. From my own [second hand] experience I know people who are not ready to be in grades that they are in yet the school system continues to push them forward. I mean now, any and everybody can breeze through school, no matter how much, or little, effort they put in [especially in high school]. To me going to high school now is like elementary school, even Pre-School, all over again. I guess this is why now, in this day and age, a high school diploma is no longer able to get you a decent paying job with at least minimum wage pay (:/). But what happens to these students when it is time to go to college because, in my opinion, COLLEGE IS NO BREEZE! And if these students, that are just simply getting pushed along, believe that college is going to be like their previous school days, they are in for a very, very RUDE awakening!

I wish there was something that could be done about this, some way to erase this “No Child Left Behind” act, before more children are affected, like our children, or our children’s children. Because soon, even one college degree will not be enough. One might need two or three degrees to get, at least, a minimum wage paying job. And by keeping this act that Bushed signed, we are only hurting ourselves for this is absolutely no way to prepare our future for the real world that is yet to come!

Just Aint' Right

Yes, yes, yes, the good ol' Double Standard. The things that are good for boys and men, but bad for girls and women. The one that always gets me though is the one about having multiple sex partners. I mean why is it that when males have multiple sex partners, they're considered "The Man," but when girls have just as many, or even less, she is considered a "Ho" and is looked down upon? I mean who made up these rules? Okay, okay, yeah women should not be out here having sex with multiple people all "willy nilly," and we should have respect for our bodies, but shouldn't men hold the same level of respect for their own bodies too? Shouldn't they too save that special moment for the woman whom they choose to marry...? I mean this really does bug me!

Oh yeah and what about the Double Standard that can be found all throughout the work place, any where you go? Say for example when a woman has a good job, and has a good office position in a big firm, etcetara, etcetara, she most likely slept with the boss to get there (:/), but when we are talking about a man, who could have the same exact position, he simply worked hard to get to the position he is in. I mean why did a women have to sleep her way to the top? Not to say that some women dont do it, but not all women find success that way. And its unfortunate that the minority, the women like those that sleep around, give the majority, women that actually move up in the world the right way, a bad reputation. It is so sad that we a generalized, especially because it is based on the negativity of only a handful.

I myself experience a Double Standard to this day. Growing up, my father took care of my uncle, his brother, that was only a few years older than me. And I could remember at 12, 13, 14 my uncle was already basically coming and going as he pleased. He was allowed to date, have his girlfriends over for dinner, and everything else. But me at 18, cant even do that! I can't date, definitely can't have a boy spend the night, not even come over for an hour a two, I mean really I'm almost 19 and I cant even do what a 14 year old boy was doing, at my age (:(). And whats the excuse, "Its not you I dont trust, its them boys out there." I guess so. I just have one word for this "b***s***" okay so I dont want to be that crude so im just going to say "unfair."

But not to say that the Double Standard only has its negative affects on women, because it affects men as well. For example for men certain colors are like forbidden to wear or like automatically they get the "GAY" label. I just think that the Double Standards are more suppressing to women, and is applied more frequently to women. And its a shame that has even reached as far as the work place and the way a womens success is measured. I mean do this mean in the future when I'm successful along with the title of "doctor" i'll have to take the title of "ho" as well? It has to change!

I, Robot Goes to Star Wars

After reading these two excerpts, I'm starting to feel like maybe I'm living a more sheltered life then i think! Okay, so i don't party, dont smoke, dont drink, but geez, I dont go to the movies or watch television either? I mean really does my life revolve around school so much that i dont do simple things like go the the movies once in a while? Out of both essays, I could relate to neither of them! I had no idea what Silverman or Whitney Black was talking about because I haven't seen I, Robot nor have I watched Star Wars, seen the movies, or spent time looking at anything Star Wars related (:().

But there were points that I could relate to in Silverman's excerpt. One was the fact that clumsy elements tend to jump out at me in movies. Especially dialogue that feels staged, or the over exaggeration of action. I can remember watching Tyler Perry's, A Family that Preys, and when actress Sanaa Lathan was slapped, she like fleeewww OVER the counter. All I could think was how corny and unrealistic was that, ain't nobody getting slapped that hard to where they are flying over a counter! I had to turn.

I could also agree with Silverman when he said that "[lately] frigid female professionals are having problems connecting with men [in many roles]. What does this stereotype tell us? That women who are successful in the workplace lead miserable personal lives?" I say yes, I could remember watching Soul Food and the most successful sister, Terry, could not keep a man. First, as the only sister in college, her boyfriend left her and married and had children by her younger sister. Then as a wealthy lawyer, the only one with a career in the family, her husband cheated and slept with her baby cousin! TEAR!

So, I mean, does this mean that to keep a man, I have to be a dropout with babies out of marriage??? So unfair. I think it has something to do with the male ego. The men have to be controlling everything, bringing home the "bacon" all the time, not the women. So that's why I believe that because we sometimes live out lives based on what we see on television and in movies (p.343)[which is a point i agree with as well because i do, especially with Love and Basketball], Hollywood, especially the men in Hollywood is probably hoping that by having all the successful women portrayed as being insufficient with men, women would dumb themselves down and stop being so successful in the real world.

In my opinion LOVE DONT PAY THE BILLS, so im NOT falling for it.

No "w'z" Allowed

After reading the first few paragraphs of Sports Taboo, I thought oh no, another Black Bart essay! How confusing! But after reading more and more of the essay, I was able to find one point I think Malcolm Gladwell made very clear, and that was "black" people are more physically fit for sports than "white" people are. Hopefully that is one idea we were suppose to take from that.

I could also relate to censoring myself. I especially like when she said, "this country does not have a history of showing tolerance toward any racial minority whose members are easy to pick out of a crowd." I don't know why I like this quote so much, I guess it is because she put America on "blast" yet in a classy way. She even gave proof of this by giving us an example of Japanese Americans and Pearl Harbor, which I feel was a very clever way of proving her point and making it a fact, and not just her opinion. But her piece also made me feel guilty for how much I stereotyped all Arabic looking people after 9/11. I remember not wanting to get on subways, or buses, or planes, if I saw an Arabic person was getting on, in fear that it might blow up, and I truly regret it.


But the piece that really kept my attention was the essay entitled Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria, by Beverly Daniel Tatum. In this essay, Ms. Tatum, in my opinion, very vividly explains the stages which lead to the segregation that is seen throughout many middle schools and high schools, no matter where one might happen to look. First, she says, that we began to learn the meaning of racial identity. Becoming more involved with the world outside, and interacting with the world around us, as we approach teenage years, African American children began to absorb the belief and values of the dominant white culture. That's including the idea that its better to be white. Then, she says, we have an encounter, which is our first hand experience of discrimination and/or racism, and this is when I realized that maybe Ms. Tatum really had a valid point with her ideology.

I remember the very first time I came face to face with discrimination at the age of 7. I was in Macy’s, and I can’t remember exactly what I was doing, but I remember that I bumped into a Caucasian boy around my age by accident. Really, it was by accident, but he ran to his mom, who was close by and told her, that I pushed him, as if on purpose. And I remember her saying “don’t stoop to her level; people like her don’t have any home training!”

I didn’t quite understand what that meant at the time, so I didn’t you know run back to my mom about what the women had said, but I remember feeling low, and worthless. But after knowing what I do now, and having this essay bring the memory back, I now see the reason for my feeling of worthlessness. And although not quite the same story, of the white friend who couldn’t relate to her black friend’s story, I remember that I did not want to be around anybody who looked like the boy or his mother who gave me that “low” feeling, so I stayed around people who looked like me. So could this really be true. Are we setting ourselves back to the days of segregation by willingly segregating ourselves because we don’t want to have to face our reality? I can agree with Ms. Tatum on that, but how can we cope, yet at the same time not hurt ourselves by steering clear of the separation that “they” want all along?

@M3R!CAN PI3

After reading chapter four, I feel that instead of dwelling on the immortal issues of racism and skin color differentiation, stereotypes and discrimination, we should come to terms with it for it’s going to always be here. As long as these hate groups are living, and they are instilling in their children these same ideologies, they are going to be here for as long as we are living and many generations after we have passed on.

As Silverman said, “we want to be – and are explicitly trained to be – democratic in the ways we view others, by the way they act toward us, not the way they look. ‘Don’t judge a book by its cover,’ we say, but we are always judging books by their covers, and people by their appearance.” All Asian looking individuals are smart. All African American males, especially the tall ones, are great basketball athletes, and every Mexican person lives in a crowded house while the men work many hours on a construction job, so forth and so on.

I feel it is we, the minorities, ourselves hindering our own success in America, and in the world for that matter, because we keep dwelling on the issues. Yes, it’s here, alive and well, we all know that, but don’t make it an excuse for our failure. My most hated line when something doesn’t go as planned, “it’s the man keeping me down.” I mean who is the man, and why does this one man seem to have control over so many peoples lives? [Sounds like a whole bunch of bull crap to me, for lack of a better word]. We are the man or the woman, controlling our lives, and we need to understand that. We determine how much we succeed or how hard we fall in life, not the system, or anyone else.

We all have access to the same opportunities in this world, we just have to go out and look harder for them, and not sit back expecting for them to simply drop into our laps. I feel anything that’s easy to get is not worth having. We must learn to stand strong, even in the face of defeat, and the first step in doing so is getting over the burdens of racism, stereotypes, discrimination, etc, which is blocking our view of our piece of the American pie. Once it’s in our view, and we keep our eye on the prize, there would be nothing that could hold us back.

"NEWARK JERSEY DRIVE"

FUNNY CLIP FROM MOVIE RELATED TO MY 5 MEDIAS PAPER "NEW JERSEY DRIVE"!!

LIF3 ACCORDING TO TV

In Life According to Television, Harry F. Waters only confirmed what I partially already believed, that televisions hidden victims are women, the elderly, blacks, blue – collar workers, and other groups, for the majority of the time we are negatively portrayed. For example African Americans are almost always the criminals, or drug dealers, and the elderly are always helpless. And sadly because television is watched as often as it is, if we aren’t strong – minded enough, we begin to believe what we see, and ultimately begin to view ourselves as those same images that are portrayed on the television screen.
I was also surprised to learn from reading this text that I am an extra, extra, heavy television viewer. [They say heavy viewers watch more than four hours a day, and I watch twice as much]! I wonder if it’s still possible to take the Annenberg Team survey to see just how much T.V. has altered my acceptance of reality. Hopefully not, I mean television can only have the power over us that we allow it to have, and I can say that I am very much attached with my reality [if that makes any sense].

Finally, not really following the whole article on the Black Bart phenomenon, which I think I have some recollection of, coming across a few of them myself growing up in New York City, I had a better time relating to the article written by, Maribeth Theroux, which talks about MTV’s Sexual Objectification of Girls and Why It Must Be Stopped. Being a very big fan of the reality, dating, MTV, show, NEXT, about a guy getting to go on multiple dates until he found someone he liked, and vise versa, I never realized how demeaning it really was to women, until now. When ever a girl was getting to go on dates with guys, the contestants all had their own unique style, look, and size. As for the women, all of them wore clothes that was covering less skin then was appropriate for television, and for the girls who had any class, leaving their bodies to the man’s imagination, they was yelled, “NEXT,” to before they even got a chance to fully get off of the bus. I mean how sad is that? Is that really the image that the most popular network wants our future girls to live by, that the only way to get any male attention is to let it all hang out? What happen to having dignity, respect for yourself, and maintaining your self worth? Those are the type of messages that they should be teaching us. But I guess if it isn’t negative, sex related, or drama filled, it isn’t worth air - time (:/).

GIRL CONTESTANTS TALK SEXUAL ON MTV's DATING SHOW NEXT

S33IN' THRU MY LENS

If you knew me well, two things you’ll know about me is that I am not very argumentative, nor am I good at proving points. So when Silverman told me the best papers are those which contain an argument I became nervous about my success in English 015. My nervousness was only intensified when he said the best way to come up with an argument is to look through a lens. Not very much into politics I have no social or political approach. I am a female, but I’m beginning to think that maybe the sexism argument is getting old and boring [I could be wrong], and being born in raised in America, I have no cultural view, well I do, but nothing that I can bring to the table that many people don’t already know about the American culture [I could be wrong about this too].

But feeling like I was stuck, with no real sense of direction to a road that would lead to a good paper, I became discouraged. I asked myself, how could I write a paper that people would want to read? What can I say to an audience of many different types of people that would keep them all engaged? And then I stumbled upon the lens of class. Yes, I might have been born in America, but I grew up on a different step of the social ladder then others, I lived a different lifestyle, and was exposed to things different from others, and this makes for a good argument, for I can talk about a lifestyle different from those who, lets say, grew up in an upper class family. And through this lenses I can expose others to a lifestyle they might have knew a little to nothing about, and that makes me feel proud of where I come from because it’s part of what makes me unique.

Silverman has also taught me about a thesis statement. I always thought that for a paper, a topic and thesis was enough, I never knew that a thesis statement, which unpacks and explains the thesis, was essential to the paper as well. And it’s something that I will have to work on.

And finally, I was most surprised at how much we actually PAY for FREE television. For one the television sets we buy, wanting to keep up with the latest fashion flat screen. The cable we pay for monthly or satellites, which total to nearly $1000 dollars a month [yet television is free]. And let me not forget to mention the commercials that are constantly ran [for example ALLSTATE] to entice us to practice our consumer instinct. For all this money for “FREE” television, like Silverman said, were better off going to the library, to check out a FREE book, using our FREE library card…and I agree!

WHAT UH' READING: THE WORLD IS A TXT - CHAPTER 1

Maybe it’s just me, but was reading the introduction to The World is a Text as challenging for you as it was to me for some reason? I'm not sure if it was the television that was on or my sleepiness, but I had to read the chapter 5 or 6 times to get some understanding of what the chapter was about, and yet I still only partially know. I guess it's true what Silverman said, "Only by reading well can you write well," and I'm not that good of a writer (p.11). One concept that did stick out in my mind though was semiotic situations. According to Silverman, these are moments in which we try to make sense of our surroundings or interpret one aspect of our surroundings based on the signs or text of our situations. I do this all the time when I go somewhere foreign, or meet new people, especially when meeting boys, but I never knew the term for it until now. For instance, some of the signs I look for when I “read” people is their wardrobe. If there is a handsome boy, with a nice outfit on from the clothes on their back, to the shoes on their feet, but then they have on big fake chains, and earrings, and watches, I look for the nearest EXIT and head for it, because this tells me that they are trying to set forth an image of themselves that is not true to who they are. In other words, they are as fake as the jewelry they wear.
Another concept that stood out, of all the reading, was the section on font, and how font type can in some ways tell the reader something about the person who wrote it, or who you are as a person. I did not believe this at first until I “read” my own writing. I noticed that everything was neat and in order. All of my T’s were crossed and my I’s were dotted, and this is exactly how I am in life. I love to be neat and precise with everything I do, and I always strive for order in my life. Overall, one concept I know I will need to work on, is turning a “read” of the world into an argument, as in the example of Starbucks. Where I am an “O.K.” reader of my surroundings, I’m not great, so I am hoping with the help of Silverman, Rader, and The World is a Text, I become better at it…but only effort and time will tell...

NAME CALLIN'

So I'm sitting in my last period English class when the teacher asked, "What is the significance of your name?" I mean ::shrug my shoulders:: I don't know. To me, my name sound sooooo made up, there can't be any significance behind it! But I don't have a problem with it because although it's made up, it's not something crazy like Shenaynay or Keylowlow...You know the names from the television show Martin. My name is more unique and the spelling is even better. But anyway I get home and immediately I ask my dad, "where did he come up with a name like mines, like who would think to put together these letters and syllables?" And you know what he tells me - that my name and the spelling was inspired by night and day. "HUNH???" Yeah, I said the same thing - But he tells me that how night and day controls our daily activities, he wants me to have the same control over my own life and the choices I make...
Em...that's kind of deep if you think about it...