Making a Blog Work

        Creating a blog is not that difficult. I was surprised at how simple it really was. Compared to last semester, where the blog was made up of just posts, this blog was much more interesting to work on. Having the visuals was great. Wallpaper, images, and font were nice to design and change. This blog took a lot of creativity, time, and effort. Following the directions from the handout made creating this blog very straight forward. One thing that was different from last semester was the fact that this blog could be viewed by anyone with an Internet connection, which was not possible before. This particular aspect really made me think about my audience. Scanning in pictures from the book and downloading them from the camera proved to be challenging, and definitely took several tries before it actually worked. Making the posts themselves was the most time consuming aspect, otherwise everything else was artistic inclination and technical work.

Media's Effect on Me

      

         Media influences me a lot on a day to day basis. In the modern day and age it would be difficult to get away from computers, phones, televisions, and other electronics. A type of media that is pretty addictive nowadays is the television. A lot of people watch it probably just for entertainment. Not all TV is necessarily negative because some of it can be educational. By far the most popular gadget out there is the computer. No one can go around without seeing it being used at the cafe or the library. Overall I think that the computer is positive because it is like the television, the phone, and Wal-Mart all rolled into one. Telephones can be useful, but mostly I think that they are used for entertainment. Technology is commonplace almost everywhere, and I think that it can make life easier when it comes to studying or socializing. However, there is a negative aspect to always using technology because it can make people rely on their gadgets and stop using other sources of information. Books and face-to-face interaction no longer seem as prevalent as they used to be. The reason why I made this post was to show that technology plays a big role in people's lives, and that it can be close to impossible to avoid.

How Diverse Are We?

       In the essay "People Like Us," David Brooks talks about how American society is not as diverse as people think it is. He states that people like to associate with others that are similar to them, which makes them exclude people that have differences. I agree because a billionaire would never befriend a homeless person, or a school teacher would never live next to a drug lord. It would just be weird and make life more complicated. The most powerful class system out there is based on money. It is never too difficult to tell social classes apart because of the clothes people wear and the neighborhoods that they live in. Sure it makes life easier to associate with people that share their interests because it can be less aggravating. I agree with the ending of the essay that states that new experiences can be beneficial in some ways.

A Different Perspective

      

This cartoon is not particularly funny, but it does express how many people feel about immigration in America. Being an immigrant myself I cannot say that I am against immigration. It seems that this cartoon was targeted towards people that were actually born here. One thing that is good about people moving to America from other countries is the fact that a lot of them are actually really smart and want to live here because they are able to get higher paying jobs. This is not always the case, but look at Albert Einstein and Arnold Schwarzenegger, they are immigrants but they also have achieved a lot while living in America. It looks like the people in this cartoon worry about immigrant's effect on America's economy. This really sounds like they are just trying to find a scapegoat to blame for every one's problems. Compared to Europe, which is where I am from, America sure has a lot more immigrants living here. In Europe it is sort of the opposite because everyone puts a lot of stock into their family trees and ethnicity. Overall I think that immigration is always going to be a big aspect of America, but it is up to the government and not the immigrants to find ways to regulate it.

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Generation M Squared

     

       The film about Generation M Squared pretty much proved to me what I already knew: that teens like technology and are always using it. I thought that it was interesting how these teens socialize via their phones and computers, which can sometimes feel as if they are not present but are somewhere else. One of the teens said that once she got a new cell phone her grades got worse, and another admitted that he stayed in his room and played video games a lot. I can understand that technology is fun, but I think that it is important not to overuse it. While watching the film I was surprised that they could actually text, be on the computer, and play video games all at the same time. I also use technology a lot, but probably not as much as the kids shown on the video because I do not text, or use Facebook all that much. The computer is great, though, and it is amazing that I can listen to music, play games, and look up information whenever I want with a click of a button. Like the teens shown in the video I also like to watch TV, and DVR is awesome because it allows me to skip any commercials. I am neither a technology junky nor a Luddite, although there is a lot more pressure to be the former because it is more popular these days.

Growing Up With Bees

         The book that I chose to review is called The Secret Life of Bees. It was written by Sue Monk Kidd in 2002. This book's publisher is the Penguin Group. I picked this book because it was an interesting read, and it brought up a lot of important issues. What interested me about this book was the fact that it took place in a different time and place, which is South Carolina in the 1960’s. This book is a work of fiction. The most significant theme of this book is racism. It is important because it shows what it was like to be black and live in the south back in the 60’s. Some parts of this book were not exactly pleasant to read about, so it is not for those that are light at heart. Otherwise this book has a lot of well written details that make it sound realistic. This book’s voice comes from the first person, who is a teenage girl named Lily. This probably suggests that this is a coming of age story, which it is. The main character changes a lot as the book progresses, and all of this happens during the summer break between middle school and high school. This book focuses a lot on the social interactions between Lily and the people that take her in, so there is a lot of dialogue to be found here.

         Some of what I really liked about this book was the ways that the main character's surroundings and  especially nature were described. A good example of the way that the main character describes her setting is shown in the following quote, “The inside of the honey house was one big room filled with strange honey-making machines – big tanks, gas burners, troughs, levers, white boxes, and racks piled with waxy honeycombs” (Kidd 75). This book talks a lot about bees and honey, as the title might suggest. When the story does mention beekeeping it does get technical, sort of like a science textbook can be.  I do recommend this book because overall I liked reading it. It was refreshing, interesting, and engaging. There is a movie out there that is based on this book, but to tell the truth I found the book more worthwhile because it was less condensed and more realistic.

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Cartoons, Essays, and More Cartoons

            The adjacent cartoon that I found in the Contemporary Reader shows the concept of one bookstore having two different areas in it. In part of the bookstore people swarm around celebrity bios instead of going into the more complicated matters of literature. This cartoon is suggesting that people are becoming less interested in knowledge, and more obsessed with celebrity news. Chapter 5 is just about that, only it focuses more on how anyone can be a celebrity with the help of social media. Chapter 5 critically analyzes what it means to be famous, especially if that famous person is someone like Kim Kardashian or Nicole Richie. 

          In Roger Ebert's essay "Death to Film Critics! Hail to the CelebCults!" the theme is pretty much the same as in the cartoon. Both of these works antagonize people's desire to be influenced by their celebrity heroes to the point of no return. The message of this cartoon is that the general public should become more cultured. Ebert's message is similar because he wants people to be honest and not be influenced by celebrity gossip. I find the cartoon to be more effective because it gets the point across in a clearer, more understandable manner. I agree with what both of these works are saying. Although I find celebrity news entertaining, I think that they are not as necessary or useful as literature and science can be to the human mind. For example, I think that the knowledge of classical literature is more important than knowing who Justin Bieber is dating at the moment because this type of information only leads onto more gossip.

           The following cartoon, which is also from the Contemporary Reader, is hilarious but also brings up a good point. American families nowadays are getting divorced more frequently than Henry VIII would recommend. It is no wonder that the mother in this cartoon is not sure of who that kid at "the end is." Chapter 9 is also all about modern families. It talks about divorce, single parents, and how families are different now than they used to be.     

        The message of the cartoon seems to be that it can be negative for people to divorce, especially if it leads to parents being confused about their family structure. In an essay from Chapter 9 titled "For Better, For Worse," Stephanie Coontz also talks about divorce, but here her message is that divorce is pretty much unavoidable in some cases. Once again I prefer the format of the cartoon vs. the essay because it gets to the heart of the issue while still remaining humorous. This probably sounds archaic, but I would say that for the most part I dislike the idea of divorce because it breaks up families and it can make life more complicated.

       

         For my miscellaneous cartoon I chose the following one because I was truly impressed by the lawyer's accountability. It sounds like John McWit gave up on marriage after seeing firsthand how frequently it ends up in divorce. This cartoon expresses some people's desire to get divorced, as shown by the couple looking up at the lawyer's building sign. Perhaps the message of this cartoon is that it is easier to stay unmarried like the lawyer is. I think this cartoon really highlights this contemporary issue, and connects well into the subject discussed in Chapter 9. I found this cartoon on McHumor.com. 

Works Cited

Coontz, Stephanie. "For Better, For Worse." The Contemporary Reader. 10th Ed. Ed. Gary Goshgarian. Boston: Pearson, 2011. 496-99. Print.

Ebert, Roger. "Death to Film Critics! Hail to the CelebCult!" The Contemporary Reader.
10th Ed. Ed. Gary Goshgarian. Boston: Pearson, 2011. 252- 55. Print.

Goddard. "Public Library." Cartoon. The Contemporary Reader 10th Ed. 2011: 256. Print.

McCracken, T. "John McWit: Divorce Lawey and Celibate." Cartoon. Divorce Lawyer Cartoons. McHumor. Web. 15 Nov. 2011.

Robertson, Royston. "Perspectives: The New American Family." Cartoon. The Contemporary Reader. 10th Ed. 2011: 480. Print.