Blahk Boi

Richard Wright's younger self has an intense hunger because of his lack of knowledge and desire to learn. Wright continuously expresses himself in negative ways, but not because he is trying to be a bad person. It is because Wright is trying to learn about things and he has no other way to discover the world around him but to "set the curtains on fire just to see what would happen." Richard is obviously a very intellectual individual, and it is very sad that such an early age, he has no other way to represent his thirst for knowledge, and one can hardly blame him for the circumstances he is.

Uhgehnst Skewel

In his writing, Mr Gatto has put his trust in American parents to raise their children out of childhood faster than "the man", aka the public schools of America, want the children to. However, in making this point, Mr Gatto has missed one important fact. One of the biggest flaws of public schooling is not the schools themselves, but the parents of the children that attend the schools. There are a plethora of parents in the United States that are very poor parents. They don't care about their child's schooling. They don't care about advancing the child academically or emotionally in any way. In general they just don't care. If the mandatory chunk of the weekday set out for "school" for these children was taken away, where would THEIR development and education come from? Who would be there to make the children "grow up", like Mr Gatto repeatedly says the school system fails to do. I am not questioning the fact that there are flaws in the current school system, but what other options do we really have at this point?

Nahnakidehmik Ehjookayshun

In all honesty, I find the nonacademic portion of my education to be much more important than the academic portion purely because of my personal goals in life. I'm not incredibly ambitious as far as money or real estate go; I could live with a 1 room apartment with a Directv HD hookup and Tivo, so receiving a prestigious degree is not a necesity (although getting one sure wouldn't hurt). However, I value both my social skills and general life skills to a great degree, and these are greatly affected by my nonacademic education. I do believe though that the two are somewhat intertwined, because social skills and peer relations are very important in the classroom. I think AP English is an excellent example of a class where if you don't know how to interact with peers or teachers, the experience of the class will be less powerful and meaningful. I for one would enjoy the class much less if I was unable to effectively speak my mind and ask questions. Because of my nonacademic education, my experience in academic education has improved, and this is why I value the nonacademic portion so highly.

Pyksher Prehzehntayshuns

Two particular advertisement segments presented while I was in class on Wednesday were ads that Marcus presented from his favorite magazines. I thought this was a very unique and cool way to look at advertising, as nobody else in the class (to my knowledge at least) used magazines to find examples of rhetoric within advertising. I especially found Marcus' work impressive due to the subject matter. I know nothing about "Not Your Daughter's Jeans" or what they stand for in American culture, but Marcus seemed to know his material very well, almost as if he were a consumer of such jeans. Once again I was very impressed with his work on the magazine articles and hope to see more fantastic work from him in the future.

Ingeighgyng the Tekst

I find the term mass media to be very interesting in that I don't believe that there should be a media for an entire mass of people. What I like about our society is that there are so many different media outlets that an individual can pick and choose what he or she wants to believe or listen to. Therefore I really don't like the use of the blanket word "media" to describe all forms of sources of information and entertainment. Are there parts of media that distort our "perceptions of social inequality"? Of course. However, there are parts of media that enhance our perceptions and help shape our opinions positively. There are extremes on both ends of everything, and generalizations of "the media" don't do anybody any good. As far as credit card debt, "the media" encourages consumers to spend money. Period. Of course there are specific ads that require a credit card for purchase. But nobody, implicitly or explicitly, sits around thinking "Today, I want to put lots of people into massive credit card debt." That's absolutely ludicrous. The general public needs to grow up and realize that "the media" isn't out to get them, it just doesn't care.

I hart Dyzknee

Gitlin makes the point that the real responsibility of the exporting of American culture lies not on American imperialism, which he believes is the easy scapegoat, but in the demand for flash good times from other countries. He believes that the melting pot of cultures that is America has a strong multicultural appeal as well, with flashy action that at some points doesn't even require fluent English to understand. I agree with Gitlin in that there is a major demand across the globe for American merchandise, movies, and celebrity news more than any other country and that it is the main driving force behind culture change throughout the world. But one thing I noticed about Gitlin's writing is that he seemed to be attempting to diagnose a problem with his writing, as if dying world cultures were his patients and American culture was a kind of infectious disease. I find the expansion of American culture to be a positive. I think it proves there is common ground between all nations and that the people of planet Earth really aren't all that different from each other. Maybe this is at the expense of sectional individuality throughout the world, but I am not in any way upset by the global culture trend of the age.

Mahrfa Stooourt

In looking for a present day comparison to what Martha Stewart was at the time the article by Margaret Talbot was written, Oprah Winfrey would be an obvious choice because of her wide and powerful influence of her audience with her book club, radio station, and all of the other amenities that come with Oprah. However, Paula Deen comes to mind as another excellent example of televisoin power, and she also directly relates to Martha Stewart through her work in revolutionizing the culinary industry. Deen's story of overcoming her agoraphobia and panic attacks is inspirational, and although her work and audience are on a slightly smaller scale than Martha's, Paula still has a great deal of sway with her food-loving audience members. Her Southern charm and easygoing nature make her very attractive to viewers and give her a somewhat trustworthy aura, something that anyone wishing to gain power needs to have. Not only is she my favorite chef, she's also the one celebrity I feel like if I ever had a problem, she would listen to me and help me through the tough times. XOXO Paula

Kihlborn

Kilbourne's hypothesis is that portraying men and women as sex objects in advertising is dangerous because it both consciously and subconsiously degrades members of our society. She also believes that the degrading of the women in society is more concerning than men because woman are already treated as a lesser class than men in that their role in society is stereotyped even outside of the media as a lowly housewife working at menial tasks as the man goes out into the world to bring home the bacon. Although I agree that to a certain extent these commercials have a degrading effect on people, especially those who struggle with self-esteem issues and are not confident in their appearance or actions, I find Kilbourne's point about the status of women clearly shows the bias she has on the subject. Kilbourne was recognized one of the greatest Feminists who Changed America from 1963 to 1975 by the Veteran Feminists of America, and I believe her feminist values led to her alleging a more painful situation for women.