Sound and Fury

In the documentary Sound and Fury two families with deaf children try to decide how best to raise there kids. Will the kids be apart of the hearing world with the cochlear implant, or will they continue life with their deafness? It is my firm belief that declining the opportunity to raise your child with the ability to hear is borderline abusive and painfully limiting for the rest of the child's life.

Peter and Nita's decision to keep their child from hearing at a young age absolutely makes me sick. They claim that they want Heather to ultimately be happy, but only if she is happy to be deaf. They deny her the opportunity to choose if she is more happy hearing or not. Maybe deep within Heather there is an intense passion to become a profession that requires verbal communication, but she will never know because she was never implanted. The father Peter even said it himself that even though he has a stable job, he is hugely dependent on hearing people to communicate and that he will probably never move up the ladder of his work.

Chris and Mari on the other hand decided to implant their child. One of the fears of implanting is that the child will lose their deaf heritage. This is the responsibility of the parents that they teach their child about both cultures.

"Blurred Lines" or "Lines Clear"?

       One of the biggest songs from last year was also the most controversial. The song is indisputably catchy, but does "Blurred Lines" really portray a darker connotation of rape like many suggest, or is the hit song's original meaning being separated from what many say promotes sexual violence against women? I disagree with any opinion that this song is "rapey" but rather "Blurred Lines" is simply a great example of how pushing the envelope can lead to financial success.

        It is quite possible that artist Robin Thicke wanted to intentionally use lyrics like "I know you want it" to create a stir among listeners. Trisha Romano of The Daily Beast definitely had a strong reaction to these lyrics. To her, those lines undeniably signify a rapey attitude towards women. However, Jennifer Lai of Slate took the line in a completely different direction. She thought the line merely was a poke at Robin Thicke's cockiness at picking up women. The point is, the meaning is very ambiguous if you listened to just that line. But looking at ALL of the lyrics of the song completely throws the rape theory away. Lai also talks about how Thicke numerous times "puts the ball in her court" with lines like "do you wanna get at me." There is no doubt in my mind that Robin Thicke knew this song would create controversy. In an interview with his manager, Jordan Feldstein states "I knew it would get banned quickly ... Getting something banned actually helps you." Before "Blurred Lines", Robin Thicke had never had a hit single on the radio. After much controversy and bannings of the song and video, you cannot disagree that the song was not a financial and commerical success, the one thing that I think Robin Thicke was going for.

The Great Lawsuit

In this essay, the female author is calling for changes in the law for woman, demanding more protection. She uses a lot of effective arguments within her feelings and opinions. One of my favorite from the essay was when she likened the state of women to slavery. It helps create a cause for women because most people are against slavery so she uses logic to naturally force people to hate the movement against women's rights. She uses logic in another effective argument when she says "But if woman be, indeed, the weaker party, she ought to have legal protection, which would make such oppression impossible." Fuller uses a clever tactic to convince people her view is the best. Most men making laws at the time would agree with her statement that women may be the weaker party, so naturally laws should be made to protect women.

It's such a tragedy that this was published in 1843, yet women didn't get the right to vote until the 20th century. Writing this essay must have come with it's own risks because of the nature of it. This really shows how taboo and groundbreaking this essay was.

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

This article was very interesting in the sense that I could read this and think, "yup, that's me." It seems that the speed we are able to access information now comes with a very high cost - our attention span. The internet has made it so easy for us by letting us read what we want to read, and skipping the parts we don't. This may be OK for casual reading, but when it comes to comprehension and analysis of longer reading the trend is hugely detrimental.

I sometimes wonder how this trend has affected other countries, like countries mentioned in the article that use symbol written systems rather than a traditional alphabet. The author did say that these people are wired differently, and it may not affect them as much. Furthermore, I would like to know if a symbolic system of language overall raises the intelligence of humans because countries like South Korea and Japan are so far ahead of the U.S. when it comes to test scores, or if some other factor contributes to the lack of success in America.

Now, I'm going to try to take it upon myself to watch what reading techniques I'm using when I use the internet.  

The Ethics of Living Jim Crow

This essay was rather hard to read in a couple ways. For one, some of the things this black boy had to experience working in the South were utterly horrendous and degrading. Also, some of the Southern dialects and nuances made me have to re-read lines over because the author really wanted to capture the essence of living in the South, which I think he did a great job at.

I think this essay also does a great job of outlining a lot of irony that went on during the time of Jim Crow in the South. One thing that stood out in my mind was the irony placed on the police, especially the last line of the essay. When I think of the police, I think of people who will help me and others when faced with life threatening situations. Instead, for this boy, the police were seen as antagonists and troublemakers - the opposite of what it should be.

Talk of the Town

I can still remember the day the towers came down. At my local daycare, I could tell something was strange. Caretakers and parents alike seemed on edge and generally panicked. Driving back home, my father told me (in words a four year old would understand) some evil people killed a lot of people today. I knew the situation was not good, but the atmosphere completely changed upon opening the front door to my house. Both my mother and sister silently sobbed while gazing upon the events of the last eight hours on the evening news.

Little did I know the events of 9/11 and the response it would have would continue today. On the other hand, I am an optimistic person so I brought it upon myself to look at all the positives things that came out of the situation. I think 9/11 brought on such a unique sense of unity among the American people that had only been felt really since Pearl Harbor, something I didn't experience. I also learned of the massive out pour of support from countries outside the U.S. One of the most memorable tokens of support offered to the U.S. was from the Maasai tribe in Kenya. These people gave the U.S. 14 cows as condolences for our losses. This speaks so much to me because these attacks affected the tribe in no way, yet they wanted to offer what little they had. Though the attacks on the U.S. were beyond terrible, the solidarity of humanity pulled through in the end.