WARNING: Falling Cigarette May Kill You

Talking about advertisements in class, it seems that everyone is trying to trick you into buying something, saying that it will make your life better in some way or another. I googled "advertisements" to look for an idea for my blog this week, and came across this:

This was at the Vancouver Art Gallery during National Non-Smoking Week. The red sign on the car reads as follow: Death from car accidents: 370, Death from smoking-related causes: 6,027, Quit now before it kills you. This reminds me a little bit of Everything's an Argument, but it made me realize the other side of advertising. This is set up not to get you to buy a pack of cigarettes or a car, but the opposite. Advertisements for the most part are to get the consumer to buy a product, but in this case, it was used for the benefit of the consumer. This shows the relationship of all-too-common deaths. A car related death is one that is many times hard to avoid; death by cigarette is easy to avoid. Here, the advertisement's plan was to get their message across, and it's a nice break to see a message that isn't about consumption. Listening to advertisements can sometimes seem almost like it has a subliminal message, and in this case, the message is at least a good one. Advertisements have a point, and getting that point across is what matters, and at least sometimes it is being used for some good.

Will There Ever be a Last Tree?

Reading Robert Pinsky's poem, Shirt, made me think about all the things in my life that I use without even thinking about how many other people are effected by them. I have a reusable water bottle that I have with me all the time, so I don't buy plastic water bottles. I try to recycle as much as possible, and I try to reduce instead of reusing. But I have overlooked something: when I bring a lunch to school, without thinking about it, I use paper bags. It seems obvious that a paper bag can be recycled, and yet, I never put that into perspective with a normal sheet of paper of a pop can that I would always recycle. Every year 4 billion trees are cut down for paper, that's 10 million a day, and currently the ratio of trees to person in the world is about 61:1. Now imagine how many paper products are used by just the US, just Chicago, just New Trier, just you. Without even knowing it we are killing off forests around the world. It's true that people need some paper products, but I don't see the ends justifying the means. People also believe that cures to diseases can be found in nature, but what if it is lost by the logging. Because of my use of paper bags, loggers are working for bad pay in all weather conditions, near falling trees and with dangerous equipment. Because of my use of paper bags, more trees are being cut down than necessary. Because of my use of paper bags, we may never know if that cure was out there. That one last tree could be the tree with a cure, it could be the tree that hurts a logger, it could be the tree that had the last of an endangered species. That one last tree will never be the last tree.

If you look closely at the cartoon above, you may notice that there is a crocodile piled up with the trees. Logging is done so routinely and so blindly that people don't even think about the consequences of it, and humans aren't the only ones affected.

Does Money Matter?

At the beginning of the year the inner city school protest at New Trier called attention to the relationship of money and schooling. This protest made me realize how the relationship between money and schooling is important, and money does play a role in school. After watching the movie Coach Carter this weekend, I saw an example of how this is the case. Coach Carter is a true story of a high school basketball team at a school in which learning was not a priority to many. While I'm not sure if these statistics are the exact number from the real school, the coach stated in the movie that only 50% of kids at this high school graduate, and of those only 6% go on to college. When I think of graduating high school, it doesn't seem like an option, "it's just what you do". Very few people do not graduate from New Trier, and almost all go to college, if not the year after graduation, soon after. Hearing these percentages seem almost unrealistic compared to what I know from my school, and I wonder is money makes that much of a difference. Money does not make a student smarter or work harder, but what it can effect the general atmosphere of a school. In the school in Coach Carter, the principal said that the basketball season could be the highlight of some of these boys' lives. That is the problem. This school is portrayed as authority figures not believing in the kids because of the statistics, and as well, hearing these statistics can make it hard to believe in yourself. There is no motivation to work if you think that it won't matter, you won't graduate. Imagine going to a school where they can't afford books, or up-to-date classroom text books- many people don't have to image this because it is a reality. This is not to say that money is everything in schooling. There are plenty of people attending schools with very limited resources, and are still great students; there are also lots of people attending great schools with all the resources in the world, and still just do not care. Money is not everything when it comes to schooling, but it does do a lot. It's easy to take for granted the resources New Trier has, because it's all many people have ever known, but that does not take away the reality that not every school is able to have these resources.


Just as a side note, I watched the movie on TV, and I had already seen it in theaters. In the movie there is a scene where one black student refers to another as the n-word. The coach immediately intervenes and says that calling each other that names makes white people think that they can say it too. It is a powerful scene, and in the TV edited version, it was deleted. There is a scene where someone gets shot, and there are others that can be seen as inappropriate, but they were not deleted. Deleting a scene like this just because it can cause controversy is just a way to ignore the problem, to sweep it under the rug instead of addressing it, and I was pretty disappointed that it was edited out.

Finally.

When will the KKK end?

On Wednesday February 11, 2009 at Gaston Memorial Hospital, Virgil Griffin died. There is now one less KKK member, and yet it is not because he changed his ways. For those of you who do not know, Griffin was the leader of the Ku Klux Klan's North Carolina chapter. An article from Comcast News spread the word.

In class, reading about Huck Fin and the racism that lived in the South made me think of the still present racism around the country. It's easy to think of the KKK as a terrible group that terrorized people mostly during the civil rights movement. But this is wrong. The KKK, while not as common as in the past, is still very much alive, and their white-supremest views are still spoken. Not to speak ill of the dead, but Griffin's death is not one that I will be mourning. His death being in the news simply reminds people that racism is still in this country today. In the time of Huck Fin, racism was a way of life. That is not to say at all that it is excused, but in those times racial slurs were the norm. Today, people are disgusted by the idea of the KKK being around still, and yet, our society has not been able to completely rid itself of racism. That last group of ignorant people still remain, thinking that the color of their skin makes them better or worse than another human being, ranking themselves higher simply because they decide to. I don't think I will ever understand how people can think this way, think that skin color makes us any different from the person sitting next to us. The worst and scariest part seems to be that no matter who is left on this earth, people can still find a way to think this racist way, and speak this racist way. For every word spoken, there is someone to listen and someone to agree, and that scares me.

Football Players Are God.

Last weekend was Superbowl XLIII. Parties were held, bets were made, beer was drunk (by those over 21), and it was allover a great time. This year's game was especially great because of the intensity, it's not like everyone thought that the Steelers were going to win, and because of the commercials, even though many thought they were the worst in years. Even with all the hype, what makes this game so great, so different than any other? Don't get me wrong, I love Superbowl parties just as much as the next girl who doesn't really watch the game itself, but eats and sees a commercial or two, but I still never really got it. What makes this game so great? What makes any game so great? People watch reruns of the last minutes and attend parades after the win, but why?! What makes this game so great, and along with the game, what makes the player so great. People run up to football players if they see one in "normal life" asking for autographs and pictures as if they are some sort of mega-humans. I know some people who play sports at New Trier really well, and I've never seen someone go up and ask for their pictures or autographs. I also know people who are really smart, really pretty, really good at art, and still, they have never been asked. Americans love to think of people such as athletes as basically god-like, just because they can play a sport. The idea of them is better than the actual them, as far as their fans know, and yet they become the idols of people as young as 3 or 4. They are romanticized by Americans across the country, and some of us still just don't see the point.

Steve Carrel, the Office, and Racism

For the first time in American history, we have a black president. The month of February being Black History Month is now another emphasis on Obama and the progress of our country moving further away from racism; however, Dr. Carter G. Woodson noted that in this month "We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice." That one statement is a strong one: the history of the world void of race hate. I do agree with him that we should be focusing on a world moving away from race hate, but a world void of it? As great as this idea sounds, I wonder if it is possible to become a complete reality. Obama becoming president is a momentous occasion that will be remembered in history as a step foreword from racism, but that does not mean racism is gone. In Huck Fin, blacks are openly referred to as the n-word, and while today this is not considered politically correct, it still is said and racism is still present. What about jokes, is it acceptable to make a racist joke, or laugh at one, if you are not racist? The popular TV sitcom, the Office, is about the daily life of working under Michael Scott (Steve Carrel), a crazy boss who talks before he thinks, and even after he speaks he just doesn't quite get it. Although this is one of my favorite shows, and a popular one across the country, in the new episode a line stuck out to me. One of the office employees passes out during what they thought was a fire, and in response Michael runs over, and in attempt to wake him up yells: "Stanley, Stanley, you will not die!... Stanley, Barack is president! You are black Stanley!..." Now, whether you know that character or not, you can see that he is openly ignorant in his comments, as proven in this quote. The idea of keeping someone alive by reminding him that he is black is so stupid, and yet the ignorance of Michael Scott is amusing to viewers. Of course not everybody who laughs at this remark is a racist, but the idea of this comment appears racist and pointless. A person being "saved" by being reminded that they are black is as ridiculous as be reminded that they are a boy, have brown hair, or are wearing a red t-shirt, and yet it is said, and people laugh. This scene is a hyperbole, but even so, it is a comparison of what kind of racism takes place in real life.

Blagojevich=Kanye=OJ Simpson

"O.J. Simpson was sentenced to up to 33 years in prison for his role in a sports memorabilia robbery. Afterwards, O.J. said, "Let that be a lesson to all you kids out there: Stick to double murder.'" --Conan O'Brien.

Kanye West was arrested for assaulting a paparazzi.

Federal authorities "accused [Blagojevich] of attempting to benefit financially from his position to appoint Barack Obama's Senate replacement."

In recent weeks, numerous infamous arrests took place by leaders of our community and role models to children. Too many people admired by thousands have thought that they are above the law. Authority figures and people looked up to should have a higher standard for the way they live their life, not the idea that they can do whatever they want. In Self-Reliance, Emerson says that "envy is ignorance... imitation is suicide... take himself for better, for worse, as his portion..." (20). The truth is that people should not follow others, but children looking up to their favorite singer or sports player getting arrestted think what they are doing is normal and ok. Our own govenor, Rod Blagojevich, attempted to sell a position for senator. The evidence against him shows him being arragent and obvious about his crime, not even trying to disguise calls or meetings. Imitation is bad, but everyone, especially children, do it, and when they decide who to copy, it can easily be someone famous for going to jail for thinking they are above the law. Imitation should not happen, but bcause it does, we need to make better role models for our next generation.