Joe's injury

Joe is reportedly completely injured from head to... well torso. He has lost his face (including eyes, mouth, nose, and ears), his arms, and his legs. This not only heavily affect his physical being, but also his mental being. How can you even consider yourself to be alive if you can talk, move, or communicate with any person. This is one of the thoughts that plagues Joe's mind throughout the first part of the book as he progresses along and tries to live with his injuries.

Please put your books in the upright position

Dr. Wade Horn makes an interesting metaphor when he says compares a 'regular family' to a single parent family through using airplanes. He talks about how a more traditional family will have a higher success rate for the children of the family compared to a single parent family. But he also goes onto state that there are children in single parent families that go on to lead very successful lives, but when given the choice between the two most people would more likely than not choose two parents over one any day. It's pretty interesting how Horn chooses to use airplanes to make his point. I guess it kind of makes sense in the way that raise a child is a journey through body and spirit as the kid grows up. It's almost as if the parent(s) are kind of tossing them up to fate.

Old man

The Old Man With a Guitar is probably my favorite painting. It was painted by Pablo Picasso during his blue period and features what else besides and old man with a guitar. To me it symbolizes many things. Its about the strain of life and how sometimes the only thing that you have to clench onto is your art, whether iits painting, writing, or your music. When things get bad, the only thing you can do is turn inward to what you love and rely on. It's the only way to keep your sanity and make sense of what you can't possibly understand.

artists and politicians

I actually don't agree with the idea that wright brings up in the novel Black Boy. In this novel he holds the idea that artists and politicians stand at opposite poles. While it is true that artists use their emotions to create and politicians use logic and limit emotion when making big decisions, that still doesn't mean that they are opposites. Both politicians and artists alike use rhetoric in whatever it is they do. Whether that be trying to pursuade people to side with your decisions for the country, city, or whatever area you have power in, or if you are an artist trying to prove a points through your own special means of doing so. They both are still people, and while artist tend to strike against the government, the core that they live by and use to get through life is still the same no matter how you look at it. That's why I disagree with what Wright says in chapter 19.

Justification for stealing

Richard Wright steals for money during his job that he got a the hotel. He states many reasons for doing this such as his will to move from the South to the North for his own safety. I feel that Wright does give many good reasons that justify his actions, I understand that anyone in his position, even I, would do the things that he does in order to get the money to leave. There is still something though that keeps me from siding with full justification of his actions as a good thing. I guess I just can't condone of someone stealing no matter what the situation.

The meaning behind Griggs

"Learn to live in the south." That is part of what Griggs said to Richard in the novel Black Boy. Richard was obviously not going to be able to do that. It wasn't in his nature. Learning to live in the South in the time of Black Boy means lying down and accepting the stereotypes that are put towards black men in those days. There is no way that Richard could lie down and take that. Richard rebellious-like spirit wouldn't let him ever do that. He is the type of person that couldn't take being step on.

Richard Right

Richard Wright has all right to refuse to perform the speech that was written for him by the principal. Even if the principal has only good intentions in mind, Richard deserved to say the speech which he written especially for this day. Since he was the one picked to perform the speech at graduation. Even if it's bad, Richard has the right to perform his speech. I couldn't understand working for hours on a speech that means a lot to me, just to have somebody tell me I can't do it because they're afraid that I'll say something that could be 'wrong' or offensive. I know I wouldn't stand for this at all. There is no way I would let anybody do it to me. That's Why I feel that Richard was justified in refusing to perform the speech written by the principal in exchange to perform the speech he wrote.

Uncle Tom

Wright is angry with his Uncle Tom for a few reasons. The main one being that one day Richard was threatening to beat him and punish him for something that he did. Richard got so upset with this for the main reason that Uncle Tom was still basically a stranger to him. He had only moved into their residence a few weeks ago.
Richard was awestruck that someone who didn't even know him, and vis versa, would actually threatened to beat him. He just couldn't understand the logic here and how he could think that someone he didn't know could that that he was better than Richard.

cultural rights

Wright believes that because of his culture he is allowed and supposed to hate jews. He thinks that because he's black that all these things are set up the way they are and he has to follow them. He doesn't argue against them, just goes with them. Whether it's hating jews or fighting with white boys, he just goes with it and accepts what is expected to be of him.

Hunger

So, in the book "Black Boy" Richard talks a lot about his hunger. But what exactly is he referring to? Well, you can look at it in two ways. Obviously there's the literal way that since his dad left, his family can't afford buying food everyday to feed themselves.
But on another level, there is the metaphorical definition. That's his yearning, or hunger, for the things that he wants. Things like not being bored, or a place that he can live with food, or what ever else he feels he needs.

Is school really necessary?

Well to get right to the point, I think there is only one thing that school is necessary for. Everything else we can achieve by being educated at home, or learning it in the real world. That one things is social structure. while its true that in home schooling you can become a social person, nothing prepares you for the real world quite like living in that social structure everyday. This is important because people need to understand how society is structure, even if it flawed and bad. People still need to understand something, even if they want to take it down. Its kind of like that saying keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Anyways, besides that one part of life, I believe everything else can be learned outside the structure of a school system. Whether it's in the real world, or being taught at home, school isn't truly necessary to create the kids into the bright minds that they can be.

Do School's really help?

In and out of school, we are gaining knowledge that can be considered 'non-academic'. I would define that as being something that you gain such as personal beliefs and value that you life up to everyday of your life. They don't have to be something like religion, just something that you feel strongly about. Some value that you hold dear and want to uphold.
Anyways, the question is 'do we value these non-academic education the we are learning in school'? I would have to say that it can be both yes and no. There will always be the start students out there that do everything perfectly and never mess up, but less face it most of us aren't like that. And i think the majority of people in high school don't value this non-academic education. How can you say you are, when you feel that you should be different other but still conform to what they say? These are the people who will be destined to the bottom after high school is out. they are brainwashed of what should be their unique values and can only conform to what they are told to do.

Stores have a hidden flavor

Many stores have their own way of influencing you, whether it's in defining who you are, or more probably what you buy. Stores try to influence you in this way just for the main reason that they want you to buy their products. Their main reason for doing anything like this is that if you think you need something you will go to where it is that you would buy it. I don't believe that this type of advertisment or 'subliminal advertising' really works that well. But I guess that's the point.

And Giants ftw!!!

I have to say that this year's super bowl ads were very weak compared to past years, but at least the game was far more interesting than the last two. I guessed the decided to reverse it this year or something. I digress, the three commercials that stand out to me are one's for FedEx, Amp, and Go Daddy.com.
The first FedEx played off of a lot of what they have done in past years, using humor that really isn't offensive to anybody to make a commercial that gives you a good laugh. My favorite will still be last year's with the dinosaurs, but this is definitely up there. FedEx has given an example f a commercial that can be effective, funny, and generally clean.
The second is the Amp commercial. Amp is an energy drink made by the same people as Mountain Dew, so I guess a lot of people are going to assume that it is automatically inappropriate for some reason or another. While I do admit that this specific commercial was a bit weird and really out there, it definitely wasn't as bad as other commercials out there. For anybody out there who didn't see it, the whole thing was that this woman's battery died in the middle of a dessert and a guy in a tow truck comes up to restart her battery. But instead of attaching it to his car, her attaches it to himself on the nipples and starts drinking amp. The energy in the drink then proceeds to pass through him and into the car. Now I know that someone out there is going to find some way to make that sexual, but honestly I don't see it as extremely inappropriate. While attaching cables to yourself is pretty bad, it is by far and away, at least in my mind, not a lean towards a sexual innuendo, as much as showing that amp gives you a ton of energy.
The final one is definitely the weird and completely ineffective, for me anyways. I don't understand why anyone would think that doing an ad like that would be good at all. I just think that it's stupid and a waste of a whole lot of money.

Finally, congrats to the Giants. And I hope the patriots never win another super bowl, or game for that matter.

Reflection, but not the one in the water

In class, many good and thought provoking points were brought up. A few of which swayed me to see the argument from a different point of view or in a way that I didn't even know existed. I've always thought that a heated debate, well not exactly heated but more of a passionate debate, always bought out the best point in an article or rhetorical piece and brought more sense to the article for all who were involved. I feel though that the discussion in class really didn't go that exact direction.
The way I feel our discussion went was beyond the piece itself into a different plane to talk not about the piece, but about the topic it was covering. At times it seemed that we went into areas that the piece never even mentioned or discussed, not that it's a bad thing though. This way I felt better point and a more lively discussion was brought out of the topic and the people who were involved in it.

Ad's and sexuality, how personal can it get?

Okay, let me start off by saying that for the most part I agree with the ideas that are presented in this article about why ad's can be bad. But I also would like to say that I hate the author of this piece and the argument that she put together in her piece. I don't know about anyone else, but I definitely don't like to be preached at as if I don't know anything about this issue, or that I am a good for nothing person who is being yelled at for about 20 pages. Because that is exactly what I felt like. I think that if she changed her dialog a bit so that it wasn't as soapbox preachy, I would have listened a lot more to what she had to say.

Something else that she did that I think could have definitely improved her article was using ad's that are commonplace in the media and not just the bottom of the barrel trash. I don't care how old those ad's were, I have never seen any ad that has been as bad as those were, the closest I've even come have been the Axe ad's in magazine's. I felt that it was like someone saying using shows like American Gladiator and I love New York, or any crappy 'dating show' that airs on VH1, to be an example for all television. While it is true that a group is judged by the least among them, I believe that it would give more credibility to the essay as a whole if the author were to use ad's that have been seen commonly before and describe what is wrong with those instead of just picking the very bottom of the proverbial barrel.

I would also like to leave off with one last statement on this subject:
How much can we really blame on the advertise in the media, and how much can we account to personal responsibility?

Best Homework Ever?

So for my assignment I watched an episode of Two and a Half Men at 8:30 and watched for all the commercial breaks during the program. Now for a show like Two and a Half Men the general audience would be men from an average of 20 to 40 years old as well as their wifes or girlfriends. With this audience in mind the commercial that aired during this time had a few things in common.
The speaker during each commercial was always a woman, whether it was for a car add or women's beauty products. The reason for this is that women trust other women when it comes to their personal self. But with men it's for a different reason. When a man hears a woman's voice, it will most likely draw his attention into the TV and focus on the product thats being presented to them. Another common feature among these commercial is that they had a dark background with smooth colors to help keeps eyes focused for the time of day that the commercial is being presented. This allows the viewer to observe the ad without any difficulty.