"If one Louisiana parish commissioner has his way, comfort-lovers won’t
be hanging out in their PJs at the mall. Caddo Parish Commissioner
Michael Williams has proposed a ban on wearing pajamas — especially the
pants -- in public after he was appalled by the attire of his
constitutents during a recent shopping trip, according to KTAL/NBC. Don’t wear these outside your home in Caddo Parish, La.
(J. Crew)
“The moral fiber in our community is dwindling,” Williams said. “If
not now, when? Because its pajama pants today, next it will be underwear
tomorrow.”'
Crazy? I think so.
Here's one thing I think people excessively and in this case, harshly judge people, pajamas, and overall, the way people dress. I'm from New York City, and everyday people dress like they are going to a fashion show. Coming to Penn State is a nice change because I don't feel like I'm being ridiculed in the eyes of other people if I walk around wearing a hoodie and sweatpants and a pair of sneakers, instead of back home where I would wake up really early, do my hair to perfection, put on a blazer, jeans, and army boots and some jewelry and makeup. Here and there, I'm still the same person; it's just the fact that I look and dress differently.
Judging someone for wearing pajamas is like basing your whole perception of the person on the time they woke up that day. Say someone woke up at 8:30 AM and someone else woke up at 3PM that day. People would automatically assume that the person who woke up early is more ambitious, hardworking, and more vibrant of a person, while the other is lazy and probably doesn't do that much work. See, what if that person who woke up in the afternoon pulled an all nighter doing a bunch of homework because they have six classes and papers and tests and their sleep cycle simply shifted. They still only get around 8 or 9 hours of sleep, they just sleep at different times. Yet, no one seems to consider ideas like that, even though they're most often very plausible. No, people insist on judging others for what they do and wear. Why do we wear pajamas? For comfort. Why are they inside our homes or dorms, but walking outside with them is considered so heinous that there would be a law considering banning them from the public (but let's remember...it is Louisiana). Why do we have to put up a front for the public when at home it's perfectly acceptable to be comfortable. We're the same people outside or inside our own homes. Society just makes everyone into this dichotomy of our private vs. public selves.
That saying 'behind closed doors,' nobody asked for that. We're pressured into not being ourselves to 'outsiders' and that in turn forms a cycle of keeping people 'outsiders'. It's forced upon us, and frankly, it's a little ridiculous.
This clip depicts Goffman's Levels of Engagement (fully
focused, partially focused, and not focused). That theory basically demonstrates
one way cell phones influence our society, by taking away our attention from
the activities we otherwise normally would be fully present in. Cell phones let
us be partially engaged in other activities and with other people while we are
with someone else or doing something else. In the video, the guy is on a date
with someone, and instead of focusing on his interaction with the date, he is
multitasking. Occasionally, he asks his date a question about herself, but for
most of the time, he is fiddling with his cell phones, which he has two. He is
partially engaged in his activity, the date, and partially engaged with his
cellular communication. In the video, he sends texts, and makes and receives
phone calls, so much that it is frustrating to the viewer, because he is in a
restaurant and the social acceptability of cell phone use in a restaurant is low, as
compared to another place, like a sidewalk.Cell phones are great because they increase the fluidity of our lives. I mean, think about it, how many times do you make solid plans to meet up with someone? Like, "Let's meet up next to the columns in front of the library at exactly 3:39 PM on Tuesday". Mobile communication increases our social bonds with people, but all the while, excessive use of them is unhealthy for trying to live in the present. What life really consists of is the here and now, and all I can say is, try to be as present as you can.
I read Cracked.com on a regular basis. It is a website that sometimes allows readers to write articles as well and send them in. Most of the pieces are humorous and meant for people who have a good sense of humor. They are often lists on random sometimes even arbitrary subjects, like movie characters, or places nobody likes going to. The thing about cracked.com is that they make these topics extremely interesting and colorful, and put a lot of humor into it and allow people to see these ordinary things in a new light they can relate to. It's for younger adults who enjoy sarcasm and satire, and almost every one of their articles is very easy to relate to. The New York Times is a newspaper written for sophisticated people who lean towards the left. It's a
liberal newspaper and not at all an easy read. It's meant for older adults in search of serious information and has a very formal tone. They often write about global crises or problems within the country. The newspaper has an extensive science and political section.
College is a very special time in a person's life. It's a time for change, for growth, and for meeting new people. Even if someone is extremely rigid in their beliefs before coming to college, chances are they will change at least a little bit. Views change, perceptions widen, and so many doors are opened for you. I think I want to write my reflection on friendship. I have a best friend in NYC that I met in my sophomore year of high school and we went through a lot together. My other best friend I met early this year and even though we haven't known each other for that long, we're still best friends. I want to discuss and probe the idea of what it means to be best friends with someone, and the different situations they can arise from. I'm going to include narrative and dialogue, and possibly breaks in the paper between the two people and how I met them. I might also want to introduce the topic of the frailty of friendships and how over time you become more secure that they're safe and going to last. I might want to talk about how they involve shared interested and attitudes toward life, but in other cases, polar opposites can work totally well too. There's also going to be a part about when you don't need to make a new best friend and when in life it's good to, and why. The paper is more speculative than answering an actual question, and it's going to involve a lot of narrative about when I realized I was best friends with them. I'm not sure how it's going to turn out yet but that's the gist of it.
The U.S. activists are “selling a pack of lies to unaware
youth to raise money for themselves,” said Ugandan blogger TMS Ruge in
one of a series of critical tweets. Not a single African is a member of the executive staff or the board
of directors of Invisible Children, he noted. Instead, he said, Africans
have been relegated to a “sideshow” without a voice in their own story.
“Stop treating us like children,” he said. “I refuse to let my voice
stay silent as one more NGO continues to perpetuate an expired single
story of us.”
KONY2012? More like PHONY2012
PERSPECTIVE. Here. Let me put you in it. Right now, there’s a movement in Uganda to kill all gay people.
Now, watch this. This clip is from the movie Blood Diamond starring Leonardo DiCaprio, which opened in 2007, five years ago. This child was abducted and forced to live the life of a child soldier.
Blood Diamond is when I first learned about child soldiers and the
struggles of African children, not the latest clicktivism sensation,
KONY 2012. Released on March 5th, the 30 minute YouTube video has
already garnered over 38 million views, not surprising considering its
over 3 million dollar budget. Flashy graphics sometimes equals mass
popularity. The film is trying to popularize Joseph Kony, yet, he is one of the most notorious war criminals in the world, and that includes the United States.
"Kony 2012 is an online vigilant campaign
which aims to arrest the Ugandan guerrilla group leader and head of the
Lord’s Resistance Army Joseph Kony before the end of 2012. The operation
seeks to create viral media to raise awareness about Kony’s use of
children as soldiers and sex slaves in order to urge the American
government to assist the Ugandan military in capturing him."
The main character, I would say, is Gavin, the five year old white son of the director and narrator. He is featured more prominently than any Northern Ugandan, and only second is Jacob, an adolescent native of the country that the narrator, Jason Russell has been connected to for years. Much of the video has an infomercial feel to it. Here, buy this super kit of super activist stuff so you can be the best activist for stuff ever!!!This bracelet you should buy from us with definitely save at least six African kids, and maybe my son Gavin!
The video is at times, insulting to the intelligence of many viewers. Most of the explanation we got from the video was through the explanation Russell gave to his son. The video underestimates the capacity of the minds of the general public by resisting to delve any deeper into the topic.We aren't five; I understand Gavin is a very level headed child, but I think we can handle the facts a little better than he can. Wait until he's not in the room so he doesn't get nightmares later and then feel free to tell us more, Russell. Oh, you're not planning to? Fair enough. Here's what you get out of the video. Joseph Kony, head of LRA, is a bad guy, some may even dare say real real bad, if you will. He has, over the years, abducted around 30,000 kids from their homes and forced the boys in child armies and the girls into sex slavery. Yes, he has committed atrocities. Yes, the video has raised millions of people's awareness about plight in general. Yes, the video does evoke emotion, and has a slight call to action (donating money and buying an activist kit).
Here come's the White Man's Burden. It also oversimplifies the whole conflict and throws the issue into a messianic, 'We Westerners can save dem Afrikaans, We got to! They NEED us!' mindset, and that, well that is just dangerous. Get a couple thousand white privileged kids to go on 'missionary vacations' and help these struggling people! Let's listen to what they need us to do. Ready...okay wait for it. No...no? The video does not give Ugandans a viewpoint in the entirety of the thirty minutes. We don't know what they want to do. We know what we want to do. We are not saviors. We are simply taking 30 minutes of our lives to feel bad for people who deserve much, much more than sympathy. Okay, I guess I'm not giving people enough credit. We also watched it because Rihanna tweeted about it. My bad. I'm not dismayed that this video has gotten so popular. I'm dismayed that we feel like we are quite the activist just because we're sharing a link on Facebook. We do that all the time. We feel empowered because we know 2% of what's going on in a country half the world away. This has been going on for decades. Yes, we are an internet generation. But don't feel proud of your stamina, oh my, watching a 30 minute film about Africa sure is a feat.
The film opens with the line "Humanities' greatest desire is to belong and connect." Many scenes are a bunch of young people by the thousands raising their arms to their Invisible Children leaders, just like the young people did when Hitler spoke. I am in no way saying this is a negative concept, or comparing it to Hitler's reign of terror, except for the fact that these kids just feel like supporting a cause, and if they see lots of people supporting this one, they might as well too. Making Joseph Kony famous makes sense, but that won't solve the problem. Bringing down a leader doesn't mean a new one won't rise almost immediately. This is mirroring the search and destroy mission of Osama Bin Laden, except Bin Laden was inactive for years by the time he was caught. The LRA mission, whatever that may be because the video refused to go into further detail for fear of scaring away viewers and losing interest, is highly active. Capturing one leader is not enough, especially because he has gone into hiding.
"The idea of “stopping Kony”, of course plays into the narrative created
by the ‘Kony 2012′ campaign where what actually happens to Kony and the
LRA is irrelevant. The unspecific aim of “stopping” him is sufficient.
Who, after all, doesn’t want Kony “stopped”? But then what? If Kony is
killed or captured, then what? What happens to the other members of the
LRA? ‘Kony 2012′ offers no answers here."
My real problem with the video is that it is not taking into account the mindsets of the Northern Ugandans. WHAT DO THEY WANT? We did not ask them. Jacob, the teenager, doesn't really count, because he is the anomaly of children in the country. He is in contact with a American man trying to "save" the people, and stop the inhumanity. 39 million people are adopting the perspective and potential solutions of ONE MAN. That will not get us where we want to go, or help us figure out where we even want to go. The film also did not clearly define our call to action, except buying stuff and hanging posters at nightfall. It's not about Jason Russell. It's about the Ugandans. We aren't looking further into the situation. We are simply placing Russell into an authority figure role because he made a fancy 3 million dollar movie. I do believe the Ugandans should be helped. I also do believed we should be much more informed about the conflict, and a 30 minute video is basically the introductory piece to a long time quest for knowledge. Much of the film is anecdotal, and the producers are only exposing you to what they want you to know, like many documentaries, because they want your view to be their view, to coincide with their agendas.
"It isn’t hard to imagine why the views of northern Ugandans wouldn’t
be considered: they don’t fit with the narrative produced and reproduced
in the insulated echo chamber that produced the ‘Kony 2012′ film. ‘Kony 2012′, quite dubiously, avoids stepping into the 'peace-justice question in northern Uganda' precisely
because it is a world of contesting and plural views, eloquently
expressed by the northern Ugandans themselves. Some reports suggest that
the majority of Acholi peoplecontinue
to support the amnesty process whereby LRA combatants – including
senior officials – return to the country in exchange for amnesty and
entering a process of ‘traditional justice’. Many continue to support
the Ugandan Amnesty law because of the reality that it is their own
children who constitute the LRA. Once again, this issue is barely
touched upon in the film. Yet the LRA poses a stark dilemma to the
people of northern Uganda: it is now composed primarily of child
soldiers, most of whom were abducted and forced to join the rebel ranks
and commit atrocities. Labeling them “victims” or “perpetrators” becomes
particularly problematic as they are often both."
And come on, do you really think the Ugandan government would have let these monstrous atrocities go on for almost three decades if they were truly opposed to it? No. Governments, are many times, in compliance with many heinous crimes against humanity, but on the low so blame is usually scapegoated more so on to other participants. "'As respected scholars of northern Uganda, Mareike Schomerus, Tim Allen, and Koen Vlassenroot, recently argued,
“Until the underlying problem — the region’s poor governance — is adequately dealt with, there will be no sustainable peace.”'
"The crisis in northern Ugandan is not seen by its citizens as one that
is the result of the LRA. Yes, you read that right. The conflict in the
region is viewed as one wherein both the Government of Uganda
and the LRA, as well as their regional supporters (primarily South Sudan
and Khartoum, respectively) have perpetrated and benefited from nearly
twenty-five years of systemic and structural violence and displacement.
This pattern is what Chris Dolan has eloquently and persuasively termed 'social torture' wherein boththe
Ugandan Government and the LRA’s treatment of the population has
resulted in symptoms of collective torture and the blurring of the
perpetrator-victim binary."
"The problem with Kony 2012 is that it proposes an
idealistic and overly simple solution to a deeply complicated and
longstanding problem. Social media is an amazing way to distribute and
share information but it doesn’t alleviate people of their
responsibility to do their own research instead of just believing
whatever they see in a video just because all their friends have liked
it. Kony is an unbelievably evil man. So are almost all the regional
leaders and governments. One is planning on slaughtering all of the gay
population. It’s literally that bad. But dumping guns into the hands of
governments that are internationally famous for being evil, and sending
our military? That’s just not the solution."
This whole movie was just that, a movie. It presents us with a narrative about crazed, child stealing, war mongering, over simplified evil people. And who are the good guys? Well, we are...I guess. All I'm saying is no story is black and white, and just because 39 million other people trust a documentary doesn't mean you should too. It's important to learn about others, feel for others, and do good for others, but first get the facts straight.
Spotify is the latest trend on Facebook and in the online music industry. Basically, it is an Internet connected music player in which you can listen to all your favorite artists and songs, create artist or genre radios, all for free whenever you're on your computer, or for an extra fee on your mobile device. But here's what's genius about Spotify. Every song you listen to comes up on your profile page on Facebook for all your friends to see. Not only does listening to music make the artists and Spotify money each time you play a song, but it's also an excessive amount of free advertising. Listening to music is not only convenient on Spotify, but it's also beneficial to everyone. Yes, there are the annoying breaks of audio commercials, but that, I suppose comes with the territory of a business trying to rack in as much profit as possible. Those are a little annoying, but not enough so to leave the program altogether. It's revolutionary, really. People on Facebook are not acutely aware enough of how their pages are being used as social networking advertisements, because most people don't mind displaying their music on their pages, because it's enjoyable to share your taste in music with your friends. It's not so much a burden really, but more delightful. Spotify is definitely one of Facebook's greatest feats.
As with any program that most people enjoy with limited complaints, Spotify, is indeed, too good to be true. It's getting people addicted to its ease and convenience, and making listening to songs on YouTube seem cumbersome, and using Last FM. a thing of the past.What we're using right now is a 6 month free trial connected to our Facebook accounts, and after that is when they expect us to pay up. Users at this point can stream unlimited music with radio advertising breaks in between, which most people get used to after a while. After the trial, which most people aren't even aware is a trial, Spotify makes tracks off limits once they are played 5 times, and has a limit of 10 hours of streaming per month. An "unlimited" subscription to Spotify removes ads and time limits, and a "premium" subscription introduces features such as higher bit-rate streaming, access to music offline, and mobile app access.Other criticisms of Spotify have been that they do not compensate their artists enough, especially indie or non-mainstream musicians. The Guardian
reported that "indie labels... as opposed to the majors and Merlin
members, receive no advance, receive no minimum per stream and only get a
50% share of ad revenue on a pro-rata basis." And apparently, a record label called Racing Junior had only received $3.00 after their songs had been streamed 55,100 times. An independent artist on Spotify would need over four million streams per month to earn $1,160. Many instances like this have been reported, and I'm sure Facebook users in the next six months after their trials are over will be more than outraged because of this perceived deceit.
We should've known the "free" aspect of Spotify was unsustainable, so I guess this is goodbye. You know Facebook users hate paying for stuff.
Movies are something that influence all of us. So this isn't actually a blog post, but I just always wanted to make a list of movies I've seen and enjoyed. I'll add more whenever I think of them.
