Iceland's New Comedic Mayor

After a long time away from the blog enjoying summer, I just couldn't resist posting about this:

Remember the 2006 movie called Man of the Year? In it, a satirical comic (played by Robin Williams) runs for President of the US as a joke. Shockingly, he is actually elected and has to rise to meet his new responsibilities. An implausible plot, at best. 

     Or maybe not. A satirical, self-described anarchist and comedian was recently elected as the mayor of Iceland's largest city. Jon Gnarr created the "Best Party" and won what the New York Times called the protest vote. (I suggest that you read their full article.)
     This story made me wonder why I find the concept of someone other than an official "politician" holding office to be so strange. I mean, who decided that only the select few people who can afford to do nothing but campaign. I started to consider the roles that people try to fill in their lives and the limitations that our society places on people in those certain roles. I think that it is dangerous to believe that only a certain type of people can hold political office. Then, the government is no longer truly "by the people". (Although Iceland never made that claim.)

More from the Great State of Arizona

Illegal immigration policy is not the only thing for which the state of Arizona is being scrutinized. In recent months, the state has begun auditing teachers who have accents. (Watch the CNN report here.) The thought behind this is that teachers with heavy accents should not be allowed to be in contact with students who are still in the process of developing speaking styles in their native language, English. Of the staggering 1500 teachers who were audited, 25 were found to have "issues" with pronunciation or grammar, resulting in a loss of teaching privileges. 
       For obvious reasons, these audits have come under fire. Assuming that the state of Arizona truly has its students' best interests at heart and is not merely trying to discriminate against immigrants (which may be a big assumption, given recent immigration laws), the method behind the policy is simply flawed. These audits are clearly not the best way to determine whether someone is fit to teach. They might have perfect grammar and pronunciation, but if the students are not learning anything, it does not do any good. And who is responsible for judging which pronunciations are correct? As Irish teacher Ian Kidd states, "There is no one correct way to pronounce anything in America". A less subjective test of teachers would be to test the students on what they have actually learned.
       Some of the best teachers that I have had speak with heavy accents. This does not make them worse in the classroom. If anything, it adds much-needed diversity and better prepares students for people they may come across in the real world who don't have perfect OED-approved English. Most people in the country, myself included, fall into this "lesser" category. 
       One school's superintendent says, "You can have a diploma and still be a bad teacher". Now, I completely agree with this statement, but it relates to a totally separate issue. You can also be an excellent teacher and not have a diploma. He supports the audits on the grounds that children will miss out on important education if their teachers have accents, which is understandable. However, any teacher with a teaching certificate has already been evaluated and approved. Why can the state change its mind years later? Also, according to the video, studies have actually shown that non-native English speakers make better English teachers.
      More and more, I feel as if I am living in a deeply racist and biased society that preaches equality and practices discrimination. This latest development only solidifies my opinion.

Conquering the Land

In class, we watched Working in a Coal Mine, an episode of Morgan Spurlock's documentary TV show, 30 Days. In this particular episode, Spurlock voluntarily descends into a coal mine to do hard labor every day for a month. After watching, we had a class discussion about why we mine coal. 
     The relatively obvious reasons of financial gain and having few other options came us pretty quickly, but then a factor that I would never have considered was brought up: Many of the miners, despite all of the safety risks and terrible working conditions, actually enjoy spending their days down below the surface of the earth and could not imagine a life for themselves where they do anything else.
     Sitting in a comfortable classroom, I could not fathom how anyone could actually think this way and want to support themselves by mining coal if they had any other options.
    Then, on Saturday morning my perspective changed and I came to understand these coal miners on a new level. For extra credit in biology, my class went to cut down Buckthorn trees, an invasive species that chokes out the local forest. After working for about three hours, we were all able to look around at the new clearing we had made and feel a real sense of accomplishment. Even though it was simple labor and did not require much thought, there was something refreshing about having "conquered the land".
    Finally, this all relates back to The Kentucky Cycle. The Rowan boys are always going on about how much they love owning and farming the land. They feel a bigger connection to it, as Patrick says, "IT AIN'T JUST DIRT! It's land" (Schenkkan 92). He truly sees a deeper meaning in it. 
     After my Buckthorn cutting experience, I am convinced that every human has a deep desire to make an imprint on their surroundings and leave something behind for future generations. That is why the Rowans love their land and that is why coal miners are willing to venture into the earth every day.

Men Who Hate Women and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

S

Ah! The first non-junior theme blog in over a month!

So this afternoon I saw a Swedish film at the Wilmette Theater. It's English title is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The direct translation of the Swedish title, however, is Men Who Hate Women. (Thanks to Therese, our Swedish exchange student, for bringing this to my attention.) This second title is quite fitting, since the plot has a lot to do with sadistic rapists. 
I found the change of title very interesting, mostly because it never occurred to me that the titles of foreign films would be changed for American releases. After my initial surprise, my American-Studies trained self began to wonder why the title would have been changed.
Seeing as the purpose of the movie industry is to produce art and to make money, I imagine that the change is due to one of those factors. The author of the original book from which the screenplay was adapted is now dead, so it could not have been due to his artistic wishes. (Although, interestingly enough, the book is called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in both countries.) This leaves the financial reason.
I do not believe that a movie released in the US with the title Men Who Hate Women would do very well in the box office. Someone out there, however, thought that such a title would do very well in Sweden.
Maybe the concern was that such a male-driven society would not tolerate such a title, and that no one would go to see it. 
Under any title, it was a very intriguing movie with an interesting plot and very well-developed and complicated characters. I would highly recommend it.

"So by the way, it's due in a week." (yikes)

So about five minutes ago we learned that the junior theme is due next Friday, May 7th. This means that we have exactly seven days to put the final touches on our papers, annotate our bibliographies, and dream up creative titles. I am personally feeling a little bit pressed for time, but my intro revisions have finally fallen into place and I think that I am nearing the conclusion of my research.
      In the time that we had off of school yesterday I called Lenore Skenazy, my interview subject, but she was unfortunately not around. Hopefully I will be able to talk to her over the weekend. On a slightly more successful note, I just completed my "fellow scholar" interview with none other than Nick Steen. His topic is American cars and the auto industry, which may not sound very similar to the topic of internet privacy. But we did find a connection that served both of us well. Part of his topic has to do with bumper stickers and the tendency of Americans to broadcast themselves by means of their beloved automobiles. We talked about why Americans feel the need to do this, and the effect on interpersonal reactions. I have a few good quotes from him that I will be including in my paper. (Although it just occurred to me that I might want to give him a copy of the paragraph that his quotes will be included in, just to make sure that I am not putting words in his mouth.)
      The one other thing that I have to do is annotate my bibliography, which shouldn't take way too long. I do have to make sure that my annotations are not too generic and "cheesy" though, since that seemed to be the main concern of our teachers.
      I have quite a bit of work to do this weekend, which will be challenging, seeing as I am going to Grosse Point for a regatta. I am going to have to put in some serious work during the five hour car ride there and back.....and probably after racing on Saturday night. I am confident, however, that I can get it all done by Friday.
    

"There can be no success without failure" --The Junior Theme Story

A brief update on my junior theme progress:
    I have emailed Lenore Skenazy requesting an interview and she very kindly responded promptly and positively. I am in the process of narrowing down the actual questions that I am going to ask her. Doc Oc helped me with that during class today. Almost all of my questions were way too broad and therefore would not have helped me learn information specific to my topic. I also spent a long time today grappling with freeconfrerencepro.com, which is a service that is supposed to allow you to record an conversation (in this case, an interview) online. I am not sure that this will end up working, so I may have to resort to asking the questions over email or finding another way of recording the exchange.
     Today I also finished up my very, very rough first draft of my introduction. Since I will not be in class tomorrow, I am going to meet with Mr. Bolos second period to discuss the intro. Hopefully I will get some good tips and insight from the meeting. 
     All in all, the stress level regarding the paper is not way too high. Maybe I would call it about a code yellow.
    I wonder what our final due date will be?

Junior Theme Update

So it's a bit after three on a beautiful Friday afternoon. As might be expected, the old work ethic has been somewhat hard to find today. I am going to plan out my research via blog to direct myself and budget my time over the weekend.

     The first order of business is to lock in my interview subject. I think that I am going to try to get an interview with danah boyd, as I have been reading her blog and latest book, but according to Mr. Bolos and common sense, she will probably be a difficult person to get an interview with. One of my friends suggested the founder of the website Zillow.com, which is a site that helps the owners or prospective buyers of homes check how much the home is actually worth. This ties in to my theme of privacy very well. One other candidate is Jesse Schell, the speaker in a DICE conference video that I watched. The video had a lot to do with gaming, privacy, and the future of technology.
     The next thing is to finish reading my book and pick out the most important passages and sections to use in my paper. (This task takes much longer to complete than to type out in my list.)
     After that I am going to finalize my thesis and write my introductory paragraph. Neither of these will be in their final form, of course, but it will be good to finally get something written down on paper.

The Jr. Topic Search

After a few weeks of trying to pick junior theme topics, I think that I finally have narrowed it down to three general areas: ageism in America, the evolution of privacy in America, and the use of sex in American advertising. I am very interested in all three of these areas, so I am having a lot of trouble deciding which one to go with (the burden of choice).
      The topic of ageism is really a problem of whether or not I will be able to quantify it. I suppose that I could quantify a housing trend, such as if families welcome their grandparents into their homes or if they chose to send them to a retirement home. I might also be able to explore the value of youth in celebrity and in popular culture.
     In terms of privacy and the internet, I was thinking that I could explore the seemingly recent trend of Americans not caring about their personal privacy. This is very closely tied to online networking websites like Facebook and Twitter. Mark Zuckerburg, the founder/inventor of Facebook recently said "privacy is dead" in an interview about the changes in privacy settings on his website. In a rebuttal, danah boyd argued that privacy is in fact not dead. I think that this would be a particularly interesting topic because it very directly affects my daily life and is a raging debate in today's world. It would be cool to go back in history and see how Americans protected their privacy back then.
     My final option is the use of sex in advertising. I have actually already written a blog that is similar to this topic, but specifically about the Go Daddy commercials. (See the blog here: http://lizzyinamerica.blogspot.com/2010/02/superbowl-commercials-and-feminism.html) For this topic I can research the evolution of advertisements over the years. One question that this raises is whether this type of advertising is a result of our male-dominated society and culture, or if it is actually just a result of the way the human brain is wired. This subject could also be particularly hard to quantify and find some concrete evidence about.

Writing this all down has actually been surprisingly helpful. I am now leaning towards exploring the evolution of Americans' views of personal privacy.

North.East.West.South.

In light of our recent John Dos Passos writing assignment, I have been thinking a lot about newspapers and how our means of receiving media have changed so much in the past hundred years. Traditional newspapers used to be the only way to stay up to date on current events. Now we have TV, radio, internet, and a much faster word-of-mouth network due to the rise of cell phones and instant messaging. In the future, each of us will probably just have a little transmitter in our head that beams news stories directly into our brains. (This may seem far-fetched, but imagine what cell phones would look like to someone from the 1800s. It'll happen.)
      Whereas before we had a few major newspaper corporations that decided what stories to report on and what angle to take, we now have every person with an opinion and access to an internet connection. But getting news from the internet only provides the illusion of a wider base of reporters.Those same big corporations still tell us how to think and feel about what is happening in the world today, but now they have several additional means of doing it. Now, instead of going out and buying a newspaper, the news comes right to us at home or in our pockets via cell phone. This is an even more dangerous way of being taught how to think because we are not always on our guard and conscious of it. Sometimes I just want to go online to play sporcle games, and my homepage blasts me with twenty headlines. 
    News in today's world of instant communication and sharing is an even bigger part of life than it has been ever before.

Everything's An Advertisement

What is an advertisement?
I have been grappling with the answer ever since that question was raised in class. According to dictionary.com, the word has a few different definitions:

1.a paid announcement, as of goods for sale, in newspapers or magazines, on radio or television, etc.

2.a public notice, esp. in print.

3.the action of making generally known; a calling to the attention of the public: The news of this event will receive wide advertisement

 

     The first part of the definition seemed like the most obvious to me. It is the definition that people think of as soon as they hear the word "ad". These are the conscious commercials, the ones that we are aware of when they assault our brains. When you hear or see one of these "paid announcements", you know that they are trying to sell you something because they are relatively obvious about it. Any billboard or TV ad is there for the sole and explicit purpose of raising awareness and tempting consumers to buy, buy, buy. 

     The second definition is used less and less in today's modern America, most likely due to the fact that the first and third definitions are so widely referred to. In fact, under the word origin and history section the mid-fifteenth century definition was "'written statement calling attention to' something, 'public notice' (of anything, but often of a sale)". The English word comes from the French stem avertir, which means "public notice".

     Finally, we come to the third definition, which is "the action of making generally known". In contrast to the first definition, this is the one that the average American needs to worry about. Everywhere we look, we see logos and pictures and brand names. These are the 6,000 ads that most Americans will see every day (according to Jimmy's most recent blog post). Even those who don't watch a lot of TV and don't listen to hours of radio and don't drive down billboard-lined streets will see thousands of commercials aimed at them (although most of us do all of these things daily). Each of those little images that represent a brand or company sends our brain a tiny message that says "recognize me! buy me! consume!!!!".

       This third definition most clearly captures what an advertisement is. In the article from the LA Times titled "Mapping the Mind: Searching for the Why of Buy", Robert Hotz explains why we recognize brands so quickly and easily. He wrote about a modified Coke-Pepsi challenge in which test subjects were given cola to drink without any indication of which brand it was. There was no real preference towards either brand. Next, he they were given a sip of cola while they were shown a logo, but not necesarily the one matching the drink. The preference for Coke was staggering.

     What this means is that advertising is everything. It determines how we think and creates associations in our brains. Every time we see a logo or picture or brand name, we are being assaulted with ads. 

 

    Is this a bad thing?

    Probably, but welcome to the free-enterprise system. 

The Importance of Artistic Education: Blogging Live from Piano Lessons

I am currently seated in a pink armchair, listening to my brother take a piano lesson, having just finished my own. Our teacher, Barbara Rubinstein, coaches him on the different chords that make up his latest jazzy endeavor. Musical terms that have become so familiar to me over the years drift past, reminding me of how much we have learned.

      After today’s class discussion about the way our society values the arts, I began to wonder how much different my own life would be if I had never been exposed to music in the way that I have. The first thing that strikes me would be a real sense of loss. Music seems to be the basis of many other aspects of my life. Music education has taught me how to focus and set goals, how to be creative while being disciplined, and how to keep a sense of constant discovery while learning.

        When you learn how to play a musical instrument, much of the study is self-driven and self-motivated, so the student must understand how to keep themselves practicing. The teacher is not present and monitoring all of the time, unlike in other classes that a student might take.

      A second point is that of inspiring creativity. Learning music requires a lot of rules that have to be followed at first, but most of them can be bent or broken as the student progresses to higher levels. As the saying goes, “You have to learn the rules before you can break them”. This enables students to be creative while providing them with some structure and foundation, rather than just saying "do whatever".
     Finally, music teachers seem to truly understand the value of learning for learning's sake. They have always preached to me that no one should ever stop learning or stop appreciating the journey of discovery.
     Learning music, similar to learning a foreign language, is best started at a young age. This is why every school should give their students the opportunity to experience music education. American society currently does not place a very high value on artistic education, saying that "America's business is business". But as we have seen in light of the recent economic downturn, that is not really working very well. Why not try to change the system at a time like this, when it is clearly not working anyway?

Fantasea: My Childhood in Ruins

Okay, so maybe the title is a bit melodramatic, but a few fond childhood memories did take a bit of a beating today. My family and I went to the Shedd Aquarium with our foreign exchange student, because we could not in good conscience let her leave Chicago without experiencing the museums.
     My excitement at reliving some of the magic that I remembered from my visits to the aquarium when I was younger diminished slightly as soon as the dolphin show, now known as "Fantasea" began. I remembered a pretty cool display of dolphins doing tricks and trainers explaining a few things about the animals. What we got this time was a flashy, dumbed-down show with little actual substance. They removed every remotely educational aspect from the script and replaced them with actors dressed up in white jumpsuits, which were supposed to look like beluga whales, I guess. 
      I also felt like a was being brainwashed the entire time, because they kept flashing their logo (see picture) and mentioning that they are sponsored by ComEd (which is another issue altogether).
      Maybe somewhere along the line the director of the program decided that they needed to draw in a younger audience and, in an effort to make everything more kid-friendly, made the show into something fit for Cartoon Network rather than the Discovery Channel. My own qualms about preserving my youth aside, I think that the revisions made to the show demonstrate a real lack of faith in today's young people. We have begun to assume that no child can be interested in learning without adults dumbing it down and making it fun and colorful for them. This is so wrong. It is quite limiting on creativity, since it gives kids an already-packaged story behind the show, rather than letting them absorb it in their own way.
    Whatever happened to learning for learning's sake? If kids cannot appreciate the world as it is now, instead of as some fake construction created by a corporate sponsor, how will they ever? Do you think this kind of thing is helpful or harmful to children?

Benefits of Life Advice?

In discussing Huck Finn during class, we talked about the life advice that Huck gives and receives throughout the novel. He seems to take in the opinions and views of everyone else, while never actually processing it or thinking for himself. From an outsider's perspective, this is pretty easily recognizable. However, I thought about it a little more and realized that this directly applies to my own life.
       There are little "helpful quotes" everywhere, all telling me how to live my life correctly. They cover the Trevian Tracker (the little school assignment notebook) and they plaster the walls of the hallway. When I was in sixth grade I read the "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" quote by Confucius. Not gonna lie, it got pretty old after the first fifty times.
       Personally, I think that getting life advice crammed into your ears is not helpful at all. In fact, it is actually harmful to a person's morality. If an institution wants to impress students with some sort of life lesson, they have to find a more effective way of doing so. 
      The reason why sayings like this are not a good idea is the same reason why we try to discover knowledge rather than receive it in class. If one is simply told something, the message often does not stick. But, it they truly learn it for themselves, it will be ingrained in their minds for a lifetime.
      It is wrong to shove quotes like this at young children and to tell them that they have to live by them to have a successful and moral life. It is not true and it is far oversimplifying ethics. If we cannot honestly trust kids to discover their own moral fibers, then out society is pretty far gone. I believe that ethics should be discussed and discovered, but never wraped up neatly in cute little wall posters. Thoughts?

The Color of Band-Aids

Today in class we examined an article by Peggy McIntosh called "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack". It was about the ways that our society favors people who are white over people of color, whether or not it is intentional and purposefully racist. 
         The article consists of a lost of fifty different examples of this phenomenon, some of which I agree with and some of which I do not. That aside, number 46, which I do agree with really caught my attention: "46. I can chose blemish cover or bandages in "flesh" color and have them more or less match my skin."
         I think that the reason why this particular example stuck out to me is because it is something that I take for granted. Of course a flesh-colored band-aid would match my skin color. I also have never really considered the matching a bit deal. Sometimes I even wear blue band-aids with little glow-in-the-dark Spongebobs on them. But the practical applications of a band-aid's color are not really in question here. 
      The real issue is in the assumptions that our society makes based on race and color of skin. We like to call ourselves a "post-racial-America", but even if direct hate crimes and racial profiling have come to an end, all of these little things, like white band-aids add up to a very uneven society. I think that these small, seemingly unintentional and harmless discrepancies are often more damaging to race relations than the larger, deliberate examples of racism. 
    My reasoning is twofold. First of all, I explore the phenomenon of right-handed scissors. Obviously, no one hates left-handed people for being left-handed, yet the average lifespan is shorter for these few. Why? Many things, like scissors, are built for people who are righties. This can make life more dangerous for the minority of people who are not. This is similar to the band-aid story. Small things can add up very quickly.
     The second argument is that when racism takes such a subtle form, it becomes ingrained in society without people noticing it. If we accept these things as normal, we are accepting that one group of people should live with more privilege than another group. Things are overlooked that should not be.
     After reading this article, I think that I have already become more aware of this sort of racial bias in my personal experience.

Superbowl Commercials and Feminism

Like most Americans, I spent this evening sitting around the TV with family and friends, eating guacamole and watching the Superbowl. As much as the football game itself fascinates me, I have always been intrigued by the commercials. Several years ago, I started keeping track of the different categories of ads. For example, a few of the most common types from this year were TV shows, cars, and beer.
       Out of the 113 commercials that aired between the kickoff and the end of the game, 30 were for CBS shows. But the ads that I found the most interesting were far from the most common. They were the two godaddy.com commercials, featuring the "Go Daddy Girl".
    Both the ads depicted a woman being recognized as the Go Daddy Girl. Another woman in the ad then asked if she was "go daddy material". Then she ripped the front of her shirt open, and the commercial ended, directing viewers to visit the Go Daddy website if they wanted to see more.
       My question hardly even needs to be stated. Are these commercials inappropriate? I would say yes. The Superbowl has been branded as a family show ever since the Justin Timberlake/Janet Jackson fiasco a few years ago. In the years following their "wardrobe malfunction", CBS has tried to make the even more family-friendly  by having much older bands play the halftime show. So why ruin the efforts with such sexist and provocative ads? The network chose to deny other ads on the grounds that they were not in keeping with the station's values. Why on earth did they not deny this one too? I am all for the funny ads, but this one made me feel more like I was about to see pornography.
      If we keep portraying women as sex symbols in media, true equality can never be achieved. C'mon, CBS.

Have You Seen Our Finals Schedule?????

Earlier this afternoon, I was looking up dates for the end of the school year and I discovered some shocking information. According to the official New Trier Calendar, our first day of second semester finals is on a Friday. The weekend after is Memorial Day weekend, so we have the following Monday off. Then exams will wrap up on Tuesday and Wednesday. Oh, yeah. And the commencement ceremony for the seniors is on that Sunday.
      Aside from the problems this causes for my personal calendar, this raises some issues.
      First of all, I think that having three extra days in between the first and second days of finals is awkward and possibly harmful to students' studying. The end of school is a distracting enough time, and to draw finals out for a time longer than necessary encourages end-of-year slumps. Will students really be able to use those three days effectively? I don't think so.
     Also, having a weekend surrounded by finals really defeats the purpose of a weekend. We are supposed to have those two (or three) days to catch up on work and sleep, and maybe to have a social life. But if students spend the weekend stressing about what is to come on during the next week, we can't rest.
    The lack of a true weekend also means that many New Trier students and their families will not observe Memorial day at all. Especially in light of the current war, every American should make that extra effort to acknowledge our armed forces.
     Finally, Memorial Day weekend has traditionally been a family-oriented time. It is the last major block of freedom most people have before everyone parts ways for the summer break. Without it, a lot of annual events and family vacations will likely be forgotten.
    I have a feeling that the reason for this strange schedule is to make extra time for the potential construction over this summer. Is it worth it? What are your opinions?

The Virtue of Incentives in Education

After watching Barry Schwartz's speech in class today, one of the thing that he said stuck out to me in particular. (You can view it here.) He told a story that served as a warning against relying on incentives to live a virtuous life. Apparently, in Switzerland citizens would ask if they would be opposed to having nuclear waste stored in their neighborhoods. Somewhat surprisingly, about 50% of them said that they would be okay with it because they felt like it was their duty as citizens. Here comes the crazy part. Another group of people were asked the same question, but they were also offered six weeks' salary as a compensation for the waste storage in their neighborhood. This time, only 25% accepted the plan. 
       This story clearly demonstrates a very interesting aspect of human behavior. We will agree to do something on strictly moral grounds until financial gain is brought into the picture. Then we suddenly take on a much more self-serving attitude and can no longer do the right thing based solely on what we believe is right an wrong. 
      Since I do not live in Switzerland and no one has ever surveyed me about nuclear waste storage, this specific example does not directly pertain to my daily life, but its message does. Our education system today is largely based on providing students with the incentives to learn. We receive grades for almost every assignment and we make a huge deal about final semester grades. For almost every student at New Trier, grades are a huge motivator to learn. 
     But why not learn just for learning's sake?
      To take myself as an example, I genuinely like to learn. I think new concepts are pretty cool. In Spanish, we are supposed to be learning how to speak another language, but sometimes I feel as if all that I am really learning how to do is get a good grade in the class. If we are assigned two pages in the workbook, I always do them, but I usually do not really put much thought into it. I do the minimum amount of writing so that I can get all of my homework points. I know that I am not the only person in my class who is guilty of this. But when I try to make myself feel guilty about blowing off my homework, I realize that the incentive of getting a good grade in Spanish really hurts my ability to learn properly. I truly believe that if I didn't have to waste so much time trying to get a good grade, then I could properly learn the language, which is something that I am interested in doing even without the grades (which is why I signed up for the class in the first place).
       My final point comes from the Chicago schools. Recently, they created a program that paid students for getting good grades. (I don't know what the current state of the program is, but the basic idea is still relevant.) I think that the problem with adding extra, unnecessary incentives to things is that the new incentives actually undermine the original ones. This "money for grades" program is telling students that getting good grades is not enough reward in itself. For that matter, grades in general send students the message that learning for learning's sake is not worth it. We need that extra validation from an outside source, rather than just being able to be proud of ourselves. I'm not sure that this is healthy.
      What do you think??

One Grain of Rice (Slightly Belated)

When I was younger, one book that both my brother and I enjoyed very much was One Grain of Rice, a folktale by Demi. It is a picture book with beautiful illustrations depicting a historical India. The story goes that a Raja thought that we was wise and fair to his people, most of whom were rice farmers. He took most of their harvest each year to keep safely in the royal storehouses in case of famine. Then, one year, almost all of the crop failed and the starving peasants went to the Raja, begging for the rice that he had promised. But in the interest of self-preservation, he denied them, not knowing how long the famine would last and needing rice for his own feasts. So the people continued to starve.
      Then, one day a young girl was walking past the royal rice-carriers when she noticed that one of their bags had a hole and was spilling rice. Being very clever, she walked beside them and caught all of the rice in her skirt. When they arrived at the palace, she was so honest that she returned all of the rice to the Raja. He was impressed, and offered to grant her any wish. She explained to him that all of the people were starving, and asked that he give her one grain of rice that day, then gave her two the next day, and four the next, doubling the amount each day for a month.
     The Raja agreed immediately, thinking that the girl was foolish to ask for so little. Of course, he had not mastered the subject of mathematics, and by the end of the month, he had given the girl all of his rice. She then turns around and distributes it the the hungry people. One thing to take note of is that despite the fact that he realized that all of his rice was disappearing, the Raja kept his word and did not go back on his promise. 
     There are a few different messages in this story. The first is that generosity is key to success in life. The Raja will not give his people rice, and he loses big by the end of the story. The main protagonist is very generous. She does not keep all of the rice for herself, as the Raja did. I think that this is a great message to send to kids, especially in our material age. The other good message is that anyone can change the government and that even the seemingly smallest person can have a bearing on a ruler.
      A final positive moral is that education is quite important. If the Raja had had as good of a grasp on simple math as the girl, the story likely would have had a different ending. It is clearly saying that knowledge is power.
     In fact, I could not find any examples of bad morals or "brainwashing" in this whole book. Not all of the messages that we give children in media are negative. There are good ones too!

The Ethics of Advertising

The short clip that we watched in class yesterday really got be thinking about the ethics of targeting children in advertisments. Personally, I do not think that there is any ethical problem with targeting the age-group that the prodct is designed for. That is, after all, the most effective way to sell something, which is all any company is trying to do. If the "nag factor" is what makes adults more likely to buy a product, then the realy problem lies in parents' attitudes toward their own children. If a child learns early on that they can get anything that they want from their parents merely by nagging them, then that lesson will stick. The parents are allowing this cycle to begin the first time they cave in to their child's wanting. The lessons that parents teach the children can have much more bearing on the way that their children develop than the media that they absorb. However, sucessful parenting may include limiting this media.
          This said, I did find one study that shows that advertising a certain type of product very negatively effects children, both mentally and physically. This is the advertising of food. A study by the Kaiser Family Foundation that I came across (view it here) suggests that the main reason that childhood obesity has become such a problem in the past few years is due to food advertisements directed at children. It says that the average child will spend almost six hours in "screentime" (TV, computer, gaming) every day. It also said that every year, each child will have seen over 40.000 commercials on TV alone. I found this to be the most telling sentence: "The majority of ads targeted at children are for food: primarily candy (32%), cereal (31%), and fast food (9%)". Although advertising for toys and chuckie-cheese's is not really that harmful, this clearly is.

       Ads for non-food items will bombard the average American daily for the rest of our lives. What better time to prepare for this than during our childhood, when our parents can help us to regulate our purchasing and consuming? Food advertising, on the other hand, is quite harmful to children, many of whom have parents who also struggle with obesity and overeating. This habit will cause even more health problems later in life that are tied to obesity, causing the health care system billions every year.

      This may seem like overkill to some, but after reading this study, I have come to believe that food products should not be advertised on TV to anyone, regardless of age. Thoughts?