Blog #11: IMHO #2

Chatroulette is only six-months-old, but it's already all the rage, and sparking controversy.

The social networking Web site and latest Internet craze randomly and repeatedly connects users to strangers from all over the world, via their webcams.

As many as 85,000 users are doing it at any particular time, and up to 500,000 daily visitors worldwide, the site says.

While the site says you have to be at least 16 years old to use this service, there is no age authentication. This can cause problems.

Not only are you encouraged to talk to strangers, but young eyes can see a naked middle-aged man just as easily as they can find a 12-year old girl singing a Taylor Swift song. . For kids, it isn’t safe, it’s easy to use, it’s free, and there are no barriers to keep kids off of it.

Another problem also lies in the fact that individuals can save any chat they share with a stranger and record and video and then do with it as they please, possibly posting it on YouTube, Facebook, or any other social media website.

Ironically Andrey Ternovskiy, a 17-year-old high school student in Moscow, created the site. His reason being that he was bored of chatting with people that he knew. An interesting concept, but there is certainly some barriers and walls that need to be constructed to protect the young and innocent. And to ban any foul play.

Personally, I’ve never experienced the awkward voyeurism of Chatroulette first-hand. I prefer to have social interaction in person with people I know or want to know. I think it’s just another excuse for socially awkward people to stay inside and not be out and active in the real world. But seriously, I have to admit that I’m struck by the lurid fascination of watching a mix of cam-whores, douches and weirdo’s making fools of themselves.

Blog #10: Fish Out of Water

My First Time At A Death Metal Show

When I told my boyfriend about my “Fish Out of Water” assignment his eyes lit up. “Babe, I have a great idea.” He said. “You always drag me to swanky bars with your girlfriends, you can come to my friends metal show this weekend.”

This sounded like an awful idea, not only do I hate metal, but I really, really hate metal. But I figured since I “drag” him to my “swanky” (this is an major exaggeration on his part) bars, I would see what a metal show was all about.

The term “Fish Out of Water” seems a little sugar coated for how I felt.

We arrived at 7 p.m. Iron Maiden songs were the only ones I recognized from the stereo as the first band set up, and this is only because my brother is a huge fan and would always play their music.

The show was at the Blue Lagoon in Santa Cruz, this bar is known for being dirty, filled with sleazy people, and having cheap, bad drinks. Just being there, I felt out of place.

As time went by, more and more black-clad metal heads arrived and milled about on the sidewalk. My skinny jeans, brightly colored top, and five-inch heels made me stick out like a sore thumb, but no one seemed to care about my presence.

Around 8 p.m., the first band went on, and played some interesting music under a red light in the dimly lit bar. My boyfriend said it wasn’t death metal. It was too slow. I think he categorized it as “doom.”

One thing I learned from this experience was there are many more sub-genres to metal than I ever realized. And the fact that the songs were in Spanish made no difference, given you could not distinguish words from the lead singer’s guttural vocals anyways.

At one point my boyfriend looked over at me, and just started laughing, apparently I looked like a deer in headlights, eyes wide and mouth just slightly open in awe.

After the second band and my second drink I felt a little bit more comfortable. I actually knew one of the musicians in the band, so even though I didn’t really enjoy the music, it was fun to watch him rock out on stage.

Around 11p.m. I had my fill of metal for the night, and probably my lifetime. It was definitely an eye opening experience, to say the least.

Next time I try to get my boyfriend to go to one of my bars, I’ll think twice about dragging him, in order to get out of going to one of his.

Word of the Week:

Word # 10

1. Malevolent

2. The Art Of War by Steven Pressfeild

3. Though it feels malevolent, resistance in fact operates with the indifference of rain and transits the heavens by the same law as the stars.

4. Wishing evil or harm to another or others, showing ill will, ill-disposed, malicious.

5. His failures made him malevolenttoward those who were successful.

Targeting Audiences

This is a two-page ad for Juicy Couture fragrance from InStyle magazine. Both sides of the ad claim “Do the Dont’s,” on one side the “Don’t” is “SPOIL YOURSELF” and the other is “ SHOW OFF.”

The intended audience for this ad is women age 18-35 and are into fashion. Juicy Couture is known for being an expensive line so they would be at a middle or higher income level to afford it.

The women targeted could be students to working professionals who enjoy going out, being social, love fashion, don’t mind spending money, and want to feel, smell, and look pretty.

Since the tagline in the ads claim “SPOIL YOURSELF” and “SHOW OFF” it might also target women who are a little more shallow and conceited. They might live a lifestyle of caring a little bit too much about appearance and showing off that appearance.

I don’t believe education level has anything to do with it, since girls in high school to soccer moms to celebrities all love Juicy Couture.

The key message in the advertisement is to be pretty, smell good and have fun doing it. It’s more of an artistic ad and it’s on thicker matte paper and is two pages long, which lets you know that Juicy Couture can afford to run more expensive ads.

It’s intended for a less involved audience because there aren’t many words or instructions.

It’s an eye-catching and unique ad. There are no celebrity or expert source in the ad, just pretty models showing you that by wearing Juicy Couture fragrance you can “SPOIL YOURSELF” and “SHOW OFF” too.

Blog # 9: Japanese Internment

After the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, America declared war on Japan. All the Japanese immigrants living in the U.S. at the time became suspect as people who could aid and abet the enemy or even become enemy combatants.

On February 19, 1942, soon after the beginning of World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 which ordered the round-up and relocation of 120,000 Americans of Japanese heritage to one of 10 internment camps, officially called “relocation centers,” in California, Idaho, Utah, Arizona, Wyoming, Colorado, and Arkansas. More than two-thirds of the Japanese who were interned were citizens of the United States.

The U.S. internment camps were overcrowded and provided poor living conditions. According to a 1943 report published by the War Relocation Authority, Japanese Americans were housed in "tarpaper-covered barracks of simple frame construction without plumbing or cooking facilities of any kind."

One of the thousands of internees was Ruth Asawa, the creator and artist of the Japanese Internment Memorial in San Jose. Asawa was 16 when she was forced into the camps with her family. She and her family were placed in the horse stalls of the Santa Anita racetrack. In her mural, an image of the horses being removed from the stalls and hundreds of people filing in, stands out, among others.

For many, the upheaval of losing everything, most importantly their right to freedom and a private, family life caused irreparable harm. For Asawa, the internment was the first step on a journey to a world of art that profoundly changed who she was and what she thought was possible in life.

In 1994, when she was 68 years old, she reflected on the experience: "I hold no hostilities for what happened; I blame no one. Sometimes good comes through adversity. I would not be who I am today had it not been for the Internment, and I like who I am."

The memorial created by Asawa is a two-sided panel that sits in front of the federal courthouse in San Jose. The piece depicts scenes of immigration, internment during World War II and the current Japanese-American community.

San Jose was a significant location during the Japanese Internment. San Jose was a huge farming community, and had a very large Japanese population. It was one of the first stops when the government ordered the gathering of people of Japanese heritage. San Jose State’s Uchida Hall was once a transfer point for Japanese Americans to internment camps.

I think that Asawa really connected the memorial to San Jose by including the family crests of the residents interned from Santa Clara County.

Her images and recreated scenes tell the story of the Japanese immigrants from their arrival in the U.S. to the end of the internment period.

There are stories of closed shops, burned belongings, and lost loved ones. Barbed wire surrounds Asawa’s pictures much like the Japanese were surrounded in their camps. There are large guard towers shown in the center of the memorial and the cramped and uncomfortable living conditions can also be seen.

I believe this country has overcome much of its racial and ethnic bias that would trigger interning a whole group of people based on their ethnicity, although certain groups still face discrimination. After 9-11 Middle Eastern people were discriminated against unfairly and some even lost their jobs or were shunned in their communities. This shows, that as a country, although we have overcome some bias, we haven’t overcome it all, and some people never will.

Word of the Week:

Word # 9

1. Chit

2. Scrabble game

3. N/A

4. A signed note for money owed for food, drink, etc. A brief note

5. You must hand in a chit stating your expenses before you receive any money.

Blog Post #8-IMHO

When kids talk about school being intolerable they are usually referring to test, reports, and homework, but when Pheobe Prince told her friend “school has been close to intolerable lately,” she wasn’t talking about the schoolwork. She was talking about the months of bullying she had endured; the bullying that got so vicious that, at only 15 years old, she took her own life.

Nine teens were indicted on March 29, 2010 in connection with the girl's death including: two teen boys charged with statutory rape and a clique of girls charged with stalking, criminal harassment, and violating Phoebe's civil rights. These charges came almost three months after Pheobe’s younger sister found her hanging in the stairwell of their family home.

I have heard and read many stories like Pheobe’s, and sadly this is not the only story of a teenager taking her/his own life because of the anguish brought on by bullying and tormenting. Bullying is becoming a disturbingly frequent occurrence in not only schools in the U.S. but all over the world, and it’s time to put a stop to it.

According to a study done throughout 13 countries by Yale School of Medicine, there are connections between bullying, being bullied, and suicide in children and teenagers. Suicide is the fifth leading cause of death among those 5-14 years old, the third leading cause of death among those 15-24 years old, and among young people aged 10-14 years, the rate has doubled in the last two decades.

I believe not only are the kids being bullied at risk, the kids doing the bullying can have effects lasting long after leaving school. Youth who bully frequently during adolescence are more likely to be aggressive and to have criminal records as adults.

I know most people think bullying is just part of growing up, but research done by The International Bullying Prevention Association, shows that 50% reduction rates in bullying are possible.

So why is it still happening? Why aren’t schools doing more to protect their students? And why do kids think the only way out is by taking their own lives?

Stop Bullying Now! a program started by The International Bully Prevention Association did a three-year study in Colorado schools in 2005. The program was to help youths and adults in school districts, schools, and communities intervene in and prevent bullying through training, networking, practice sessions and other strategies.

The findings show that bullying declined over the three-year initiative. The percentage of students reporting that they continued to bully others fell by 12 percent. Physical bullying dropped by 9 percent and verbal bullying, which included cyber bullying, decreased by 5 percent.

I believe that we implement programs like these in schools across the country and the world we can put a stop to bullying and even save a life.

Word of the Week:

Word #8

1. Grievances

2. The American Dream by Jim Cullen.

3. Most of us walk around with some sense of grievances that sparked the conflict-- taxes on tea, something about stamps--but the list is hard to keep straight because it is essentially trivial.

4. An actual or supposed circumstance regarded as just cause for complaint.

5. The students filed a grievance because they believed the university denied them free speech.

Blog Post #7: Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

In ZZ Packer's book of short stories titled Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, I chose to read the story "Drinking Coffee Elsewhere."

The title refers to the main character's coping strategy, namely pretending to be somewhere else when the pain she is enduring becomes too much. “I remembered the morning after my mother’s funeral. I had been given milk to settle my stomach; I’d pretended it was coffee. I imagined myself drinking coffee elsewhere.”

In this story a character, Dina, remembers a moment when she ran away from a boy who offered to carry her bags home from the store. Instead of accepting the offer, she remembers running off in fright, dropping everything in her hasty flight because she was afraid he'd see the shabby neighborhood she lived in.

As a college student, she is a similar woman, though she uses dark humor and sarcasm to separate herself from her classmates at Yale instead of physically running away. Dina lives in a fantasyland, where she needs no one. But in reality she has no one.

Packer uses very detailed descriptions and paints a picture of her characters and she uses similes and metaphors to help the reader envision exactly what she is try to convey.

“The girl turned to me, smiling weakly, as though her triumph was not in getting me to open the door but in the fact that she was able to smile at all when she was so accustomed to crying. She was large, but not obese, and crying had turned her face to color of raw chicken.”

Her use of humor and sarcasm also helps the reader get a deeper connection into the minds of the characters. During orientation games, when she is asked what inanimate object she would like to be, Dina replies "a revolver." As a result, she is referred for psychiatric counseling and assigned a "suicide single" dorm room.

Packer uses a variety of descriptions and writing techniques to engage her readers, and they work, you can lose yourself in her stories.

NPR

Terry Gross interviewing Paul Rudd on July 31, 2007

What did the interviewer appear to know about the subject before the interview?

She knew about his previous work in not only movies, but also plays, screenwriting, and theater. She also knew about certain great scenes and lines from his films that most people connect with.

What kinds of questions did the interviewer ask?

How he was involved with a main group of comedians, and comedy screen wrtiers, especially about the Judd Apatoe camp, and how he got to know Judd Apatow. She also asked what it was like to work with friends and family of the director Judd Apatow.

How did the interviewer build up to questions? How did he or she follow up to questions?

She referernced work he had done or people he had worked with. She also used clips from his movies to build up to questions and to give examples of the type of work that Paul Rudd does.

Did the interviewer appear to have a strategy?

She was very well educated in his work and projects he was involved in. She connected all his work through is acting, writing, and relationships with other actors.

How were inadequate or evasive answers (if any) handled?

She mostly laughed since he was being sarcastic a lot of the time.

What was the apparent relationship between the interviewer and interviewee?

They were both very friendly and laughed a lot, they seemed to have a mutual respect for each other.

What did you learn about interviewing from this interview?

Be prepared, do your research, if you have things in common or appreciate their work, then talk about it, it will help you connect and make the interview more meaningful.

Word of the Week:

Word # 7

1. Antecedent

2. Matt Cabot, PR190 Teacher

3. "For the midterm make sure you study pronoun antecedent agreement"

4. Adjective-Preceding, prior.

Noun- a preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc.

5. Planning must be antecedent to action.

Word of the Week:

Word # 6

1. Impetus

2. Handbook for Public Relation Writing, Press Releases & Backgrounders PG. 74

3. The increasing popularity of video games has added impetus to the market by providing a vehicle for learning.

4. A moving force, impulse, or stimulus.

5. She avoided explaining the impetus behind her emigration from Costa Rica to Santa Cruz.

Word of the Week:

Word #5

1. Diminutive

2. The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls

3. But we'd call the baby Maureen, a name Mom liked because it was a diminutive of Mary, so she'd also be naming the baby after herself but pretty much no one would know it.

4. Small; little; tiny; a charge, as an ordinary, smaller in length or breadth than the usual.

5. She could hardly see the diminutive figure waving at her from the other end of the tunnel.

Blog Post #5-Mystery Character

This man is not only tall and ridiculously handsome; he embodies one of Hollywood's most formidable renaissance men. As a remarkably intelligent and capable actor, he’s also a director of surprising skill and intuition. He has almost completely excused himself from criticism. His impressive charm and devastating physical appeal seem, astonishingly, to be almost incidental. He has a cool confidence when he speaks, he’s captivating, funny, and extremely smooth. He has also been named one Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the world for his humanitarian work. He also made salt and pepper sexy.

Blog Post #4-What Makes It News?

Already under fire, crime labs cut to the bone

Budget cuts, lack of training, standards raise doubts about tests’ reliability

Written by Alex Johnson

Msnbc.com

Tues., Feb 23, 2010

Crime labs all over the country are suffering from backlogs that already reach back years in many cities and states. Budget cuts due to the recession are threatening credible crime scene analysis as a lost art, forensic specialist and law enforcement officials say. They are also suffering from what specialist call the CSI Effect, American see television lab technicians solve crazy cases with barely any evidence, and think that’s how it works in the real world. This is not the case. There are serious questions about the credibility of nearly every kind of lab analysis, and with the lack of funding these numbers are increasing. There are thousands of cases all over the country where people have been falsely incarcerated due to mistakes in lab test, and even technicians sabotaging evidence. With budget cuts and inadequately trained lab technicians, these mistakes will just continue to increase and cause cases to be thrown out of court.

This article is newsworthy because it can affect anyone across the country; innocent people are going to jail because of mistakes made in labs. Also, if you are sexually assaulted or someone you know is injured by a drunk driver, or even murdered, and there are mistakes made, the case could be thrown out and the guilty party could go free. I think the news values involved in this story are:

Impact: information has impact if it affects a lot of people

Conflict: information has conflict if it involves some kind of disagreement between two or more people.

Timeliness: information has timeliness if it happened recently.

This story could be localized by doing an article on a local crime lab or a case where someone local was accused of a crime they didn’t commit. Another way to localize this article could be to do a report on how in January of 2009, California (along with 11 other states) widened the scope of its DNA collection, drawing samples not just from anyone who is convicted of a felony, as the state does now, but also from anyone arrested for a felony. The genetic profiles will be dropped into the state’s criminal offender database and eventually the FBI’s much larger CODIS database, which at last count held more than five million profiles. Unquestionably, these databases are powerful crime-fighting tools. Now that it’s 2010 you could do a follow up on if this has helped with solving crimes and getting convictions.