Accusation or Condemnation?

Yesterday when the Cold War group presented, I noticed a recurring theme between communism during the cold war and the crucible. This theme was that an accusation of being either a communist or a witch was not just something you could get out of, it was like a punishment in itself. In the case of the cold war, being a communist was not something a person would like to share with everybody, the social perspective was that they were freedom-hating soviet supporters. So when a person was given a subpoena and asked if they had communist affiliations, the mere suggestion that they did was as good as socially exiling the person. This is because the average person realizes that the government would not take the time to summon a person to court for questioning if they did not have significant evidence to believe that the person was a communist. Although this was not always an accurate assumption, people will assume that the person has communist affiliations and treat them very differently because of it. The same is true for the Crucible where an accusation of witchcraft, although it sounds ridiculous today, was probably similar to an accusation of rape or some other violent crime. Also, since most people decided to plead guilty to save their lives, the general population would have every reason to believe that they were truly witches. And who would want to be friends with a witch, even if they had admitted it? I think it is interesting that sometimes the accusation can be just as bad as a conviction in the eyes of society.

The Business of Religion

Mr. Bolos gave us a quote in class a few days ago, "the business of religion is the business of the puritans". Now after some explanation, I understood it meant that the puritans loved their religion and liked to talk about, business being in a social sense. However, when I read it initially, the thought of the puritans making money off of religion came to mind. Although that wasn't really the message of the quote, it got me thinking about the profitability of religious groups and prompted me to research this. I came across an NPR broadcast entitled Inside the Business of Religion on this topic (link). The report says that "there are plenty of companies that make money helping people develop spiritually" and states that the market research firm Packaged Facts estimates that Americans will spend 8.6 billion dollars this year on religious products. Daniel Radosh, a guest on the program, states that he believes it is important that a religious group that intends to take part in commerce, then "they should be representing the highest principles of that religion". He also states that one of his motives for starting his own business was to model these high standards and principles, almost in a way of expressing faith through the way commercial proceedings are held. I found this broadcast very interesting and even a little relevant to The Crucible because of how the people of Salem love to talk about religion and we love to spend money on religion.

The Power of Crowds

In AS class, we have talked about both the wisdom and ignorance of crowds. This is the concept that many people collaborating can problem solve very quickly and be effective in many ways, and at the same time that group of people, with the wrong motives, could influence and control the opinions of every group member. I think that the puritan society in The Crucible is an example of both those concepts fused together. On one hand, the collective beliefs and goals of these people have helped them to form a very successful society, which had previously been uncommon in the "wilderness" of the new world. In addition, however, the combined perpetrating force of the society allows these people to commit the horrible accusations and punishments brought upon the alleged witches of the town. In this way, a society of dedicated, hard working people with essentially nothing but good intentions became a dark chapter in history, stained with the story of the witch trials. This awful history brings me to the question: although not to the severe degree of the witch trials, does a society of like-minded people always bring both strength through unity and ignorance, or could a society exist with only the positives?

Controlling the Past

In AS class we have been talking a lot about how our views of the past as a society change over time. I've been thinking about how I see the meaning of the quote Mr. O'Connor gave us from 1984, "He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future." The first section has an obvious meaning to me, that the present is constantly becoming the past, so one who has control over what is occurring in the present subsequently controls the past as those events they controlled when they were present become past. But then I realized there was another meaning as well. The one in power during the present gets to control how past events are perceived. In this way, controlling the present gives one control over not only the history of their time in power, but also the historical recollection of past events before their time in power. My initial interpretation of the second section relied on the assumption that past events and our present interpretation of them dictate what future decisions are made. I point this out as an assumption because I have seen, many times in fact, that a society can be prone to making the same mistake twice. Because of this, I sought a different way to interpret this piece of the quote. I believe it means that one who is in power in the present, and therefore controls the past, can use evidence from the past (which they control) to justify and rationalize decisions for the future.

The Meta-Blog Post

Reading over all my past blog posts was actually quite enlightening. In all honesty I rarely read over my work after it has been "turned in", and this process of re-reading my old writing has made me want to do so again in the future. I was reminded of what made me write about each topic and what I had thought about that lead me to write certain things. I noticed that in every post I had attempted to make a connection with something from our class discussions, or rather I used things from class as a starting point for each post. In a few of them I made personal connections, or connections to things classmates had said. There was something I noticed in some posts that I had not expected, a lack of finalizing my thoughts. I believe this was caused by me fully formulating a thought and opinions in my head, but not following through in writing. It seems like in some posts I jump to a question for the reader without fully voicing my own opinion. An example of this is my post "Variation in Media Sources" where I wrote "I guess my ultimate question is...", jumping into a question about bias in media sources without answering that very question myself, or at least stating some views of mine about it. I avoided this in the majority of my posts, but some seem to lack a definitive point or idea. As weeks passes and I gained more experience with the blogging medium, I began to develop my connections and links more fully. In fact, I'd say that my post "Working at Home" is almost like one big connection in itself. The post contains numerous quotes of my interviewee from the society connectedness project. I wrote this post with the intention of portraying her ideas and opinions moreso than my own. I feel this was good because it was different from my other posts. Overall, my blog so far has been a useful and expressive medium for me that has clearly expanded the breadth of my writing style by adding a new, more open conduit for casual writing.

The post I would like to be graded is my very first post, iPhone Jailbreaking Becoming Commonplace
I think out of all my posts this was on the topic I was most interested in, which lead to a more interesting post.

Acedemic Whitewashing

In class a few days ago, Mr. Bolos brought up the concept of whitewashing, meaning skimming over or covering up touchy or less desirable subjects so they need not be discussed. I think it is worth noting that we rarely if ever do this in AS class. In fact, out of all previous social studies and history classes, our discussions have been the most frank and deep about subjects that some teachers would not feel comfortable having discussed in their classes. For example, the "diptych" that we examined and discussed was definitely a rather candid snapshot of what the perceptions, even by supposed historians, were like during slavery times. Mr. O'Connor also read us a section of the preface to a published history paper on the topic of "slavery and the negro race" that spoke of the "deterioration" of their race being inevitable and actually partially remedied by slavery. Many teachers would not like to look back at these expressions of awful prejudice that defined many historians and biological scientists of those days, but rather to "whitewash" the more disturbing attributes of slavery. I can say confidently that, for better or worse, those more touchy subjects make up many of our class discussions and that no whitewashing whatsoever occurs.

Working at Home

On Thursday our class had an extended discussion on topics relating to housewives and stay at home moms and the connotations of those terms. This relates to one of the topics the woman I interviewed for our most recent project spoke of. She said that "for a woman to choose to be at home is a valid career as much as a woman who chooses to work outside the home" because a stay at home career is "very, very difficult, its 24/7 you’re always on, you don’t get to say 'hold my calls' or 'I’m going to lunch,' its rewarding beyond measure, but it doesn’t give you the flexibility and the downtime as if you were picking up a briefcase and walking out the door, I mean it is all the time." I think this is a very interesting first-hand perspective of what its like to stay at home (or work at home) as a mom. Before this interview, I had never compared raising a child to a career. I realized that it was a lot of work but I hadn't really considered the 24/7 factor, which seems like the hardest part of the job. My interviewee goes on to say that "you can’t say to a woman, 'well do you work or are you just at home,' I think that’s an insult to women who choose to be there for their children." She makes a point of saying "just at home" because it demeans the effort that a woman puts in to raising a child, as if it were less than that of a professional career.

South Park and Racism

I was reading Reed's blog post about South Park, and another episode of the show on the topic of racism came to mind. In this episode, the character chef, who seems to be the only adult black person in the town, discovers that the flag of south park shows a bunch of white stick figures hanging a black stick figure. Chef is outraged, and rightfully so, about the racist flag and protests that it be removed. Unexpectedly, the main characters of south park, the kids, counter Chef's protest and argue that the flag should remain. Chef is bewildered by the kids blatant racism until the very end of the episode where it is revealed that the kids hadn't even noticed that the stick figures colors represented different races, but instead said this "Our main point is that the flag shouldn't offend anyone, because killing has been around since the bieginning of time. All animals kill. And the animals that don't kill are stupid ones, like cows and turtles and stuff. So people should not be so upset about killing." Chef instantly realizes with amazement that the kids were not the ones at fault here, it was he for assuming that a bunch of fourth grade kids were racist. It is very hard to verbalize the message of this episode, but I think it is a very important and deep one. The episode concludes as Chef says that the kids' rationale for supporting the flag was "the most bautiful thing [he's] ever heard", after the kids say that of course the race of the stick figures doesn't matter, as the color of someone's skin has nothing to do with anything.

Zoning in The Suburbs

Mr. Bolos brought up an interesting fact during Friday's discussion, that signs in the suburbs are significantly smaller and less obnoxious than they are in urban communities. My dad is the park board president for Kenilworth, so it brought to mind things he had mentioned to me about disagreements over zoning laws and housing regulations. In many cases, the conflicts arise when one family wants to expand their house in some way, and a neighboring family complains that their view would be tarnished by the expanded house. Often things as simple as cutting down trees on one's property can cause great discord among neighbors. I believe this is because of the immensely high property values in Kenilworth, and peoples' worries that another bigger house, or a lack of trees around their property would decrease the value of their house. Mr. Bolos also brought up how suburban areas have strong regulations against commercial districts near residential districts. I think there are about two businesses within Kenilworth and they are both on Green Bay road, very separated from residential areas. In my opinion i think this is a good thing. It's nice to have separate residential and commercial districts so that I can both walk home through a quiet, peaceful neighborhood and at the same time drive 10 minutes and have access to fast food and all kinds of stores. How do you feel about this separation of districts?

The Power of Diction

In class we've spent a lot of time talking about selection, secret messages, and diction. In this post I am going to examine the power of diction, as I believe the way someone chooses to present their words makes an enormous difference in how others will react. I know from personal experience that the way I tell my parents about a situation greatly impacts what reaction they will have. For example, if I make it clear through my diction that I am not much concerned about a poor test grade, my parents will assume that it was an isolated incident and future test grades will make up for it. That is a big way that diction can be used, to show others how important or unimportant something is. If the speaker shows a clear lack of interest in the subject through his/her diction, then the listener will likely believe that the subject lacks importance. However, if the person speaks with distress and great concern about something, the listener is likely to think that the topic is important to not only the speaker but themselves as well. Do you think that diction is as important and opinion-swaying as I do?

Variation in Media Sources

During this friday's class, Mr. Bolos asked us to describe news sites like yahoo and AOL by associating each one with a different flavor of ice cream. I recall someone saying that they would describe them as Vanilla, Vanilla Bean, and French Vanilla, meaning that they had slight differences but were overall very alike. This idea got me to start thinking about similarities and differences in media sources. In many cases, a news story that may appear on television, like a local event that will be occurring or a crime that has been committed, can really only be presented in one way, through telling the viewer facts about the event. In an equally large number of news stories, however, there is some sort of conflict with two sides to it, that can be broadcast in many dissimilar ways or from opposing viewpoints. In this case it is up to the media organization whether to voice both sides of the issue equally and stay essentially neutral, or to take a side and explain why it has done so. Although some news organizations have gained a reputation for having more conservative or liberal views, almost all claim to be unbiased. I guess my ultimate question is: are we cheating ourselves by trying to be completely unbiased when presenting political news, when really it is impossible?

iPhone Jailbreaking Becoming Commonplace

During Friday's class, the topic of jailbreaking apple devices came up. What I found most interesting about our short discussion about this concept was that only a few students were unfamiliar with the term "jailbreaking". The ability to jailbreak an iPhone or iPod Touch has been accessible from the very first generation of Apple iPhones, but I am sure if the same topic was brought up only a year ago to the same group of students, less than half would have recognized the term. Although I would say only a small percentage of iPhone users actually jailbreak their phones, most of them have heard of jailbreaking these days. I feel this is significant because most devices released in recent years can be "hacked" or modified in some way that gives the user access to more content than the manufacturer intended, however this concept has been largely unknown to the average consumer up until very recently. Jailbreaking has been the first widely used and recognized method of device modification. To me, this shows that consumers are more interested than ever in gaining access to every single feature that a device they purchase has. As more and more people use and support the jailbreaking concept, it will become easier to apply and better supported by independent software developers because of the greater consumer interest. Eventually, I don't find it unlikely that a completely unlocked, opened, and modifiable device will become a selling point. Manufacturers will advertise the fact that their device can run any software made by an independent or 3rd party developer and contain no locks on the device's features. I find the concept of widespread modification and unlocking very intriguing, how about you?