The Big Three Bail Out

A hot topic in the news lately has been the Big Three Bail Out. This bail out would aid in helping Ford, GM, and Chrysler. Apparently each of these companies haven't made any real money in years. Each of these dealers have also be around from 100s of years. They just recently have had a great change in consumers. In Detroit they did built to many SUVs but until recently they had the demand for them. What would happen if we weren't to bail out these companies. These are our American made vehicles? If they were to go out of business we wouldn't have any parts being made. Lots of us would be affected because we own cars and trucks made by them. It would be hard for us not to bail them out in my opinion.

Presentation Response

So far the presentations have been done really well and I have learned a lot from them. It is really great to have interesting PowerPoint to listen since we are just sitting there watching it all. One that I found really interesting was the ones on video game violence. In my option about this subject I don't feel that they cause violence. They may desensitize you a little bit about blood, guts and murder but I don't think they are they direct cause for violence like school shootings. I think the individuals are just so unhappy and people are so harsh to them that they just couldn't handle any longer. I do feel that the video game they were playing "DOOM" probably gave them the idea on what to do. School shootings and other violent acts are a cumulative influenced problem. A bunch of things influence them into happening, there isn't just one cause.

Bowling for Columbine

The other day I watch this documentary called "Bowling for Columbine". I thought it would be worth watching for any of us in this class but come to find out a lot of the facts are off. I thought it would be great for us to watch because it talked about some media and the Columbine School Shooting. I still think it might to worth it to anyone to watch it but be cautious to watching it because some facts are off. Some were:

It said.....
3. The NRA held a pro-gun rally in Flint, Michigan just after the shooting death of a child in a local classroom.

The fact is...

• The meeting was a “get out the vote” rally, which took place eight months later, during the election season.

For more look at...

http://home.sprynet.com/~owl1/bowling.htm

This film is a 2002 American documentary film written, directed, produced by, and starring Michael Moore. It brought Moore international attention as a rising film director and won numerous awards, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary Feature, and the César Award for Best Foreign Film.[1] (Wikipedia)

Extreme Makeover Home Addition

Extreme Makeover Home Addition is a show that has always had me curious... Is this show really helping people? I truly wonder if the house that they build are not just half-butted to get it done so fast. Its hard for me to believe that something built so fast can last that long. But lately on the show I watch a rerun that showed one of their houses making it through hurricane Katrina. So maybe they can... Can a house built in a week really do it? From what I have always seen houses take forever to complete but maybe that is just here. They have so many people helping that maybe that is why they can.

I really believe that the idea of the show is amazing and that whether the houses last or not they do help tremendously. This show is one of the better shows that is filling TV now. It is pretty apparent that I am not the only one to think of because this show actually has one an Emmy for Outstanding Reality Program 2005.

http://extremehomemakeover.us/pages/1.php?id=A100002

"Black Friday"

Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving. One of the busiest shopping days of the year. Stores open their doors extremely early to offer some amazing sales. We are often familiar with the pushing and shoving of the over greedy shoppers have on this day but did you know that people are often killed by them???? This year a 34 year old man was TRAMPLED to death. This man was an employee of a Wal Mart in Long Island. This crowd was described as so violent that the heavy glass and steel sliding doors were literally knocked off their hinges as the shoppers-stampede-to-be-first. Its amazing to me that people could be so ignorant and greedy enough to not even acknowledge another human beings life. This day has become so advertised and so big that it is now almost dangerous. It also was reported that a pregnant woman was pushed over and a few others were injured this year in this shopping frenzy.
Shoppers BEWARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

http://wcbstv.com/local/walmart.worker.trampled.2.875747.html

Thanksgiving

Is Thanksgiving affected by the media??? This question is a good one to think about... I think that the answer is yes. Not only has media probably influenced the food we eat with thousands of commercials but it has helped make the day after this holiday the biggest shopping day of the year. Throughout history in the past Thanksgiving have really set the standards of what is expected to be served, cooked and eaten. The commercials that show help set these expectations in stone. Another large influence is the one with the day after Turkey Day. Stores and commercial media great shape this day with door buster sales. This shopping day is one of the wildest days you could ever imagine. Stores offer door buster sales that start as early as 4am in the morning. They offer a limited amount of amazing sales and then lots of others. Media defiantly played the role in making this after holiday tradition so big. It almost makes me believe that this day after tradition is bigger to most Americans then the holiday itself.

African Americans in Sports

Throughout history racism has played a very influential role on our society. One of the most well known and well recognized is the discrimination between African Americans and Caucasians. In the past this was caused from the owning of black slaves by white southerners. In a sense this is probably partially why today we still have problems with racists’ views.
In today’s world an often controversial topic is sports and the African American influence them. A current question that arises is, “Are blacks genetically or naturally more elite in the world of sports?” Often this question is viewed as a very racially discriminating topic but I believe that it’s a valid question to ask. When you watch most too all sports you will often see a very diverse amount of players. As you look however to who is dominating play most often you are going to discover that you find a larger amount of African American competitors controlling the winners circle. This is often demonstrated in the Olympic Games; in the track and field competitions. This winning is why the curiosity of questioning their genetic capabilities form but can you really blame the erg to find out?
Its really hard to say what gives who an advantage over another but I do believe that hard work no matter who or what color our skin is will get you to the winners' circle.

What do you think???

Giants

For my anatomy class we had a case study about the disorder of Gigantism in all the accounts that we learned about an excess of growth hormone that is being secreted by the pituitary gland. The tumor is abnormal secretion because a tumor grows onto this gland.

It was really cool to learn about how this really happens to people in real-life because it is shown as such a freak thing in our society. As a society we either look at a person with this as a freak or often times it is fantasized like a story book tale.

It was really interesting to learn about this and I thought it would be really interesting for anyone reading this to learn about it as well. Just watch these two videos... they aren't boring!

Giants Part 1

Giants Part 2

John McCain Concession Speech

John McCain gave an amazing Concession speech that was given after losing this years presidential election. It was so well put together and given with such sincerity. It was so nice to hear a man who lost give such a nice congratulations to Obama. He recognized that the people of this country should be so proud to be a citizen of this great country. He truly handled this with such maturity. It was so nice to hear this done the way it was because we are such a competitive society.
Maybe it is going to be a good event and good things may happen from this outcome. I guess we wont know until time goes on. Hopefully our country will get back on the right tract.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bss6lTP8BJ8

Voting on November 4

This year I choose not vote. I feel that this was a very important election but I also feel that my vote wasn't well educated enough. I am a person who believes that a well educated vote is really what matters. I only knew really the broad ideas of what the presidential candidates were bringing to the table, like the normal republican and democrat view points. Other then that I really didn't know what all they were bringing to the table because of this I didn't believe that my vote would as asset to this election.

Sometimes I feel people waste their votes by voting uneducated; they just vote for who is the republican and who is the democrat, not what they are bringing to our country.

Movies and Sports

Have you ever noticed that there is a common theme that movie producers seem to stick to????? Well I have noticed that a majority of movies are centered around true stories with sports. They are usually are inspirational and meaningful. I really enjoy these movies but I kinda wonder, will they ever run out of ideas before all the movies turn into basically the same theme and story line. One movie that based on sports that I really enjoy is 8 seconds a story about a very talented young bull rider.... Who accomplished much in his short life with such a great heart and will. It is also written about the true life story of Lane Frost. Its one of the few sports movie that I have found that isn't similar to any others.

Paris Hilton's My New BFF

On MTV now there is another odd and pretty stupid reality show. On this series Paris Hilton is taking random people who are fighting to be her new best friend. The stupid part of this show is that they really are just her toys in this game; she makes them do what she wants and pretty much controls them. The saddest part is that Paris will cause constant conflicts within the group of competitors and watch it for her amusement. Its bad enough that she even has her favorite for a amount of time and calls them her pet. It kind of makes me feel like MTV is desperate for shows or they are just looking for the dumbest crap they can to fill their TV time. But I can't really blame them because it gets people hook for some reason. The celeb and people acting dumb.... Seems to hook ya. So will the shows just get worse or will finally grow out of this faze.

Hit and Run Video

I thought it was so crazy that our teacher actually had the luck of catching this video of this wreck. Really what is the chance that this would even happen, when at the class before she is encouraging us to bring our cameras just for such an occasion. Well I guess crazier things have happened. It was so weird to think about our discussion about how this video could changed around so much just because of a tee shirt the girl happen to be wearing. She also clearly accelerated before hitting the protesters... kind of weired but I still just think it happen and it wasn't meant to. I really have a hard time believing that it was a hate crime or whatever you want to call it. Since I did experience driving through that mess.... I really can't say that it surprises me someone got hit. People were everywhere you turned and a whole lot of them.

Like our teacher I'm pretty shocked at how this was handled. It was like they just wanted to ignore with our media and just make this big deal event seem perfect. I wonder what their reasoning's for this were????? I just hope the man and the lady are getting better.

John McCain

This Friday as you all probably know John McCain came to our little town of Durango, Colorado to rally some support from our community. It was really great to see such a good turn out... I only drove by on my way to work but it was crazy how many people were there supporting. It took me like minuets to drive like one block! Driving through all this congestion kind of disappointed me however. I know that everyone is welcome to their views but the protesters really pissed me off. I saw that more then half of them probably weren't old enough to vote. I understand that they should still fight for what they believe in but what about the seven year old that were there holding signs.... Are they even old enough to understand what in the world is really going on???????????? Probably not. Unless teaching has really changed that much from when I was that age. I really feel like their parents just dragged them out there. COME ON PARENTS JUST BECAUSE YOU DON'T HAVE A LIFE/SOMETHING BETTER TO DO, DON'T DRAG YOUR KIDS INTO IT!!!!! LET THEM BE KIDS..... NOT HOLD SIGNS FOR YOU SELFISH TASKS!!!! Maybe that is a little crude but come on.

I.O.U.S.A

Thursday night at the Abby I.O.U.S.A. was open to the students and public for free. I went with some friends to earn some extra credit for a history class. It was amazing to learn about how much debt and trouble our country is facing and can face further. This documentary was really informative and taught me about things that I really had no idea about. Its probably pretty ignorant of me probably not to know a lot of this. I learned about how our government is borrowing money from everyone and from the money they take out of our pay checks.
It kind of was a little hard to listen to because it was very repetitive to listen how bad our government is doing. I know that we need to change but who know if it will ever happen. I have a hard time believing that either presidential candidate will change this problem at all. But maybe they will help start to put it in the right direction.... that much we all should hope for.



http://www.iousathemovie.com/

Nintendo Wii

When doing my group presentation about this gaming consul, the Nintendo Wii I was amazed how much I learned about it. When I lived over in New Mexico we had a Wii at the house that we all played very frequently. We had no idea truly what all would could do with it though. I never came across the calender, memos and that you could almost use it as a networking device with friends.

Its amazing to think how far that we have come with our technology. Any more every device we make isn't just what it is.... A phone isn't a phone, a camera is just a camera, and a video game consul isn't just a consul. It seems like all these advances are just keeping up with how our world is being shaped today. We are being trained/taught to be fast paced and amazing multitaskers; that often get bored with in minuets of what we are doing.

So what do you think will happen/develop next???????? There is a crazy question to think about, it almost seems like the possibilities are endless for us.

To learn more about what this consul can do.....

http://www.nintendo.com/wii

Reality Shows

Its crazy to me how many reality show are on the television on a constant basis. They are so addicting to watch but really when you look at them they are the dumbest shows you could possibly put on air. But none the less more and more people keep watching them. All MTV is anymore are those shows. Like really what is so great about watching overly bratty girls, who's parent are so ridiculously rich that they spend (or let me put that into better terms WASTES) unreal amounts of money on something as dumb as a 16th Bday. Maybe I'm probably just being single minded but come on who really wants a reminder of how we have to work our butts off for money. I will admit though that the new show were they send those little girls off is a joke too! Poor things have to work for a week and live with a unprivileged family. When really all these families are, are just from another culture/another walk of life. But that's just my two sense about these shows and sadly some of them I really can't help but love to watch..... The Hills!!!! yea I rock like that.

DVR and Interactive TV

I really enjoy using DVRs or digital video recorder and things like Tivos. I think that it just makes TV even more convenient to people. At the same time however I think it just encourages more television to be watched on a daily basis. Americans watch so much TV as it that I couldn't imagine that this might actually increase the hours watch more. In an article I found on the Internet it said, "More than 70 percent of consumers who currently own a DVR told surveyors that they could not live without it". That's crazy.... I have had a DVR once and that was last year and truly I am living without it. Another bit of information I found our from this site is that people who own a DVR typically watch one hour of "live" television and four hours of recorded content that's still quite a bit of television. Do you think that those four hours of recorded content would have been watched if not for the DVR???

Personally I like the idea or the DVR but I will let you decide is it good or is it a bad thing that is aiding in the over watching of the TV???

Today's Radio Response

Today's in class it was really interesting to hear the radio show that scared so many people into complete panic. Its not surprising to me however that when everyone found out that it was just a Halloween prank that they reacted in such a violent manner. The way that they created the show made it out to sound almost identical to all the news add that were being fed on a daily basis. I think that if we were driven into fear then something was showed on T.V. that we would panic and maybe even believe it. I don't know how many of you saw the movie Live Free or Die Hard but in that movie they show a prime example of this. When everyone in the city is scared, then the bad guys over take the T.V. and show the White House blowing up and the whole community believes it and it creates panic for a brief while.

Today's radio also made me think that this kind of situation has repeated it self. Back in the 1600s colonist were dealing with witchcraft. When most of the time the women or men being accused. They were accused for false reason and often times just by a gossip chain affect. One person started a roomer for some reason... jealousy? and then that gets passed ear to ear and creates panic towards the person. Then violent things were done to the accused... hangings, burnings and so on.

http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/salem/SAL_ACCT.HTM

Jobs and Facebook/Myspace Accounts

Today at my house my mom and I some how got to talking about how some people are losing their jobs and are being judge for potential work off their networking accounts. When I research it a bit I found that in January of this year a police officer who worked for a middle school in Florida was under investigation a while back for a person/friend on his myspace. That person's page had links to porn on it. The officer had gotten his account in order to help communicate and better connect to the children he was working with. His intentions were honorable but now because he probably just added someone without thinking about it he is now about to lose his job.

Its weird to me how we could be potentially be judged by our personal accounts. These accounts to me would almost be a way of expressing ourselves and using our freedom of speech. I don't feel it fair that an employer or potential employer would use these as medias to make decisions about an individual. On that note however I guess I could see the logic to someone on why you would look at something like that. They usually are good representations of the people that created them, they can tell a lot about person. I think when being judged by these though the person doing the judging should use common sense about it. People generally create these sites at younger ages and they shouldn't be held against them later in life. They should also look at the fact that users can't always keep tract of everything that is on everyone's page.

But I guess when it really comes down to it, watch who you add and watch what is on your page because you never really know who is looking at them.

http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2008/01/police-officer-may-lose-job-over-myspace-friends-sex-links.html

http://internetducttape.com/2007/03/08/how-to-use-facebook-without-losing-your-job-over-it/

Video Response

Watching today's video about the digital enhancements done on photographs in magazines was really crazy for me to think about. I really think that these pictures do have a great affect on women, especially on the youth of our country. This is most likely why people turn to eating disorders and unhealthy dieting. It makes it hard on women and girls to look at a picture of the unachievable, this was clearly stated by the person doing these touches that it was almost next to impossible for women to look like these images.
One idea that was given in class was to label these images as retouch. But when you think about 99.9% of these magazines photos being retouched then it will probably be next to impossible to label all pictures. I think it would be almost next to impossible for anyone to label a celebrities photo as well. Celebrities makes millions on the way they look and not for one second would they allow for their picture to look less then perfect. So I kind of feel that this solution wouldn't happen and wouldn't fix the greater picture of what is happening as a result to these photographs.

Sports

The other day I found myself thinking about what we have learned about how media and technological advances have really help shape our society. I was thinking this when I was reading Sociology of North American Sports for another class. In our reading it spoke a lot about how the role of advances in transportation have really allowed sports to develop. For example trains started to allow sports team to play one another in sanctioned events. What kind of led me back to our Mass Comm. class was the fact that as I read on in the book it has started to talk a lot about medias affect on sports. Its kind of interesting to me because sports I feel wouldn't be the same today without media. Media allows for so much in sports because of the money that it offers in many forms, such as sponsorships and endorsements. These professional athletes are already making millions just by playing but when they through on those certain sneakers or drink that certain sports drink they are making even more. Its not just the pros either many companies like Nike have deals with schools for sneakers and other apparel. I think sports like many other things today are really just controlled and ran by money at least on the higher levels.

http://www.adpunch.org/entry/tiger-woods-gatorade-drink-to-a-100-million-deal/

New Facebook

I don't know how many of you are addicted facebook fans like me but lately I have been kind of hating the change they made on us. They totally changed the layout and it really stinks in my opinion. its much bigger and more spread out. I like the compactness of the old one, plus I just got use to the old one. It just seems like they made the new one bigger so they could put more crap in it, like so and so sad this about this. Really who cares about that. I was one of those slow learners of facebook at first that added everything request wise but now I'm better and I just liked the set up of the old one. What do you all think? And if you guys are a person without an account I suggest you get one, its a great network for college people.

http://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=f0e8e14dd4d74dd7e717fda07f2cc5e3

Election VPs...

The other day at class on Tuesday, someone bought up the fact that no one really knows the Democratic VP candidate. When I heard about this it kind of stunned me and made me think do I know him?????? And I didn't. I actually didn't even know his name til I decided to write this. BIDEN!!! It kinda makes me wonder, where is the hype on him? Are the democrats not publishing him that much? Its just kind of odd because you hear to much about McCain's Palin. I feel like Palin is so much in the news because there is a sense of vulnerability to many people with her. A woman as VP, its just as scary for some as Hilary was for Pres. It also doesn't help that Palin's personal life is less then perfect, A.K.A pregnant 17 year old daughter. I think that the Liberals feed off this and the Conservatives don't mind it because any publicity is good publicity. My question to everyone is, WOULD THE DEMOCRATS VP BE MORE KNOWN IF HE WAS A SHE??????

Here's a Funny Picture.... Please note that this doesn't say I'm supporting one side or another. I just think its funny making fun of any candidate.

Response to the Fox Show

Today I thought that the show we watched was really interesting. Its amazing to think how much one person can control with money. I know we hear about it a lot or at least I have and it was crazy to finally witness on really good, strong example of it. I feel like this kind of situation happens all the time in the world we live in. Money controls it all and if you have the money then I guess you can do and control just about anything and everything you desire. I also feel like that if you have the money controlling the media would give you the power.

I kinda feel like maybe Fox has improved on this now... Maybe its my ignorance or maybe I'm a little conservative but when I watch the news today I really don't notice the strong views/opinions. Even when telling my parents who are both Democrats they hadn't notice that either.

VMA Surprises

From having two kids, getting married a couple times, divorced a couple times and shaving her head nothing can stop Britney Spears from making a comeback to prove everyone wrong. At the VMAs this year she successfully managed claiming 3 moon men. This shocked many people by winning video of the year, best pop video and best female video, all for the tune "Piece of Me".

Britney was once a cultural icon ruling the world of media through music, magazines, papers and T.V. She was everywhere you looked. even as her career started to fail you still couldn't open a Tabloid without seeing some kind of "who knows what" about her on it.

It kind of makes you wonder, Do celebrities take desperate measures to stay in the media for attention? Britney did shave her head and gave many photographers a show. I really think that they do. Its easy for them to stay in Americans minds when we thrive on reading the gossip and mess ups that celebrities make. We also might want to think these people are often the role models that our youth chooses to idolize. It makes you wonder do these celebrities pose a threat to our youth. Are they fragile enough to follow these so called idols when seeing them in every to just about all media sources around them.

http://uk.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKN0438335720080908