Samsung Launches Galaxy S5 Smartphone

Today, in looking at my news online, I found that Samsung recently released the Galaxy S5. The very first thought that came into my head when I saw the article was, "Really? Another updated phone?" If you think about it, if the Apple and Samsung continue to release newer and updated versions of their cellphones, there will be a point where there there is no possibility for improvement.

It makes me sad that every couple of months a new phone comes out, the last one forgotten and now simply an older one, and not as cool as the newest and flashiest one. One of my brother's friends gets every new updated iPhone, and is always one of the first ones in line to receive it. Sure, the advancement of technology will continue to improve and make changes over time, but this is simply teaching Americans a bad lesson, that you always have to have the newest and best version of something, and you can never really be happy with what you have. You always need more and more, and there is really no end to it. It's a vicious cycle.

Overall, although it is merely an article about an updated cellphone, I found that it encompasses a wide range of issues concerning these technology companies. I feel like this represents American ideals in that people are never truly thankful for what they have, and once they obtain one thing they go right on to the next thing without second thought, never truly being thankful for what they have.

Picture of Perfection: Attainable Ideals?

We see it everywhere: slim models on the face of Vogue, girls looking into the camera with bright eyes and beautiful smiles; these images of perfection that surround our media.

I'm sure many of you have either seen or heard of this commercial by Dove. It's absolutely captivating that so much work goes into one advertisement that we see. So many effects are used on this picture to make the woman an image of utter perfection, of perfect symmetry. But obviously the woman in the advertisement in the end doesn't even exist. She is simply a product of the woman in the beginning of the video, a flawless version of herself. It's unfair that the representation of beauty today is inaccurate and ultimately unattainable, as the uses of Photoshop and other editing sites are prevalent in the process.

Imagine you are a young girl living in this time period. You would have become accustomed to the gorgeous models around you, suddenly expecting that of yourself when you grow up. Becoming beautiful is represented as a top priority, the magazines and commercials giving you the idea that your looks are the most important thing in life. This is detrimental to all girls the same, negatively affecting the way they view themselves.

The American ideal has altered over time, but currently it is simply a product of Photoshop and other photo enhancing sites. It's important to teach people, especially children, that you're beautiful in your own skin, without the rather false image of perfection that is shown all over media today.

Mizzou Football Team: Role Model for USA

Today, in an effort to catch up on news I had missed over the weekend and curious of the trending stories, I checked CNN. The first thing I saw was this:

At first, I was extremely pleased that he had the courage and bravery to release this information that could potentially cause backlash in the media. But then I thought: What's the big deal? Why is this news becoming the most televised and circulated story of the weekend? Why does such a small factor of this boy's life have to have such surprising reactions that could make another gay player feel as though this is unethical or wrong? 

Upon further research, I came across this article. Apparently, Michael Sam could become the first openly gay player drafted by the NFL, which is why there is such a hype around this particular story. He informed his team of his sexual orientation in August, and "Mizzou not only played the entire season without leaking Sam's preference to the media; It supported him, made him a team MVP and watched him sack the quarterback 11.5 times" (CBS). Even from the name of this article, "Mizzou Treats Michael Sam's Sexuality as Non-Story" is so highly respectable, I felt utter content when I read the piece. 

It is such a large contradiction: the reaction of the media resulting in the hype of Americans worldwide, and the silence from the team, showing they believed Michael's sexual orientation was irrelevant. The NFL should take note on how the team acted and realize that it shouldn't be a big deal. But the very fact that there was such a hype from the mere sexual orientation of a potential NFL player shows that this idea is not yet fully accepted in media and worldwide. 

Do you think that this story should have gone public, to account for the bravery that Sam showed and the responsibility of the Mizzou team? Or should it have been left as a "non-story", that the very fact that he is gay doesn't have anything to do with his skill on the field and that it truly is not a big deal?

Racial Inequality in the Media

Today I was watching TV and a commercial came on advertising the company H&R Block. In the commercial, the first image shown is of an older black man putting large amounts of money on each seat in a stadium. Then it zooms out to an image of an older white man saying, "Last year, thinking they could do their own taxes, Americans left behind more than a billion dollars. That's $500 hundred dollars on every single seat, not just in this stadium, but in every professional football stadium in America." Don't get me wrong, that's an extremely riveting statement and an amazing statistic, but that's not what I'm here to talk about.

If you look at the dynamics of this commercial, the "big picture", you see a black man that is sweating and tiring over slowly putting bundles of dollar bills on every seat in the stadium shown. He is a part of this useless task in the background of the commercial, while the older, more official looking white man is in the front of the screen explaining the debt of America and the reasons for this. He is obviously shown trying to educate Americans on the importance of paying your taxes and receiving the proper help in doing so. The black man, in contrast, is simply doing a hopeless task that seems unimportant in comparison to the information the white man is feeding us.

What if the roles were switched? Chaos would ensue, and people would argue that the white man was not being properly represented. It angered me that I had seen so many commercials like this before that just went right over my head- I never truly understood how often this racial inequality came up in commercials shown on TV as well as other media shown to the public. It's sad to think that this racial inequality is something that comes up so often in the media that everyone just goes along with it, and it becomes a normal occurrence.

When are people truly going to stand up against racism and fight for racial equality in the media? And even after the Civil Rights Movement, in which an end to racial segregation and discrimination was pleaded by the social movements of the time, do you think that African Americans are at the point where they stand equal to the Caucasian race?

Dependence on Technology Becoming an Issue?

Yesterday, in the midst of the somewhat hectic snowfall that went on for what seemed like days, I was catching up on the shows I had missed this past week. My show was almost over when the TV shut off along with the lights throughout the house. The power had gone out. The wifi was incompetent. And chaos ensued in my home. I groaned and began to complain about missing the last part of my show, my mom couldn't see anything and was bothered my the clocks reseting, and I could hear my brother upstairs protesting about the wifi turning off in the midst of his internet surfing. He even came downstairs later and claimed there was absolutely nothing to do without the power.

Taking a step back and analyzing the situation, I realized that society has become very dependent on these things that power gives us, particularly internet and television. I wondered what would happen if the power went out worldwide for a day, and how people would respond to that. What would people do without power? And more importantly, do we really need it?

I think that technology gives us an easy way to distract ourselves from what's important. We are not truly living in the moment when we are attached to our cell phone or always checking emails. I find it sad that people rely on Facebook and Twitter so much, when they could be outside enjoying nature or reading, or even just hanging with friends and enjoying each others company. And I'm not saying that I don't use technology to its full extent either, because I do always feel the need to be checking my Facebook notifications or replying to an email. But seeing what happened when my family didn't have the option to use technology, the way we were almost helpless to find other ways to fill our time, made me truly understand how technology-obsessed our society is.

I read this article today about our dependence on technology and the pros and cons of what technology provides us. In the article, it brings up a professor of Communication Studies at West Virginia University named Nicholas Bowman. He provided an insight that I hadn't really thought of before. "One might counter-argue that while we sometimes remove ourselves from 'our moment' by watching something through our smartphone screen compared to watching it with our eyes, networked technologies allow us to live in the moments of millions of people every day- such as following with eyewitness accounts the riots in Egypt, or the tsunami that struck Japan a few years ago..." (MNN).

I had never really thought of this before. Sure, you can read a newspaper about what is going on in countries across the globe and somewhat account for the depth of the situation, but you can't truly understand something until you see it with your own eyes. Until you get a real glimpse into what's happening. In this way, I think technology may be a real advantage to our society, in that we can comprehend the tragedies in other countries and do the best we can in helping those in need.

I had always thought we took for granted the things that we could be doing instead of using technology, but at the same time, I guess I never truly understood what exactly this power provides us. Sure, technology often gives us an outlet to waste time and procrastinate, but it also educates us on the events going on around us and gives us easy access to knowledge that can better our understanding of a certain topic. Although the use of technology may be a little too high and our dependency on it has definitely become an issue, it isn't all for the worst. I'm still not sure what people would do without technology, but I do know one thing: we absolutely need it.

Words That Can Never Be Said

The other day, my brother referred me to a song he liked called "Words I Never Said" by Lupe Fiasco. I immediately typed it into Youtube for a listen, and upon watching the music video, I was captivated by the message. If you want to watch the video, click here.

In the beginning of the video, a woman is being dragged away by officers and pulled into a room. Over the course of the video, she is shown strapped into a chair with a set of glasses and a mask, being forced to watch a video showing typical American values. It shows picket fences and perfect houses, fries, and the word "America" embedded into a fence. I took this to mean that the government is constantly feeding us images to make us want and need what we call the "American Dream". This woman is almost being forced to agree with what is important to a majority of Americans, and is being punished for not doing so. It almost seems as though the people that took her away are trying to fix her, in a way, as if it's wrong and bad to have different feelings about what you want.

The chorus begins by saying, "It's so loud inside my head with words that I should have said. As I drown in my regrets, I can't take back the words I never said." As these words are being sung by Skylar Grey, Lupe Fiasco is getting onto a public bus, looking at the people, who have masks over their mouths, obstructing any chance of speaking. They are all silent and look at him with confusion, as he is the only one without a mask. Lupe is trying to use this as a metaphor for people today. Although we do not literally have an mask over our mouths so that we cannot speak, we do have many thoughts that we simply cannot share with others around us. These thoughts and ideas often surround the government and how it operates. 

His rap begins as he grabs the microphone on the bus and he starts sharing his ideas of the government. Everyone looks at him in surprise, stunned that he is regarding these touchy issues. One line that truly stood out to me was when he says "I'm locked inside a cell in me, I know that there's a jail in you". He is talking about how we all have pent up feelings that we would like to share but cannot because it would be against the government. As he said this, he is in a cell locked up, so he is also using a play on words, that people are being unfairly jailed because of these things that they do that the government states that it does not tolerate. Another interesting point to consider is that Lupe Fiasco is black, and throughout the video he is jailed for his actions in the beginning. This reflects his feelings towards the treatments of African Americans and how they are often jailed for such innocent offenses.

In the end of the video, he escapes from his cell and finds the woman being held captive, who is also black, and lets her go. I feel as though this is him urging us viewers that sometimes it's okay to stray from what's expected and fight back, because this unfair treatment should be stopped.

This reminded me of the Prison Industrial Complex. Just as Lupe Fiasco is claiming the injustice from the government, the PIC had this same injustice when putting people into jail for minor wrongdoings. It's simply unfair that people were given life sentences for non-violent crimes, just as it is unfair that the government ultimately controls the things we can say and do, and the things we are forbidden from.

Another large parallel I made to this video was to the Perilous Times groups that have presented. Throughout history, it is obvious that the government has set forth laws, for example the Espionage and Sedition Acts, that truly show how even a word against the government could have you put on trial. Take the Sedition Act, for example. This says that "any person who shall write, print, utter, or publish, or cause or procure to be written, printed, uttered, or published, any false, scandalous, malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, with intent to defame the said government of the United States... is to be tried by jury, and may give in evidence the truth of the matter contained in the libel." The word "utter" is especially surprising, even if one merely says a word against the government they can be tried for it, which is truly an unthinkable notion. This connects to the video in that people are so scared of expressing their true opinions that they have masks over their faces, and the police in the video have become this force that is compelling the people to keep their mouths shut about the entire system.

This video is representing our society in a dystopian way, but in a way is being quite honest and truthful, as evidenced by past laws and regulations set by the government that people are forced to abide by, although they may not agree.

Can you guys think of other instances in history in which the government has done this?

Trust, or Lack Thereof

This past weekend, my family was staying with our friends in their home in Lake Geneva. Cruising through the winding roads with the beautiful views, we passed a huge farm that was now covered in snow. My friend told me that during the summer, the farmer sells his vegetables at a stand on the streetside. When he has to leave and can no longer monitor the stand, he puts a sign there- reading what the prices of each vegetable are- and a box to put money in. He trusts that his customers will pay the correct price in exchange for what they are taking.

Growing up on the North Shore, this story greatly surprised me. In Wilmette, you can't even go into a store for a couple minutes without locking your car and double checking that it is locked for sure. Last week, my friends and I were in town and when we were almost in a store my friend stopped and said "I forgot to lock the car!" with great worry and ran back to do just that. Isn't the contrast interesting that we find it ludricrous to leave our belongings unattended.

I don't know half of the people that live on my block. The suburbs, contrary to the countryside, are much more compact and close-knit. So why is our community less connected than that of the country? What makes urban living more cynical than rural?  It makes me sad that here, in Lake Geneva, many of the people know each other, but at home, I don't know a majority of the people that live in the town. Sure, the suburbs obtain a greater population, but you would think we would be more well-acquainted since the houses are closer to each other.

Why is this the case? Is it due to the fact that the suburbs have a greater crime rate? Is something obstructing the chance of complete peace and serenity in the community? Or is it that there are more institutions and a more diverse culture than in the suburbs? We have more schools and workplaces than the country, so is that a factor? Or is it a combination of all of these things?