Vocab reflection

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/14/us/14arizona.html?ref=us
Although Arizona is capacious many people believe that immigrants should be deported and not have a job. This is where the conversation turns divisive. Another great number people think that they should be allowed to stay and be able to have a job. The people who believe the immigrants should leave are being scrupulous by trying to remove the jobs from the immigrants with laws. Democrats believe that by doing this that the law would usurp the jobs from the workers. It seems that the pinnacle of immigrant workers careers might be over in Arizona. There can be no fabrication here when the democrats state that illegal workers make up an estimated 9 percent to 12 percent of the work force.

Waiting room reflective essay

For the past week or so, our whole class has been reading the play The Waiting Room by Lisa Loomer. Some of the key messages in this play are that everyone one is beautiful on the inside, and that external beauty can really hurt. Lisa Loomer made many social commentaries about beauty, health, and gender roles. Loomer said that in today’s society the ideal of beauty are that women get implants and do anything to make themselves beautiful in other people’s “eyes”. For health she criticized the health industry by saying that they really don’t want us to be healthy, otherwise, they would be out of business. She also said that in the old times in England women were meant to be weak and proper at the same time for their husbands. In ancient China, she said that women were just property or items and could easily be disposed of when the husband was done with them.
There were three women in this play, Victoria who was from Victorian England, Wanda who was from modern times, and Forgiveness from Heaven who was from ancient China. Victoria starts off the play with a horrible tic whenever the word husband or sex was mentioned. She regresses throughout the play by contriving to her husbands wishes and has her uterus removed. “(Victorious) Just the uterus! I made an agreement with my husband.” Wanda is from modern day Jersey, and has fake boobs to prove it. She later learns that she has breast cancer. She finds out what it means to be truly beautiful on the inside. “… I’ve spent 6,750 hours of my life on my hair. Nine months washing off waterproof mascara… So with all this time I’m going to save from now on, going around looking like shit… But isn’t it worse - not living while you’re alive?” Forgiveness from Heaven was from ancient China, has her feet bound and is an opium addict. She progresses through the play by running away from her husband (who has many wives) and eventually unbinding her feet which symbolizes her escaping from that ideal of beauty. “Oh no, you not touch golden lotus! You not my husband-““We’ve lost four toes… We’re trying to save the foot…”
In the play, there were two men named Ken and Larry. Their role is to almost show what Loomer’s commentary on the pharmaceutical industry is. It is that they really don’t want America to be healthy because they would otherwise be out of business. Also if the government really wanted to help America’s health, they would. Lisa Loomer ended the play in the way she did to leave a cliff hanger, and also for the reader to finish the play for themselves. Wanda and her breast cancer would certainly have been wrapped up differently if I was the author. You really don’t know if she survives after her surgery.
Overall though I thought this was a deep interpretation of Loomer’s ideals of beauty. And was an excellently crafted play all around.

Fairy Tale article

Today we were told to read an article about fairy tales. It talked about how fairy tales are corrupting young children's minds into thinking that only beautiful people are good, and bad or ugly people get punished. My opinion may be not politically correct, but I think that this lady is way over-analyzing the Grimm brother's books and picking apart their stories. She is looking for problems in their stories. I think that they are just stories, and they are not trying to say that ugly people get punished or are bad.

Morality of Fat

Yesterday in class we had another socratic seminar on an article called: The Morality of Fat. This was talking mostly about how americans are addicted to food, and that how it seems we are concerned about food (such as buying reduced fat foods), but in reality, we are still overweight as ever. In our seminar we talked about ways we could find inner-beauty, and we had a touching moment that day and today. We talked about how we were all beautiful on the inside in our own unique way. We all learned a great deal about one another.

BBC Article Reflection

Today in humanities we had a conversation on this article: Is Beauty In the Eye of the Beholder?. Many good points aroused during our Socratic seminar. The main point was what Zac said in my opinion, that the government will have to intervene in order to solve this crisis. I agree, because why would the beauty industry otherwise stop making and sending their products to other countries worldwide. Also, a big point was how girls are being dragged into the beauty industry's culture at a very young age, and there is little parents can do to stop it short of cutting off their children from all types of media. Even subtle things are corrupting their fragile minds. Take Barbie for instance, she is a doll that is thin and has a rather large chest. Yet if she was human, her legs wouldn't be able to hold her own weight. Either the government needs to step up and start controlling what the media is doing (unlikely) or the beauty industry needs to realize what they are doing and fix themselves (even more unlikely). Countries should have their own opinion of what beauty is, and U.S.A. needs to figure out that beauty is not always on the outside.

Mali Women & SAT 4 test

Women in Mali are trying to be salacious by bleaching their skin white and making themselves pallid. Even though doctors are saying this is not salubrious. According to Mali women though, bleaching their skin makes them feel ebullient. Mali men have confesssed that bleached women are not mesmeric, and not attractive. Male musician Al Hassan Soumali says, "It's better for Malian women to change their minds."

You Tube Response

My gut reaction was that this was going to be an add that was against what the media is portraying as beauty. They want adults to talk to their children and tell them that to be beautiful, you don't have to be skinny, or go through many body changeing surgerys to be beautiful. What gave me that idea were the only spoken words in the clip: Talk to your children before the media does, or something to that effect.

Socratic Seminar on Women & virtues

In our socratric seminar today, we mainly talked about virtues and whether or not they are in the eye of the beholder. First we talked about a line of forgiveness. This mainly focused on the death penalty. I do believe there is a line of forgiveness, and I believe that people like Hitler and Suddam Hussein do not deserve to live because of what they have done to people. The next thing we talked about was revenge and justice. This was about whether or not revenge can be considered part of justice. I do think it is, and a good example of this is the U.S. looking for Osama Bin Ladin after what he orchestrated on 9/11. The topic after that was whether or not virtues are in the eye of the beholder. I gave a good example in the seminar supporting that they are. A confessed druggie may think that it is brave or curageous for someone to turn down drugs, but a model citizen might think that it is a given, and routine to turn down drugs. After that or class moved to converse about if wrong doing is a consequence of ignorance. I do not believe it is because if a homeless person steals food, he knows what he has done is wrong, but he is willing to take the risk because he is so hunry. After that we came to the conclusion that there is no dark without light.

Women in Ancient Greece

6 reasons why Spartan women were more independent then Athenian women:

1. Girls were given a good education in both the arts and athletics.
2. Women were encouraged to develop their intellect.
3. Women owned more than a third of the land.
4. There was less difference in age between husbands and wives, and girls in Sparta married at a later age than their sisters in Athens.
5. Husbands spent most of their time with other men in the military barracks; since the men were rarely home, the women were free to take charge of almost everything outside of the army.
6. Mothers reared their sons until age 7 and then society took over. Fathers played little or no role in child care.

I believe that women in Athens were thought of as dumb or stupid, and were only good for household work, raising of children, or sex.

I think that artists during the time of Athens painted women naked and/ or working because of what they did in their society.

Beauty

I think that youthfulness is beautiful because the youth are free, and have their whole life ahead of them. A perfect human form would be a person who's features are all in proportion to the rest of his/ her body. Also they would have to have the intelect and humor to go along with their body. For men, big muscles and athleticism. For women, a radiant body that reeks of youth. Along with bodily features, I do think that is just as or more so important to have a strong itelect and good sense of humor, or the body is just a shell of an empty peanut. These are the main ideas that I think most people strive to be like, and are sought after by many people.

Is beauty in the eye of the beholder?

This painting by Claude Monet is also beautiful because it is a wonderful work of art, and I know it took him quite a while to make it. This picture of water I think is serene, and therefore beautiful. By looking at this picture, I feel relaxed and think that I could stare at it all day. I changed my post because I think that beauty isn't about just a pretty face (or body) and I think I was being a bit shallow...

First Blog

Hey Guys, this is my first blog, and I am looking forward to many great blogs as a new blogger!