Vocabulary

I read The Deep- Fried Truth by Sarah Murray. This article was about the mass production in our foods and how we get our foods and what emissions it generates. It started out saying that this Christmas we will save money and trees buy sending and email instead of a Christmas card, and that large Christmas trees will be lit by energy efficient light bulbs. One thing that was not being considered was our Christmas dinner and how to connive to save energy and generate less emissions. For example an ocean going vessel that carries the food is very capacious, it is able to carry about 48,000 bananas in a 20 feet container, but also generates a lot of emissions and fuel. Another method would be to take a large pick up truck and take a trip to a local farm about 10 miles away. When you look at these two methods it may seem like the second choice is the way to go since it seems like it generates less green house gases. But the truth is that if you consider the emissions fabricated from the farm vehicles, chemical fertilizers, feedstock, and harvesting it is just as much or more than taking a long trip to get food. I don't think that we should stop going to local farms (who are NOT at the pinnacle of their career) because that is their main income source, and they feed more than 6.6 million people. This article stated that instead of usurping the big food companies away that we should suggest them to find healthier, safer, and more environmentally sustainable ways to supply food.

I liked this article because I didn't really consider the emissions of food distribution. I learned that sometimes choosing the products that are farther away rather than local farms that generate a lot of greenhouse gases are not always the right choice. I can't think of a way to fix or decrease these green house gases that are produced during the distribution and making of our food, but I did find this topic very interesting. This article made me think about certain ways i can help save this Christmas. When I get scrupulously look for ways to save energy.

The Waiting Room by Lisa Loomer was a play about three women from three different time periods trying to achieve the image of beauty that was accepted in their time periods. The play starts out with all three women sitting in a waiting room of a doctor’s office. The three women names were Forgiveness from Heaven, Wanda, and Victoria. Victoria was a very polite tightly corseted English woman from the Nineteenth Century. She was at the doctor’s office to remove her ovaries because she was suffering from "hysteria". Wanda from New Jersey lived in present day and was visiting the doctor with problems with her silicone breast. Her implants had leaked causing breast cancer. Forgiveness from Heaven was an Eighteenth Century Chinese woman that was visiting the doctor because her toe had fallen off due to her bound feet. When reading this I thought that the lengths they went to, to achieve this idea was “beauty” was unnecessary.
I think the key messages that Lisa Loomer put in this play were the things we do for beauty. Forgiveness from Heaven bound her feet only to please her husband who had about four other wives. Victoria was only getting her ovaries removed because her husband, and only wore a corset because of her husband. And Wanda had gotten three breast implants and other cosmetic surgeries to be accepted.
Lisa Loomer focused a lot on how our modern society focuses so much on looks and the methods we take to achieve the beauty that our society strives for.. This play also shows that people are not considering their health when they do things to embellish themselves beauty wise. A good example is Forgiveness from Heaven, she had her feet bound which was very unhealthy for them because it causes lots of pain and her toes to fall off. Also the English woman, Victoria had a corset that was very tight. It caused her organs to move around having an end result of hysteria. This shows that people go to the extremes just to achieve the look appealing to the public eye. This play also showed us the roles men played back then. Victoria and Forgiveness from Heaven played the dominant role in the relationship. The men were in charge of the woman where today you see a woman playing the dominant role in the relationship. An example of men playing the dominant role in the play was Forgiveness from Heaven and Victoria. Victoria's husband, Oliver, made her get a surgery removing her ovaries because he didn't believe that her research about her disease was right.
I think each character grew throughout the play. The first one that comes to mind is Forgiveness from Heaven. At the end of the play she finally took off her bound feet and kind of just let loose and started to dance. At the end it is very unclear whether or not she dies or she falls asleep. Either way she definitely evolved in the play. Victoria was always gradually evolving. Victoria has been a subject to painful ways of becoming beautiful, a corset and 20-pound dress. She is stuck in her ways, because of her husband and the time period she lives in. She believes that it is okay hurt her stomach and live in an era where woman have no authority, because that is all she knows. She has to read in the secrecy of her room, and has strived for the research of scientific methods to cure her problems, by the end of the play she sees what she has been doing wrong and corrects it.. The author uses this as a window into the way of life in this time period. Victoria says: “I’m quite sure I can convince the doctor that my problems are in my mind!” despite what everyone is telling her she is still convinced that she can fix her own problems. Wanda started out reading Cosmo’s and Vogue but when she found out she had breast cancer she stopped thinking about the way she looked. Wanda taught the two other girls from the past a lesson, and being with them Wanda learned and realized how far she strived for beauty and how much time she has wasted throughout her life. “I’ve spent 6,750 hours of my life…on my hair”, Wanda states, “And yeah dying would be a bitch. But isn’t it worse- not living when you’re alive?” (pg.71).
Ken and Larry play a big role in this play, when reading I didn't think they were that important but they were. They're both people in the cancer treatment business. Larry has a method of treating cancer and he wants his method to be tried out. However there is another treatment that seemed more effective but he is being greedy. Ken works for the FDA. He is the person that decides whose treatments get tested and whose don't. I think that their role is portraying what really goes on in this business. It is trying to show that even though there are more effective treatments out there people are too greedy to let them be passed because they want their own to pass. It also gives us a glimpse in the pharmaceutical industry, and how greedy we have become or have always been.
This play ended with Wanda telling a story to Forgiveness from Heaven, I thought the story really showed how the characters all evolved, especially Wanda. At the very end of the play Forgiveness from Heaven un wraps her bound feet and starts to dance. I thought that she ended her play very well. The story kind of wrapped everything together, but I can't help but to wonder what happened to Ken and Larry and the other characters. I think she could've added a bit more to the play.

Fairy Tales

Today we read Experts Say Fairy Tales Not So Happy Ever After. I really liked this article, it really opened my eyes. This article was about fairy tales and beauty. This article pointed out that most fairy tales have this message that it pays to be beautiful and how it is harmful to the kids reading it. Also in these fairy tales are the idea that you can judge a person good or bad by the way the look. In fairy tales the evil witch, or evil step sisters are always the ugly ones and are usually punished in some way. This teaches kids that you can judge someone by the way they look. Also in these fairy tales the gender roles may make kids think that guys have to have big muscles and be handsome prince saving the woman. It may make young girls think that they have to be rich and beautiful to be happy and accepted. This article really made me open my eyes to what I had read as a kid. One example of a good fairy tale that this article gave was Shrek, the main character Shrek fell in love with Princess Fiona. This was not like all of the other fairy tales because Shrek was not the usual handsome prince, he was an ogre. Shrek rescues Princess Fiona from the castle and at first Princess Fiona is disgusted by Shrek because she was expecting the tall handsome prince. As the story progresses you learn that the princess was put under a curse and turns into an ogre herself after sunset. Shrek and Fiona fall in love and live happily ever after, even after Fiona is permanently turned into an ogre. I think that there should be more fairy tales like this one because even as an ogre she fell in love and lived happily ever after where as in Snow White and Sleeping Beauty it was based on looks to be happy.
This article also made me think about men's roles in fairy tales. In fairy tales the men are always "saving" the princess or woman from something. The males always have a somewhat heroic role in the story.

Responce.

This past weekend we read two articles, the first one Is Beauty In The Eye of The Beholder? and the second one The Morality of Fat. On Monday we had a Socratic seminar on the first article Is Beauty In The Eye of The Beholder? This article brought up excellent topics to talk about during seminar. One being that the definition of "beauty" is different in different cultures. For example in China it is beautiful for women to have very small bound feet where as America it doesn't matter if woman have small feet. Other things discussed in Socratic seminar was Americans obsession with being thin has spread to other countries, our standard of "beauty" have spread around the world. In Asia and Africa creams to make skin more pale have been really popular. Things I found in the article that I thought were interesting were, in modern era being plump was a sign of wealth. It was a sign of wealth because it said that you were able to afford food. Similar to that in areas around the world where food is scarce, it is between the people who can afford "high quality" healthy food or people who buy the cheap junk food. My favorite quote was found in the comments to this article. "Beauty is imperfection. Imperfection is character. Character is individuality. Individuality is what you need to fall in love. And someone you can fall in love with has the truest beauty of all." I completely agree with this quote.
Today we had a Socratic Seminar on The Morality of Fat as well as the first article this article brought up very interesting points. I think it would be very hard to explain what this article was about but the main point was Americas needs to be healthy and how we strive to be healthy. I found a couple of quotes that completely shocked me the first one "This country supplies enough food for people to consume 3,700 calories every day. Few people require more than 2,00 calories a day" I think its crazy that people are eating double the amount of calories needed. The second quote "We're a country with a lively appreciation of sin, and our eating behavior appears to be colored by it". This article brought our seminar to many discussion topics such as what priorities come first as a class we agreed that health would come first, inner beauty second, and outer beauty last. Because everyone gets so caught up in the media we get these priorities mixed up. Our discussion then turned into who should be responsible for teaching our kids which priorities come first and why. Our class thought of many different suggestions some thought parents, others thought it would be more effective if the media did, even government and a few thought it was no ones responsibility. These Socratic seminar have opened my eyes and made me see things from different perspectives.

Where You Can Find These Articles:
Morality of Fat
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05EED71F39F933A25750C0A960958260
Is Beauty in The Eye of The Beholder?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/3291271.stm

In The Eye of The Beholder

Things I thought That Were Interesting:

• Being "plump" was sign of wealth and status in the modern era. Also having pale skin was a sign that you did not have to spend time outdoors. A tan meant that you had leisure time spent outside doing work (no wealth).
• In areas around the world where food is scarce, similar to the modern era it is between the people who can afford food and the people who can't. It is also drawn between the people who can afford "high-quality food", healthy food and the people who buy the cheap junk foods.
• America's obsession with being thin has started to develop in other countries as well. The US/ Western media and models has spread their standard of "beauty" around the world.
• In Asia and Africa creams to turn brown skin pale has been very popular.
• The growing interest in the western beauty standard has been spread everywhere via satellite.

Comments I Agreed with and Why:

• "Beauty is imperfection. Imperfection is character. Character is individuality. Individuality is what you need to fall in love. And when you fall in love with someone that it is the truest beauty of all" I agree with this quote because being in love is beautiful. I also think imperfection is beauty, no one is perfect but when you love someone, you love everything about them including their imperfections.
• "It is a great shame that everything is becoming so westernised, becuase cultural differences should be celebrated. Also, I think what most women don't realize is that there are a variety of differen't body shapes, and each one of them is equally beautiful. But they are only ever shown one of these body shapes by the media, so is it any wonder women strive for thiness?"

The Heavy Cost of Light Skin

The Heavy Cost of Light Skin response.

After reading The Heavy Cost of Light Skin, I was very shocked. This article talked about Mali women bleaching their skin to lighten complexion. More than half of the women in Mali are using these creams to lighten their skin. This cream is very painful, costly, and definitely not salubrious.I was very mesmerized when I read that women who did not bleach their skin weren't treated as well as the ones who did. I was very shocked when I read that, I think that it is horrible that the women of Mali are bleaching their skin to embellish the beauty they already have. In this article they mentioned how Malian men prefer women with bleached pallid skin. I personally think its very dumb to change your features to attract men. The women in Mali probably think that pleasing their husbands by bleaching their skin is a form of dowry, but I believe that it is wrong to harm your skin to please your husband. I'm sure the women of Mali have ebullient personalities and other things to bring to the marriage other than the salacious needs their husband wants.
I hope that the woman of Mali will realize that they do not need pallid skin to be beautiful.

You Tube Commercial Response

When I watched the Dave Onslaught video, I was not very shocked or surprised. The video starts out with this young girl probably around ten or twelve starring into the camera with an "I want it" look in her eye that draws you in and makes you wonder what she is looking at. The next thing you see is a series of images and clips for weight loss supplements, advertisements for make up and beauty products, workouts, plastic surgery, a woman on a scale, a women throwing up, and with this young girl looking at all of it. At the end it said “Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does". The reason I wasn't very shocked was because I feel like this is very normal. For example when I go to the store I always see little girls around the age of six and eight buying make up and talking about how they shouldn't eat this or they shouldn't eat that.

What I think the central message for behind this video was to open your eyes to the effects that the media and and beauty industry have on all of us, especially young girls. With the media telling us to do all of these things many people go to drastic measures to achieve this "perfect" body or clear skin. Young girls are easily influenced and vulnerable and believe everything the media is projecting to them, and that is why I think Dove put the message "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does". I thought that this video had a good message but it is really unrealistic. A young girl is very easily influenced and when there is magazines telling you your body should look a certain way and television commercials advertising a new makeup product, I don't think a talk a small talk with their daughters are going to help much. There is way too much campaign telling us otherwise.

Reflecting on Symposium

During our symposium we started out by discussing the meaning of virtue. In Greek and Latin virtue meant "Moral Excellence". For the most part I agreed with this meaning of virtue, goodness and righteousness. From there we learned what the Four Cardinals of Virtues were which Socrates and Plato came up with. The first one being Prudence (Knowledge), the second being Fortitude (Bravery and Courage), the third one was Temperance (Moderation), and fourth being Justice (Fairness). The two statements we built off on were "Wrongful doing is a consequence of ignorance" and "The best way to live is to focus on self-development rather than material wealth"
This was the first time our class had done a symposium and I thought it was very interesting but confusing at the same time. There was a lot of things I wanted to add to this discussion but I couldn't put a lot of my thoughts into words that everyone would understand. I knew what I wanted to say but it was a lot of scattered thoughts. I thought it was really interesting to hear my classmates thoughts on the subjects that were brought up. Although sometimes it would turn into more of a debate than a discussion.
Overall I enjoyed hearing every ones thoughts and opinions next time I will try and get all of my thoughts together so i can get into the discussion more.

Women in Ancient Greece.

The women of Athens role in society was very different from the women of Sparta. The women in Athens were s small step above slaves in the 5th century (B.C). In Athens, there was an ideal of an obedient woman, the women lived under the protection of her father or husband (or some type of male figure). The women of Athens primary responsibilities were to have and educate kids, manage the house, spin, weave, and oversee food preparation. Small girls in Athens were expected to earn their education, In wealthy families girls were educated to run the household of servants and slaves, and were usually married by the age of 13. Athenian woman were put into three different classes, the lowest class was a slave who helped with domestic chores and helped raise children of wifes. The second class was the Athenian citizen woman. The third class was known as the Hetaerae. The Hetaere unlike the slaves and the citizens, were very similar to the Geisha's of China. Hetaerae women were given an education in reading, writing, and music, and were allowed into the Agora and other structures which were off limits to citizen and slave women. Unlike the women of the Athens the women of Sparta were born with respect and freedom, they were required by law to be given the same care as their brothers. Spartan girls were required to attend school but a shorter period than boys. At school girls were allowed to participate in sports. Spartan women rarely got married before the age of 20, and unlike Athenian woman who covered up and were rarely seen outside the house, Spartan woman were allowed to wear what they pleased.

Plato and Socrates

I think one of the most beautiful things about youth is how naive a child starts out. For example when you are a kid you are told Santa is real, and that they should put their tooth under their pillow so the tooth fairy can leave money. Being a kid (youth) is so beautiful because they are not aware of the worlds problems, so they have nothing to worry about making them have such a great simple outlook on life. Because youth has this simple out look on life, without worry and care free it makes them beautiful. As kids grow older they start to learn that things such as the tooth fairy and Santa do not exist. They then learn about problems around the world and in their own life and no longer have a simple outlook on life. These problems and worries that come with age take away from their innocence and care free way of life. Therefore taking away the natural beauty a child has, their innocence.
Plato and Socrates, Socrates was the first of the three great Athenian philosophers. He was born in 469 BC, In his mid forties he began questioning things like "what is wisdom?" and "what is beauty?". He decided that he would ask people he met these questions to come up with some ideas for answers. The Socrates encouraged people to answer these questions by asking even more questions. Plato followed these ideas and wrote them down, he himself also began to write down his own ideas on philosophy. Today there is an idea on the perfect human form. Here in America the ideal perfect body for a woman is mostly skinny, busty, and tall. This "perfect" human form does not exist and is very unrealistic. This "perfect" human form is different every where around the world.
I do not have an idea on the perfect human form but I have asked a couple of people on what they think the "perfect" human form is.

Female,13.

"I think that there is no real perfect body. What everyone thinks is an ideal body is very unrealistic"

My Images of Beauty

Beauty is not in the face; beauty is a light in the heart.

~Kahlil Gibran

My first image of beauty is a sunflower. I think that the sun flower repersents beauty becuase of its simplicity. To some beauty is all about aesthetics such as; make-up, hair, clothes, and body image. I think beauty is nature, things in their natural state. Nature does not need make-up, good hair, and clothes to be beautiful, it does not need to be altered. That is why I chose a sunflower for my first image of beauty.

My second image of beauty is this girl in a field jumping. I think this image repersents beauty because when I look at this photo I automatically think that this girl is happy, and care free. I think someone enjoying life and being happy and original is beautiful becuase happiness is great. Another word that comes to mind when thinking of what repersents beauty is music. Music is a wonderful way of expressing yourself through instruments or through singing. Beauty can be defined many different ways but I think beauty is happiness, and nature.

First Post

wow my name is stephanie i picked a LAME template for my blog. lamaleme


that was mike....he sucks at halo3.
i picked a fantastic template he doesn't know what he's saying.


MIKEPWNSATSPARTENLASER4LIFE