Revisionist Fantasy

The passage “Revisionism Revisited” talks about revising history due to new discovers and factual evidence that was not present at the time of the incident or its investigation. I think this is a weird concept because this is suggesting that somethings in history may have been falsily reported due to lack of knowledge about a situation. This is so strange to me because it brings into questions so much of history and even things reported today. How many of them are reported falsely because of assumption made just by looking at the most obvious evidence and without looking deeper into the problem? This sound like a big conspiracy theory, but it has been seen to happen in a couple different instances as mentioned in the passage. This also makes me wonder what historical “facts” do we think we know right now that will eventually be proven false through new findings. Perhaps like the selection metioned we will in the future find out the truth behind Presidnet Kennedy’s assassination or maybe some other type of government secret will leak out and our eyes will be opened to some other truth. To go on with the conspiracy theory maybe some of the truth of these stories are being held back by some government agency, I can not imagine why, but just to go on more with a conspiracy theory maybe the government is hiding the truth from us and only releasing it when they feel we are ready. To get away from the conspiracy theories we also have to look at the significants of knowing the truth of these events, like why would the government be holding back some information if it is not really going to have any effect on us. Like is it really important to know what year Edward II was killed? Will that change our life or anything about the present?

Draft’s Author-ity

This selection is interesting in its topic and the way that it is written. Sommers starts off talking a little bit about her childhood. She talked about one of the stories that her parent’s read her and about how she began to learn to speak German. She then switches topics and begins to talk about her daughter and her desire to learn Italian. It then changes pace and goes back a couple of years and she discusses some of the things that she pondered while teaching her writing class. She discusses both the changes made in between drafts and about authority, which at first glance appears to be completely unrelated. Her common thought is that authority should not be accepted without much scrutiny, as her shirt stated “Question Authority”. This is related to revising drafts because she is questioning the motive for the revision wondering if the revisions are just appeals to authority or if they truly reflect the reader’s thoughts. Between drafts a reader takes time to step back and think about what they have written, during this time they might reflect on what other may think of their work and that may lead to some revisions, this is what Sommers is talking about when she refers to authority in writing. She is criticizing people for letting other’s influence the way that their writing and works turn out. She refers back to the book that was read to her as a child which illustrates children who disobey authority suffering terrible punishments. Sommers believes that people appeal to authority in their revisions because they are afraid of punishment similar to the way she was afraid of punishment for the acts that were committed in her childhood book. She connects writer’s revisions to the way that they act in life. If the appeal to authority in their writings then as in life they will blindly obey and follow the authority set before them. 

Scare the fearful

In Brent Staples essay he talks about the fear that he is able to rise in people as he walks the streets at night. He points out that because of the color of his skin people inherently become more tense and nervous of they pass him. In the first version of his essay, which went into a women’s magazine he mentions all the ways that he has been able to calm people’s nerves about him and make himself seem less threatening as he passes them on the street. He also adds a little part about how he is able to understand women’s fear about walking alone on the streets at night and even sympathsizes with them a little bit. Staples ends his essay in the womens magazine by talking about how he would whistle to calm the nerves of those who would pass him. In the essay in his autobiography he changes a few details. He takes out the few sentences that about his empathy toward women who are walking alone at night. He also does not expand on his techniques for making himself seem less ominous. One very interesting part that he does add is how he eventually gave in to people’s fears and began to make a game out of scaring those who had a natural inclination to fear a colored man walking the streets at night. This shows that he is being more genuine in his autobiography because he is really telling his audience everything about his feelings and what he did, where in the women’s magazine he left out the last few paragraph about how he began to play off of people’s fear.

Advertise in Style

In the short excerpt “Urban Warfare” we see a sales tactic that was initiated by Coca Cola and then later attempted by other soft drink companies. The tactic is to go into the inner city and advertise for Coke by giving away free drinks and adopting their lifestyle and cultural tastes in a way that endorses their product. Giving away free drinks will have people walking around the streets with that drink and in a way giving that product “street cred” by showing it as being popular amongst a certain crowd. This approach is an incredibly good sales tactic, but it makes you think about the reasons why we as consumers by stuff. Coke became popular in these inner cities because of this advertising scheme and the sales increase significantly showing that the way a product is displayed has a great effect on those trying to make a decision on a purchase. It makes me wonder if some of the stuff I buy is because of this tactic. I see something like the DewTour, a skateboarding competition, on tv does that make me more inclined to go out and buy a can of mountain dew? Or even if you a friend recommends something to you are you more inclined to like the product because of that other person’s influence rather than your own opinion? Are our opinions that easily molded? To quickly change subject at the end of the book it talks about the man who leads the inner city Coke advertisements as being a very strict Coke fan so strict as to drink nothing but Coke and to have allegedly fired an employee for drinking Pepsi outside of work. This is when someone’s identity is clearly lost in the corporate world, he has become defined by the product he endorses and is completely owned by the company. This is a clear example of when corporate business goes wrong, when we are consumed and defined by some corporate brand and this is what I believe Lasn was criticizing in his piece. 

Cultural Cult

This selection discusses a subject that I have been aware of for quite some time now, but have never known anyone to agree with the way I see things. It talks about how we are seduced into these cults of brand named goods and how we become puppets to companies who tell us how to dress, what to eat, where to go and how to supposedly have fun. These companies tell us that if we want to play basketball better all we need to do is buy a pair of their hundred dollar basketball shoes or if we want people to think we are “cool” then we need to wear this brand of clothing. In my eyes clothing brands are the worst they have you pay twenty and possible more for a t-shirt promoting their brand. It’s better than free advertising because people are paying them to advertise for them. If they aren’t using you as a personal billboard to advertise for their products then they have you spending forty to fifty bucks for a pair of jeans or maybe ten bucks for two pairs of boxers just because they say American Eagle on them. It’s completely absurd anyone could go to some place like Kohl’s or Target and get a perfectly comfortable pair of jeans that looks striking similar to the one from American Eagle or Hollister for about fifteen bucks. People waste so much money just to get that brand name on their purchase which is only important because the marketer tells you it is and of course they’ll tell you that they want your money. Why is a t-shirt with a company logo worth upwards of ten dollars more than some other t-shirt from a department store? It’s not more comfortable, it’s not going to last longer or make people think more of you. We all fall victim to it though despite my ongoing rant I’m right now sitting at my desk using my Dell laptop and wearing Nike flip-flops the corporations have gotten so far out of control that it is almost impossible to avoid them all together. For me I just stick to sales racks and department store cloths and I won’t wear shirts sporting a company logo, as most of you have noticed all my shirts are band shirts or have been made by one of friends. I have no problem supporting a band by wearing one of their shirts and advertising their CD but to advertise for a store that just rips people off by selling over priced designer clothes I can’t bring myself to do. 

Societal Clash

In “Arts of the Contact Zone” Pratt talks about the when two different societies come into contact with each other. They come into contact and often end up in struggles and fights due to differences in beliefs, morals and ways of living. Pratt talks about one of the most extreme cases of when two cultures have been crashed together, but this happens much more often than we think. It occurs quiet regularly even today, just not in such intense ways. One of the more recent times that I’ve experienced a contact zone of a sort is when I first arrived here on campus. Instead of the clash just being between two different groups like the Spaniards and the Incas, it was a clash between many different schools from different states and cities. While the differences were not as obvious there were some major differences and clashing of cultures so to speak. People from different clicks and different backgrounds were stuck together in halls and classrooms and forced into contact. Then when upper classmen are thrown into the mix the contact zone expands to include different age groups which changes the dynamics of the group. Instead of being forcefully pushed into conformity, we slowly had to adapt to campus life. We had to familiarize ourselves with the campus and how to get around. We also had to adapt to the way that the school was operated, like the way the dining services work and when to use our punches and when to use dining dollars. We also had to figure out how to be accepted into different groups and clicks and how to gain enterance into clubs and associations. This collision of different cultures occurs regularly in present time in some minor and some major ways all across the world.  

The Physics of Musical Instruments

I decided to attend the conference on physics in musical instruments because I’m a physics major who loves music so this seemed to perfectly fit my interests. The conference present some in depth information on not only the physics behind the music, but also the history of the two instruments on which they focused. The two instruments were the harp, a string instrument that has about 36 strings and is played by plucking the stings, and the djembe drum, a single drum that has an hour glass shaped shell. The physics involved in both these instruments were fairly similar, which is surprising considering how different they are from each other. For the harp the pitch and the note are affected by the length, density and thickness of the string. The more dense, longer or thicker the string the lower the pitch of the note. The one factor in both the drum and the harp that affected the pitch was the tension on the part of the instrument that is plucked or hit. The tension affects the frequency, the greater the tension the higher the frequency. The shape of the drum helps to project the music made through resonance in the hollow base of the drum. The drummer is able to produce different sounds by the techniques that he uses when he plays. If the drum were to be hit with the palm squarely in the middle it would produce a deeper sounds, which is much different than if the drum were to be hit with the player’s finger tips on the side of the drum. The issue discussed in this conference was not as much of an argument toward one thing or another, but it was instead an informational piece. The reasons behind the issue was simply the difference in sounds produced and how the sounds were created from a physical stand point. The conclusion was that tension has a lot of effect on the way that those instruments work.   

Cheat Cheat No Reason to Play Fair

Cheating or academic dishonesty as it is know is seen as a despicable act and a crime that should be severely punished. That is how professors and those working in the academic field perceive it, but according to many of the studies done that is not the way most college students and like grade school students see it. Students seem to think that if they are able to find any small justification to cheat then that would make it okay or at least it would keep them from having a guilty conscience about it. My opinion on it is that cheating is wrong in most instances, but I believe that most everybody is guilty of it in some form of the term.

In the studies the researchers found that there was a wide variety of reasons that students would cheat. Some of which I could see as valid reason, not to say that it is any less wrong. One reason is if the work is irrelevant either to the course or to the person’s major then it does not make sense for someone to spend precious hours studying or doing work on that assignment when their time could be better spent. That is one thing that annoyed me most about some assignments from high school because some of the work was so irrelevant that I felt as though I was wasting time. Another thing that is discussed as cheating is help others on homework assignments and projects. I think that is one of the major benefits of living in a dorm, constantly having someone around to help you with homework or figure out problems that you are unable to solve yourself. I think I learned more while working through homework problems with other students than I ever would in class. It always helps to be able to talk through a problem with someone else. I would never consider getting help on homework as cheating, however, simply getting answers to the homework I could see as cheating. Although I don’t believe that cheating on homework should be punished or even attempted to be monitored, one because it would be too hard to do and two because it almost always ends up hurting the cheater in the long run.

What the Bagelman Didn’t See

This excert presented some very curious data. Whether people respect the honor system or whether they are more apt to stealling if it doesn’t seem like they will be caught or the price of being caught is too high. One point that this brings up is that people of any financial class are willing to steal even something as small as a bagel. Even some of the workers in high paying exectutive postions will take the chance of stealing a one dollar bagel. This makes me wonder what their motive behind not paying one measly dollar for a bagel, especially when some of the higher paid workers are easily making enough to pay for upwards of five hundred bagels in a single day. Is it their greed for their money? Do they just assume that a dollar is such a small amount of money that it doesn’t count as stealing? Or do they figure that they are above paying for a bagel in their own office?

The variables that affect the likeliness of bagels to be stolen is an intriguing aspect of the study. Weather playing a role in the percent of bagels stolen is backed up by many psychological studies, which demostrate that weather can affect a person’s mood and mood directly affects a person’s behaviors and actions. The type of holidays that were approaching also played a role in the amount of bagels taken. I found it almost strange that theft increased during the week of Christmas. I would have thought that the amount of bagels stolen would have decreased because during that week most people are in an abnormally good mood because of vacations being so close insight. Although I guess some people feel as though they have spent too much on gifts and other holiday expensenses and are trying to hold onto every last penny they have even if that means resorting to stealing a dollar bagel from the office.  

Writers Profile

                If we take a look back through history and contemplate the many techniques that man has used to attempt to communicate with one another writing is at the forefront of that abstraction. All form of writing from hieroglyphics to Shakespeare’s plays are all efforts to communicate with other people for a purpose. The purposes for writing, however, maybe very different between authors. There is a wide range of purposes for writing; everything from entertainment, to expressing ideas, to informing others. There are two categories that I have found most writings fall into both with many subgenres, expression and informational.

                The genre of expression includes many different styles of writing and with each author many different outlooks on a broad selection of topics. Expression of ideas can be found in poems and lyrics, to styles of writing which are very closely related. Poems are often used as a clever way to convey one’s feelings to the readers through sophisticated poetic devices. Along with song lyrics poems may portray a person’s feelings very directly or the words may seem very confusing to an audience depending on how the author decides to present his thoughts. In some cases I believe that authors chose to write abstractly because part of them does not want the rest of the world to know their thought, but they feel they need to express their feelings about something so they write it down or sing about it. Another subgenre that I believe falls can fall into expression is fictional writing because in writing a fictional story the author often puts some of his views and beliefs into some of the characters in the story. Also some of the stories reflect experiences that the author has had in their life time so in that way they are expressing their feelings to a previous experience that they’ve had. Not only their experiences and personality are reflected in their writings, but also emotions. Authors emotions and attitudes can be seen in the type of writing they do whether it’s a drama, comedy or a thriller all those styles reflect the author’s emotions at the time they are writing. This is the style that I, along with many others, find most interesting because I enjoy seeing how other people feel about certain things and how they chose to express their feelings, whether its anger, joy or sadness I always find it interesting to see how others express themselves.

                Informational writing is often a much more formal style of writing and can be seen in everything from advertisements, which inform viewers about a product to textbooks, which inform readers about facts and theories. Writing to inform is a very useful and abundantly seen technique, while it may not be a nearly as enjoyable writing style it has a very important role in our society. Newspapers present information about current events and textbooks present information necessary to passing a class, so informational writing is a very necessary style of writing. Writing to inform can also include persuasive writing, because the author is informing the audience of reasons for one side against another. Informational writing is useful for research and are a way to present your own research and studies. This writing style is a much more structured style and is often presented in a very straightforward way. Sometimes authors will present the data in their books in a misleading way, which can skew and be seen as biases toward one point of view. When this happens and the author presents more than just the data they try to sway their audience’s thinking toward their own; this is a way in which expressional writing and informational writing are mixed. I think the two writing genres should never be mixed and authors should present all the information from both sides and allow readers to draw their own conclusions.