"Fitting In"

            I can definitely say these assigned readings are about fitting in. Starting off with the song Wings by Macklemore, we can see that trend plays a big part in this music video and the lyrics of the song. This is because when you are watching there is a kid who thought he was super cool because he had Air Jordan’s. He thought he fit into school and sort of was a popular kid, but in the end we see that three older kids take his stuff leaving him with nothing. He soon realizes that these shoes are just shoes whether they are 20 dollars or 200 dollars. I felt like this was all about trend because of the fact that they were brand name shoes and everyone was wearing them, eventually the trend of Air Jordan’s will stop because they won’t be cool anymore. This relates to the Merchant of cool-short because it was all about trendsetters and how products little get over made and become less cool because everyone has them. That is the similarity to the music video because the kid saw another kid with his shoes on and he thought he wasn’t special anymore since others are getting them. The people who stand out are definitely the different people like people who have tattoos, piercings, and gauges, etc. Because they want to look different from the normal crowd, soon people are going to start liking that stuff and it’s not going to be cool anymore.

            When I was looking at the Abercrombie and Fitch article/video, I noticed that this guy giving this stuff to people didn’t seemed like he cared about if the clothing actually fitting them because it seemed like he was just trying to shoot a video to get the point out. I mean it was definitely a nice gesture and a good deed but I just think this video was too front about everything. I definitely understand that Abercrombie and Fitch needs to break out from there same old trend but they could attract more business if they just opened there store for all sizes and ages.

             

Animals

            When I started reading our assignment, one of the readings stood out to me and that was the Blackfish trailer because it was all about SeaWorld. It made me think of animal cruelty because SeaWorld would go out into the sea and take young wild Orcas that are meant for being in the wild, come back and try to be train and put them in captivity.  I thought this was wrong, and I didn’t start to realize that until I watched this on Netflix’s. It really made me think what our society has become?  Another reading that caught my eye was the scarecrow song because right when it started out, it started playing the Willie wonka song and that made me think of a factory. The song really showed what we do to animals, like process them and turn them into food. But what really impressed me was when the scarecrow made his own food in the end to give a different option of eating to people.  The Rikki-Tikki-Tavi and Primal Compassion have a similar mind set I think because we either see someone helping out someone or animal caring for there own and I think that shows a lot especially for kids. I also think that we don’t give enough credit to animals like monkeys and gorilla’s since they are changing our ways. I think later in life we are going to see advantages from animals that will benefit our society since they are evolving too around humans.

            When looking at the cat article, I seem to agree with it because everywhere we go now we are going to see a stray cat. In our society this is normal because cats are always fertile, its just normal. I don’t think we should be afraid of these cats because if we are feeding them then; what’s the difference? we still are approaching them. I just think if we have the energy to pick up the phone and call the shelter, then I definitely think we can just take it there. In the end we are just helping our evolving society with animals. When I was looking at the Tango makes three article, I thought it was interesting because in the zoo, the keepers watched them for six years and pretty much developed and created there family today. I thought this was very unique because animals have such a different perspective on things and we definitely say that in these readings, but something that stood out to me in this particular reading was that it reminded me of happy feet because it sort of took the same concept as this except for happy feet was in the wild not in captivity. I think captivity plays a big part for animals because it changes them and I think they need to do that on their own in the wild. 

Inequality

When I started going through the assigned readings for the class, I noticed that in the inequality trailer that income was a big deal. This sort of became the units focus I think because people who have working class jobs don’t honestly get paid enough. I couldn’t agree with that statement more because I have had job that has me work a lot but doesn’t pay well at all. This is simply because the U.S. puts our money towards other things. In the trading places trailer we see to movie characters switch places, one having a really high job in the market while the other person doesn’t have a job at all. I can definitely notice that we can do high-class jobs just as easy as low income jobs just the only difference is pay. When reading the Seattle times article I notice that all the low-income workers went on strike because they did not feel that they got paid enough, we see that the people ordering the food actually appreciated what the employees were doing because they all knew that people are getting screwed over for pay on how much time they put into there work. How much we are getting paid is a big deal to us and we can see that also in the other Seattle time’s article. Reading the NPR article, we start to notice big lumps of money be sent to the fast food workers but they don’t want to give them raises. I honestly seem to think our country is digging ourselves a hole into debt because of how much money we spend, I think on useless things for our country. I start to notice that not everyone gets a choice on where they want to work because some people have families to care for and such, so they can’t really start school nor have the money for with a full family. I think that this unit is going to be a interesting one to talk about in class because we will be able to see what other students think about low-income jobs since we have all have had one and I think that people will have different answers. Inequality is a big thing happening in the U.S. and I think that it is something that needs to be changed otherwise it will drastically hurt us in the long run. Lastly I believe that jobs will ever be changing since people just don’t get paid much and always go on strike asking for more money. I remember I was reading one of the articles and it talked about how they were trying to raise the minimum wage to 15 dollars, which would be nice but it would never happen because the U.S. just doesn’t have a lot of money to throw around. So I think it would probably be a more realistic goal to lower that number because I feel that asking for 15 is just to much to ask for especially when it comes to out country.

Concussions and Hand-Guns

I definitely think this is an interesting topic to think about because many pro football players do own a gun and do at least have one concussion under their belt. I myself have had two concussions during my football days in high school. The issue that arises is that medical professionals don’t tell players when they are concussed, so they keep playing and get hurt worse. I thought it was interesting to see the CTE scan because it shows what happens after a hard hitting hit. The first stage is unnoticeable then it gets very progressive and by the end the damage has already been done.

            When you watch football, there is definitely things that stand out. One there is a lot of black football players compared to whites. Two is that a lot of players have guns because they are so famous they want to feel safe. This is completely understandable but it’s crazy to think that kids off the street carry hand-guns just because they want to be part of a gang or something. Looking at the George Zimmerman case, we see that a young black student gets pulled over and he was thought to have had a gun and apparently the police officer thought he was pulling a gun, so he shot him. Only to find out he was really just reaching for his I.D. When I think about this it is completely stupid because people just a book by it’s cover and that’s just not right.

            Looking at the Chris Rock/Tiger Woods video, we saw that people in Harlem didn’t know who Tiger Woods was or they didn’t like golf. There wasn’t really any in between. We saw that Chris Rock tried to find golf clubs but he wasn’t successful until he found some at the Salvation Army. What we get from this is that people like sports that are fun and entertaining like professional football because we can see hard hits and spectacular plays. I thought it was interesting to look at the black  birders because it sounded to me that they were rules for black people to follow in order to be considered a normal person in society. It says like “Don’t wear a hoodie”, this is normally something everyone does but people get the wrong idea when a black man does it, everyone feels like it a threat. I just thought it was something interesting to look at and to me it did have some very good points. We definitely see a lot of racial targeting happen because people honestly judge at first glance or someone already have a preconceived notion. I definitely think this has been a issue for the longest time now and we need to do something about it but I think nothing gets fixed due to people not giving others the benefit of the dought. When we look at situations that happen, people tend to just shrug it off, but what happens when this all happens to a white dude, then everyone freaks out. NOT COOL!