Photo Finish

Photos are nothing but another form of disseminating or capturing information. However, just like any other form of communication, it is subject to falsify reality. Photographs can easily be used to better understand the world around us, yet it can just as easily create a facade over the real truth.

The simplest example of how photos are used to aid our memory is with childhood albums. These albums inform us about a time in our life we might have no recollection of. Without these pictures, people would lose sight of that innocent and carefree time altogether. Sontag claims that "one never understands anything from a photograph", but what about the emotional connection it provides to bridge our daily lives to our past? How do candid photos hide the truth, if they are taken without the subject knowing? For Sontag to make such a direct claim, one could just as easily argue that our words have been corrupted too. Yet that doesn't force us to argue that we learn nothing from speech.

On the other hand, there are a handful of examples in which photos hurt our judgement of society. The biggest example of this that I have faced, along with many online shoppers, is when companies make products look much better than they are in ads and the online photo. After buying the item, you realize that it works nothing like what the company claimed. This is a perfect example of how photos can distort the reality around us. Nowadays, photos can so easily be edited and photo-shopped, that in many cases they do lose their value. Models and actors take photos in "perfect conditions" looking "flawless", but in what way does that illustrate the human imperfection we all carry.

While it is too strong to argue that photos are a "form of mental pollution" because they provide us with a important tool of recollection and storing information, there is a strong current trend which does hurt our opinion of the world. It is important that people understand this, otherwise photos might create the perception that all the world's problems have been resolved.

Planning the Perfect Training Program

This week we focused our class discussions on the subject of political correctness which lines up perfectly with our schools pledge to end the word. This is a great example of how PC language can be beneficial to society. Taking part in such an activity provides positive externalities to everyone as it demonstrates one of the few cases how we as people can all agree on eradicating the use of the "r-word". While some such eradications do seem helpful, the majority do more harm than good. For example, in source A, Kakutani illustrates through her use of euphemisms how people say things such as "'the underhoused'" to refer to the homeless. This phrase creates the false sense of hope and improvement in society, when in actuality people are still suffering in the streets without homes.

The problem does not end with creating this euphemism, later on people will try to change this euphemism to almost a point where they undermine the problem making it seemingly non existent. This would essentially distract everyone from caring from the big picture, and rather activists would work on correcting unnecessary mistakes. Kakutani also promotes this point as she points to the drive of PC to change the name of Santa Claus and even Lincoln's famous Gettysburg Address.

Taking both pros and cons into consideration, it is difficult to decide whether PC is truly good or bad. Rather to succeed in positive change we must find a middle ground to accomplish such a goal.

Running Away from Consumerism

When we happen to go to a famous and beautiful nature site, what's the first thing that comes to mind for the younger generation? Of course, the gift shop. We consumeristic human beings flock to get our hands on something concrete rather than take in the phenomenon that exits right outside. We fail to take in and appreciate the beauty that surrounds us, yet we succeed in buying a shirt or a hat or a nail clipper with a mediocre picture of that site on it. Our ignorance to such nature dwells from the craze for consumer goods.

The only memory I have from the first time I went to the CN Tower in Toronto was sitting in the gift shop whining because my parents wouldn't buy me some dumb toy. And obviously I would only use this toy for less than a week before it just ends up behind the couch and lost forever. I can't at all recollect the view of the skyline or the long elevator ride up to the top. The fact that even at such a young age the thought of purchasing useless consumer goods had already poisoned my mind goes to show how society slowly devalued the beautiful scenery around us.

In "Save the Whales, Screw the Shrimp", Williams makes a very similar point. She illustrates how we obsess over the "pizza and video shops" and maybe even a "bulimia treatment center". Her use of cataloging demonstrates the excessive nature of people to the point where they literally just throw up food contributing to the already growing food waste in the world. Williams makes the ignorance of people evident as she directly attacks these people with her use of rhetorical questions.

People need to start embracing the nature around them before it's "too late". As we grow our attention towards material goods, we are slowly leaving behind the beautiful world around. Soon all we might have are the shirts and hats and nail clippers with pictures of natural phenomenon that may cease to exist.

No Visible Finish Line

A Sikh was shot at in Seattle yesterday with the shooter yelling "get out of our country, go back to where you're from." This possible hate crime is yet another example of the inherent racism our society still faces. Similar to Staples piece, this man was profiled possibly for his religion and looks, unnecessarily associating him with terrorism. The man was minding his own business attending his car when the suspect confronted him. Staples was "suffering a bout of insomnia" when his "first victim" fled from his sights. In both cases Staples and the Sikh man were the true victims, yet Staples's irony mocks how people hold stereotypes. Staples fulfills society's view on him calling himself the oppressor when in reality he is the true victim in the scenario. People's inability to see past Staples' looks force him to the victim of prejudice and stereotypes.

Society forces people like Staples to change their own image rather than fixing their own flaw. For example, Staples begins to "whistle melodies" from classical songs to make him seem as if he is less dangerous and almost childish. This also relates to the grocery shop video we watched in first semester where the African American narrator had to resist from reinforcing stereotypes and just keep her mouth shut during the injustice.

However, for society to truly advance from this almost primitive like mindset, those with the flaws must be corrected rather than the victims. After being founded on total acceptance of others, the US continues to be far from achieving that belief.

Working Out in Weight Room

The school weight room - trust me I have been there, even though I look like a stick - seems to be controlled with the big macho football players all the time. I can hardly remember seeing a girl in there who was in there by herself. She always part of either the girl's soccer team "hell week" or the indoor track girls using the treadmills. Never, have I seen a girl in there just because she wanted to come and lift.

It's not really that girls just don't want to be in there, more that they are so fixated on their own image and the weight room has slowly become stereotyped to become the "mans man" room. It's also not that girls don't go to the gym at all, more that they avoid using the school weight room.

The one time I saw the whole girl's soccer team in there, I started hearing complaints from all those hard core lifters about the large crowd and waits to use the equipment. The social disruption created when girls begin to enter the school weight room shows why this are has become a gendered section of the school.  All the large football player sized people in weight room make it awkward for girls to go in there; these people create a sense of intimidation, which shies away anyone new to weight lifting. In a sense, the weight room is also sectioned off to only the already "big guys".

To resolve the social stigma around the "ownership" of the room seems to be a very difficult problem. The only thing between girls and the weight room at this point is their own conscious; they need to get out of the mindset that they will get judged for using the largely masculine room at our co-ed school.

Running away from the Negatives

We as people are often only drawn to the small negative things rather than all the positives around us. It seems natural, after a long practice, to just look at all the things that went bad instead of noticing how much improvement has been made. This impulse to dwell on the negative is very much similar to the impulse Didion shows in Vegas marriages.

In Vegas, people seem to just get married when they have nothing better to do. There is no thought put into it, especially the long term effects of such a sudden acceleration in a relationship. The consumer craze that is created by Vegas marriages generates the high divorce rate in Nevada compared to around the national rate. People's obsession over material items has slowly transferred to a larger range. With everyone getting married, it's almost like another item that can be bought so that you can be like everyone around you. And the way Vegas commercializes these weddings definitely adds to that. Each chapel offers "better, faster" services.

Similarly the impulse to fret over the negative is stimulated by people's desire for material goods. After buying something, everyone is super excited to use it. Yea you share good memories with it, name the thing, but as soon it breaks, it's like it never existed. You think why did I even buy this piece of crap and just move on forgetting about all the positives. This impulsive nature of people makes everything seem so dark, because as soon as you finish worrying about one thing, the next task is placed in your hands with all sorts of new negatives to cry about.

Society provides so many material and commercialized goods that people have started to lose the ability to understand the true value of everything around them. We as people need to stop fretting and start enjoying life :).

"Track"ing the impact of American Culture

For the past few months, my grandparents have been spending part of their extended visit from India at my house. Behind all the complaining about the cold weather (in India they think its "cold" when the weather drops under 55 degrees), I have noticed many small hints of not only how American culture is beginning to shape them but also how their heritage contrasts with mine.

The first thing my grandma said once she had settled in here was something along the lines of "hey Vibhi, come and teach me how to turn the TV on so I can watch my Indian dramas." Looking back this at the moment it actually seems pretty shocking how the wave of consumerism in American culture had impacts worldwide and into India. For them, they grew up with basically no technology around them. They didn't have their own cellphone until they were in their 60s and still to this day don't own a computer. This dramatic difference between the life I live with the life they grew up in characterizes the huge change society has seen both materialistically and consumeristically.

Another thing that caught my eye about them is their obsession over their iPad (a gift from my mom and my aunt). To say my grandma uses it 24/7 would be an understatement. The thing is basically glued to her hands. Never would I have thought that my own grandparents use the technology around them more than I do. The story behind the iPad actually goes back to their last trip to the US when they fell in love it. The ability to play games such as Angry Birds and watch YouTube videos all packed in one small rectangular tablet fascinated them. Their craze for American products was a signal to me of how materialism has progressed vastly through society;the feeling that once they saw something they needed it have one for themselves. Similar to how Wallace mocks the American people and their obsession over "lobster T-shirts and lobster bobblehead dolls and inflatable lobster pool toys," (665).

The sight of my Indian grandparents eating Jets Pizza in one hand and having an Apple iPad in the other will continue to shock me, but it clearly demonstrates the effect of American culture on people throughout the world.