Journal 2-2: How Far We've Come

I. In last week's journal, I wondered if there is any procedures that soldiers and/or family members have to go through upon a soldiers arrival home from war. Unfortunately I could not find exactly what I was looking for. I was wondering if there is classes of some sort or seminars that whole families or soldiers must go through upon arrival home from war in order to help prepare a family to cope better. Also, I was wondering if there are certain things a family can or cannot ask or say to the soldier arriving home.

On the other hand, I did find an interesting program for families in the military. The Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) was created in the 1980's and was created for family members with a soldier on active duty. It is a mandatory program for active-duty soldiers and helps family members with emotional, developmental, physical, or intellectual disorders. The program provides community support, educational, personnel, housing and medical services to these families that qualify. In order for a family to qualify, they must be willing for a board to review all their medical records and must allow developmental screening for any children seventy-two months or under.

II. The past two weeks, our class has been discussing the Nine Shift, which compares the time periods of 1900-1920 to 2000-2020. We took a closer look into the effects of automobiles, or cars, on the country. We came to the conclusion that automobiles make a faster and more convenient transportation for families that live in the suburbs. Also we discovered that automobiles make more jobs, such as for factory workers who produce them. We also looked into the effects of the internet on society. When being looked at closet a person could see that it can connect a person to their work from home, thus making more people be able to work from home. Also it helps people become more connected and find out things abut people and their personal lives that people back in the early 1900's could not have found out easily.

By learning about the Nine Shift it made me think more about what I really want my life to be like when I'm a grown up. I look back at people now a days and from the early 1900's and see a constant want to have a stable well-paying job, and that is all people look for. I do see having money as a necessity, of course, but what I truly want is to do something I love. If I have a job that makes me happy with my life then I will have less stress in my life and will help me live an altogether better lifestyle. I'm a firm believer in the aspect of not trying to look more than your worth or throwing your money around. I believe in being humble when it comes to finances and not trying to be something you're not. Of course I do love the luxuries of life. I really want to live in the city but have a home in the country for my fam

ily and I to go to in the summer.

This picture embodies how I want my life to be: carefree, beautiful and full of life. This is comparing to how many others caught up in the Nine Shift fee which is: boring, safe, and conservative.

During this week's class, I made some connections. I thought about how far we've really come as a society. It made me think about how far we came from the 1800's to the 1900's alone. When you take a closer look at the production of cars for example. The first production of automobiles was in Germany in 1888 by Karl Benz, more widely known as the now Mercedes Benz. The manufacturing of automobiles stayed over in Europe for a while before it came to the United States in 1895 when George Selden was granted by the United States government for a two-stroke automobile engine. It's funny to think that just a century back, you could count the number of people with cars on two hands in your town, and now you need more than two hands for just one street!

III. With learning of how far we've come in the last century, it makes me question how far we've come with technology. This week I want to take a closer look into the history of computers, especially Mac and Steve Jobs. Where did computers and the internet all start?

Sources:

Jack, Jumpn. (July 7, 2010). Simple Joys of Life. http://flockofgeese.blogspot.com/2010/07/simple-joys-of-life.html.

United States Army. (December 4, 2011). Exceptional Family Members Program. https://www.myarmyonesource.com/familyprogramsandservices/familyprograms/exceptionalfamilymemberprogram/default.aspx

(November 30, 2011). History of the automobile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_automobile

Journal 2-1: How Do We Get By?

I: In last week's journal, I was prompted to ask about Hitler and how he managed to brainwash millions of people, especially children, into following him. I came to find that Hitler used popular youth organizations, special activities, propaganda, and appeals to support their fatherland in order to earn the support of the youth of Germany. The main reason that all these people supported Hitler in the beginning was because of WWI. After WWI, Germany was left financially deflated, and Hitler brought them a new sense of hope for greatness. It has been said that Hitler "rode to power on the shoulders of the politically active youth."

Another contributing factor for Hitler's support was the Hitler Youth program. In 1926, when it first started, there was six thousand members. By 1939, Hitler Youth had gained 7.3 million members. This program brainwashed children to turn against their parents and turn them in if they were against or did not support Hitler. One of Hitler's more famous speeches to Hitler Youth said, "My magnificent youngsters! Are there finer ones anywhere in the world? What material! With them I can make a new world?"

II: In these past couple weeks, we watched a documentary called The Way We Get By. This documentary was about the senior citizens of the United States, but it was also about the troops of the United States' military. It emphasized three senior citizens: Bill, Jerry, and Joan. All three of these people are Maine Troop Greeters, which are people who go to Bangor Int'l Airport and greet troops upon their arrival home and say goodbye to those being deported. Our class discussed volunteers, the situation involving the troops, war in general, and aging for people. After we were done with The Way We Get By, we moved on to discuss the shift of culture and technology over the past century.

When we watched The Way We Get By, it was a very moving experience for me. I honestly didn't know that the elderly could be at such a loss for things to do and ways to make themselves feel important. Once when Bill was speaking, he discussed how the Maine Troop Greeter program gave some meaning to his life. Also, I was disturbed to see how someone could really just let their life go in the manner that he did. When you got a chance to look into his house, it was obvious he had no one to care for him, and that he's a hoarder. Then you see an insight on Joan's life. She was dealing with sending two of her grandchildren off to war. And then there was Jerry. He had to deal with putting down his dog, Mr. Flannigan, who was like a companion to him. I'm really happy that they have programs out there for the elderly, so they're not just sitting at home wasting away.

While we were watching the documentary, I thought about how difficult it must be for the soldiers themselves to come back home from war. The Maine Troop Greeters are extremely upset to see the soldiers leave for war, and this made me think of how the soldiers themselves must be upset to leave the Maine Troop Greeters from Bangor.

And on top of that, I can't even imagine what it must feel like for some soldiers to leave their family, especially their children. In the documentary, a soldier came back and met his daughter for the first time. This was all really moving to me, and it made me think about the emotionally toll everyone must go through.

III. With all this talk of military and what not, I can't help but wonder if there are any procedures people have to go through upon arrival home from war. Does the family also have to go through a procedure that my entail what they are and are not allowed to discuss?

Sources:

Hall, Allan. (July 26. 2011). Children of neo-Nazis could be taken into care to stop them being brainwashed at summer camps. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2018540/Neo-Nazi-children-taken-care-German-authorities-bid-beat-rise-Hitler-worship.html.

Larson, Peggy. (August 15. 2006). Nazi brainwashing started with Germany's youths. http://www.rickross.com/reference/brainwashing/brainwashing49.html.

(2008). http://watchmojo.com/blogs/images/guardweb2.jpg.

Journal 1-4: This Divided Choice

I. In last week's journal, I decided I would look into the art of actually making documentaries. I was wondering if their was possibly a code of ethics that needed to be followed or if there was a rule guideline. I found nothing of the sort, but I did find a study that was done on filmakers (mostly documentary makers) in the United States. It talked about how many documentary makers greatly needed to make boring parts of their films more interesting, such as creating unecessary drama or trying to put a part of a movie to a different viewpoint. What doumentary makers are known for is their way of twisting different scenes to work in their favor. I would really enjoy trying to come up with a completely unbiased documentary, although I'm guessing its virtually impossible.

II. In our last two weeks of class, we've been watching the documentary This Divided State which was created by a couple of students from Brighum Young University in Utah. The documentary, though, was based around some issues involved at Utah Valley State College. All these issues started when the student government decided to bring in Michael Moore to speak at the college. The problem was that Utah is an extremely Republican state. Hince the name, This Divided State. There was extreme amounts of hostility on the campus and even involving those outside of the campus, such as Kay Anderson. I have never seen a bigger hypocrite and a bigger jerk in my life. The directors did a pretty good job of involving both a Republican and Democratic viewpoint on the situation. Another huge factor is that a large majority of the state is Mormon.

In my personal opinion, this is the best documentary we've watched in class yet. I really like how the directors shined both the Republicans and the Democrats in a negative and positive light. Also, I really can't believe that there are people like Kay Anderson out there in the world.

To me there is a large chance that he is legitamently psychotic. But I guess everyone has a right to their own opinion. Which brings me to my thoughts on freedom of speech. I believe everyone has a right to thier own opinion as long as they are not intentionally putting down another person's. They may dispute those opinions with reasons of their own but never intentionally slander it.

When I think of the people out there like Kay Anderson, I automatically think cult. I just can't imagine how someone can be so closed minded. I guess the majority of it has to do with the way they're brought up. For instance, if a child is told all their life that the sky is green by their parents then they're going to defend to the death that it is green. It all has to do with the parents of the children and what they tell them from a young age. That is probably why the majority of the state of Utah is Republican and Mormon. They have never really seen another way of life. Its like Hitler brainwashing the children of Germany.

III. Now that I've brought on the idea of Hitler and Kay Anderson being connected, for this week's question I want to research how Hitler tried tried to brainwash the children of germany. What methods did he use? And how did it all actually work?

Sources:

Aufderbeide, Patricia. (2011). http://www.centerforsocialmedia.org/making-your-media-matter/documents/best-practices/honest-truths-documentary-filmakers-ethical-chall

Decker, Marin. (2005. January 28). http://www.desertnews.com/article/600107906/Film-footage-is-disputed.html

(2009). Hitler Youth. http://worldwar2stories-sheffield.com/hitler-youth---league-of-girls.php

Journal 1-3: Moore Vs. Wilson

I. In last weeks journal entry I concluded by wondering what the effects of bullying are on young children. Is it just a matter of boys will be boys, or on a much deeper level? According to some studies, it is said that bullying that begins in middle school possibly doubles the chances of a child having psychotic symptoms as a teenager. What I was truly wondering though was if it is a matter of the individual, or if it is the same for everyone but it just matters on the extent of bullying that is done? With my research, it became a question of gender. When I looked at the difference of bullying between males and females the data was ultimately the same, minus a few significant differences. Apparently females that are bullied at an earlier age have a greater chance of later becoming hospitalized for psychiatric purposes or need psychiatric medicine later on. While males that are bullied at an earlier age have a greater chance of needing psychiatric medicine in their teen years. When used in a controlled experiment though, it was proven that if someone intervenes in a female child's life, mid-childhood, it will not help the need for psychiatric care later on, while males in the same scenario do benefit significantly.

Another part of my question from last week was to find out if there were a great deal of other school shootings that generated from bullying. What I found was horrific. School shootings started all the way back in 1979, and they ranged from elementary to high schools. Some wrked alone, while others had accomplices. What was interesting about the accomplices is that some that seemed to be arrested over time had nothing to do with the actual killings, they just knew it was going to happen and did nothing about it. Which in my opinion is just as bad as killing the people themselves. One school shooting that really stood out to me was on October 1, 1997. A sixteen year old boy named Luke Woodham was apparently a worshipper of Hitler. On the morning of his rampage, he killed his mother, and then went in the school to kill his ex-girlfriend and her friend and severely wounded several others.

II. This past two weeks in class, we continued to learn about and watch Bowling For Columbine, but we also started a new documentary called Michael Moore Hates America, which is by Michael Wilson. Bowling For Columbine is a documentary about how America lives in fear compared to other countries such as Canada, while Michael Moore Hates America is trying to contradict everything Moore says and does in his documentary. We continued to see a lot of the same documentary video editing techniques as in Bowling For Columbine. A common one was the phantom question, which is when you just hear a response from the person the director is interviewing but you never hear the director's question.

In my opinion, Michael Wilson isn't all that different from Michael Moore. It seems as though they both go to any lengths to get what they need for film. The only true difference I saw was Wilson's camera man. He was against trying to be anything like Moore when Wilson lied to the city manager of Davison, Michigan, in order for him to say Moore was from Davison and not really from Flint, which is one of Moore's major points in his film. Another thing I've noticed is that Wilson attempts to be more amiable than Moore comes off to be. When his cameraman becomes upset with him about the Davison thing, Wilson writes to the city manager to explain what happened in reality. Which I feel like he uses to make the people watching his film like Wilson better than Moore.

When I watch these documentaries they make me think of other things such as simple common courtesy. In Michael Moore Hates America, Wilson goes to a rally that Moore is holding at a university. When he asks Moore for an interview he declines extremely rudely which made me think if this how some wars were started, over not being able to contribute simple common courtesy to someone you may not respect or like.

(I was having technical difficulties and could not upload a picture I wanted to but the link is: http://media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lif2cfHVp71qacxiu.jpg)

If Moore is always preaching about how we all live in fear and need to be more considerate like the Canadians, then why doesn't he show it. He's being extremely hypocritical if you ask me. Which is all that he is in my opinion, a scared hypocrite that thrives off of Hollywood.

III. Over these past two weeks I've been trying to think of a question to ask. I've decided that next week I'd like to research more about the art of documentary making. I was wondering if there was a documentary code? Or any rules that documentary makers must follow?

Sources:

(2011). tumblr_lif2cfHVp71qacxiu.jpg.

Lopez-Duran, Nestor. "Bullies and Victims: Boys will be Boys or a Symptom of Distress?" (Oct 14. 2009).

Ramsland, Katherine. (2007). Http://trutv.com/library/crime/serial_killers/weird/kids1/index_1.html

Journal 1-2: Bowling for Tradgedy

I. In last week's entry, I decided that I would research how children are affected by euphemisms and if people could find euphemisms in everyday life. I figured out that children are brought to accept and even use euphemisms frequently. A common euphemism in young children is discussing death. Such as "he's in eternal rest" or "he passed away" instead of just saying that they died. the reason we use these expressions in young children is because they don't always know how to quite process death. In simpler words, euphemisms are used by everyone to help young children understand better. Euphemisms are used to cover up the "bad stuff." As frr just average people having the ability to identify euphemisms, people know they are there and choose to use them. When it comes to discussing people, such as: instead of saying "she's a hooker" you may say "she's an escort." When people use euphemisms in this aspect, people are actually labeling others. All in all, euphemisms are the norm in society.






II. Over the past two weeks, our class has discussed fallacies, and we've been immersed in a movie called Bowling for Columbine which is a biased documentry created by Michael Moore. I learned that a fallacy is an invalid arguement. There are four different types of fallacies: fallacies of relevance, fallacies of presumption, fallacies of ambiguity, and fallacies of weak induction. Within each of these different types though, there are many different kinds. We learned about 22 different fallacies in all. After we learned about fallacies, we went into talking about the tradgedy at Columbine High School to prepare use for the documentry we were going to watch. The documentry Bowling for Columbine is extremely biased, and the amounts of video editing involved to make people agree with Moore's point of view is to the extreme.



In my personal opinion, I think that the class learning about how Moore edits his documentry is extremely important. One scene I remember is how he made Heston look like a complete jerk by editing his "speech" to Denver, Colorado when the NRA (National Rifle Association) came to speak. Moore had brought to different speeches together in order to make Heston seem incompassionate towards the Columbine shooting. Moore is the ultimate con-man when it comes to video. Although one positive that I got out of video was, amazingly enough, Marilyn Manson. Moore somehow made him seem as sane as you or I. Manson came off as a completely rational person, and then Mr. Couillard brought up Alice Cooper in class.

What I found so fascinating about Alice Cooper was the fact of how he has two completely different identities. On stage he's a death rock god, and behind the scenes he was a born again Christian. In my opinion, it was a completely rational explanation. He had to keep up his stage identity even though he thought completely different.

One thing that we did not discuss in greater detail is why people do the crazy things they do, like with the Columbine massacre. It happens everywhere. Such as in Blacksburg, when the tradgedy at Virginia Tech happened. While we were discussing the two boys, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, I constantly kept thinking back to Seung-Hui Cho, who was the gunman at Virginia Tech. I know that in Bowling for Columbine Moore went into some detail of the gunmen's histories. But what I didn't understand was how nobody could really know what they were capable of until after the fact. Same with the boy at Tech, all the signs were there but, nobody would act on them.

III. What I would really like to research on a deeper level is the effects of bullying on a child. Is it a personal thing for how bullying can affect an individual or is it the same in everyone and it just depends on the extent of bullying? Where else have shootings taken place as a result of bullying?

Sources:

Retrieved from http://www.rockpic.net/images/alice-cooper-3.jpg

Wikipedia author. (2011, September 25). Virginia Tech Massacre. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VirginiaTechMassacre

NIH Clinical Center. (2011). Partners in Research. Retrieved from http://cc.nih.gov/ccc/patient_education/pepubs/childhealth.pdf

Rascoff, Sally. (2009, March 2). The Social Significance of Euphemisms. Retrieved from http://www.everydaysociologyblog.com/2009/03/euphemisms.html

Journal 1-1: A Whole New World

I. I don't have a question to answer because it was the first week of school and I had not thought of a question to answer.

II. This week in class we learned about the similarities in ambiguity and vagueness. We also learned about fuzzy logic and informal logic. I learned that ambiguity is a word, phrase, sentence or other communication if it can be interpretted in more than one way, while in my opinion vagueness is more along the lines of a personal opinion. Then informal logic is used to look at two different sides of an argument, while fuzzy logic has a more direct idea of "true" and "false."

Then we went into the discussion of loaded language and power words. I learned that loaded language was a lot of euphemisms (a way to make a word less offensive) and power words were meant to make a person's statement stronger. I enjoyed learning about these two terms because it helped me look out for them more in the newspaper and on the news. Especially when we did the homework to make your own radio commercial. It made me realize how hard it is to get people interested in a product without visualizations, and how people have to resort to power words in order to sell the product. Then when we did the euphemism homework it helped me realize again how many euphemisms are used in the daily news, and how oblivious I was to all of it before we did this topic.

In my personal opinion, everyone should learn about these media underlyings. I truthfully had no idea about power words and loaded language before we discussed this topic. I feel that many adults don't even understand how the media uses these terms against our way of thinking. Think of how it would be if a reporter blatantly wrote "And millions of women and children were brutually mauled and killed at point blank" instead of using euphemisms and saying "Unfortunetly millions were lost after a malicious attack," which sounds better to you? While the first may be more informative, the second is more widely taken by people.

The image above proves the point that there are more people contorting how the news is perceived than most people imagine. While most people sit down and just read a couple of articles on the computer, they don't even consider the author, or the author's views, at times.


These terms and topics also relate to how words can be powerful in other ways than just in the media. Maya Angelou was on the news a couple of years back discussing how vulgar language is also involved in the power of words. We did not discuss in class how the power of words can really be negative.

( I could not figure out how to embed the video to Blogger, but its called "Angelou On The Power of Words CBS News" on youtube.com)

The power words discussed in class were all ways to make a product positive, such as the words "guaranteed" or "amazing." No one even thought about how power words could be used as "horrendous" or "antagonizing." Next year, it may be a cool idea to bring in how power words can be used in a negative connotation.

III. In order to continue my studies on from this week, and into this coming week's lessons, I want to ask the question: How are euphemisms perceived in everyday life? Are younger children scientifically aware of euphemisms or are they brought up in society to accept them? Are all people capable of identifying euphemisms in everyday life?

Sources:

CBSNewsOnline. (2007). Angelou On The Power Of Words. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On9Pq1LNLwM

Discover India @ Blogger.com. (2011). Changing Sides: Health-Men's Health. http://ashok-discoverindia.blogspot.com/2011/08/changing-sides-health-menshealth.html