Lack of Water

In class this past Friday, we discussed the scarcity of water and how we waste it. And since that discussion...nothing has changed in my life. Although walking out of class I felt bad about how I waste water and even though I said to myself, "I'm going to be careful with how much water I use" I never followed through with it. I'm pretty sure I took a long, hot shower that following night.

I still think it's sad how much water people wast just because we have a lake right next to us. It's especially sad when you think about how many elder, adults, and children who die each year due to the lack of water. Even though many people feel this way, I think for a lot of these people, like me, they won't change their ways. Our nation is so used to having access to water and to having a lot of it, that it will take something pretty drastic to change our ways. It's the same logic with our economy. It became so bad that families finally had to start cutting back on everything. I think that this kind of disaster will have to happen in order for people to also cut back on water usage.

What do you think it's so hard to us to cut back on the amount of water we use?

TV Tokenism

I am proud to say that thanks to Mr. O'Conner's and Mr. Bolos' TV Tokenism lessons this past week, I am now viewing TV programs critically. And what I've seen and analyzed makes me think about what I was doing before these lessons when I was TV watching. Now, whenever I see a non-Caucasian actor or actress, I immediately tune into their character. A month ago, I would watch the shows I love (Gossip Girl, Pushing Daisies) without thinking twice about how the characters acted. This makes me worry about young children or junior high students who are watching shows like this, totally unaware of the differences between the African American characters and the white characters. Because shows are so dominantly white based, it could easily send kids the message that in real life, African Americans are how they portrayed in sitcoms: usually never the main character, just a non-complicated, bland person. Obviously those are bogus statements.

I'm glad that our class was taught TV Tokenism. Not only should the critical viewing concept be taught in high school, but also to younger students as well so they, too, can understand the flaws of television.

Another Side to Video Games

Yesterday I went to my friend's house and when I got there he was playing a video game. I'm not into video games (I'll do Guitar Hero, but that's about it) so I didn't know what he was playing, all I knew was that he was shooting people. As I was watching him kill and murder, it got me thinking about video game controversies. I realize people make a big deal about violence in games, about how it negatively effects children's' minds, but the violence wasn't the thing that bothered and confused me. When I saw the women figures in the game, I was honestly shocked. All of the women were wearing pretty much the same thing: a skimpy, revealing "shirt" and skin-tight pants. Although I know the producers of this game probably only made the women like this to attract males to buy it, it still upset me. If a real life woman wore this kind of clothing and then tried to do the stuff from the video game, she would fail miserably. It's unrealistic and offensive.

How do you feel about violence and/or the exploitation of women in video games?