WELL this counts as Current Events, though I can't draw from a specific article. Don't know if anyone has noticed (which they should have) but a few days ago all of the trees from a section of Park Street were cut down. The reasons? Well it's rumored that they were cut down because it blocks the view of traffic. Which still doesn't really justify it for me. I mean I loved those trees, it just made the street look nicer and fresher, and it made me sick to see them cut down.
It's one thing to cut down a tree because it's old and weary and a danger, it's another to cut it down because it'd make seeing the street easier. Are they going to replant trees? Well probably, but they're going to be small, so they wont block the street again, and they're definitely not going to have grown to their full potential while I'm here. I just get so angry when I think about how we grab nature by the throat and do whatever we want with it. Views not good? ah well just chop the damn thing down, it's not going to effect anyone right?
Another thing was a story my friend actually told me. She said she was walking on the newly-cleared section and heard some teenagers talking. They said something along the lines of "why does it seem so clear now? Oh I think it's because they took the flags down. Yeah that's it." SERIOUSLY? I mean wow to think that people aren't even aware of their own neighborhood just makes me so angry! It's like they don't even care when people change the things around them, this is why they do it! Because to the people chopping the trees down, there's no after-affects. They can do whatever they want with no consequences.
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[RE] Tolerance
I was actually thinking about religious equality and freedom the other day, so I got pretty excited when I saw that a friend of mine, Brianna R. , spoke about it on her blog.
“how someone could do be so against another culture is beyond my thinking, especially in our small island.”
Now I’ve kind of come across the same mindset, you know the ‘how could someone this bad be living on our island.’ It’s almost horrifying to think that we live amongst people who are so intolerant and stupid. Alas though, we do, and it’s nearly impossible to do a thing about it. I know people are going to disagree with me, but things like discrimination against race, sexuality, and religion aren’t ever just going to go away overnight. They may become more of a social rarity, but you can’t just close your eyes and wait for it to stop. Wherever there’s something that exists in the world, there’s going to be someone who hates it. The reason it’s so hard to eradicate is because we as a society MAKE it hard to eradicate. We don’t move a finger unless there was a vote and a ⅔ or some majority wins in the favor of, well, the more just side. Just look at the proposition against gay marriage. It got voted NO on, in our state, which is stereotypically supposed to be the most sexuality-tolerant state out there. Even things that are frowned upon in most societies (like anti-semitism or racism) still EXIST. There are still anti-semitic people just like there are still racist people. Just because you don’t want something there doesn’t mean it will just go away in a flash.
Back to what Brianna was talking about, I do think that it was a horrid thing that someone did to such a sacred place. My point in this whole response though is that by now it’s almost... how do i say it.. underwhelming. It’s like something I expect to see. Which DON’T GET ME WRONG is awful, and I shouldn’t expect that kind of thing, but it’s happened so often that now I do, and I feel like it should be changed. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when or how fast it should be done. I just think people should go out of there way to talk about why tolerance is good. If you hear someone use a slur or say something ignorant then don’t be a little bitch, call them on it! Someone says it’s weird to be gay, call them on it! Don’t just shuffle your feet and blow hot air, do something about it. If it fails? So what, one more person in the world dislikes you. Big deal.
Read More!
“how someone could do be so against another culture is beyond my thinking, especially in our small island.”
Now I’ve kind of come across the same mindset, you know the ‘how could someone this bad be living on our island.’ It’s almost horrifying to think that we live amongst people who are so intolerant and stupid. Alas though, we do, and it’s nearly impossible to do a thing about it. I know people are going to disagree with me, but things like discrimination against race, sexuality, and religion aren’t ever just going to go away overnight. They may become more of a social rarity, but you can’t just close your eyes and wait for it to stop. Wherever there’s something that exists in the world, there’s going to be someone who hates it. The reason it’s so hard to eradicate is because we as a society MAKE it hard to eradicate. We don’t move a finger unless there was a vote and a ⅔ or some majority wins in the favor of, well, the more just side. Just look at the proposition against gay marriage. It got voted NO on, in our state, which is stereotypically supposed to be the most sexuality-tolerant state out there. Even things that are frowned upon in most societies (like anti-semitism or racism) still EXIST. There are still anti-semitic people just like there are still racist people. Just because you don’t want something there doesn’t mean it will just go away in a flash.
Back to what Brianna was talking about, I do think that it was a horrid thing that someone did to such a sacred place. My point in this whole response though is that by now it’s almost... how do i say it.. underwhelming. It’s like something I expect to see. Which DON’T GET ME WRONG is awful, and I shouldn’t expect that kind of thing, but it’s happened so often that now I do, and I feel like it should be changed. I don’t know how, and I don’t know when or how fast it should be done. I just think people should go out of there way to talk about why tolerance is good. If you hear someone use a slur or say something ignorant then don’t be a little bitch, call them on it! Someone says it’s weird to be gay, call them on it! Don’t just shuffle your feet and blow hot air, do something about it. If it fails? So what, one more person in the world dislikes you. Big deal.
[FREE] A Good Person or a Common One?
So today I realized that people don’t know how careless they are, with so many things. It’s like people forgot that everything they do will have an effect and that effect can be good or bad, people just only think about themselves.
It happened at the food fair today. It was near the end of food fair and I’m pretty sure the bell had already rung, so people were filing out naturally. One guy, I know his name but I’ll leave it out, knocked a trash can over. It did spill, a lot, and to my surprise they just kind of looked at it and continued going. I couldn’t resist and I yelled something like “no no no, I saw you knock that down, pick it up.” He kind of gave ma this skeptical look, like ‘are you serious?’, but he did pick up the trash can. I was happy for a second, at least he did the deed, but then he just stood up and left very hastily. Leaving this huge pile of trash on the grass. I was kind of dumbfounded? Like who just leaves such a huge pile of trash on the ground when THEY’RE the reason that all that trash got spilled in the first place. It wasn’t entirely gross food trash either, it was mostly big boxes and plastic containers. I ended up picking it up, chalking it up to my love for good karma. I think that cleaning up trash should be nearly instinctual though! It should be common to clean up a mess you’ve created. I mean it’s one thing to leave a piece of paper you see on the sidewalk, but it’s a different story to drop a box of trash and continue walking. When I told the story in my art class, I actually found that other people said they’d have left the trash too! It just shocks me that people never think that no matter what they do, someone else is going to have to pick up that trash if they don’t. Imagine the job that person has! It’s probably going to be some poor janitor that barely makes money anyway. Why not make their job easier? Imagine if that was YOUR job, you’d see someone knock over a trash can and leave it and you’d probably be a lot angrier than you think.
It doesn’t only come down to people leaving trash lying around though, sometimes it can have to do with life or death situations! Me and a friend were in San Fransisco, shopping for clothes and things. She spotted a homeless man wearing a black hood. Now this man was obviously out of sorts, he was walking almost like a zombie and wasn’t really looking anywhere in specific. My friend noticed that he was actually bleeding from the neck, and some of the blood was on his clothes too. We reported it to a nearby policeman, who helped the guy out. After a while though I began to think that this homeless man must have been walking around for quite a long time before we reported his condition. just.. GFUDHKSL how does someone see that and keep walking?? Who sees someone with an injury like that and thinks ‘it’s none of my business’. There’s no excuse. What possible BAD consequences could it have? If the guy wasn’t hurt then whatever! You were still a decent person for reporting that he SEEMED like he was hurt. There’s no punishment if you’re wrong. I didn’t look into it, but another friend in my Art class told me that there was a story of a girl dying because she got hit by a car and was just lying there and no one reported it or called the police or anything. I just can’t believe it. It makes me angry to my very core.
It happened at the food fair today. It was near the end of food fair and I’m pretty sure the bell had already rung, so people were filing out naturally. One guy, I know his name but I’ll leave it out, knocked a trash can over. It did spill, a lot, and to my surprise they just kind of looked at it and continued going. I couldn’t resist and I yelled something like “no no no, I saw you knock that down, pick it up.” He kind of gave ma this skeptical look, like ‘are you serious?’, but he did pick up the trash can. I was happy for a second, at least he did the deed, but then he just stood up and left very hastily. Leaving this huge pile of trash on the grass. I was kind of dumbfounded? Like who just leaves such a huge pile of trash on the ground when THEY’RE the reason that all that trash got spilled in the first place. It wasn’t entirely gross food trash either, it was mostly big boxes and plastic containers. I ended up picking it up, chalking it up to my love for good karma. I think that cleaning up trash should be nearly instinctual though! It should be common to clean up a mess you’ve created. I mean it’s one thing to leave a piece of paper you see on the sidewalk, but it’s a different story to drop a box of trash and continue walking. When I told the story in my art class, I actually found that other people said they’d have left the trash too! It just shocks me that people never think that no matter what they do, someone else is going to have to pick up that trash if they don’t. Imagine the job that person has! It’s probably going to be some poor janitor that barely makes money anyway. Why not make their job easier? Imagine if that was YOUR job, you’d see someone knock over a trash can and leave it and you’d probably be a lot angrier than you think.
It doesn’t only come down to people leaving trash lying around though, sometimes it can have to do with life or death situations! Me and a friend were in San Fransisco, shopping for clothes and things. She spotted a homeless man wearing a black hood. Now this man was obviously out of sorts, he was walking almost like a zombie and wasn’t really looking anywhere in specific. My friend noticed that he was actually bleeding from the neck, and some of the blood was on his clothes too. We reported it to a nearby policeman, who helped the guy out. After a while though I began to think that this homeless man must have been walking around for quite a long time before we reported his condition. just.. GFUDHKSL how does someone see that and keep walking?? Who sees someone with an injury like that and thinks ‘it’s none of my business’. There’s no excuse. What possible BAD consequences could it have? If the guy wasn’t hurt then whatever! You were still a decent person for reporting that he SEEMED like he was hurt. There’s no punishment if you’re wrong. I didn’t look into it, but another friend in my Art class told me that there was a story of a girl dying because she got hit by a car and was just lying there and no one reported it or called the police or anything. I just can’t believe it. It makes me angry to my very core.
[MONTH] Society of Appearance
It’s extremely difficult for a business to make a positive impact without hurting someone. It’s always been difficult, but especially so when it comes to marketing and advertising. Now the quote from Mr. Cohen was as follows:
“In today’s competitive retail environment, the methods have been changed for capturing the consumer’s awareness of your brand. Being able to find a brand enhancer, or what I call a walking billboard, is critical. It’s really important to create an environment that’s enticing to the community, particularly with the younger, fashionable market. A guy wants to go hang out in a store where he can see good-looking gals.”
Now this says a lot and veers strongly towards an opinion that justifies using good-looking people to prove that an outlet is quality. I actually happen to agree somewhat with this opinion. For one I do believe that we, as a species have a natural tendency to think higher of people we find physically attractive. In fact I’m pretty sure I read about a study done on infants in which the child was shown multiple pictures of women. In the study, the child tended to look at the more ‘attractive’ picture for a longer period of time. There was also a test done on the show “What would you do?” where they had different actors attempt to steal a locked up bike in public. Now the test was designed specifically to point out racism (they used male actors of different races) however I think the study is relative to my point. When they had a pretty female actor steal the bike, some people went out of their way to assist her in the theft! My point is that our generation was raised on physical perfection and beauty. So who are we to blame companies when they try to appeal to that?
“In today’s competitive retail environment, the methods have been changed for capturing the consumer’s awareness of your brand. Being able to find a brand enhancer, or what I call a walking billboard, is critical. It’s really important to create an environment that’s enticing to the community, particularly with the younger, fashionable market. A guy wants to go hang out in a store where he can see good-looking gals.”
Now this says a lot and veers strongly towards an opinion that justifies using good-looking people to prove that an outlet is quality. I actually happen to agree somewhat with this opinion. For one I do believe that we, as a species have a natural tendency to think higher of people we find physically attractive. In fact I’m pretty sure I read about a study done on infants in which the child was shown multiple pictures of women. In the study, the child tended to look at the more ‘attractive’ picture for a longer period of time. There was also a test done on the show “What would you do?” where they had different actors attempt to steal a locked up bike in public. Now the test was designed specifically to point out racism (they used male actors of different races) however I think the study is relative to my point. When they had a pretty female actor steal the bike, some people went out of their way to assist her in the theft! My point is that our generation was raised on physical perfection and beauty. So who are we to blame companies when they try to appeal to that?
This problem isn’t only relative to the clothing industry. In fact it’s in a lot of places once you look at it. For instance it’s very common in the television industry. People don’t want to commit to a character or watch a show unless there’s someone they find pleasing to watch. It sounds bad, but you can’t deny that if you could choose to watch a show about average/below-average looking people or watch a show with very attractive people (like every single television show out presently) you’d probably choose the later. Characters that are ‘funny-looking’ are usually the comic relief. The punch line to jokes. Take for instance, the office. People don’t like Dwight because he’s hot, they like him because he’s funny. People like Jim because he’s hot and funny. I’ve heard people say that they wouldn’t watch the show unless Jim was in it. Another show, on the complete other end of the spectrum, is Mad Men. Mad Men is one of my favorite shows and I openly admit that I enjoy watching it because everyone in it is beautiful. We naturally have a higher opinion of better looking people.
Another industry where physical beauty is an impacting force is in the video game industry. Now I think I’ve talked about this before, relating to the video game ‘Dead Island’. I’m going to bring it back. If you ever EVER get the opportunity to go to a video game convention, go and report back with what you see. Most people will see a combination of attendees who look like ‘typical gamers’ and what the game industry calls ‘booth babes’. A booth babe is the video game industry’s version of a walking billboard. It’s shameful and even guys in the industry are ashamed when they see these girls parading around advertising for games that have nothing to do with how beautiful they are or how big their breasts are. However they keep hiring them. Why? Because it really does sell games. The video game industry is seen as a very male populated industry. I’m sure there is some legitimate statistic out there that says that hiring a booth babe will boost profit. It has an effect in the games themselves too. Characters in games are always beautiful, even it’s not immediately evident. I can’t recall every playing a video game as a character that looked bad to me. It’s just common and i wouldn’t be surprised if that was another thing that boosted profit.
You see, to the clothing industry employees are like actors. Actors spend hours with makeup, trying to look good for an audition. Now they could be the most amazing actor in the century, but if they don’t look the part then they’re not likely to get the job. And that’s how retail managers see things. They do value experience, but they have the right to value appearance as well. Isn’t that why we dress up for interviews? It makes us look all business, which is mostly just a front.
One last thing. If you walked into a store and all of the mannequins weren’t slim and perfect, would you spend a lot of time shopping there? We see clothes on the mannequin and we can visualize ourselves wearing them. Think to ourselves ‘I wish I had that body, maybe those clothes will make me look that slim’. Given that I don’t think any average person has a body type like a mannequin, if they do then lucky them. I think that that’s another reason that they hire beautiful people. Their employees end up being walking mannequins. We see the employees wearing fine clothes (probably from the store they’re working at) and we naturally want to look like that and wear those clothes. It’s the perfect advertising scheme.
If a company wants to sacrifice work quality for beauty then let them. They can do whatever they want, it’s their company. I can see behind their reasoning perfectly. They’re going to keep doing it too, because according to their profits, it’s working. Unless society proves to them that they don’t need models working their to sell a product, nothing is going to change.
[CE] Drugs in Mexico
Sometimes, when you think of the drug industry, you don't generally think about people being gunned down in broad daylight or populations being driven away. However, Mexico tells a different story.
According to this video, Mexico is under some heavy fire (both literally and figuratively) because of the local heroine and marijuana wars. We're so close by, it's kind of weird to know that something so awful is happening to who are basically our next door neighbors. Innocent people are being murdered and, from what I can tell, it seems that the government and the police force are doing nothing. It's almost as if they don't want to admit it's even happening at all.
Now this is a common governmental stance, a 'laissez faire' if you will. On some occasions I'm willing to let that kind of viewpoint slide. However in this case I think some police interference is suggested if not vital to ridding Mexico of this violent problem. The woman in the video states that when members of her family were gunned down the local authorities were no where to be seen. To be frank I think people in this region of Mexico are hiding. They're hiding both from the fear of death and from the idea that they cannot be helped. In the video we also see that when they have no where else to go, the people of Mexico turn to church for sanctuary, which is not uncommon. Now I'm not religious and I mean no offense to religion when I say this, but wouldn't turning to a god for support seem more or less like a last resort? People have every right to be religious, but when it comes down to violence and crime, the blame should be put in the hands of officials and the police before it's put in the hands of a higher being. Read More!
According to this video, Mexico is under some heavy fire (both literally and figuratively) because of the local heroine and marijuana wars. We're so close by, it's kind of weird to know that something so awful is happening to who are basically our next door neighbors. Innocent people are being murdered and, from what I can tell, it seems that the government and the police force are doing nothing. It's almost as if they don't want to admit it's even happening at all.
Now this is a common governmental stance, a 'laissez faire' if you will. On some occasions I'm willing to let that kind of viewpoint slide. However in this case I think some police interference is suggested if not vital to ridding Mexico of this violent problem. The woman in the video states that when members of her family were gunned down the local authorities were no where to be seen. To be frank I think people in this region of Mexico are hiding. They're hiding both from the fear of death and from the idea that they cannot be helped. In the video we also see that when they have no where else to go, the people of Mexico turn to church for sanctuary, which is not uncommon. Now I'm not religious and I mean no offense to religion when I say this, but wouldn't turning to a god for support seem more or less like a last resort? People have every right to be religious, but when it comes down to violence and crime, the blame should be put in the hands of officials and the police before it's put in the hands of a higher being. Read More!
[RE] Uniting?
So I was scrolling through google reader and, just for the heck of it, I searched for school. Well I hit the jackpot, and here's what I found in a blog post by Zac Alfers.
"The administration has gone power hungry. Im not sure who is to blame but it might just rhyme with Lelly Kara."
Now I don't know how to respond to this without sounding like a huge jerk but I have to disagree on a few points. FIRST I am going to state that yes, there have been changes at our school and yes, some of them have been worse than others. However there's a proper and an improper response to these changes. Alameda High isn't the most stable school, nor is it the best one. Honestly though, I feel as though it's worthless to complain. Now this is not to say that I think complaining itself is meaningless; by all means if you have opinions, express them. Start a riot. Do what you want. Just don't make an assumption that people are going to follow you into the flames.
First things first, and I cannot begin to emphasize how GOOD our school is in comparison to quite a number of other schools. I hear students and teachers every day whining about how the classrooms are crowded and how hard it is to maintain a class of 35 but in my opinion it hasn't been something to throw a fit about. It's a bit too crowded for comfort in some classrooms but it's not like I'm cramped in some kind of closet. I still feel I have room to write, read, listen, and watch, and isn't that what the point of school is?
Another thing that confused me about the blog post was the almost immediate blame put on our principal. This is the most typical thing ANYONE could say about ANY change made ANYWHERE. "Oh these changes would have never happened if ____ was still here." I hear it so often and it makes me want to scream. Just because the school is changing doesn't mean ms. Lara is standing on top of a podium with a whip ordering the staff to obey her commands. She came into the school during a tough period, and though I'm skeptical about some of her decisions, I'm not here to point fingers.
I don't quite know where I'm going on anymore, I think I'm just rambling. My point is that change is something unavoidable, just like death, spam, and taxes. It's something we need to take in and make the best of as opposed to pushing the blame on one person, when the last thing they probably need is blame.
Read More!
I don't quite know where I'm going on anymore, I think I'm just rambling. My point is that change is something unavoidable, just like death, spam, and taxes. It's something we need to take in and make the best of as opposed to pushing the blame on one person, when the last thing they probably need is blame.
[FREE] Dead Island
So I’ve heard quite a lot about a new game coming out, it’s called ‘Dead Island’ and it looks pretty top notch. Here’s the official trailer, which I think is amazing just standing on its own.
The way the video was ordered was stunning, and the graphics just take my breath away. Naturally, my artistic instincts kicked in when I was watching the video and I noticed that the scenery is just beautiful, the way they colored and toned each scene made tears run down my face. I mean, I was also crying because the trailer itself is really depressing, but it was also just so beautiful.
From what I’ve seen from the character designs, the characters also seem really well crafted. The main character is a woman named Xian Mei. The design looks very promising, as it doesn't fall victim to the usual traps that female protagonists fall to. She seems like she'd be a very well-rounded character. Unluckily, I haven't had the chance to play this game yet. I don't really have the money to be buying video games willy-nilly. But I do think that if I get enough money I will take it under high consideration. After all, it's another zombie game and it looks like it could even match 'Left 4 Dead', another popular title. I'll just have to wait and find out if it's all that I expect it to be.
As for things I find a bit lacking. I did cheat and watch a little of the gameplay, and I kind of hoped it would be more of a story-driven game and not just a walk-around-and-kill-whatever-you-want game. I can't make any complete judgements, but that's the impression that I got. I only wish that there was a game out there where you realistically lived through a zombie apocalypse. You still got to fight of course, but I want it to be something you have to think out. Not just a game where you run around flailing and hope to kill some zombies. Maybe a kind of game where it's nearly impossible to win. After all isn't that what a real zombie apocalypse would be like? Read More!