Barbie Turns 49

I was looking on the NPR site today and I came across the latest talk, which was how Barbie, the doll that every girl grew up with, turned 49 on Sunday. It came as quite a shock to me, because I thought these dolls were much more recent than that. As I kept listening to the talk show, I was astonished to hear all of the political aspects and issues that surrounded a piece of plastic since their worldwide fame does not show any of this.
One of the issues was the tilt in her head. Don't remember that? That is because the shape of Barbie's face became upright because the head tilt connoted something towards the feminist movement. Also, initially, Sears, the first place to sell Barbie, would not sell the doll because if she would be a real person, her body would not be "proportional" if you know what I mean.
An interesting fact that I learned though, was the background of the doll. She had an entire history that got shafted to the background out of her fame. The original face was taken from that of a 40 year old to look like a 17 year old, which I find both weird and confusing.
I am relating this back to our women and children theme from before because, through this doll that seemed to change every 3 year olds life, the more important issues seem to parallel those of the ones we discussed in class. The picture above is of the first ever Barbie. Who knew Barbie had so many issues?

Child Study Center

After last week's discussion on Child Development: then and now, I was very interested in different ways Self Regulation has inevitably changed in the past years. After searching online, I came across the Child Study Center, a center whose work revolves around the developmental growth of infants in Virginia. I found it very interesting to see what interests children more than anything, which is animals, and how reading books either has huge or not so huge effects on their learning environment. It might just be me who finds this interesting, because I take such a liking to psychology and understanding what is going on in the minds of those who can not communicate to such an ability. It really surprises me, though, to read from this website that the picture books that we clung to so much in our childhood could possibly have no effect on us the first one hundred times that we read it. So how has Self Regulation changed? I believe that in the past two or three decades, children have been spoiled so much as children, that in the study we learned about in class, it disables their ability to pay attention for more than five minutes at a time. Through this, I think that we are really teaching our parents more than our parents are teaching us at these young ages because no one wants to make the same error twice. So are we really teaching our parents what to do, and will we make these same mistakes as parents?

What has our youth really come to?

World Clock

I was just looking around at Bolos' tags when I came across this WORLD CLOCK. It immediately caught my attention from the rapid pace of numbers increasing every single second. There are a lot of different elements to this site, counting a numerous variety of statistics.
I have to say that the one that is most interesting to me is the one that counts the abortions. It is very frightening for me to see that the number of abortions is almost the same as the number of marriages this year so far. It seems like every minute there is an average of 88 abortions and 82 marriages. I really think that this relates to our theme of Women and Children, because the women are not getting married once they are pregnant, so they decide to have an abortion. To me, this is kind of SCARY to think of, but I am not going to get in to the whole Pro-Life vs. Pro-Choice debate right now.
Looking at the biological side of this site, I see that there are about 70 species extinct per day. Being a biology student myself, and know there are millions of species in the world, it still surprises me when that many species are becoming extinct each day. Another thing I pay attention to is the number of births and the number of deaths happening each minute. Each minute, there are about 250 births and 100 deaths in the world. I think this is kind of weird to think about because to me its weird to think about something bigger than what you know.
What do you guys think about this site? I overall think it is interesting, but at the same time gives me a perspective of the world that I may not wish to see a whole lot.

Hillary Clinton and Alicia Keys - Superwoman

This video was posted as a response to the Obama campaign's "Yes We Can" video on YouTube. In my opinion, I do not think it is as strong of a video because it is not an entire speech like Obama's was. Here are the lyrics to the song "Superwoman" by Alicia Keys:

Everywhere I'm turning
Nothing seems complete
I stand up and I'm searching
For the better part of me
I hang my head from sorrow
Slave to humanity
I wear it on my shoulders
Gotta find the strength in me

Chorus:

Cause I am a Superwoman
Yes I am
Yes she is
Even when I'm a mess
I still put on a vest
With an S on my chest
Oh yes
I'm a Superwoman

For all the mothers fighting
For better days to come
And all my women, all my women sitting here trying
To come home before the sun
And all my sisters
Coming together
Say yes I will
Yes I can

Chorus

When I'm breaking down
And I can't be found
And I start to get weak
Cause no one knows
Me underneath these clothes
But I can fly
We can fly, Oooohh

Clinton: "Too many have been invisible for too long. Well, you aren't invisible to me."

Cause I am a Superwoman
Yes I am
Yes she is
Even when I'm a mess
I still put on a vest
With an S on my chest
Oh yes
I'm a Superwoman

Propaganda

So we have recently been talking about propaganda and the different types. Propaganda, as we defined in class, means "one sided information that 'sells' you to the maker's viewpoint." I really enjoyed that lecture on Tuesday because it was both surprising and interesting to see different people characterize the big figures of WWII in different ways. For example, one of my favorite pictures in that power point was the one paralleling the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. For me, it was my first time hearing this term, but I was surprised to see the parallel the cartoonist made with the Bible in that way. Basically, all of the ones under the "enemy" headline really struck me how as very interesting, because I loved seeing how different people portray the enemy. For example, one of the drawings showed Hitler with a huge body and a tiny head, and right away, we could tell that the artist had the idea that the enemy had the "do not think, just do" persona, or that they are small minded.
On Wednesday we looked at the McCain video. Mr. O'Connor kept bringing up the word "parody." During class that day, I just thought it meant "satirical" or "funny," but the actual dictionary definition is "a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing." Now i understand why he was calling it a parody: because everyone took the Obama video so seriously, and this one was just like an imitation.<--my "blond" moment. We discussed if this video is propaganda or not. I believe that it is not propaganda, because it was meant as something satirical.
To me, propaganda is something that has to be sold, not needs to be sold because it is so often that you see on tv something that has the power to be propaganda...if that sentence does not make sense to anyone but me I am very sorry...it happens a lot.

Obama's Campaign: YES WE CAN

With Super Tuesday just two days away, Obama and Clinton are trying to get speeches in all around the nation so they can be the one to make American History. Although it is quite evident that Obama will win in Illinois on Tuesday, other states are not so confident.

Last night, my sister, who goes to college in St. Louis, spent her night at an Obama campaign. She is not very into politics herself, but her room mate is very big on politics and is a volunteer for Obama. My sister was convinced that Obama needed more help getting votes in Missouri than in Illinois, so she decided to change her voter registration to help out. So last night, the two of them went to a big sports arena in St. Louis, and stood for about two hours and with 20,000 other people waiting to hear Barack Obama speak.

When I talked to her this morning, I heard all about her experience. She told me how she could not see Obama because all of the cameras get to be in the front rows for advertisment. But, hearing the insperational words from Obama of YES WE CAN really told her that she made the right decision to go. She told me that from the people in the crowd, you would think that everyone was for Obama, which really is not true because Clinton is in the lead in Missouri.

I found this video this morning about an endorsment for Obama. I think it is very insperational, and it shows how many people and celebrities want the right kind of change in American and to truly say YES WE CAN? What do you think, and how please take my poll to see who our class thinks will win on Super Tuesday.

Where does the "N-Word" stand in the world today?

In class on Friday we talked a lot about the "N-word" and where it is destined to end up in the future. I found this discussion very interesting, especially after watching the movie about Huck Finn and looking at how the concerned parents of 1976 viewed the book. Is this kind of language okay to be used in Huck Finn? I think it is because it is history, and like Bolos said, teenaged students in our society know better than to go around repeating it in the hallways or to our friends. I agree with what the entire classed discussed, such as how it is almost getting whitewashed from history, but it is in history because it was offensive to be used during slavery.
In our world today, where does it stand? I think it stands in the history, or in the music in which some of us listen to. This does not mean it is okay, however because of cultural aspects, I don't think it should ever be used. It is kind of like how I make a lot of jokes about my religion with my friends of the same religion, but when someone of a different religion tries to make that joke, it is just insulting.
This weekend, I was watching The Longest Yard, the 2005 version of a classic movie made in the 70s. It is mainly about a prision relationship between the convicts and the guards. In one of the scenes, the convicts, who were mainly African American, were cleaning up the library, and when they were done, the Caucasian guards dropped more books on the ground. The guards were beating up on this one convict in particular, who is actually Nelly, and kept calling him the "N-word" along with "boy" and many other derrogatory names. I immediatley thought of our discussion when watching this scene. It really surprised me how much our history was coming through through that one scene.