In the Interest of National Security

It is said that ignorance is bliss, but is it really? Can we not handle the truth? WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, has been all over the news. Recently, the website released approximately 250,000 American diplomatic cables. Here's an article about it from the New York Times.

WikiLeaks has been a large thorn in the side of the American government, and these latest disclosures have proven to be detrimental. The article states that,

"The White House said the release of what it called “stolen cables” to several publications was a “reckless and dangerous action” and warned that some cables, if released in full, could disrupt American operations abroad and put the work and even lives of confidential sources of American diplomats at risk."

These specific cables tell of U.S. relations with other countries, including a "dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel" and the discussions of a unified Korea should the North collapse.

But what's really important about these cables it that they "depict the Obama administration struggling to sort out which Pakistanis are trustworthy partners against Al Qaeda, adding Australians who have disappeared in the Middle East to terrorist watch lists, and assessing whether a lurking rickshaw driver in Lahore, Pakistan, was awaiting fares or conducting surveillance of the road to the American Consulate."


With the latest Perilous Times presentations in class, the government withholding information from its people tends to reoccur numerous times. But is it right for the government to do this? Should we be kept ignorant?

I don't think so. Ralph Waldo Emerson once said that "knowledge is an antidote to fear" and I completely agree with him. When we are living in such fearful times, we need to know what's going on from our government. We shouldn't have to find out information from leaked documents, they should be supplied to us. Many would argue that its safer to keep the people ignorant in the interest of national security. These are perilous times after all. But how can we know who to vote for if we can't even trust the government to supply us with the truth? How can we unite as a country against terrorism if we don't know the gravity of the situation?

Fear Sells

As we discussed Act 3 of The Crucible in class this week, the notion that "fear sells" was brought up. I mean we've all heard that sex sells, but can fear really be used to make consumers buy a certain product?

There is a great article on companies using fear as a tool to persuade consumers into buying their product. Click here to read. In it, the author talks of how Broadview Security airs ads "that feature a series of scenarios that play on women's darkest fears." Like some guy a woman met at a party breaking into her house only a couple of hours later. Obviously the commercial is used to show how effective Broadview Security is, but it also strikes a sense of panic in the women viewers. Many of the other Broadview ads follow the same pattern. A woman is alone and defenseless when a someone tries to break into her home, only to be stopped by the Broadview alarm.

Here is some of their commercials:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeBt2xouWbY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syjM1dPriBA&feature=related


Martin Lindstrom, who wrote Buyology: Truth and Lies About What We Buy and other marketing books, is quoted in the article. He addresses why fear is used in advertising when he says,

"There's actually a neurological reason for why fear is becoming increasingly effective advertising tool, says Lindstrom, who studied the brain scans of more than 2,000 people as they were shown marketing and advertising strategies. The amygdala, the part of the brain that generates fear, kicks in when a person's under stress, and tends to stay alert and receptive to fear signals until the danger goes away, he says. And in today's environment, with consumers concerned with everything from terrorism to the environment, there are increasing number of fear signals pushing consumers' buttons."

He also adds,

"The consequence of guilt and fear is that we buy more to compensate. The security companies are plugging into that."

Broadview Security had reaped the benefits of this advertising campaign. Revenue has increased 7.5% and sales increased 6.2%. Their overall net income has jumped 9.8%.

I think fear can be used to make consumers buy a product and that its been proven to be very successful. There are high levels of fear through the country already with the economic recession, terrorism, the obesity epidemic, etc. So fear has become an effective tool for advertisers and companies. However, I'm not sure if it's right to play with people's fears like that.

Sink Your Teeth Into This

As we started The Crucible in class, Mr. O'Connor mentioned how mythological creatures became popular because of something that was occurring in society. I immediately began thinking about the vampire phenomena that seems to be sweeping over the world. With movies like Twilight, TV shows like True Blood and the Vampire Diaries, and novels like the Vampire
Academy series (and Twilight of course), vampires seem to be everywhere. So why are we so obsessed with these bloodsucking creatures?
One theory is because of the AIDS epidemic. In an interview, writer Neil Gaiman addressed this claim by saying, " I think then the thing that changed everything and that gave vampire fiction a new lease on life and death was AIDS, because you hit the early ‘80s, and suddenly you have something in the blood that is an exchange of blood that kills and is altogether fundamentally about sex. And vampirism essentially came out of the closet as a metaphor for the act of love that kills. "

Gaiman brings up a very interesting point. So if AIDS is what created a vampire hysteria in the 80s and 90s, is it still responsible for the rebirth of the vampire obsession?

I don't believe so. I do think that AIDS originally created this whole infatuation with these deadly creatures, but I don't think it's what's fueling the attraction these days. I think vampires are outsiders, and it's something many people can relate to.

Gaiman touches on this notion when he said, "I don’t think vampirism, at least from my point of view, is ever about power, because it’s always about people exiled to the fringes. Vampires, I think, should be outsiders."

I completely agree with the idea that it's about people being "exiled" or even ostracized; however, I disagree with him in the fact that he doesn't think vampirism is about power. I do think it is. I think it's about having complete control over another person. Otherwise, why else would they give vampires mind reading powers or hypnotizing gazes? People fantasize about being in control and vampires assist that fantasy.

A Modern Day Witch-hunt

As we begin reading The Crucible, a play about the Salem witch trails in Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692-1693, I remembered a person we discussed also in class a couple weeks back. Julian Assange, the creator of WikiLeaks, has been hunted as he recently released 391,832 confidential documents of the Iraqi war. Here is an article from the New York Times which tells of his notoriety.

Julian Assange

According to the article, Assange "demands that his dwindling number of loyalists use expensive encrypted cellphones and swaps his own the way other men change shirts. He checks into hotels under false names, dyes his hair, sleeps on sofas and floors, and uses cash instead of credit cards, often borrowed from friends."

He has even referred to himself as the "James Bond of journalism." And he basically is one, by changing phones every day and having multiple aliases. He fears Western intelligence agencies who hunt him. He's risking being jailed for life or even executed to put out this information. The government has demanded that he return all US documents in his possession and no longer search for any more. Here are some of his chilling accounts of the Iraq war.

"'I’ve been waiting 40 years for someone to disclose information on a scale that might really make a difference,' said Daniel Ellsberg, who exposed a 1,000-page secret study of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers. "

But even throughout all the chaos and consequences Assange has to face, is he doing the right thing? Should the public know the truth? Even if the way the truth was discovered was illegal?

I do believe the public deserves to know the truth, but the government should be supplying it, not hacking organizations. We shouldn't have to find out what's going on in Iraq through leaked documents. We should be given those documents. I understand that the government is trying to protect us, but we cannot live in ignorance. Especially, when the people we elect and support are committing things that are against our beliefs. And even more importantly, when we are affected severely by it.

I find it interesting that even though Assange is shedding light to what is going on over seas, some of his colleagues call him "erratic" and "imperious." Do you think Assange's practices are okay? Do you support them? Or do you believe he's taken it too far?

The Truth Behind Subliminal Advertising

An image of the McDonald's logo captured during an episode of Iron Chef on the Food Network.

Today in class we discussed how people can interpret advertising slogans in different ways. I earlier made a post about companies use certain colors in their advertisements to attract customers. But now I started to wonder about subliminal advertising. Subliminal advertising is when hidden messages are embedded within ads.

Back in the 70s, people became fearful that the subliminal messages in ads could be used to brainwash themselves. So the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) banned the use of subliminal messages in advertisements, regarding it as a deceptive business practice.

However, forms of subliminal advertising still exist today. Like for example, when you're watching a movie and the characters are in the city, where in the background, coincidentally of course, are billboards with large ads. Another example, could also be product placing in movies. Like in this ad for the movie the Italian Job,
Notice the Mini Cooper. How necessary is that in this ad? True, there are car chases in the movie with the Mini Coop, but that's not essentially what the movie's about. The ad could easily make do without the addition of the Mini Cooper, yet, does it choose to incorporate it for a specific reason?

In an article by the New York Times (click here to read) , they state,

"Lest you doubt these brand placements influence young eating habits, the appearance of Reese’s Pieces in the movie “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” resulted in a sharp increase in sales in the three months after the movie’s release in 1982.'Movie product placement is on a par with subliminal advertising.'"

Furthermore, they write,

"The authors, led by Lisa A. Sutherland of Dartmouth Medical Center, found an average of 8.6 brand placements per movie, and concluded that most were 'for energy-dense, nutrient-poor foods or product lines.'"

Not only are products being snuck into movies, but they're promoting unhealthy eating habits, especially for children.
Another example of a form of subliminal advertising is a new Chipotle ad that came out this summer.

Obviously, Chipotle tastes delicious is in bold, bringing the consumer's eye to that. Never once do they mention if their meat is actually raised without hormones. But by the end of the ad, you don't even care. All you know is CHIPOTLE TASTES DELICIOUS.

As consumers, we have to be aware of what we are buying for the sake of our health and safety. It's interesting how many different advertisements are being thrown at us every day, that we aren't even aware of. The public bus, the internet, the tv commerical. We are constantly being told what to buy. I think companies use sneaky tactics in order to raise products, and in order for us to be intelligent consumers, we have to know how big of an impact it has on us.

A META-POST

First, I would like Mr. O'Connor and Mr. Bolos to assess my "Into the Wild: The Sean Penn Version" post.
As I reread my posts, I honestly have to say they're are some I cringe at and they're are some I'm pretty proud of. I do have to say I feel like my "I Love College?" post was just a filler. I was having a very busy weekend, and I did it just to complete it. I feel like my post didn't have too thought or depth into it, and that kind of bugs me. I really enjoy this blogging assignment because I like having the freedom to say what I think. And it bothers me that I just put a post in there, just to show the teacher I did the homework. I wish I would have gone more in depth, or chosen something more interesting to write about. Although, I do think a lot of people can relate to it. I just don't think my post had enough substance.

However, I am proud of my other posts. I think I've incorporated topics that most people can relate to, whether it's racial supremacy in a sport or the reasons why people lie. I do notice a theme of race in my posts, but I account that to what we have been discussing in class. I think our class discussions inspire me to dig deeper into this sensitive topic and see how it affects our society today, such as how we view colors or examples of racism still existing today.

I do notice that in my later posts I have chosen to incorporate more pictures. Well first, I finally figured out how to put the pictures in my posts. But I also think it adds to the message or topic I'm writing about. It gives a visual to the reader and makes it a little easier to understand the post. Now you have something you can see to place with topic.

I think what most surprised me about my posts was how much more evidence I gave than I originally though I did. For example, from my "How Racist are We?" post, I backed up my claim that our society is more racist than we think by providing three examples. One was "I just want to discuss an article I had read in the New York times. Click here to read. It says that new research discovers 'strong evidence that all-white juries acquit whites more often and are less favorable to black versus white defendants when compared to juries with a least one black member.'" I think it was smart of me to try and find different examples of racism occurring today to back up my argument, instead of just providing one example.

I really do enjoy this weekly blogging. Besides the freedom, I like being able to incorporate things I learned in class to events happening in the world today. It makes the learning more real and substantial. I hope my posts convey that.

The Connotations of Color

We've been talking a lot about race in AS lately, and it got me thinking about how colors in general affect society. Every single color has its own connotation. White is associated with purity and cleanliness. It contains every color in the spectrum. Red can be anger or excitement or even love and romance. Green is the color of growth, nature, and money. It can symbolize harmony, or even jealously and greed. Blue symbolizes calmness and wisdom. Ask people and many would say that its their favorite color. While black is often noted as a sign of power or authority, and sometimes even evil. In the Western part of the world, it is the sign of mourning.

Colors are everywhere, and many companies use specific colors in their marketing because they believe it will attract certain types of customers. Color plays a key role in the success of advertising. Look at McDonald's. The two colors of their logo are a bright red and warm yellow. The bright red has the ability to appear closer than it truly is and grabs the customer's attention first. Then the warm yellow activates considerations of food, warmth, shelter, and physical comfort, encouraging the customer to come in and eat.
So if colors have the power to make you stop in and have a burger, can they influence how you view others? If the color white symbolizes purity and goodness, does that mean that all white people are good and pure? And that those who are not white, simply are not? Colors might affect your mood, but they should not affect your thinking. And I don't believe the connotations of colors should be completely at fault for the inequalities and tension between races. I think it's how society chooses to react to those colors that affects how we interact with each other.

I Love College?

I recently conducted an interview with my journalism teacher Mr. Lucadamo for our AS class. During our interview, Mr. Lucadamo, who is sixty-four years old, began talking about the difference between college mentality when he was a teenager to how it is now. He said, "I went to college thinking this is not to get a job; this is to expand your mind. I ask kids today, 'Why do you want to go to college?' And what do you think their response is? To get a job."

It is believed that in order to get a "good" job today, you need a college degree. Employment rates are down because of the recession, which places more pressure on the new college generation. It has been shown that college enrollment is at a record high, with more than 70 percent of the 2009 high school graduating class enrolling in college in October.

Not only is there higher pressure to attend college, but there is also a greater pressure to attend a top college, especially at New Trier. Kids take the ACT multiple times in order to get their "perfect" score, even if each time they take the test they're only a point away. But here the mentality is that every point matters. Which is crazy. How can we expect to learn and enjoy school when it becomes a competition of who can get the highest score? We're competing, not learning. It's the same reason why kids load themselves up with AP classes and drown under the stress of them. They think it looks good for college, but are they really learning or just struggling to barely stay afloat? This pressure is unhealthy, and it causes unhealthy goals for kids these days.

White Boys Can't Jump?

Lately in AS, we watched a documentary detailing in the specifics of race and if it was biological or social. In it, they discussed if certain races were dominate in sports because of their genetics. You've heard the rumors. Some races have an extra muscle that helps them run faster or some races can't jump as high as other ones. Well the video states that there has been no discovery of a correlation between race affecting athletic ability.

But if you look at the any of the major sports, it does seem that one race tends to dominate. In the NBA, 82% of the players were African American. In the NFL, 67% of players were also African American. In the MBL, 60% of players were white. And in the NHL, a staggering 95% of all players are white.
Look at the difference between two championship teams this year, the Chicago Blackhawks and the Los Angeles Lakers.

The difference between races in each sport is not small. In fact, it makes you wonder why are there such huge percentage differentials? If genetics has no factor on a race's athletic ability than why do some races tend to excel at certain sports by an unbelievable margin?

I believe that environment has a lot to do with it. In an interview with Joseph Graves Jr., professor of evolutionary biology, he states that

If we were to look at people from northern climates, who were indigenous residents of northern climates, they tend to be short and stout instead of long or tall and lean. And there are good physical reasons for that. If you evolved in northern climates, like the Aleut or the Eskimo populations did, heat retention is facilitated by being short and stout. If you evolved in the tropics, where the environment is very hot, then heat loss is facilitated by being long and lean. So you're going to see differences in body proportions on that kind of scale.Now, if you were to ask yourself, "Is it likely that an Alaskan Eskimo is going to become a center in the NBA?", well, probably not, because height has something to do with your performance at that position in the NBA.

Obviously in order for someone to be a great basketball player, they would need a good height for the game. There's no way a 5'6 man can hold up against someone is 6'5. I also think another huge component is the way athletes train. Those who take 100 shots a day to improve their free throw percentage would definitely become a better player than those who only took shots at practices.I also have noticed that most runners who are of African ancestry, have trained in other countries than Africa. So that doesn't necessarily mean that Africa truly produced those runners. Maybe the training did.

Graves touches on this when he says,

if you look at those sprinters of Western African ancestry, they all got their records because they trained in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, or even in the Caribbean. If you look at the Western African countries where those sprinters' ancestors supposedly came from, none of those countries have ever produced any world record holders in the sprint events.

So how much of a factor do you think race is?

How Racist are We?

This week in class we discussed Barrack Obama's speech "A More Perfect Union", when he still was a senator and a presidential candidate hopeful, given in Philadelphia on March 18, 2008. It was a speech about race. In it he states,

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding. This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years.

(If you'd like to read more of the transcript of Obama's speech, click here.)

Racism is notoriously a large part of history, and although we take baby steps every day, we are still caught in between the disparities of each other. Black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Indugenous, Jewish, Christian, Muslim. They're all labels we categorize each other in. And many seem to think one is better than the other.

As much as it saddens me to say, I do think our society is fueled by racism. That does not mean that I believe everyone is a racist. But look at the situation of the pastor in Florida wanting to burn the Koran just because he had deep hatred for a specific ethnicity. Just because he believed all Muslims were responsible for 9/11 and he categorized them all as terrorists. Does that mean he has the right to "punish" the entire Islamic religion by burning their holy book? Absolutely not. Does that mean that we have the right to believe that all Muslims or Middle-Easterners are terrorists? Absolutely not.

Another example is the Arizona immigration law that allows authorities to detain anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. This is a huge example of racial profiling. If the law enforcement is given the power to stop a car they believe is being driven by an illegal immigrant, just by how they look, then racism has to be a driving force. Not only does it take away the rights of those living in our country, but it also promotes community distrust. Lastly, I just want to discuss an article I had read in the New York times. Click here to read. It says that new research discovers "strong evidence that all-white juries acquit whites more often and are less favorable to black versus white defendants when compared to juries with a least one black member." However who is to say that a conviction by an all-white jury is necessarily false? I think you also need to take in account the number of false convictions versus correct convictions for this research to really prove substantial.

Image copyright of New York Times.

Into the Wild: The Sean Penn Version

Throughout class this week, we had been discussing how some textbooks select what you read and learn.They use specific word choices to convey a bias of theirs. And this use of passive voice and conntations to deliver a particular effect on the reader does work. We focused on how a certain textbook created an image of the Native Americans as victims and the whites as oppressors. If it had not been for our analysis of the text during class, I would have completely agreed with the author's words. But as we considered the selection created by the author, it seemed pretty unfair. The words he chose whether it was the "Indians Cheated" or "Indians are Restricted" make the reader feel guilty for the mistakes of our ancestors.

But this type of word selection and secret messages really got me thinking after I had watched Into the Wild last night. Here's an article that places the movie against the book http://www.avclub.com/articles/book-vs-film-into-the-wild,2168/. I had noticed how many parts of the movie were different than those of the book by John Krakauer. Much of the movie was narrated by Chris' sister Carine, in the words of the article, in a "dreamy melancholy that further idealizes him." Which is pretty much right. She goes into great detail of his imperfections and his beliefs, although throughout the book, she doesn't have a major voice.

I believe Sean Penn had over-emphasized the positives for Chris McCandless and for the most part, ignored the negatives. He threw in a scene of Chris' parents fighting violently, his little sister crying and Chris holding her and trying to shield her away from them. Yet, the fighting was never mentioned in the book. He never showed the real frustrations that Chris encountered, like when he was lost for a couple of days in the canal, paddling in circles. He showed the more romantic, happier images. Many people criticize Penn for misrepresenting the truth, of getting "too Hollywood." But Penn claims he was just making a film from what he believes would have been McCandless' perspective. It wasn't supposed to be a documentary.

I think a lot of the problem was that no one really knows what McCandless was thinking. Sure, we have his words and the passages he highlighted. We could talk to those close to him, and try and piece together what kind of man he really was. But I don't think we'll ever be able to do that. Was he really happy? Just like you'll never know the true extent of the person next to you, we'll never be able to know what he was really going through and thinking.

So as Penn chooses to idealize McCandless, he represents his story exactly in that way. Idealistic. A lost soul trying to find himself. Or the book that claims McCandless was a pilgram. But was that who McCandless really was? Or is that what the authors have led us to believe? I think everything we've read or watched about McCandless is based more on the opinions of others than who McCandless really was. They're all collections of others' perceptions and stories. Very little is from the mind of Christopher McCandless.

America: Have We Reached Our Peak?

Yesterday was a reminder. A reminder of the wound inflicted permanently upon America. For the rest of our lives, we will remember where we were that day the planes hit those towers. I was seven years old and had just started second grade. I came downstairs the morning of September 11th for breakfast, my blue backpack hiked over my shoulder. The Today show was on the TV above our kitchen table, like every morning, but this time there was a news report regarding an airplane crashing into one of the Twin Towers. And as they were showing a live feed of the burning tower, a second plane flew out of nowhere and crashed into the other tower. I watched as people's lives were destroyed. I watched as a nation was attacked by hatred. But I also watched as a nation came together like it never had before. As I think back to this day, I can help but wonder if this nation can keep continuing to rebound, or will we too receive a fate similar to those that doom great civilizations like the Romans?

In AIS this week, we discussed the typical American story. It begins right near the good/middle fortune mark, not too bad. But then something happens, and the arc dips severely into the bad fortune area. However, soon after, it's a Cinderella story, and the line shoots up, higher than it was when the graph had started. Are we a progressive narrative? Or have we "hit our peak?"

Many claim the post WWII era was our greatest, and now with our economy troubles, we are headed downhill. However, we weren't headed completely uphill prior to WWII. There was the Great Depression and the Civil War prior to that. Or even Pearl Harbor, which in ways can be compared to the 9/11 attacks. Our country was able to bounce back from all of that and still reach a level of greatness and power. So why can't we redeem ourselves now?

It would be so easy for our country to fall, but I honestly don't think we would. Regardless of the politics within our country, we all believe in freedom and human rights. And think that belief and drive and our reputation for recovery will continue to push this nation further and further. We do have the ability to as great as we were back in the 1950s.

Why do People Lie?

In class this past week, we were exploring the "death" of Mr. Bolos, using artifacts, the Internet, and interviews of those who were close to him to determine who Mr. Bolos and what might have happened to him. During our research, my group questioned Mr. O'Connor, Mr. Bolos' colleague who teaches a long side him. From Mr. Bolos having an ex-wife to Mr. O'Connor visiting Mr. Bolos at the University of Illinois when Bolos was a sophomore, the majority of what Mr. O'Connor had told us about his co-worker was a complete lie. At the conclusion of this project, we had discussed as a class why are biographies of Mr. Bolos would be inaccurate, and one of the reasons was that people lie. We went even further to ask ourselves, why do people in fact lie? Is it because they're in denial? Or they're ignorant? Or maybe they have their own agenda playing in.

Regardless, I couldn't stop thinking about it. Constantly, there are examples in the news of people lying. Whether it's Tiger Woods, living the double life of a family man and a womanizer, to the infamous Bill Clinton speech where he asserted that he "did not have sexual relations with that woman," every one seems to be lying. Childhood heroes turn out to be phonies. I mean look at Roger Clemens, who consistently denies and denies ever using performance enhancing drugs, but is facing being indicted for lying to the Congress.

I found an article on from the New York Times that talks about Lance Armstrong, and how other cyclists are still accusing him of taking steroids. Here's a link http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/05/sports/cycling/05armstrong.html?ref=lying. Armstrong is arguably one of the most amazing American athletes ever. If these claims are proven true, it's just another cheater and liar in American culture.

To answer my own question, I believe people lie for a few reasons. First, it can be a defense mechanism. Sometimes humans need to protect themselves from others, and lying allows you to keep your secrets to yourself. Another reason I think people lie, is to up hold an certain image. Everybody is always searching for perfection, especially in our society today. Lying allows one to hide their imperfections, because no one wants to seem inadequate or defected. We always want to look better than person next to us. Lastly, I think people lie because it's easy. It's easier to deny doing steroids, than to take the public scrutiny of doing them. Hey, you might even get away with lying about it and then everyone will think you're still a hero or a real athlete. Lying is usually the first instinct.

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