#7 Bibliography

Assignment #7

Coleman, Marilyn and Lawrence H. Ganong. Handbook of Contemporary Families: Considering the        Past, Contemplating the Future. California: Sage Publications Inc., 2004

Clugston, Chris. “On American Sustainability.” Anatomy of a Societal Collapse. (March 30, 2009) : http://www.wakeupamerika.com/PDFs/On-American-Sustainability.pdf

Gerson, Kathleen. The Unfinished Revolution: Coming of Age In A New Era of Gender, Work, and Family. Oxford University Press Inc., 2010.

Leach, Jim. “Creating a Sustainable American Culture One Neighborhood at a Time.” Wonderland. (December 20, 2011): http://whdc.com/documents/OneNeighborhoodataTime122011_000.pdf

Wehr, Kevin. DIY: The Search For Control and Self-Reliance in the 21st Century. NY: Routeledge, 2012.

#6 Monsanto Response

Assignment #6 

Many of the articles we have read for class have affected me, but this particular topic really hit home. My family owns a farm and farm that runs on the traditional farming ways. We raise cows from the time they were born and sell them at a traditional stock house for money, it’s how the farm survives and what puts food on the table. I have personally watched the movie Food Inc., and truthfully it made me sick. When watching the clips from this website it makes me feel the same way. Why does something that once ran traditionally have to be industrialized like everything else? If it once worked perfect the way it was why do you have to change it, not everything has to be changed. Traditional farmers like the one’s I have grown up with work from dawn to dusk, everyday, rain or shine. They get no sick days, no vacations because it’s how they make a living. For someone to come in and ruin the way of life its traumatic and wrong, no way around it. We are over populating what is supposed to be natural. We are damaging our food for more quantity. Has anyone ever considered that maybe the reason the world is so sick and overweight because of all the chemicals we are putting into our food. Chicken should come out of an egg and take time to become an adult like a child out of a women’s womb. A chicken should be able to walk around and eat normal food, not injected to the point that it sits it’s entire life miserable. I am an animal person, I grew up on a farm, and this may be cliche but animals have feelings too. If you injected a baby to grow rapidly there would be repercussions and lawsuits, so why would you do that to an animal and their babies. This country once survived without certain things, it survived with not enough chicken some months, so why can’t it now? It is wrong to advertise that overproduction and industrialization is a good thing for our world, because honestly its slowly killing us. If you want to live healthy and happy then it’s best to leave things the way they need to be, natural. The overproduction and industrialization of farms is what takes the money and profits of what the little traditional farms survive on. You are putting peoples lives at stake and causing a lot more harm then good. It needs to be stopped and until people prove that this is more harm then good we are all going to continue to hurt the future for our children. So lets’ change it! 

#5: Propaganda: SlutWalk

Assignment #5 

I don’t think that I have ever heard the word slut, one so much in a discussion and two as more then what I know slut as. If someone was to ask me to define what slut means I would probably respond by saying that it’s a girl or guy that likes to sleep around without concerns of emotionally or physically hurting themselves or others. Have I used the word slut to describe a person, yes, was it a wrong slang term, yes and this article really made me realize that there is more to that term then what our generations uses it as. I agree that the term is used way too much and at the wrong times of trying to describe a person. In my opinion if someone wants to go sleep around then go for it,  she or he isn’t bothering me and the way I live. But for one to claim that slutiness is what causes rape is sorrily mistaken. There are innocent human beings male, female and many children that live a modern lifestyle, that don’t sleep around that are unfortunately raped for no reason. If you want to label someone as a slut in these regards it should be the sick human being that is a rapist. I find it very disrespectful to label someone who has been raped, believe me they have suffered enough and will continue to suffer until the day they die. I think that the SlutWalk is to help people regroup and realize that this term was never meant to become what it has become. For people to be so critical about the term and make excuses for the way that some want to live are wasting their time. Like stated before if someone wants to sleep around then let them, they aren’t hurting you and eventually it will end. People that continue to use the word are the reason that it is still used. It only took one person to use the word in regards to how a person lives their life to create a word that you hear everyday. This world would be a lot better place to live if we didn’t have labels, labels hurt and most of the time are wrongly used. The next time that you want to label someone, think about it first. Is it really hurting you or affecting you in any way? Most likely the answer is no, so why do it? Live the way you want and everyone around you will continue to do the same. 

#4: Response: Political Philosophy 

First off I am not one to talk about politics it bothers me and usually ends in a heated conversation, just like money. When taking the political test to see where I stood I honestly didn’t know which side I would lean to because in my opinion I don’t have a side and I don’t want a side. When I turned 18 I hesitated registering to vote because in all honesty I don’t care to make a decisions on a person I care for. I will share though that once I finally registered I registered as an independent because in my opinion I should not be told how to vote based on the way I am registered. Though the test said I lean more towards the left side I was rather close to the middle of both the left and right. Though I have some what of an opinion on politics I care not to. I think that our world is some what corrupted and I think that our government has a lot to do with it. Thus far we have discussed how our world is beginning to diminish and change for the bad and truthfully that is because our back bone is no back bone at all. I agreed with Mr. Benton’s response in that the way we believe in politics is a belief and a psychological feeling of some sort. It’s an individualistic point of view and should not be questioned any further. Though I believe that there are still people out there that vote for what is right not because they go more towards the left or right. It should be based on the common good of the people because at the end of the day we are the ones that have to live with it. Look at the former presidents they are living the high life with no worries with whatever it is they need while my parents and myself and many others go out everyday and work for not only them but the people that just choose not to do anything. There is no such thing as a common good anymore and in my opinion no such thing a a government that is the back bone of the people. It has become more about how are we going to get this money, fix other countries problems that we have no business fixing, and the campaign for the next four years. People don’t matter anymore, or at least thats how I feel. I’m sure that my opinion doesn’t go along with many others but Im only 20 but I’m already tired of taking care of others problems and being used by the people that are suppose to be here to protect and have my back. Who’s going to take care of me? 

#3: Response: Enlightenment

#3: Response: Enlightenment

These videos really intrigued me because they really mad me think but also visualize what their points were. They are very creative but the subject matter had me swinging from side to side each time a point was made. I can’t really make up my mind whether I agree or disagree so I am going to take somewhat of a neutral approach. I do agree that we have lost to simple plan of how the world is suppose to run. Our society and mainly our government in my opinion has made us all function and believe in certain things, stirring us away from what is most important and initially what created the world we live in today. We are supposed to be based on a trusting and understanding between the people in power and the people that we live around and come across throughout our lives. But society has created a rapidly diverse community. Though diversity is a positive thing in some aspects it shouldn’t come with all the labels, conflicts and competition and degrading of other people. Like the last two articles have discussed we are creating a world for our children that should not function the way that it does. We are simply “sucking the fun,” out of life. We are sucking the breath out of our lives by creating a world that that is based on certain criteria of learning and well-being. Our children are being drugged in my opinion because they can’t focus on all the ridiculous criteria that teachers have to teach within a certain time. Learning isn’t fun anymore and change isn’t either. I always looked at Enlightenment as a positive change to the humankind. Though it may have started that way it certainly hasn’t become that way. All this hopeful positive change has just been creating a black hole of a mess. All these articles show us just what we are doing wrong and they are right. We are being corrupt when really what we need to look at is the basis of it all. We didn’t begin like this and things we moderately well, things were simple and people understood people now people fight and discriminate because sadly it’s all they know. It shouldn’t be all we know it should be what was once the past and we are looking to see it through to a more positive and what was once a good well-being.  

#2: Response: "They Say"

#2: Response: “They Say” 

Wow, what an article. I think that this article has shocked me more then the first and more then any article I have read, maybe in my lifetime. It’s amazing how the society that we live in corrupts us and in almost everything that we do. From what we watch, look at on our computer to what is filtered in our mail. I feel as though I am being watching and truthfully you almost are. By relating the last two articles we have read it shows proves that there are people programming the world around us and as the people we are believing every word of it. In my opinion we are corrupted they is no way around it. We live, eat and breath the way that others have told us to whether that was through technology, the newspaper, or from a friend who heard it from another friend. How do people read things that this and then do nothing to change it? I believe that we need more programs to broadcast the unknown and maybe that one person will listen and try and help everyone else that has been sucked up into the corruption. There need to be more teachers that mine that make us read things like this in hopes that someone will stop and think, hmm I gonna share this. I see it in the children that I watch, my cousins, and the generations to come that reality is changing each time a new generation is born. We don’t have parents we have technology and the world around us programming us the way it wants us to grow up. We aren’t learning valuable things we are learning what not to do in order to succeed in a growing population that is making a progressively worse society. It’s sad that we have to live this way but we all know we are just going to go along with it, it’s what we know. So before you go to the store and buy the newest video game or purchase and rewards point card think about the scam behind it all. The scam that is feeding your brains along with our society the lies and the unjust hypocrisy. It truthfully makes me want to change my ways and help my family change there in hopes that their is a silver lining for my children. 

#1: Summary: Theory of Beginners Response

 I found this reading to be very interesting and very enlightening all at the same time. I have had to read articles like this one in previous classes where it makes you think outside of the box and consider things differently than what you may be used to. I personally enjoyed this article mostly because I don't like to have the same opinions as everyone else. I don't enjoy the fact that our society believes as a whole in many aspects of our lives. I believe Michael Ryan is very factual and more people should read and understand that our culture is all coming together to believe in all the same things.

Everyone associates all kinds of things with the exact same thing, like the terrorism analogy. If you were to ask me what I thought about when you said terrorism, I honestly would probably say a Muslim or Islamic person, just like the next 100 people you ask would say. We are raised and programmed to believe everything we are told whether it’s factual or not. Not many get to have their own opinions because they tend to follow the opinions of others. I have always been the type of person that has never wanted to be a follower, just because everyone else is doing the same as the other person. Ryan expresses that people need to step back from their norm and start to rationalize and believe what they want to believe in. Maybe we wouldn’t have all this hatred and discrimination if we all took a step back to reevaluate things and ask ourselves, do I really believe that? Or have we all been lying to ourselves in order to claim an acceptable status in our society. Ryan claims, “We tell ourselves stories that obey a linear order. We make a world of complex impulses, random events, haphazard consequences, and scattered effects in something that seems written by God” (167). We do just that, we all live in this fake world that we have let take over our mind, body and soul. In my opinion it is time to step back and realize that there is so much more than what we are told to believe in. It’s time to really be our own individual selves, that’s what will truly make a diverse population and maybe become a more civilized and happier one at that.