How Far We've Come

In our new age of google and this blogging thing, our class has been one of many things to adapt and use this "progress" to our advantage. The argument that the way we aquire knowledge has fundamentally changed is very interesting, and I as a 16 year old interprets this claim differently than someone who grew up learning how to "deep read." As we began reading "Self-Reliance," I began to notice what exactly Nicholas Carr was talking about in his article. Deep reading requires a lot of concentration and I believe it is an aquired skill. That is why our older generations have began to notice this change in thinking behavior. For us kids, this change has been implanted in our brains much earlier, and therefore, I accept the fact that I prefer short, concise pieces of information. I am used to having not necessarily a shorter attention span, but one that calls for a different medium to process information as efficiently.

Progress?

Our new unit in American Studies is (surprisingly) again extremely relavent to the current issues of our world. The word progress has been thrown around a lot in the past week or two. Our first African-American president is progress we are all very proud of as americans. In class, our discussion about progress was at first very centered around technology, something that has drastically changed since our parents' time. But I think progress can go a little deeper than just what gadgets we can now fit in our pockets. Societal progress is something that I believe is much more important in a historical sense. Not only does it reveal the change society has gone through by what has become commonplace, but this kind of progress is easily documented by benchmarks we as a community have reached. For example, our first black president being elected is a very striking and emotional event that will definately be remembered for centuries. But any barriers (race/gender) being broken in things like sports or politics are direct benchmarks that truly reflect the progress of a society.

Politics go Primetime

So in case you happened to be flipping through any one of a number of different networks, you might have stumbled upon a little 4 million dollar project of Obama's. In one final attempt to expand the already sufficient gap in the poles, half an hour of primetime television was purchased for an infomercial. The ad consisted of many clips from speaches, as well as a live broadcast from Sunrise, Florida. Obama shared his plans for the countries economy and tried to sway whats left of the undecided voters towards the left and for change.
The commercial was a very interesting move by Senator Obama, especially so late in the race. Nothing like this has ever been done before, and the difference in both campaign's budget has become much more prominent. The tactic was very idealistic, and Obama can only hope to gain a few more votes in the next 5 days. Looking at the situation more realisticly, spending all of that money on those 30 minutes wasn't really that necessary. Yet we could see this kind of campaigning in the future, as it may in fact turn out very effective in a race that could end up much closer than some polls currently show.

Joe the Plummer is Real?!?!

During the Presidential debate, and throughout much of the campaign in the past couple of weeks, both candidates have been referencing some unknown, average "Joe" in order to try relate to the typical working-class American. At first, I was imagining some ideal american blue-collar man with a Chevy. I was under the impression that the candidates were using some ideal to try to connect with someone like Joe the plumber.
Apparently...he exists.
Now over the past week there has been non-stop coverage of this typical guy and what he thinks of the election and the two senators. It seems the media is taking a totally different approach on "Joe" than the candidates previously idealistic reference. They like to take a much more pragmatic approach and truly take Obama and McCain literally when they are talking about him. I didn't really think the media coverage was that necessary either.

Rain Clouds followed by Perilous Times

Over the weekend, the word on most people's lips was rain. As many watched news reports on Hurrican Ike and the devastation left behind in Texas, a continuous downpour soaked the north shore and surrounding areas. Our storm was no hurricane, but the damages were still felt.
Come Monday, everyone at school needed to disscuss our stories of flooding. These perilous times were surely felt by all, in Illinois and Texas. The aftermath was dealt with by looking up to big brother to help us all out. The communities all came together and requests were made for relief money. Most probably wished the weather would just stay nice and calm, but the storms were bonding experiences nonetheless.

No More Blogs!??!?

The air was tense in 8th period American Studies when our class learned the horrible news: in only one week of blogging, our privelage had been revoked. Apparently there were several cases of acedemic integrety and copywrite violations that had forced Ms. Logan and Mr. Lawler to end the student blogs and replace them with a much more boring assignment. The class of about 36 students was devastated, and the reactions to the peril were very interesting. I first noticed the shared feeling of guilt throughout the room. We all felt like we blew it. Classmates began to accept it and give in to the teachers. Very few argued a case against them. Rather, our shared feelings gave Logan and Lawler more authority over the situation. We felt like the fate of our blogging community should be up to them. The scene was looking grim.

Then they started laughing at us.

When the class sighed in relief, a discussion on our reactions sparked up. Many students shared thier individual thoughts, but most of the class noticed how in the peril it became an "us versus them" kind of situation. Our class was at fault, and the control was handed over to the authority figures willingly. This kind of reaction seemed to be very common in real-life situations. Some well-known examples like the September 11th attacks and Katrina show this in common. The people turn to leaders to handle the authority to help the community as a whole. The sense of individualism is somewhat lost in these times of peril.

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