This is an advertisement opposing cigarettes, the usage of smoking and the selling of cigarettes. It is a picture of an enormous, cigarette stick that is about six feet in length and a foot or two in diameter, which has either landed on or simply weighed downed on top of a small, light copper toned hatch back (I am not too familiar with cars but it looks like an old model of a Toyota hatch back). There is a red sign with white wording that is comparing the number of deaths caused by car accidents to the total deaths caused by cigarettes in that particular year that is leaning against the midway of the body of the car, right under the giant cigarette . As in any add, there are fine prints at the bottom of the advertisement, however, due to the fineness of the prints, we are unable to make out the words. The automobile looks pretty outdated and wheels seem rusted but the car's exterior seems very clean. There is not other damage other than the huge indent on the roof and front window of the driver’s side where the cigarette has seemingly landed on first. You can see a yellow “police” tape through the window of the driver’s side, denoting that automobile is immobilized. Purposefully, the car is placed in a business, inner city environment, directly in front of a set of stairs that leads to a cement building; perhaps this is the front of a cigarette corporation. Behind the car, there are small businesses, one that is called “777”. There are no people or any traces of broken windows around the car; the only damage is caused by the cigarette.

It is clear that the advertisement is suggesting smoking kills. The number of death caused by car accidents is shadowed by the huge number of deaths caused by cigarettes. Because the sign is red, this message is implied to be a danger alert. Car accidents seem to be the cause of death which most people are familiar with, thus, juxtaposing the death toll between car accidents and cigarette smoking gives people an idea of how dangerous smoking is-- it kills more people than car accidents! Cigarettes may be physically small, but the damages are huge and heavy. So much so that it can put an end to or stops a person’s mobilization—it can literally stop you dead in your track, which this add implies with numbers and damage of the car which is a source of mobilization for hundreds and millions of people.

Chem 194 Circle

This is an observation I made a while ago:

As most students who has ever taken class in Chem194 or walked by the building when lecture lets out, are aware of, it can be pretty hectic and crowded in that particular circle. Pedestrians, bikers, buses, skateboarders, and everyone or anyone trying to make their way from one class to another seem to travel around or through this circle. After an embarrassing accident that I had during my freshman year in which I fell off my bike after colliding into another bike, I’ve always tried to avoid the Chem 194 circle, but whenever I do cross that path, in particular when the lecture in Chem 194 lets out, I stop and observe the traffic flow. It always amazes me that not once did anyone else manage to collide with another person whether they are biking or walking, during the many occasions which I did observe it; everyone seem to always make it through perfectly fine. The hoards of students from the Chemistry building that holds up to four hundred students pouring out and those students rushing on foot, some on bikes to their next class, the dozens of other students trying to get to the silo for lunch and the bus passing and bikers trying to speed their way to class all the while talking on their cell phone and no one, not a single person collides into another. What is more amazing is that there is no stop light to direct the traffic and only a few ever stops while biking around the circle, everyone just continuously bikes or walk for the most part, yet I have yet to observe any collision. I guess my point is, everyone who passes this circle is always in a rush and the circle gets so jammed up sometimes that it seems as if here is the point of Diasporas of those travelers. Although it is but for a few seconds, people who passes the circle comes together and work together to get through safely and then spreads out to their own destination. Whether it is the students from the Chem building or other students making their way to another class, some how everyone comes together for a few short seconds, meet at one point in the circle and moves on, and everything just flows.

Howard Dean is Human

Howard Dean is human. Having lost his image in a presidential campaign years ago, Dean has become the laughing stock among many political communities and the general public. The act of expressing one’s emotions is only natural for human beings, but for some reason, if our (prospective) President or public leaders display it, it is bad. In reality, however, will an outburst of raw and true emotions during a rally indicate that he cannot lead a country? Howard Dean was scorned for acting the way he did, but he was merely showing his enthusiasm and vigor for the presidential race. Unfortunately, many people read his excitement as “uncontrolled” emotions or as “craziness” even though it is perfectly normal for people laugh and make hand gestures to show enthusiasm. Have image and superficial actions superseded merit and personality? Does society want our leaders to be so controlled that they cannot display their raw emotions? Does society only want to see a front, a superficial cover that portrays our prospective leaders? Sure, I understand that we need a calm and cool individual leading the country, but to judge Howard Dean’s ability to stay calm or lead base on display of excitement public rally is absolutely ludicrous. He shows a side of his true personality and the minute that he did he was rejected. I guess, the world is simply a stage and we are all but mere players with our own exits and entrances.

His-Story

If it is in the text, it must be true. This is the mindset that many people have, and it is the way of thinking that our education system is instilling in students nationwide. However, as many of us have come to realize, not everything written, even if it is done so in stone, is true, or is the truth. History or any telling of an occurrence, whether it is oral or written, is just that, his-story, it is the perspective of someone, of a single person or some people. Yet, student throughout the country is being taught that this one perspective is what really happened, that nothing else could have occurred or it could not have happened any other way. For example, as mentioned in class, the newer generation in Germany does not believe that the Holocaust actually took place and do not believe that it did because they were never told that is happened. On the other hand, people who were educated and socialized in areas where they were told and taught the story of the Holocaust can not be convinced, even by God himself, that this atrocity did not take place. Thus, next time we cite something from a text, we should really access the truthfulness of the evidence which we are using to support our claims.

Consumption Function

In class, we discussed the negative and possible positive aspects of consumption in the ways people in our society fulfill or not fulfill their wants through comparing wants and desires to need. Conclusively several of us have suggested that consumption created a superficial need of a sort, creating a blurred line between “want” and “need”. Take fashion and clothing for example. Some people actually spend hundreds of dollars on a pair of jeans--hundreds, not twenty or forty dollars but hundreds. I know for a fact that human beings do not need a hundred dollar pair of pants to survive; in fact, some people would argue that we do not need clothes at all. Why then, do so many people feel the necessity to buy Seven© jeans, or True Religion© jeans if they can do without it? Has the “want” of yesterday become the “need” of today? In many ways I think it has. People from other part of the world may say “Americans, why do they have to have electric cars when feet are the most environmental friendly and economic source of transportation”. However, to just function and be a part of our society, individuals need certain material that may seem as superficial or unnecessary, like cars and even certain type of clothes. These things may not be the basic human needs to survive, but because they are tools that can be used to navigate through the world and because the worth and value of people has become based on possessions of these things, they become indirectly essential for survival. Consumption, the wide availability of commodities, and the changing values of people in society has transformed some “wants” to “needs”.

Dramas, Dramas, Dramas

I love watching dramas. Daytime soaps, Korean Dramas, Taiwanese Dramas, Thai Dramas -- I love them all. Thus, instead of being productive as I intended to be, I found myself in front of my desktop streaming Youtube videos yesterday afternoon. After three hours of gluing my eyes to my monitor, I finally left to get a drink of water. Well, partly also because I’ve surfed through every popular series I could find online. As I was drinking water, I wondered why I waste my time watching these dramas. They all have the same formula: guy meets girl, they fall in love but are separated by a misunderstanding which is often caused by a third wheel and/or family members. Somehow, in the end, they resolve the issues and live happily ever after, or in some cases either the guy or girl dies from a terminal disease such as leukemia. Sure, most of the dramas, especially the Asian ones, often teach morals and ethics to the audience, but aside from this and love, there is really not much else to gain. Why then do I anxiously return home every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday after work to check for updates of drama series if it’s the same old storyline? I can’t be the only person who feels this way, I mean, I visited forums which contains the exact same speculations. Dramas can be and generally are predictable, formulaic and terribly cheesy. But why is it that I find it hard to make time for homework, but I can always squeeze in a quick drama? What’s so entertaining about predictability? Honestly, sometimes I don’t even watch it for entertainment; I just watch it for the sake of watching it.
It is not peer pressure, I don't do it to fit in with others. On top of that, there are not that many people at Davis who are addicted to dramas and I do not feel pressured to do it. It certainly is an addiction though, I miss it terribly if I don’t watch it for a long period time. Have I become so intellectually lazy that I can be satisfied with such simple and formulaic entertainment? Furthermore, what aspect of my life and my society is not formulaic or predictable, is it really just me or has society as a whole “dumbed down," or rather, become less intellectually active?

Capitalism and friends

My group has decided that after defining our own term, we would somehow explain why our keyword is connected to or related to the other four terms. Since we selected the keywords based on the theme of economy and capitalism, we felt that there had to be a degree of relativism between capitalism, economy, marginal, welfare and class. In my opinion there is a clear relationship between these five words.
As mentioned in my previous page, capitalism is often thought of as an economic system. When asked about economy, the term capitalism and money are the first few thoughts that would arise in my mind, I can safely assume that it is the same for the majority of Americans. Thus, there is a direct relationship between these two keywords in that one makes up the other. I had difficulty trying to link marginal and capitalism. To be marginal means to be on the boundary or borderlines in reference to the center. The text explains the center to be the power and the further away from the center the lesser power. In terms of capitalism, those who have control or have capitals and resources are concentrated in the center, those who have little or no capitals are marginalized; they are barely surviving on the boundary. Those who are marginalized are those who occupy the lower class. Class is a stratification, or ranking system base on socioeconomic status. The more capital one has, the higher their class is and the closer to the center they will be which translates into more power and control. Lastly, welfare can be related in terms of the stigmatization of poverty and low class which accompanies welfare, as mentioned by one of my group members. Although welfare refers to the wellbeing of the population, however, today welfare is highly stigmatized. When people think of welfare, they tend to think of poor and lazy people.
Perhaps this group project and the course text have taught me that we can not simply define a word as it is “just” this or “just” that. A term as commonly used as capitalism captures so many endless meanings. It is not clear to me what I am supposed to take from this project, to understand the terms? Is it to enhance our vocabulary and to better understand a term which we think we understood already? Or is it to learn how to be random and creative in the ways we think about everyday things. If these were the goals of the task, then I believe I have achieved it.