the american culture

the american culture is split into three things i belive. other countries view us as materalistic people who are interested only in violence food and sex. 90% of all americans eat at mcdonalds over a family dinner. not even 90% of americans vote (50%). maybe if each vote came with a side of fries, or if you could supersize obama fo an extra 49 cents people would vote. when surveyed only 1 out of 10 americans eat dinner with a family member once a week. there is a show on the discovery chanel that is called destroyed in seconds. as assumed by the title it is about events caught on tape where things blow up or are destroyed. video here. we watch movies about a fight club (great movie) and we watch UFC (great sport) all involve fighting. greatest ufc fighter ever. now im not saying theese things are bad ... i enjoy them but it is just how the world sees us as a violence based socioty. now we come to sex.... a three letter word for american media. the more sex americans see the more entertained they are. as in the go daddy ad here.

now i know that this may or may not entirely pertain to women but im just saying that the media markets mor towards men and most forigners see thees ads over ones aimed at women. as a good friend once said while watching sunday night football,

" if aliens came here and only watched tv to learn about us they would all think we eat mcdonalds everyday and have erectile dysfunction"
quote by Phillip S.

to group or not to group.

Recently in class we discussed the idea of grouping vs. sterotyping. we determined that depending on the situation there is a sharp difference in the two. on one hand if you have a pre concieved notion about someone based on nothing that would be sterotyping. because you dont know anything about the person except for how they look or act you make a judgment based on how others act.

for example , you see a group of kids in a car in a parking lot at night. the car is off and the lights are off.... they are not hurting anyone of being a nusance. but you make an assumption that they are up to no good, they are doing something illegal or something frowned apon, on the otherhand without knowing what they are doing, they could be doing something good. they could be saving puppies for all we know.

also, if we generalize people in groups based on what we do we are grouping.

example:

teachers= smart

babies= loud

asians=smart (no offense)

druggies=bad

skateboarders= trouble

hippies= dirty

now in theese categories we know that this is not true for everyone. not all teachers are smart, some babies dont make much noise. not all asians are really intelegent. and so on. but moreover this can be the opposite spectrum. they sterotypes can be true.

whic one are you???

More that meets the eyes

underneath it all there is a spark of inginuity in peoples lives. such as in the reading we did "gang leader for a day" we see that there is more that meets the eye within a gang. this is true in life. you can say there is nothing hard about a mcdonalds job. this is probably true but i have never worked there and i have no idea what goes on. we tend to make assumptions due to peoples appearences. you dont really know who you are talking to until meet them face to face. like a hand shake. it says alot about a person. if its firm and fluid, then the man who probably delivered this handshake is a strong , confident, egar man. if it is weak you are deling with a feeble individual. but on the outsid they can be this emmaculate demi god of a person. but in the inside they are weak.
Like in the story, JT was a college grad and very intellegent. its not all tha meets the eye with who you meet.

awkward situations

why is it that when we are put on the spot we feel embarrassed. today i was walking down the stairs when this girl falls down the steps and lands on me. someone yells that i was a jacka$$  and i am embarrassed  i offer to help her up and take her to the nurse and she ignores me.  i felt embarrassed because everyone thought i pushed her and i felt remorseful. why is it that we can't look past embarrassment and help one another. in this case i tried to help but was pushed away. i believe that since it was an isolated event where ones own fault caused ones own pain that it was others laughed. if it was a different person and a different situation it would not have been so funny. all i'm saying is that i tried to help and people still thought i did it. to me it dosen't matter weather i was to blame but more of the fact of is she o.k.