BREAKING NEWS: Non-Conformist Misses Barbeque

Former POW Bowe Bergdahl has been plastered all over the news for the past few days. Earlier this week, it came out that Obama had traded five Taliban members for Bergdahl, who had been a captive for the past five years. 

When the information was first released to the public, everyone went "yayy!!" because he was (as far as we know) the last known American captive of the Taliban. But then his fellow platoon members started coming out about how much they didn't like him. Some are now arguing that Bergdahl is a deserter who is responsible for the deaths of the men who searched for him.

Perhaps his most heinous crime, however, is that he didn't go out with the guys. 

According to The New York Times, "Platoon members said Sergeant Bergdahl, of Hailey, Idaho, was known as bookish and filled with romantic notions that some found odd." 

"He wouldn’t drink beer or eat barbecue and hang out with the other 20-year-olds," said one of his comrades.

And everyone knows, of course, that every non-conformist is a traitor. God forbid that an off-duty soldier chooses to read rather than drink beer. 

This doesn't paint a pretty picture of his platoon members. They have zero tolerence for bookish guys, and are quick to use his personality as evidence of his lack of patriotism.

Do you think that not drinking beers with the guys is a sign of a traitor? 

Faking Cultural Literacy

I recently read an article in the New York Times called Faking Cultural Literacy. The author expressed concerns about the growing tendency to express opinions and take sides without knowing much about the subject matter, be it movies, books, or presidential candidates.

Everyone does it. During the last presidental election, for example, I had a little game of asking someone which candidate they liked better. This was the typical exchange:

Me: Obama or Romney?
Them: Obama, baby!
Me: What do you like about him?
Them: Uh, um, he's a democrat and stuff?
Me: Yup, that's Barack. What do you think about his policies?
Them: Um... Wow, republicans suck! Die, Romney! 

At this point in my blog, I wanted to insert a quote by someone smart and preferably famous. So I googled for about 10 seconds and came up with this quote by Alexander Pope, found on Goodreads:

“A little learning is a dangerous thing.
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring;
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
and drinking largely sobers us again.”

I have next to no idea who Alexander Pope is. I think he wrote or said something about erring and being human, but- Oh, he wrote that in An Essay on Criticism. Wow, I love that!

So why are we under this pressure to come across as knowledgeable about our culture? Being culturally literate is a status symbol. It makes people think that you're intelligent and cultured. And it's easier than ever to fake it. Go scan the headlines of the New York Times to get the latest news on Putin being the reincarnation of Hitler, and maybe check out the Joss Whedon version of Much Ado About Nothing on Netflix so you can join the school Shakespeare club.

Do you ever find yourself faking knowledge? Is it a dangerous thing? 

Purebred Dogs As a Status Symbol

I rarely see mutts in Winnetka. Almost every dog I see is purebred, and before the village decided that it is unacceptable to let dogs play in the park across the street, I would see various dog breeds running around at any given time. Golden Retrievers and Labradors are especially plentiful in the area.

So majestic. So aristocratic. Wow.

I've always wondered why so many people buy purebred dogs despite their tendency towards inbred diseases. Bernese Mountain Dogs, for example, are particularly prone to cancer, and yet one of my close friends had no qualms about buying three in a row. 

Not only are purebreds prone to illnesses, but they also cost a fortune. Some of the more popular breeds can cost >$1000, not including medical costs and the inevitable damage to electrical cords. 

The only explanation I can think of for the popularity of purebred dogs in rich neighborhoods is that they serve as a status symbol. If you can afford a purebred dog, then you're most likely well-to-do. When someone sees someone else with the same type of dog as them, they become part of this imaginary club and feel an immediate kinship. When I learned that one of my friends has a King Cocker Spaniel, I immediately blurted out, "No way, I have a Welsh Springer Spaniel!" and we proceeded to gush about our privleged pets.

This idea of purebreds as a status symbol even appears in The Great Gatsby. The late Myrtle had no knowledge of dog breeds, so when she and Tom stopped on the side of the road to look at some puppies, she made the social blunder of asking for a 'police dog' and then accepting a mutt, identified as an airedale by the seller, which "undoubtedly [had] an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white" (32). Evidently, Myrtle would never have made it in Winnetka.

Do you think that purebred dogs are a sign of class?

Abuse is NOT Gender Exclusive

Most people I meet seem to assume that domestic abuse afflicts only women. When I see phone numbers for domestic abuse hot lines, they're aimed towards women. Everyone seems to forget, however, that the roles of abuser and abusee can be reversed.

In a heterosexual relationship, men are generally considered to be the bigger and stronger one in the relationship. The thought of a woman winning a battle of brute strength is repugnant to most men. It's this trail of logic that has resulted in under-reporting of domestic abuse cases. On their info page on domestic violence against men, Mayo Clinic states:

"Because men are traditionally thought to be physically stronger than women, you might be less likely to report domestic violence in your heterosexual relationship due to embarrassment."

Whenever I make a statement along these lines, nearly everyone jumps to the conclusion that I'm anti-feminist. IN NO WAY am I anti-feminist, but I'm not going to ignore the huge bias against men when this topic is discussed. The 'Getting Help' page on the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence website does not use the word 'men' a single time. But abuse is not gender exclusive.

Do you think that abuse against men is a serious issue? 

Dove's "Real Beauty" Campaign

I recently read an article called Sorry, Dove: I'm not buying your brand of female empowerment, written by Stassia Edwards for The Week. The article comments on the new Dove video, "Patches", which is part of their Real Beauty campaign.

Dove has been advertising "Real Beauty" since 2004. The idea of the campaign is that women are beautiful the way that they are, and they shouldn't let beauty companies or mass media tell them otherwise. 

While I agree that women (and men!) shouldn't let mass media and advertisements influence their body image, I think that the whole Dove campaign is hypocracy at its finest. Everyone seems to forget that Dove is a beauty company. 

Let's look at the picture to the left, for example. Wow, that heavily airbrushed woman has real curves! Don't let people put insult your body, you're beautiful the way you are! Don't let corporate media bring down your self-esteem! Don't be afraid to show your body, no matter the shape or size! Buy our skin-firming anti-cellulite soaps and lotions! 

Okay, so it's not exactly out of the ordinary for commercials to be misleading or even outright lie. But Dove's ads are outright deceitful. In the words of Edwards, they "foster the belief that its products are more than just cosmetic, that they somehow enhance an inner beauty that exists in a place untouchable by beauty products." 

The big reason that the campaign has been so ridiculously successful is because it makes women think that by buying Dove, they're somehow contributing to feminism, because if I had to pick two words to encompass the entire feminist movement, they'd be 'female empowerment.' And Dove is allllll about money female empowerment.

What do you think about the whole Real Beauty campaign? Is it well meaning or is it a marketing ploy?

Theoretical Equals Factual

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past 2 months, you've probably heard about the whole 'Russia Invades Crimea' thing. Dozens of newspaper articles have reported on the numerous deaths resulting from the conflict, and some conservative politicians (coughJOHN MCCAINcough) have seized the opportunity to hold Obama accountable.

The problem is that we don't know as much about the facts as we think we do. According to this article from Newsmax, 

Details of the fighting remain sketchy. A statement from the administration of the eastern Donetsk region indicated the security officer may have been killed between Slaviansk and the nearby town of Artemivsk. Putting the number of wounded at nine, it said "an armed confrontation" was going on in the area.

Reading this, I couldn't help but think of a passage from Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five. Set in WWII, the novel tells the tale of Billy Pilgrim and his experience in the Dresden bombings. At this point in the book, Billy is enlisted as a Chaplain's assistant and playing on his little organ when an umpire appeared to inform the congregation of the war's current status. 

"There were umpires everywhere, men who said who was winning or losing the theoretical battle, who was alive and who was dead. 

The umpire had comical news. The congregation had been theoretically spotted from the air by a theoretical enemy. They were all theoretically dead now. The theoretical corpses laughed and ate a hearty noontime meal."

It seems a bit strange that real life news reports are so similar to a novel that is a satire. Americans have a tendency to jump to conclusions before we have all the facts. The news that a theoretical security officer was theoretically killed is good enough to cement our opinions about the ongoing conflict.

Iron Man and the War on Terror

Since starting my Junior theme, I've put away my customary recreational reading in favor of reading books about superheroes and comic books. The most fascinating of these books, War, Politics, and Superheroes: Ethics and Propaganda in Comics and Film, starts with a statement about the connection between the recent resurgence in the popularity of superheroes and 9/11. Paraphrasing Mark Millar (Kick-Ass creator), author Marc DiPaolo notes that "Superhero stories are at their most popular and evocative when they respond to particularly turbulent political times, especially those marred by war and social unrest" (1).

Ever since 9/11, the United States has been in a terrorist frenzy. Our generation has grown up with increasingly strict TSA guidelines and a deep seated hatred of Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban. Superheros have responded to these Perilous Times by altering their origin stories and enemies to better fit the current view of the battle between the "good guys" and the "bad guys". 

When Iron Man was first published in 1963, Tony Stark was injured in Vietnam. The 2008 Iron Man movie has changed the setting to Afghanistan, where he is kidnapped by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings. They torture him until he agrees to build them a "weapon of mass destruction".

The Iron Man movie was incredibly successful. Why? The Ten Rings were an obvious reference to the Taliban, against whom Americans wanted revenge justice. Tony Stark's escape and the subsequent killing of his captors satisfied our thirst for blood sense of rightousness. 

Do you think that there is a connection between the current popularity of superheroes and 9/11? I'm interested in your responses. 

Apply to Become a Martian Today!

In my last post I wrote about The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury, which is a fantastic piece of fiction. So it was a bit of a shock when I saw an article on the NPR website about the hundreds of thousands of people who are applying to live on Mars (202,586 people, to be exact).

Mars One is a Dutch organization which plans to "establish a permanent human settlement on Mars" by 2025. According to the selection criteria on their website, applicants must "see the connection between [their] internal and external self", use humor as a "creative resource, used appropriately as an emerging contextual response", and "have a “Can do!” attitude". 

We Americans are leading the pack: 24% of the applicants hail from the United States. So what exactly is their reasoning for signing up?

Maybe they want to embrace the Good Ol' American Adventurous Spirit. But that's hardly a good enough reason for 48,000 Americans to literally leave the planet with the knowledge that they will never be able to return or see their families again. This is a "permanent commitment," (NPR). 

Are the applicants hoping for a new start? Are they willing to give up their lives to satisfy their curiosity? Curiosity killed the astronauts, after all. But satisfaction won't bring them back because it's a one way ticket to Mars. 

Would you sign up to go to Mars? See the full list of qualifications here if you're interested in applying!

A Martian's View on American Entitlement

I was reading The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury a few days ago and noticed his satire of the American sense of entitlement. The book is a collection of short stories about the human colonization of Mars. In the chapter August 2030: The Earth Men, a rocketship landed on Mars. The American astronaut Captain Williams goes to the first martian house he sees. Mrs. Ttt, the (martian) woman of the house, tells off Captain Williams and his crew for interrupting her baking. They're then sent on a wild goose chase through the Martian town in an attempt to find someone who will care that they came from Earth. They're finally directed to Mr. Iii's house, who opens the door and asks them what they desire. 

"'A little attention,' said the captain, red-eyed and tired. 'We're from Earth, we have a rocket, there are four of us, crew and captain, we're exhausted, we're hungry, we'd like a place to sleep. We'd like someone to give us the key to the city or something like that, and we'd like somebody to shake our hands and say 'Hooray' and say 'Congratulations, old man!' That about sums it up,'" (30).

After my initial chuckling, I was struck by how accurate this portayal of America is. We have a long history of "discovering" new lands, demanding accommodations from the natives, then exterminating them. Columbus killed the Taíno people after he saw their gold earrings. The Pilgrims shoved the Native Americans out of their territory, forcing them to move furthur west. President Jackson signed an act legalizing "enthic-cleansing"(according to Wikipedia).

Americans have always been "astronauts", exploring "uncharted" territory and expanding our control. But we're not content with exploration alone. We want the key to the city and eventually the city itself.

But aren't we heroes for risking our lives for expansion and progress? Bradbury certainly doesn't think so. By the end of the chapter, Captain Williams and his crew think that they are finally being honored, only to discover that they have been placed in an insane asylum on Mars. 

Do you think that Americans have a sense of entitlement? Does it do more harm than good, or is it all worth it in the end?

Is 'Reefer Madness' preferable to Drunken Debauchery?

I hear about how awful marijuana is all the time. In health we're told I'm not telling you not to smoke pot, but you'll die if you do!, and I can't even use the bathroom in peace without being bombarded with biased statistics (I'm looking at you, Tinkle Times). Okay, maybe "80% of NT students didn't smoke pot the last time they hung out with their friends," but what if they were with their friends at the mall and didn't have the opportunity to smoke? 

This Pew Research Survey reveals that every demographic (at least the ones they tested) believes that alcohol is more harmful and dangerous to society than marijuana. 

After the disastrous prohibition era of the 1920's, alcohol has been a cultural staple for American social gatherings. Despite its widespread use, however, majority of Americans consider it to be more harmful than marijuana. Even 45% of those who don't believe in its legalization answered that it is less harmful to a person's health than alcohol. Hell, even Obama agrees!

So why, then, is alcohol legal and weed illegal? Alcohol itself has always been accepted by the general population, but propoganda against the use of marijuana has made people demonize it. Just look at Reefer Madness, for example. The film, released in 1936, is filled with unintentionally hilarious scenes of teenagers commiting manslaughter and descending into madness (and having a nervous breakdown while listening to piano music).

We do have to remember that public opinion isn't always scientifically accurate. At one point in history, the popular opinion was that slavery was just fine.

Knowing this, I still can't help but agree with the results of the survey. There are thousands of deaths due to alcohol poisoning every year, but how many deaths due to marijuana overdose have occured? 

Do you agree with the results of the survey? Which do you believe is more dangerous: weed or alcohol? 

Reading for Pleasure

When I was little, I loved reading. The first "real book" I read was Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's (Philosopher's to the Brits) Stone. After devouring the whole series over the course of two months, I was hooked.

I'm not exactly sure why I loved them so much. At first I wanted to read them because my older sister Hanna was reading them and I thought she was the coolest thing since Olympic Swimming Barbie. But then I finished the series (up to Order of the Phoenix, of course, because Half Blood Prince hadn't been released yet). I ended up with another fantasy book, and then another. Next thing I knew, I was on to young adult fiction. 

Then high-school started. Suddenly I had to read books I had to, not because I wanted to. I stopped reading for pleasure because the act of reading itself was sometimes tedious (None of my American Studies books, of course. Junot Díaz 4 lyfe!). 

I'm not the only one who stopped. According to this article from The Atlantic, about 50% of Americans ages 18-24 haven't read a single book for pleasure in the past year. The total number of Americans who don't read has tripled since 1978.

So why this drastic decrease in reading for pleasure? Maybe for the same reason that I stopped. When you're required to read for school, reading ceases to be an enjoyable hobby and turns into a job. Sure, some of the books you read in school are fantastic, but having to slow down to annotate stops you from becoming fully immersed in the text.

One of the biggest reasons for the decrease in reading is that everything is so goddamn distracting now. You're just sitting there, reading some Vonnegut, when your phone starts vibrating in your pocket, and oh, someone liked my Facebook status! The poor Vonnegut book is forgotten, dog eared in the same spot for all eternity. So it goes.

Why do you think that fewer high-school students read for fun? How many books have you read for pleasure this year?

Why I'd Rather Be Tortured than Put in Solitary Confinement

When most people hear the word torture, they imagine waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and starving, among countless other types of physical pain. When I hear the word torture, I think of those same things, of course, but the very first thing that pops into my head is solitary confinement.

This article from The Week tells the story of a man who was in solitary confinement for 75 days. His 7-by-ten-foot cell contained only a small bed and a toilet. The only thing he had that vaguely resembled human contact was the occasional glimpse of a security guard through a tiny plastic window in the door of his cell.

I can't even begin to imagine being completely and utterly alone. Everyone has experienced physical pain, but who has experienced living in a cell like that with no human interaction or way to pass the time for months? Your brain needs stimulation, and when it doesn't get enough from your environment, it creates its own. In solitary confinement, you start to hallucinate. Your brain goes into a fog and you can't concentrate on anything. 

The man in the article describes how his life has changed after his time in solitary. He stands on trains with his back to the door because he can't let people come up behind him, which makes crowds difficult. He struggles with paranoid fears of being attacked by strangers on the street or policemen for no reason.

Why do you think that our prison systems still use solitary confinement as a form of punishment? Do you think that solitary confinement can be justified?

Teenagers need more sleep

A recent study from University of Minnesota Center for Applied Research and Educational Improvement has validated what teenagers have known since middle school: we can't get enough sleep because school starts too early. Teenagers who get under 8 hours of sleep tend to be more prone to depression and anxiety, high-risk behavior (e.g. drugs and alcohol), attention issues, and low academic performance. The researchers conclude that starting school just an hour or two later than the typical 7:30 start time would improve academic performance and reduce tardiness, among countless other things.

Every day I walk into advisory to find half the people half asleep, dark circles under their eyes, a cup of coffee glued to their hands. Had they been able to sleep just a little longer, they would be more alert and not half-dead.

So why is it so difficult to get schools to change? Maybe it's because parents with multiple children usually have established schedules to get everyone to school on time. Generally, elementary schools start later in the morning. The older you get, the earlier school starts, until college. A later start time could disrupt a household's entire routine and make it difficult for anyone to be on time. There are also after-school sports to consider. Unless we shortened the length of the school day (which is not going to happen), a later start would mean a later dismissal. Outdoor sports teams would be forced to play in the dark, especially in winter when the days are shorter.

Do you think there's a way for the school districts to compromise?

Facebook instead of Face-to-Face

I’m constantly hearing from adults that I need to get off “The Facebook” and go be social.  Ross Douthat, a writer for the New York Times, has now joined my parents in arguing against social interaction through the internet in his article The Age of Individualism.

Typically someone raised in a home without a ton of exposure to the internet or other groups of people would adopt their parents’ religion or political party. But with internet access, your brain becomes a mixing pot of ideas.

People around my age don’t generally go to church to hang out with friends on sundays. They’re more likely to be sitting at home and writing American Studies blogs or binge-watching Netflix. They’re not getting their sense of community from a religious institution or even a or an actual meetup. Instead, they’re making their social connections through internet mediums like Facebook.

The consequence of this departure from face-to-face social interaction is that it is considerably more difficult to trust other people. According to the Pew Research Survey Millennials in Adulthood: detached from Institutions, Networked with Friends, only 19% of millennials responded that generally speaking, most people can be trusted. It’s a lot easier to trust a tightly-knit group of people who you meet with regularly than it is to trust that girl you went to summer camp with in 6th grade who you occasionally chat with on Facebook.

This mistrust is bred by the lack of physical community. It’s a lot harder to lie face-to-face that it is to lie on on the internet because you don’t have to worry about body language or tone of voice. Knowing this, why would you immediately place your trust in every one of your 436 Facebook friends, 370 which are total strangers?

Would it be better for young people to shut their laptops and join a youth-group, or should things stay as they are? Is there a realistic happy medium?

"To [quote], or not to [quote]? That is the question."

Everybody loves quoting. As a high-school student, my first instinct when writing a paper is to find a quote and build my argument around it. It’s much easier to add on to someone else’s words than to write words of your own. The problem with this is the tendency to let the quote speak for itself rather than explaining it. In the words of Maria Konnikova, a writer for the New York Times, “Quotation becomes a way not to add depth to your thinking, but to avoid thinking in the first place.”

See what I did right there? I didn’t bother to flesh out my argument at all. I could’ve used any quote there that said the same thing because I just left a blank space. I just quoted because the line was readily available and I have a healthy appreciation for irony. But most people use quotation because it’s an easy way to avoid thinking and to save time.

Quotes are abundant online. I can go search ‘quotes’ into google and get about 215,000,000 results in .2 seconds. So when a teacher assigns a paper with “a minimum of FIVE quotes,” why shouldn’t I pull phrases from sources online in order to meet the quota? I can use a quote as a springboard to develop my entire argument. But in the words of Konnikova, “when we strip away context, we strip away everything that enables us to determine what something really means. Words themselves become decorative — evocative, perhaps, but denuded of their essence.” Americans have the tendency to focus on the decoration instead of the substance.

In the North Shore especially you can look out the window and see a cluster of mothers in full exercise gear -LuluLemon yoga pants, pink tennis shirts, visors- drinking Starbucks and not even exercising. What’s the point of dressing up like you’re going to the gym when you’re actually just going to chat with your child’s friend’s parents? It’s to give the appearance of fitness. And while they take clothes out of context to look good, their children grow up to go to New Trier and write papers that consist almost entirely of quotations to make them sound smarter.

Always remember these words of Ralph Waldo Emerson: “I HATE quotation. Tell me what you know.”

Do you think that excessive use of quotation should be encouraged? Have you ever found yourself relying on quotation when you don't know what to write?