Annotated Reading List

Kiedis, Anthony, and Larry Sloman. Scar Tissue. New York: Hyperion, 2004. Print.

Scar Tissue is the deliciously deranged and drug-infested memoir of Red Hot Chili Peppers front man, Anthony Kiedis. He tells his readers about what life was like growing up in Los Angeles with his drug-dealing father, how the Red Hot Chili Peppers (RHCP) formed, what happened during RHCP, tours how drug addiction haunted him throughout his life, and the people he met along the way. Kiedis mentioned how his English teachers through out grade school and college fancied his writing style and I can see why! His casual, yet descriptive, story-telling tone makes it seem almost as if he were telling me the story before my eyes. Though I have never been addicted to drugs myself, he very distinctively describes the feelings drug addiction brings to where I understand. (465 pages)

Lamb, Sharon, and Lyn Mikel Brown. Packaging Girlhood: Rescuing Our Daughters from Marketers' Schemes. New York: St. Martin's, 2006. Print.

In Packaging Girlhood, authors Sharon Lamb and Lyn Mikel Brown inform mothers about the media selling an imaginary picture of women being girly, motherly, sexy, and powerless to their daughters. Images such as these are subliminally pounded into girls' skulls at young ages in disney movies clothing, then gradually segue into an image of a sex appeal. Lamb and Brown offer advice to their audience to help them keep their daughters from submitting to the sexist image the media portrays of women. Since I have seen a majority of what the authors mention in the book, I know what they are talking about. The problem with that is that I know more about the tv show, movie, etc. than the authors do and I can tell when the authors over-fabricate, which they clearly do an abundance of times. For example, when they discuss That's So Raven, they say Raven's mother is dead. Any girl from ages 10-20 can tell you that Raven's mother is living (actually in the later episodes, her mother goes to law school, which should be more empowering than not). (294 pages)

Reading Reflection

I have went out of my "norm" this nine weeks and read two non-fiction books- one of which was an autobiography and the other being an informative non-fiction book. Obviously, I had more fulfillment and entertainment reading the autobiography, because it was about a musician.

I haven't quite established a regular habit of reading yet, but I am in the process of getting to that point, if I have the right book. I can read more regularly if I ask my reader-friends what books they would recommend for me, since they know what interests me. Of course, the content of the book does not carry the only issue. I also need to set out a certain time to read. With marching band, friends, responsibilities at the house, ways to make money, attempts to exercise.

I am not really having a "balanced reading diet," since I have only read non-fiction articles and books this nine weeks (except for Brave New World, but that is not exactly independent). I should probably read some more fiction, but I still come across the difficulty of finding a book I can get into. I am not good at "inking my thinking." I get distracted with my thinking. Even though I am not an expert on the subject, "inking my thinking" does enrich my understanding

Next nine weeks, I will somehow find time to read. I suppose I will read once I get home, when I originally watch television. I can also set apart a time right before I go to bed to read, also replacing time I watch T.V. Since marching season will be over next nine weeks, I'll have some more time to read and have a clearer head to think.

I want to read more auto-biographies next nine weeks, like Cherie Curry's autobiography. I have been a fan of Laurie Halse Anderson's books, so I'll go for some of those fictional books. I also heard Going Bovine was amazingly confusing, yet a wonderful read for young adults.

Socratic Seminar

In our class's seminar, we discussed Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. In this group discussion, we encountered new ideas, had our own ideas challenged, learned interesting information related to the book. All of us had to come prepared for this discussion, in order to enrich our understanding of the book, so that means no thoughts from scratch. There were some aspects of my performance in the seminar I wish I could change, and some I feel I did well on. Because of the seminar, I have become a better listener and speaker.

Since other people had input, they introduced a few new ideas to me. Thomas brought up the fact that there was a difference in surviving and living, which I had never thought of before. Kelsey actually read about Henry Ford and learned that he was very racist and, ironically enough, supported Nazism. I always thought of Henry Ford as an all-American wholesome man, but I never really looked into it.

My ideas were never challenged; we all pretty much agreed on everything. If anything, I challenged my own thinking. I first thought that since Henry Ford was a big-shot during his time, Huxley praised him with giving him a religious title in the story, but I then proposed a new idea: Perhaps Huxley condemned Ford.

Preparing for this seminar with research enriched my knowledge and understanding. I went into the research naive of the rich background information and came out of research informed and, oddly enough, refreshed. I made connections to the text, making the text more clear.

As far as participation goes, I had a lot more to say in the first discussion I was in about Huxley giving Henry Ford the role of the society's god, because it's a more touchy subject to me and researching the topic was easier than the latter topic I participated in, so I felt a bit more fulfilled in the Henry Ford topic than the topic that involved Huxley's beliefs versus Orwell's beliefs on what will destroy us.

What was difficult on the latter was research, and because of that, I was less prepared for that discussion. The question asked for my thoughts, and I did not know what could really support my thoughts. I also had a load of difficulty putting the scattered thoughts in my brain in actual sentences, which I have always had trouble with. If I had to anything over, it would be better preparation for the latter topic. If I had done that, I would be far more satisfied with my role in the group's discussion.

On the flip side, I really enjoyed the first discussion I was in, because I get some strange kick out of discussing semi-religious topics in a small group. I liked the fact that I was able to express my thoughts and have others retaliate in a respectful manner, which was something much different than my experiences of discussing a deep subject with a group (my former experience was mainly debate). Along with Kelsey's thoughts on Fordism, I loved listening to Sam and Thomas's thoughts on whether love or hate will destroy us.

I learned that I am only a good communicator, having a clean ratio of speaking to listening, when I am very well prepared and have all of my thoughts in order. Otherwise, I listen much more than speak, thus giving me a very unbalanced "speak to listen ratio." That seems to be the case with everyone-- how can one thoroughly communicate something he or she does not quite understand him/herself? I might get overly excited about a subject and feel as if I should pour all my thoughts out at once. I recall getting the feeling that words were building up in my mouth, almost distracting me from truly listening.

I am a fan of the Socratic Seminar, though I do get slightly nervous. There is nothing wrong with the Socratic system, just me. These seminars will probably assist in helping me with public speaking. I hope we can do another seminar soon.

"Save the Seals"

PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) is an organization very well known for having controversial and eye-catching ads such as an ad for the "I'd rather go naked than wear fur" campaign in which PETA has a celebrity pose completely nude. For a change, PETA took a more serious approach to an ad featuring a celebrity and for this ad, they chose Steve-O, a daredevil and TV personality. Those who know of Steve-O are aware of his wacky sense of humor and stunts that are both outrageous and painful. Their attention would most likely be brought to a cause even Steve-O is serious about.
PETA was quite clever in coming up with this ad, because it uses all three major rhetoric tools: ethos, logos, and pathos. The use of ethos is quite apparent with "Steve-O for PETA." Why should we trust Steve-O of all people? What does he know? Again, he is known for being a fun-loving and reckless guy, so whatever issue wipes the smile clear off his face must be an important issue.

Since I do not know any women or even girls my age who watch the shows Steve-O appears in, I assume this ad is aimed at teenage boys and young men. Men tend to be less sympathetic towards animals than women are mostly because somehow sensitivity and sympathy equals inadequate masculinity. If someone with as masculine as an occupation (or even appearance for the matter) as Steve-O's shows sympathy, then clearly it is okay for all of the other young men to do the same. In a way, this is a mixture of both pathos and ethos.

This ad appeals to pathos with the word choice. "Each year, many seals are killed" simply would not cut it. More accurate words are used to paint the truly horrifyingly gruesome picture of what happens to seals for their fur such as "slaughter," "massacre", "babies," and "cruel". Also, notice the angry and protective look on Steve-O's face. That helps give the reader the same emotion towards the issue. Plus, can you not help but think the seal drawn on his shirt is adorable? It let's the reader see seals in a more appealing light.

For logos, this ad has a simple, yet powerful paragraph. "Each year, tens of thousands of seals are..." That's enough to grab the reader's attention to the rest of the sentence.

To make an advertisement successful, it needs to have a combination of pathos, logos, and ethos in order to keep the attention of the reader. The reader will need someone they can trust endorsing the ad, the ad to get inside his or her head, and have the facts along with statistics.

"One Tribe"

The Black Eyed Peas are known for their very upbeat and easy-to-dance-to songs. Most people, myself included, have seen the new Pepsi commercial about Pepsi funding meaningful/charity projects. That is where I heard a tiny little excerpt of the song, "One Tribe." Since I did not pay too much attention to the lyrics, all I thought of the song was that it was very catchy.

I did not get a chance to see the lyrics to "One Tribe" until I went CPYC, a church camp that takes place in Pleasantville, this month. One day, the lesson everyone learned was to not judge people by appearances, but instead on the good we see within them, so we listened to "One Tribe" in our "small group" that day and really payed attention to the lyrics. The song was obviously fitting to the lesson with lyrics like "Don't care where you are / Don't care where you been / 'Cause where we gonna go / Is where we wanna be." Where people are and where people have been represents the not-so-good exterior others see, while where people want to go represents the beautiful interior everyone has somewhere within them that people should see.

Church camp aside, I listened to the song again and listened to the lyric "Let's cast amnesia / Forget about all that evil .... that evil that they feed you." Sure, I heard the lyric, but it really made me think. Who teaches us our prejudices and grudges? Our family? Our friends? Our teachers? The media? The truth is all of them are "feeding us that evil." They feed us racism, sexism, stereotyping, and profiling. Think about it, a lot of the unfortunate events in the world sources from that evil. The only possible way it could stop is if we erased our memory of the evil that the world pours into our head.

Would it not be great if we could just forget about everything that happened in the past and our differences and come together as one tribe?

Through the Eyes of a Pig

What do people see when they look at this photo? Obviously, most would recognize a close and warm bond between a mother pig and her piglet, and that is exactly what I recognized when I first looked at the picture, but then I took a much closer look into the picture. Disregarding the feel-good caption below the photo, I saw fear and sorrow in the piglet's eye. The piglet has a very personified facial expression in which it looks as if it will burst into tears.

One may ask, "What is the piglet so afraid of?" Take a look at where the piglet is sitting- a feeding trough. This darkly foreshadows the feeble and miserable piglet's horrendous fate as a part of someone's meal and the gruesome slaughter it will have to face beforehand. The mother has a quite peculiar facial expression. She knows from previous experiences exactly what her piglet fears and knows that her young one has every right to be worried, yet still attempts to assuage and comfort it. This piglet will be one of the many piglets people had severed from the mother's care then killed. Imagine how heartbroken and hopeless one would be if every single one of their children were brutally murdered. That is the level of pain this mother pig constantly feels and she will always feel that very agony until she cannot produce anymore young (at that point, she would be slaughtered) or until she dies.

Some peoples do not have compassion for animals because they like to think that animals cannot feel as humans feel, but whether someone looks at this photo and sees a mother loving her child or sees a piglet and its mother in fear, he or she will clearly detect an emotion that some people will never know of.

Annoted photo link

This sums me up.