Blog #5

When we were assigned to read Thoreau, I found it sort of ironic.We have been discussing in class about learning things because it's good for us, Thoreau was one of the few writers that I remember from the Lit class I took as a junior in high school. I even found it funny that I remembered his "live deliberately" views. I guess it was good I learned about him, cause I did in fact use it later in life.
Anyway, I really don't feel I could just go live in a shack in the woods by myself. Sure, if something crazy happened and the world went nuts, I guess you would have to adjust to it. I just don't see the point of dropping not only technology but, dropping a part of the way we live. Whether we like it or not, technology does run the world around us. I'm not saying that, having technology effect the way we live, is good thing. I mean sure it helps us out, but since it helps us out so much it changed us. Whether we want to admit it or not, it definitely has made our generation and every generation after us a lot more lazy. All in all I really wouldn't want to give up my technology because I use it so much in my daily life.

Blog # 4

As I was reading the article, "The Dumbest Generation," I got the feeling the author truely felt we were the dumbest generation. Because we have cellphones, TV's, computers, and etc, if they would have had these they would have used them all the time too. As we discussed in our group, we all had the feeling of how the older generation thinks the younger generation has it easier. You could compare it to high school, the upperclassmen pick on the freshman. This is just a tradition that always happens. Older people  might say that younger kids don't go outside as much and that they would play outside all day. Well, when they were growing up there was really wasn't much to do inside.

Going along with that point, Bauerlein attacks students that don't know about ancient Venician history, take a poll, I bet more than half never even heard of the Venicians. Some people no a lot about certain things and less about others, depending on what they take up in college. I'm not saying learning about diverse things isn't good for us. Learning a wide range of things makes us more intelligent. All in all, I think Bauerlein has somewhat of a point but I think he's being way too harsh.

Blog #3

Fifty years ago you would find American couples meeting in different places, bars, clubs, restaraunts, etc. Nowadays, you see many other relationships starting somewhere else, online. In the movie Second Skin you see many couples that are now dating or even engaged that have met in an MMORPG. Massivley multiplayer online role-playing games have taken off as a place for people to make friends or even meet future husbands/wives. Technology has completely changed the way we live, if you would've said to people 20 years ago that they could possibly meet the love of your life online they would've laughed at you. Now, its very common. In Culture Jam, Lasn talks about how technology is bad and is changing Americans to be lazy. It has, but it is very beneficial for us. In the movie we might've found it funny about the couples and how much they played but for them, they are happy as can be. Which in the end, isn't that what all of us Americans are on, the pursuit of happiness?

Blog #2

     As I was reading "It's Gotta Be the Cheese" I kept laughing at the lines like "cover me head to toe in pe-sliced singles of this food." The author repeatedly makes jokes about cheese and how perfect we have made it since we process it and chemically change in a lab. This poem is funny but it indirectly makes fun of Americans. We try so hard to something perfect and waste all this time and money just to make a simple piece of cheese taste "good." In Culture Jam, Lasn is straightforward and just calls out Americans on buying things we don't need and wasting money. He then goes on to talk about how Americans are hypochondriacs and they always think they have something wrong with them. The exact same point that is being made in the "Cheese." We thought something was wrong with the cheese and we had to keep fixing it even though it was probably just as good to start. I'll agree with both authors in some but not all Americans always try to have the best things or always feel they have some sort of sickness.

Introduction

My name is Shane Frank, I'm a finance major here at Ship. I'm 19 years old and from Pottsville, PA. I'm a big sports fan especially baseball.