"And in the distance I could see the sparkling lights of Laramie, Wyoming."

City Lights-

Bustling, Crowded, Noisy,

Hectic, Stressful, Loud....

Distant, Elevated, Removed,

Calm, Quiet, Serene,

Beatiful, Bright, Sparkling.

Negative Stereotype

Almost everyone is familiar with the stereotype that women are worse drivers than men.  Teen girls are especially criticized as being poor drivers and easily distracted.  This picture shows a young girl driving while talking on the phone and putting on lipstick.  While I'm sure there are female drivers that frequently drive distracted, there are probably just as many male drivers that do the same thing.  If women really are as bad at driving as the stereotype suggests then how come young male drivers are the ones that have to pay the most for car insurance?

Positive Sterotype

It's a pretty widely known positive stereotype that most Asians are good at math, and I think that this one might have some fact behind it.  Some possible explanations for this stereotype is that there are better schools in Asia, they go to school more often/longer, or they just put more emphasis on math.  Also, languages like Chinese, Japanese, and Korean might be set up better so that kids can understand things like counting and fractions more easily than kids can in English. But none of these explanations address the success of Asian-Americans with math.  I think that the main reason they tend do better is probably more pressure to succeed coming from their parents. Regardless of why they are better, or even whether or not they are actually better, I see it as a positive stereotype that people assume Asian people are really good at math.

Whites

I couldn't really think of a positive stereotype that applied to me so I decided to just go with this picture.  Some positive stereotypes for white people is that they are rich, prone to be successful, and unlikely to commit crimes.  In my opinion positive stereotypes can be just as bad as negative stereotypes depending on the situation.

Jocks

In my opinion Jock is a negative stereotype that isn't even very accurate anymore.  In movies and t.v. shows football players are always wearing their letterman jackets and they are almost always portrayed as bullies.  Jocks also tend to be unintelligent, but at Monarch I think athletes break away from the stereotype because they are usually super nice and they tend to be pretty motivated academically too.

Controversy

Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church heavily protested at Matthew Shepard's funeral in Casper, Wyoming on Saturday, October 17, 1998.  Phelps held signs that said "No Special Laws for Fags" and even one that had a picture of Matt on it that read "Matt In Hell".   Luckily, people who cared about Matthew and his family dressed up as angels and used their large wings to try to block out the hateful signs.  They had ear plugs to block out yelling and they remained silent with their eyes closed or looking up at Matt in heaven.

Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkQysLewF4w

The video I chose is an audio excerpt from "The Laramie Project." It is a dramatization of Matthew's dad giving a speech in the court room right before the sentencing of Aaron McKinney.  This is a very powerful video because of both the pictures and the speech itself.  Towards the end of the video Matthew's father explains his reasoning for "granting Mr. McKinney life" by not giving him the death penalty.  He tells Mr. McKinney that every time he celebrates Christmas, a birthday or the 4th of July to remember that Matt isn't.  He goes on to say that he will never forgive Mr. McKinney for taking his son away, and then at the end he says, "May you have a long life, and may you thank Matthew every day for it."

Trial

This is a picture of Russell Henderson, Aaron McKinney, and Chastity Pasley. Henderson pleaded guilty on April 5, 1999 and agreed to testify against McKinney to avoid the death penalty. McKinney was found him guilty of felony murder, but Shepard's parent's didn't want him to get the death penalty so both McKinney and Henderson received 2 life sentences without the possibility of parole. Pasley was sentenced to 15 months in jail for being an accessory to the murder.

Matthew Shepard Bio

Matthew Wayne Shepard was born in Casper, Wyoming on December 1st, 1976(1976-12-01).  In February 1995,  Shepard was beaten and raped during a high school trip to Morocco.  This was obviously a traumatic experience for Shepard and his family, and he experienced depression and panic attacks following the incident. On October 6, 1998, Shepard met Aaron McKinney and Russell Henderson at the Fireside Lounge in Laramie, Wyoming. McKinney and Henderson pretended to be gay in order to gain Shepard's trust, and they offered to give him a ride home.  The two men proceeded to drive Shepard to a remote area where they robbed, tortured, and beat him.  They then tied him to a fence and left him there to die.  When he was discovered 18 hours later he was barely alive and in a coma. Shepard was pronounced dead 5 days later at 12:53 a.m. on October 12, 1998.  He died at Poudre Valley Hospital, in Fort Collins, Colorado.

Brands

      If I had to choose one brand that identified me the most, or rather one that I identified with the most, it would probably be Nike.   I love shoes, and Nike is my favorite brand.  Another company I’m extremely loyal to is actually taco bell.  But as it said in the video I have come to realize that virtually every product I buy I purchase in an effort to fit into a longed for lifestyle.  Hats, shoes, clothes, backpacks, ski/snowboard gear, wallets, even things like mountain dew, I buy everything I do because I’m trying to fit in to a certain group.  I really liked the quote about how people buy products to fit into a longed for lifestyle, and I think it is generally true for most people even if they don’t realize it.

Culture I want to be a part of

School Culture

Family Culture

Social Culture

Media Culture

Media

 1. a plural of medium.

2.

( usually used with a plural verb ) the means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, and magazines, that reach or influence people widely: The media are covering the speech tonight.

I think media culture is the bias and slant that everyone receives from the news 

This picture of media culture is ironic because obama is reporting for cnn outside the capitol building.  

 Social Media is kind of a culture in and of itself.  As that one lady said in the video we watched in class, your online self is basically a second you.

 The google and wikipedia SOPA protests were media culture because they were fighting to keep the internet uncensored by the government.

Mass Culture

Mass Culture- noun		The culture that is widely disseminated via the media

I think mass culture is both the culture that people follow blindly, (the desire to conform and fit into society) as well as the mainstream culture we get from the media.  Mass Culture is common similarities shared by a lot of people, and it is also the social norms of a society.  This includes laws and customs that apply to everyone.

 Christianity is an example of mass culture because there are at least 2 billion Christians in the world.

This is a great picture of mass culture because it shows that McDonalds has spread almost everywhere.

Popular Culture

Popular culture (commonly known as pop culture) is the totality of ideas, perspectives, attitudes, memes,^[1] images and other phenomena that are deemed preferred per an informal consensus within the mainstream of a given culture, especially Western culture of the early to mid 20th century and the emerging global mainstream of the late 20th and early 21st century. Heavily influenced by mass media, this collection of ideas permeates the everyday lives of the society.
Popular culture is often viewed as being trivial and dumbed-down in order to find consensual acceptance throughout the mainstream. As a result, it comes under heavy criticism from various non-mainstream sources (most notably religious groups and countercultural groups) which deem it superficial, consumerist, sensationalist, and corrupted.^{[2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10]}
The term "popular culture" was coined in the 19th century or earlier^[11] to refer to the education and general "culturedness" of the lower classes, as was delivered in an address at the Birmingham Town Hall, England.^[12] The term began to assume the meaning of a culture of the lower classes separate from (and sometimes opposed to) "true education" towards the end of the century,^[13] a usage that became established by the interbellum period.^[14] The current meaning of the term, culture for mass consumption, especially originating in the United States, is established by the end of World War II.^[15] The abbreviated form "pop culture" dates to the 1960s.^[16]



Pop  Culture is what people think is popular.  It's trends, new music, popular art, current fashion, new video games, or things like texting and how people talk.  Popular culture is what is hip and cool.

 The Super Bowl is part of Pop Culture because it is an event that a lot of people watch.
 ^{Justin Bieber represents popular culture because a bunch of people really like him right now.}

^{Tebow is a major figure in pop culture but only in Colorado or among broncos/football fans.}  








 Justin Bieber represents popular culture because a bunch of people really like him right now.

Elite

High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture. In more popular terms, it is the culture of an elite such as the aristocracy or intelligentsia, but also defined as a repository of a broad cultural knowledge, as a way of transcending the class system. It is contrasted with the low culture or popular culture of, variously, the less well-educated, barbarians, Philistines, or the masses.^[1]


Elite Culture to me is basically people that think they're better than other people.  Elite can have a very negative connotation and most people in Elite Culture or High Society think that they are somehow better than everyone else just because they are rich, educated, or good looking. 
 Royalty is one of the best examples of elite culture.

 Sometimes it could even be athletic ability that places people into elite culture.  But these guys also go to Harvard.

Culture

Definition of CULTURE

1

: cultivation, tillage

2

: the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education

3

: expert care and training <beauty culture>

4

a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills

5

a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time <popular culture> <southern culture> c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization <a corporate culture focused on the bottom line> d : the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic <studying the effect of computers on print culture> <changing the culture of materialism will take time — Peggy O'Mara>

6

: the act or process of cultivating living material (as bacteria or viruses) in prepared nutrient media; also : a product of such cultivation 

I would personally define culture as everything about a group of people.  Culture is everything from race, religion, language, and social norms, to things like music, art, hobbies, occupations, architecture,  food, clothing, and likes and dislikes.

This a clash of African Culture and British ideals.   Two completely different cultures at war with one another.

This is Native American culture because shows how they dress, and it is expression, and maybe even religion through dance.

Images that describe me

 This image is powerful for me because it happened in America, and without a caption I probably would not have known that this was the occupy Seattle movement.  Right now I think I am opposed to the occupy movement, this is because the protesters don't know what they are protesting for.  If they had a specific objective or goal that they wanted to accomplish then i could respect them.  But right now they are protesting just for the sake of complaining and this type of behavior has the potential to be extremely dangerous.

Tag Cloud

Tag Cloud

Technology

Increasing Dependence on Technology-


 Although technology definitely has some significant drawbacks to overcome, it is still a vital part of society and our entire species.  Intelligence and technology is the one thing that sets us apart from other animals, and it is the key to our survival. Humans have always utilized technology for our benefit since almost the very begging of our existence, and I think we will continue to do so until our species becomes extinct.  Technology in healthcare prolongs our lives, and while we are alive technology makes our lives easier.  The only problem is that we are becoming more and more dependent on it each year, so when the technology inevitably fails we do as well.  Just think of all of the ways technology could ruin your day: Your printer could break halfway through printing a project for school or work, a flight could be delayed when you're trying to get to an important meeting, or your car might break down miles away from the job interview of your life.  The list goes on and on, and as we all become increasingly reliant on our technology, we also increase the amount of damage it will do when it fails.

In this example all guests in the hotel got locked out of their rooms.  If hotels simply used regular keys, this wouldn't have happened.
http://technorati.com/lifestyle/travel/article/when-technology-fails-guests-locked-out/


http://www.pcworld.com/article/229876/solar_flares_could_cripple_earths_tech_infrastructure_in_2013.html
This article is about the tech crippling effects of solar flares.  In the article it said it won't end the world, just ruin a day or two, but on history channel I watched a show about mega disasters and the show said that a huge solar flare would be much more serious.  And what would really get us would be the aftermath of having all our technology knocked out for a couple days.  Refrigeration failures would lead to lack of food, and a shortage of clean water could lead to violence and riots to obtain supplies.

Here is a video illustrating the flare and how to survive it- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVe8Iji7DxY&feature=related&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

Movie

Remember the Titans

Kara- Step

The music video I chose is a random video i stumbled upon one day on youtube.  It is actually in Korean, and I have no clue what they're saying, but the visual elements of the music video are definitely stunning.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYoYoBtLqOY&ob=av2e&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active