Life Sculpting Situations

The essay that we are writing for class about "life sculpting situations/memories" was easy for me to write, because I have had a lot of specific events that stand out to me in my life, but other people may not remember things as specifically. I believe that some people just do not think that events in their life change who they are, when in reality everything that happens to them on a day to day basis seperates them from everyone else. Everyone is different because of their experiences; no one has exactly the same experience, or the same take in what happened. Any event could have been writen about for this essay, I think because if you can remember it, well, it's a memory then isn't it???

Radiolab

The radiolab podcast that we listened to in class about Memory started a controversial discussion in the classroom. Should we delete someone's memory if they want to? I believe that we should be able to, but only to a point. If someone had a really traumatic experience, they should be able to erase the memory. Or as this procedure works, it removes them from the memory emotionally, which would allow the memory to still be there, they would just not feel the pain or fear anymore. I think this is a great discovery and could be great for people with post-traumatic stress disorder. However, if everyone were able to get rid of the unwanted memories in their lives, the world would be filled with happy careless people not afraid of getting hurt.

"Indians are no longer important in American History"

In Elementary American History and Government, I found that the authors, James A. Woodburn and T.F. Morgan, were extremely biased. Throughout the reading we were given ("The Indians"), I found many of the things they said very appalling. For example, in the section titled "Warfare", the first sentence I found obnoxiously unknowledgeable. It reads: "The Indians were constantly at war, either among themselves or with white men." This statement convinces me that either the extent of the authors' knowledge is extremely limited, or that their ignorance is great. The fact that they stated that the Indians were are war among themselves made me angry; did they not understand that there are different tribes of the Native Americans, just like there are different countries of Europeans? But the topic I found the most confounding was the section titled "Religion." They stated that "The Indians were not very religious, but he did think that the souls of the dead went to a far-off 'happy hunting ground.'" I was simply taken aback by that sentence. The complete disregard for Indian culture disgusts me. What does "not very religious" mean? That they were not Christian? And "a far-off 'happy hunting ground.'" First off, not all Indian tribes hunted. You cannot generalize based on one source; which I would actually very much like to see a list of the sources these authors used. Yes, the book was written in 1914, but that does not mean anything. This was quite possibly the most biased article I have ever read.

Appearance vs. News

This week in class, we talked about the previous White House press secretary, Tony Snow, and the current one, Dana Perino. We talked about how the White House has been using more attractive individuals to speak for them. This may be to distract the public from the important issues, or maybe becuase more people will listen if they make it easier on the viewer's eyes. If the speaker were to be some old, balding, hunched man, would there be the effect that no one would watch, or would people listen more closely to what is being said and take it more seriously? I have been back and forth with this issue, and I cannot come to a conclusion.