Disregarding Holidays

A blog post I just read by Colin McCune got me thinking.  The post, titled "Memorializing Who?"  talked about how many Americans completely disregard memorial day and fail to think about what it is supposed to be recognizing.  I agree with Colin that it would be nice if people were more mindful of this quite patriotic holiday.  But why is it that people have such a lack of appreciation for memorial day?

I found one possible answer in an article from the Washington post called "U.S trails Europe on paid vacation time".  The article explains how the U.S. is the only major country with no legally required vacation days.  All other wealthy countries require at least 10 paid vacation days to be given by all employers.

Colin made a point about how many people go to work on memorial day.  I think working on a holiday means that you have less time to actually observe the holiday.  It's interesting that the American government wants a day for people to honor America's heroes but doesn't actually require that people are given time to do this.

I think people would be much more likely to pay more attention to this holiday if they were guaranteed to get the time off work.

Helping College Hoops

I just read a fascinating blog by Gabriel Levine-Drizen entitled One and Done.  In the blog he talked about how bright basketball prospects are effectively required to play one year of college hoops before they are allowed to play in the NBA.  Gabe talked about this rule mostly from the players' perspective, and came to the conclusion that players should be able to skip college completely.

I think the conversation changes drastically when you begin thinking about the rule from the perceptive of the NCAA and the success of college basketball.  I think it would be a massive loss to college ball if players were allowed to go straight to the NBA.

In 2012, five of the top ten players drafted out of college were freshman who had only played in college because of the requirement.  Imagine if half of the top players in the country completely bypassed playing in college.  The overall skill level in NCAA play would be severely diminished.

There are also entire programs built on taking one year players.  Take the Kentucky team for example.  They won the 2012 NCAA championship with a starting lineup of only one year players who were all drafted into the NBA shortly afterwards.  If the one year rule was not in place every one of these players would have gone straight to the NBA and this historic team would not have existed.

I personally think it would be sad if the quality of college basketball went down, it is something that many Americans love to follow, and would be hurt if players were allowed to go straight to college.

Early Senoritis

So the seniors are gone.  Their last day didn't bring any major surprises, they acted pretty much how I would have expected them to.  A some of yelling, a lot of pretty hilarious costumes, and an apathy towards KW class that bordered on aggressive.  What did surprise me was something I saw from a group of fellow juniors.

As the bell rang to dismiss all of the seniors I was walking through the cafeteria and observed a group of my classmates jumping and yelling:

"yeah we're the seniors now!"
"seniors 2014!"
"we run this school!"

When I kept looking I realized that this hadn't just been an in the moment joke.  Someone was distributing shirts with "SENIORS 2014" written across the front.

Really?  Nothing happened in any way that made us seniors already.  I guess some people just couldn't bear another week of junior year.  It seems like there's something about the title of being a senior that appeals to people even when it isn't attached to the actual qualities of being a senior.  I personally find it funny and somewhat ridiculous that these kids are calling them seniors when they still have junior finals in front of them and another summer and full year of school before they can graduate.

Fast Food Cycles

I wish I had a picture of what I saw a few days ago.  The scene was perfectly laid out as I walked into a subway attached to a gas station in Holland, Michigan.  Standing behind the counter were three white males, one looking to be in his late teens, one in his early twenties, and the other middle aged.  All slightly obese.

For me it was a haunting reminder of our class discussions about cycles.  It was as if all three were representing progression through one person's life repeated three times.  It seemed to me like they were all trapped in a repeating cycle in which they start with nowhere to go but a low level job and because of this are forced to stay in these types of jobs for the rest of their lives.

The counter also seemed to separate them from the higher class people who came in to get food.  This reminded me of in our discussion in "social class station" when someone made the observation that the lower classes always stayed separated from the upper class because of the direction they usually ride the train.  Do you think I'm being to cynical about the young worker's prospects?  Do you think he is trapped in this cycle or do you think he has more opportunity than that?  Please comment.

Thank the Lord

Last week in class we talked about how Wolf Blitzer asked a victim of the Oklahoma tornado to thank the lord on camera.  I think it's pretty obvious that this is breaking from impartial truth seeking journalism.  What intrigued me though is that Wolf Blitzer has a huge amount of experience as a journalist.  So why would he have done this on the national stage?

I don't believe it was because of Blitzer bringing personal bias into his journalism.  He is actually Jewish, and the phase "thank the lord" which he uses is much more Christian than Jewish.  I think instead, the reason relates to a blog post by Colin McCune.  In his blog "flight 93", Colin remarks how in the movie "Flight 93", there is a scene in which characters spoke the "Lord's Prayer", seeming to put American Christianity up against the flight's problems.  In Colin's opinion, the media was forced to stick to the "official narrative" in which Christianity is the dominant religion.

I think this also applies to what Wolf Blitzer did.  I believe that as a reporter for a network trying to attract as many viewers as possible, he is forced to do what he thinks the majority of people will accept.  Especially considering how predominantly Christian Oklahoma is, I think that Blitzer asking this woman to thank the Lord was his way of appealing to the popular narrative of Christianity being the belief system of the U.S.

Soda Ban

Our recent class discussion about tobacco got me thinking about how it is related to the soft drink ban proposed by mayor Bloomberg of New York.  The ban, which was rejected by New York city council in March, would have prohibited the sale of soft drinks larger than 16 ounces.

The ban faced a lot of public scrutiny.  Many people said that the government has no place in trying to protect people from themselves.  However, Bowdoin professor Sarah Connelly said in a recent New York Times op-ed that the belief that people can make healthy decisions amid all the marketing of our world is “clinging to an illusion”.  She believes that it is the government’s job to help people with bans like the soda ban in New York.

Smoking used to be a much bigger problem in the US then it is today.  The percentage of adults who smoke is less than half of what it was in the 1950s.  Much of this is because of government action in the form of taxing.  Hannah DePorter found in a recent blog that it costs less than a dollar to produce a pack of cigarettes, but the government takes $4.66 in taxes for every pack sold.  It seems to me like this huge tax has had positive effects on the general health of Americans. 

Right now 35% of Americans are obese while less than 20% are smokers, and a lot of the blame falls on sugary drinks.  I think it would be a great idea for the government to step in to help people make healthy choices on things like soda, but maybe instead of the ban that mayor Bloomberg proposed, we could take a lesson from how successful the government has been at diminishing smoking.  Maybe if soft drinks were just made more expensive, people would be more likely to make healthier choices.

Live Like The 1%

Today I got the opportunity to look around at what some seniors have been doing on senior project.  One booth particularly caught my eye.  Several student had done a project on designing T-shirts.  The reason I was drawn to the booth was one design in particular, which had giant letters, shown as cutouts of a $100 bill, saying "live like the 1%".  Below these words is a depiction of a sailboat and a golfer.

In  my opinion, wearing this shirt would be an incredibly disrespectful way of flaunting wealth.  "Live like the 1%" implies that living in any other way would be wrong.  It's going so far as to say that they way 99% of Americans live is incorrect because they don't have as much money as the 1%.  The wearer of this shirt would be conveying the message to me that he sees himself as better that everyone who doesn't fit into the same elite group that they do.  And if you do happen to live incorrectly, like almost all of America apparently does, Benjamin Franklin's eye will be watching you judgmentally from behind the "K".

The fact that the shirt says "1%" instead of something like "the wealthy" also heightens the elitist nature of the shirt.  If someone begins to live their life "correctly" and moves up into the 1% of the population that does, then whoever was at the bottom of the 1% is kicked out.  Its as if the way you live your life is not as important as the fact that you live better than 99% of people.

I also think the images they chose to put on the bottom are fascinating.  Golf and sailing.  It's strange to me that this is what they chose to somehow represent what living like the 1% is.  Neither of these things have very much to do at all with acquiring money, but isn't the 1% based solely on money?  This to me highlights the negative stereotypes of people in the 1%, that they don't really work for their money or contribute to society and only partake in leisurely activities like golf and sailing.

I sincerely hope for all involved that this shirt never comes within a mile of any occupy protest.