Entry Neun - Insulting

As the prompt says we all have heard some sort of ethic, sexist or racial insults; but what I find interesting is how most of us just brush it off. In more cases than not, these insults most likely came at the end of a joke. Even though we may have just heard something incredibly rude, the set up to the punch line makes most of us laugh and completely ignore the negativity coming from the comment.
What I believe is one of the factors that is making us immune to these remarks, is the frequent use of the terms. Take today's rap music for example, almost every single song uses the derogatory "N word" that I'm incredibly uncomfortable even thinking to myself. Because it is used so often, and listened by people of mostly younger ages, I think kids are getting it into their heads that they can say whatever they please. I'm not saying they shouldn't speak their minds, because they should, but kids shouldn't be using language like that, in fact I feel no one really should. It sounds astonishingly closed minded, I know, but to be honest I don't care. When there is so much negativity around a word why should it still be used in conversation at all?
I think television on the other hand doesn't spread as much prejudicial language because of the FCC. They tend to censor or stop most of the really bad and insulting stuff. When we do see an insult in television it's usually because it is the easiest place to go to. Commenting on someone's ethnicity or sex is probably easier than just walking away from an argument. So I think that's how it can spread in terms of television, we use that form of insult to make ourselves feel better for a moment. Movies on the other hand have a lot more freedom than television so it plays a bigger role. Since movies are mostly depicting the lives of "normal" people, what we hear and see become the norm. I think we are highly influenced when it comes to film so it may only take a few movies or a single actor to spread these insults, and people will feel that it's ok because so-and-so said it in their movies. By the way when did movies start becoming so language filled? I recently saw an old Hitchcock film without a single "curse word" and it was one of the best movies I've seen in my life.
The prompt also asks how books spread these insults around, truthfully I can't say. I don't read often, and when I do it's probably a comic book. What literature I have read though, I can't recall if there was ever any really insulting things, I have a terrible memory.
So I guess in the terms of entertainment mediums, I feel music and movies are the two most influencing forms of spread prejudice insults due to the sheer number of audience members. It's a shame it gets to our kids and they grow up using this language.

Entry Acht - True Happiness

Which is more important happiness or self-respect? That's a tough one to answer.
Although it may seem like happiness is a better selection, I think having self-respect would ultimately lead to more happiness over a person's life time. Basically, the more confidence you have in yourself, the easier it is to enjoy the things in life and have the bad things hurt less. The more someone believes in themselves the more likely, when insulted or maybe faced with the breaking of a relationship, they can bounce back or brush off the bad and go on with their lives. I think the decision between happiness and self-respect is harder than usual because the two are related so closely. To be happy means to genuinely like what you are doing or the people your with etc. but how can you like the things and people around you if you don't like or respect yourself? I guess I feel that people with low self-esteem tend to be less happy than most people overall. Happiness is the quality or state of being happy; pleasure, contentment, or joy how can someone truly enjoy these things if they can't stand or be happy about themselves?
This may be an unrelated and meaningless tangent, but I feel neither happiness or self-respect is truly possible without other people, friends and family, to be there with us. I haven't read any of Jane Austen's works, but I think the main theme that occurs throughout is love, right? Being in love supposed to be an ultimate form of happiness, which is simply impossible without someone else for one to love and to be loved back. Love is complicated though so a more common form of happiness is simply enjoying the company of our friends and family. I guess what I am trying to say is that without other people one cannot be happy; sure they may say they are, but it's lonely without anyone else, how can you be truly happy with loneliness? (Although from time to time we do like having a moment to ourselves, but just ignore that for now.)
Now self-respect is just that, one respecting themselves, so how do other people enter into how we can have better self-esteem? It's quite easy to think about it for a moment. Don't we all have at least one person in our lives that we just respect or adore? When that one person, or people, compliments us just once, doesn't it just immediately boost the confidence in yourself? I think I'm trying to say that we need someone, anyone, to confirm our existence, just once, to reach the highest level of true self-respect. Because once that person who we admire tells you you're perfect, it'll always be in your mind, no one can bring you down now.
So, again, I think self-respect can bring more happiness over a lifetime, but we cannot have true happiness or self-respect without having someone by our sides. Isn't it better to enjoy life with someone else anyways?

Entry Sieben - My Social Ungraces

We all know we give off "vibes" from the way we walk and talk, but are you aware of what you do around other people on a daily basis? Personally I can easily recall the things that I do; I am most definitely not the most normal person in the world it's just the way we are.
The first thing that I can think of about myself, is the fact that I tend to wear a baseball cap most days. I am incredibly self conscience about one thing and that is my hair; I don't know why, I just am, and it annoys the heck out of me. So most days I usually say to myself "Screw it," and put on the hat to cover up the hair. Sure a hat's a hat, but I think that on a sub-conscience level, or whatever, the hat is an early sign that someone may not be sociable or isn't in the mood. I think it's due to the fact that it's covering something on the most obvious part on our bodies, the head. Even though I know my hat could be a factor into why some people would not want to be sociable around me, I'm far too lazy to get my hair "perfect" everyday.
Another problem I have a terrible time dealing with is eye contact. I cannot keep eye contact with anyone, it doesn't matter who you are I am incapable of keeping contact for the life of me. The better I know a person the longer I can keep it up, but at some point in the conversation I just need to look away, it's horrible. I know darn well that this just ticks people off, I can only imagine how put off that someone might feel who has a conversation with me. It's always like I am never interested in what anyone says, when it's the opposite that usually true. And again, this happens all the time, when I'm meeting someone new or just talking to a friend. So anyone meeting me for the first time, sorry, I'm not not interested I'm just messed up in the head.
Being socially awkward it's not hard for me to come up with these nonverbal cues that I do all the time. To keep this relatively short though, so I'll stick to one more and save you the suffering of it all. I guess the next biggest thing that puts people off of me would be my posture most likely. I am a sloucher, half the time I tend to slump as far down as I can in chairs and the other half I am usually humped over. It's just another one of the things that I feel make people think that I don't want to be sociable.
I give myself an "okay" grade in terms of sociability, because if you and I can get passed all the awkwardness that makes up me, I'm actually pretty nice and quite talkative. I guess I just need to work on the ungraceful social exterior , I'm in for some work aren't I?

Entry Sechs - Dialects

Whether we think about it or not, the dialect or accent someone uses influences what we think about them before we even get to know the person. For example I tend to stereotype people who have a New York or a New Jersey accents as people are or would be incredibly rude. As I’m sure we all know or can surmise, dialects and accents are regionally based, I can think of four different dialects off the top of my head in the United States alone. It’s very easy to listen to someone speak and create a stereotype or opinion of their life when the truth could be the complete opposite.

Unfortunately it is pretty safe to say we all do it in some way, the way personal experiences and the way society around us portrays most people tend to make our stereotypes true more often than not. When we look at things like television and movies, we see this all the time. Even though most of us are aware enough to know that stereotyping people like this is wrong, the way we observe and take in everything around us, it’s just human nature to assume the worst. Relaying back to television, the way T.V. shows portray gang members and their speech, when I hear someone speak just like that in real life, I can’t help but think “He’s in a gang.” I personally hate that that is the place I go to first, but there isn’t much evidence in the world to make me think of the positive originally.

Gang members are obviously not the only stereotype we look at, when you hear someone with a southern accent what do you think? Because I’ve spent half of my life living in Texas, what we think may be different. I feel that in movies or television people with southern accents, or at least a Texan accent, are seen as a “slower” member of society and/or are cowboys. I know this to be false, although in the rural parts of the south, you are more likely to meet a farmer or a cowboy, but they are outnumbered by people who are not in the cities and growing neighborhoods. So like the dialects that vary by region, the perception of these accents also varies by region.

Although we know the stereotypes are there, it’s kind of hard to think how they got started in the first place. The only explanation I can think of is simply someone hearing or using the kind of dialect or accent and it just spread from there. Keeping in line with the gang member reference, I think that it just spread so new/other gang members can feel a sense of togetherness through the use of language. Thinking about it, that makes sense as a whole; other people adopt/use certain dialects in order to fit in or in some cases to stand out in their local communities. So it’s pretty safe to say that the dialects and the stereotypes that go with them won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Entry Fünf - English Gobalization

As Mauro E. Mujica stated in Why the U.S. Need an Official Language, “English is the language of business, higher education, diplomacy, aviation, the Internet, science, popular music, entertainment, and international travel.” If one was to think about it, this statement is total truth; it is safe to say being born into a country without a prevailing use of the English language would put that child at a disadvantage in terms of global immersion. As Mujica stated almost everything in the world is dominated by English, I think this is due to the fact that some of the world’s largest and most powerful markets in the world are English based.

I think the reason why mostly everything is in English is because whatever the topic was (i.e. the Internet or aviation) it became popular in English and just expanded from there.  Why change something that works? It’s hard to imagine, for me, if the bulk of the music or movie industry was in a different language, it would not be as big in my life as it is now. I am very fortunate to be in an English speaking country. I like my TV and movies coming out without the need for subtitles and listening to music I can understand.

Like almost anyone will say, English it the language to know to make it in the world, unless you plan to stay on the local level for your entire life. I don’t know how many things work for anyone who doesn’t grow up with English, but I couldn’t imagine my life without my usual internet sites or video games. Again I know that I am fortunate to be an English speaking native, and have already been given a decent advantage over other people around the world that either don’t know English or are not yet masters of the language.

Although most of the global economy is constantly evolving, I don’t see it expanding too much further in the terms of language. I think where the world is at works for us all, although personally I feel we should encourage a bit more incorporation of other languages. Having a universal language for the world in terms of all these subjects would be a great way to “unite” us, but would it ultimately destroy our language diversity?  I think the English language isn’t going to spread much more anytime soon. English is the “language of the world” just like that.

Entry Vier - "Helping Hand"

For me the most author/essay in chapter two was "Writing for an Audience" by Linda Flower. Although I already know that thinking about your audience and keeping them in mind throughout the paper is a must, but Flower brought up some very interesting points that I've never thought about. For example, where you live can give one person a different view of a lake or beach, Flower uses a lake to show us this example. She states that even though that generally people see a lake as a sunny place to swim and ski, she thinks of lakes as "cloudy skies, long rainy days, and feeling generally cold and damp." This was a great visualization for me, I've never really thought about how some people might view something differently than the "norm." It made me realize that, should the need arise to write about a setting, I should give a better description so that my view of the place comes through and helps the point I'm trying to make to the reader.

Before Flower went into the differences between writer and reading she explained that one should take the time to actually examine the planned audience. I know that writing is "about" the audience but I can honestly say that I don't think I've ever truly taken the time to think about the expected audience and plan for what they already may or may not know, their attitude toward the topic or what the reader may need from the work. With this being pointed out to me, I feel that I can/should take the time to truly examine who I am writing for and why, so that my writing can can a solid turn for the better.

Although she does not spend much time talking about the knowledge of the audience, I think it is one of the biggest things we should look at, if we do not consider what our readers may or may not already know, we could cause problems when trying to discuss our topic to the audience. Flower's questions, "What does your reader need to know?" and "Does your reader have enough background knowledge to really understand you?" are great to ask ourselves when beginning to write almost anything. Even though this is probably common knowledge, I think we cannot emphasize taking audience knowledge into account enough.

Overall I think Flower does an excellent job letting us know that we need/should really examine our audience to the fullest; to make sure we know how the audience will react to and absorb the information you are relaying. Again, I feel this article helped me the most because it will allow me to prepare better and allow the things I write to be better than they are today.

Entry Drei - Dear Mr. Editor

Dear Mr. Editor,

I have written this letter to voice my opinion about Amir Taheri's "The Semantics of Murder." First of all thank you for including it in your publication, I personally think it is a very interesting topic to explore, wondering how the people with ties to the Muslim world view these suicide bombers. As Taheri points out, we can see that the leaders of the Muslim community voice their opinions for suicide bombings, and even encourage it their children. I find it fascinating that by doing so, a Muslim is breaking one of the five unforgivable sins, which is to commit suicide. It's amazing how someone so young can be brainwashed into committing acts of terrorism for their religion, even though it involves going against the religion to do so.


Taheri explains that the organizations that fuel these bombing use other words in their language to justify going against unforgivable sins. Because they cannot call themselves martyrs, they describe themselves as "martyr-like," once again proving to me that if they don't see themselves as religious heroes, the people don't either. He continues to point out that these terrorists try to coin different terms of themselves without tying it to their religion if they can.

It seems that the leaders are so obsessed with destroying Israel, they would condemn their own followers. Taheri makes an interesting point here, even though these leaders appear to condone these acts of terrorism they always make sure it is someone else's child. This to me proves that they know that these acts of terror oppose their religion, so they make sure to doom the soul of a person who is not a relative.

When I review the facts I can't see anything but evil deeds, these leaders are killing their own while they sleep nice and cozy at night. I personally cannot see how anyone, even a member of the Muslim community, can call the suicide bombers anything other than terrorists. Taheri asks at the beginning of this article, are the bombers seen as martyrs to their people? I feel that the answer should be no. I think Taheri does an excellent job pointing out these organizations don't speak for the entirety of Muslims, they are simply people who wish to destroy everything that they dislike or hate.

Again thank you for including this in your publication, I feel it spreads some light on the mostly unknown world of Muslims and its connection to terrorism.

Sincerely,
Austin Kaylor