CH5: The Perfect Parent

I absolutely loved this chapter! I think mainly because it is stating what I already believe to be true. It always annoys me when parents try to be overprotective of their kids. Don't get me wrong, parents need to care for their child and protect them but there is a point where it becomes overkill. I had to laugh when he compared the dangers of a swimming pool to the dangers of a neighbor with a handgun. There are so many parents out there that this comparison applies to. I know my parents would be overly paranoid about things like this. They think that I'm going to get murdered if I drive through a big city, its so crazy.

Another thing I found to be interesting was the statistic on how little child car seats are. This one really gets me because people make a killing on baby stuff. You could be selling a pillow that is normally worth maybe 10$ but if you slap a teddy bear on it and call it a baby pillow you could probably make 30$. Overall, people make killings in the baby industry.

CH: 4 Where have all the criminals gone?

To me this was the most unusual connection that the author has made yet. I mean who honestly would think that the legalization of abortion could have an unintended side effect such as lowering crime rate. I found it interesting that many proffessionals attributed the lower crime rate to different things such as better policing. I could easily have realized that it wasn't that though because I feel like police officers fail because there are laws made that simply can't be enforced. Why make a law when you know that you will have no way to make people comply. I feel that the first step that anyone could take in lowering crime is to get lawmakers to make laws that make sense and can be enforced.

I found the debate on how many fetuses are worth one human life to be very controversial. I feel like you could ask 200 people that question and get 200 different answers. Thats probably why abortion is such a hot topic but when you look at it from that point of view I don't see the debate on abortion ever being solved. I feel the best way to prevent that argument is to educate kids about sex from a very early age. And not just the short 15 minute sex education video they show you in your 4th grade gym class. Kids need to be informed of what sex truely is and how to do it safely if they choose to. I feel like the mind set that many educators have is just to teach kids that sex is bad and they should stay away from it all together. This clearly doesn't work though. Also, contraceptives need to be cheap and available to people. This is not the case though. Last time I saw condoms for sale it was 4 dollars for 3 condoms. If they are trying to dicourage sex by making the prices of condoms more expensive it surely hasn't worked. Trying to get people to stop having sex is even harder than trying to convince people not to do drugs. People will simply just have unprotected sex because they can't afford condoms and that only leads to problems. Although sex is much more accepted and talked about now than it was 50 years ago, it is still seen as taboo for two teenagers to sex. We need to stop looking at sex as this sacred thing that can't be mentioned and see it for what it really is; our species means or reproduction. Almost any other living thing on earth has sex too and its probably not too sacred for them.

CH2: The Klan & Real Estate Agents

There were several things about this chapter that stuck out to me. I think the point I feel most strongly on is that people with knowledge have the power. Experts use the knowledge they have to the detriment of someone who is just an everyday consumer. I feel that so many people are blissfully unaware of everything that is going on around them because they choose to be. In America, everything is so specialized that most people can get by without knowing much about anything. If you can't cook you just eat out at a restaurant. If you can't change the oil in your car you pay a mechanic to do it for you. The problem with everything being specialized is that the people you get to do your work for you in all likelyhood know more about that specific trade than you do. You can hope that these people are honest with you but they are only human after all. And if you don't know what they know, there is a chance that you may be taken advantage of. That is why knowledge is so vital. It can change the balance of power.

I also have an interest in history. Recently I have been learning in detail about the Plessy v. Ferguson case which is why the KKK section caught my interest. I don't understand how the KKK can still be operational. Although racism is by no means gone from society it is strongly frowned upon and is deemed socially unacceptable. For someone to take part in a racial hate group like this in today's society,they would have to have pretty much zero concience. I also can't understand why local communities couldn't indentify the problem and stand up to get rid of them.

Chapter 1: Teachers & Sumo Wrestlers

This chapter wasn't really what I expected. I did however enjoy it a lot. I feel like it is very easy to underestimate incentives. Incentives however are virtually everywhere though so a better awareness of them will help people understand why people do things. I would have never expected a teacher to change a students answers on a standardized test but knowing what I know now it doesn't seem quite as far-fetched. After all, the student isn't the only one with an incentive for them to do well on the test. I think maybe we give teachers the benifit of the doubt because they have a teaching degree and they are good citizens. But in actuality they are merely human just like anyone else and being human they are not immune to the temptation of cheating to advance.

The sumo wrestling doesn't come as much of a shock to me because knowing that the band of wrestlers is pretty close makes it seem like they may just be helping a friend out. If I was in a similar situation, having the ability to let a friend beat me knowing that it would help him and not hurt me, I would surely do it. After all what are friends for?

Gender Conflict

I probably could write a 10 page paper on all my thoughts on gender equality, double standards for women, and feminism but I don't have that kind of time. I feel that the expectations for men to live up to masculine ideals and women to live up to feminine ideals seriously diminishes the freedom of an individual. In addition it also hinders them from reaching their full potential. So many individuals do things that they don't neccessarily agree with just because that is what has been presented to them as normal for their gender. They also may not do many things that they have a desire to do because it would be breaking the gender line and exposing them to ridicule from others. This is sad because for many people this could cause a lot of unwanted stress and other personal complications.

FEMINISM. I think feminism has gone away from its true meaning in many ways. Feminism is supposed to be a view shared by both men and women (although majority probably are women) that both genders should be set equal to one another. SOME (not all) feminists have taken feminism to such an extreme though that they have actually become sexist. I have read two feminism books in my life. The one book in my opinion demonstrated feminism as a truely equal divide between genders. The other was very offensive to me as it basically was 200 pages of bashing men and everything they do. This is very unfortunate because the "radical" feminists make up only a small majority of the total feminists but they often attract the most attention. In many cases this attention comes off as sexist wheather they mean to or not.

Reading a Movie

Sitting back and watching a film for sheer entertainment value is fun but even if I am not focusing on the film-making I catch myself noticing these things anyways. Last year at Alvernia I had a roommate that was a huge film buff. In fact, he is majoring in cinema and aspires to be a producer or director one day. I hadn't really given thought into how a movie was made until I started watching films with him. He took films that I would simply classify as good or bad and analyzed them in a completely different context. After a whole school year of doing this, I found that I was actually quite good at picking out different aspects of the production itself. Now, even when I am watching a movie for simple entertainment, I still find myself analyzing concepts such as the realism and subliminal messaging that goes on throughout the movie. I do however find it hard to be completely non biased when I am presented with a film I'm very familiar with. Especially if the film is one of my favorite entertainment films. Nevertheless the typical hollywood blockbuster is pretty easy to read.

The Cafeteria

In the first part of the reading on "Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria" I found it profoundly interesting that children can almost completely disreguard race. I wouldn't say it surprises me though because it is the nature of a child to be carefree and playful. What changes though when you grow older? I don't know what its like to be a minority in this world and I won't ever know; at least not first hand anyways. But I can see why many white teens and adults for that matter separate themselves from their minority counterparts. It's simple: fear. People fear what they do not understand. In my case, I grew up in a very rural, mostly white community. Many people there were what I considered racist. I believe this was because they weren't exposed to anything except for a white persons world. And many learned racist behavior from their parents who also weren't exposed to any kind of culture. When you put these together it mixes for extreme ideas. Mainly fear of other races overtaking them in some way. It sounds rediculous but I feel its the truth. The point that most people miss is that we are all part of an even bigger community.. the human race.