What you know can hurt you

I crawled up on my bed this morning to read this chapter in my mass communication textbook. We've spent the semester learning about the different media and their origins and now we're going to discuss the theories social scientists have about mass comm and its processes.

It's awesome, I'm loving the chapter, I'm flying through attitude change theory, dissonance theory, mass society theory. Then we start talking about social cognitive theory and I'm slowing down. It's people's lives being affected through their observation of the mass media. Their exposure to television.

"...for example, after seeing cartoon cat Tom hit cartoon mouse Jerry with a stick, a child might then hit his sister with a stick..."

It's getting uncool pretty fast. Next paragraph....teenagers beating a little girl. This time it's video games involved. The girl died. I'm turning the page slowly and there - I knew it. A picture of Mortal Kombat, the video game that the police connected to the beating of the girl.

I don't play video games. I have no interest in a simulated reality, without snobbery to those who make their own life choices. So there's my disclaimer: I don't have enough experience with the game to make an educated commentary on the actual content of the video or whether or not people have the right to play it -

All I know is that I was staring at a picture of a monster with a sword dripping with blood. This monster had been linked to the death of a child, a real child. And the monster was smiling.

Walking West from the Union. Between the buildings where the green groundcover grow, there sit white benches. And where this white bench sat, sat that boy. Off the path of people, sun shining on those skateboard shoes…and on that long long hair. Reading. I could see the photograph in my head. Could see how it was framed and everything. It would’ve been a beautiful picture. But one doesn’t actually put these impulses into action unless one seriously desires to be arrested on harrasssment / stalking charges. I walked by, deciding more firmly as I walked that there was no way to take the shot. Then I turned around and walked back towards him. He saw me this time.

Thank you, George Bilgere

It's October and freezing and I rush from class
Straight to my Starbucks cause I just has
To find me a caramel apple spice
And get this crap read cause the test isn't nice
To people who end up on Facebook all day
And that's who I'll become if I don't make my way
To that last empty chair where I suddenly find
A new problem for my caffeinated little mind:
I like eavesdropping too much to get anything done,
Those guys edit Wikipedia just for fun!!?
So its back to my dorm that I intend to go
But the bike rack proclaims a brand new woe
My bike is now seatless and I am now sad
That adjustable seat adjusted a tad
Too much for my taste and now its gone
Like my paycheck, apparently, so to the bike shop I --

Walk

College students seem to me
Like homeless people, to some degree
They can all do things that no one else does
Eat old food for breakfast, just because
No one expects them to do normal things
And if they choose not to heat the can of beans
Or wander out in public in a questionable pair of jeans
Well its only a hobo or a poor college kid
We'd never do that, heaven forbid
They'll go wherever there is free food
Their sense of time and their language is crude
They live in masses but most are alone
Where they'll be in ten years is completely unknown

Did you ever play a card game like Hand and Foot or Phase 10 where you draw and discard and draw and discard...and you're trying to get certain cards? You will have noticed this rule that comes into effect. It's a branch-off from Murphy's Law:

Whatever you discard you will keep drawing

If you think you won't get enough 4's and start discarding them...that's all you'll draw. 4's.

So I've decided upon a wealth building strategy to use this principle for my own gain.

Find a penny, keep a penny

They are always strewn about the restaurant, and the other employees discard them with trivolity. A word akin to frivolity.

I'm going to start keeping those 4's.

Now don't talk to me about muckraking and such. I don't scuttle around looking for them. I've just suddenly become okay with bending over to fish them out of the cracks.


http://cache4.asset-cache.net/xc/200248562-001.jpg?v=1&c=NewsMaker&k=2&d=BEE8F6E6581A1106376D4CF0DC18DE141F6F6178A68B340C

http://www.flickr.com/photos/agnisflugen/2641725566/


As a footnote: this is Murphy's Law in poem form

I never had a slice of bread,
Particularly large and wide,
That did not fall upon the floor,
And always on the buttered side

I love you more than the sun and the stars that I taught how to shine

Love is helping a stranger carry their books and laundry two blocks in the dark lest they fall under the weight and not be discovered till morning

Love is texting a friend who didn't get to go to the picnic to tell them you miss them and wish they could be there with you.

Love is giving your cinnamon raisin bread to someone down the hall who used up all their cafeteria meals

Love is getting off your skateboard to walk in the slow lane with a friend who's mom is dying of cancer

Love is taking twenty minutes to walk across campus for a friend instead of watching their stuff while they go

We didn't know we weren't allowed to rearrange tables....but we weren't sorry either

I feel like my test performances this week were completely unsatisfactory. The results were satisfactory. But it was all complete wonkiness.

Willy Wonka is not the origin of this word, nor is the etymology in any way related.

So, Chapter Test in Mass Communication. I am preparing, I am studying, I am reading and comprehending and doing excellently. Surprise, the professor tells us the answers. As we're taking the test. I was so insulted.

And also sorry that I had spent so much time studying unnecessarily and not doing more productive things like illegally rearranging the tables in the cafeteria or being a hobo on a campus bench. I love being a hobo.

I was also frustrated because when professors do wild things like give me test answers, it tends to make me think I should write off all studying in the future and just fully commit to hobohood. Must not give in!

Then there was the failure of the Spanish pruebita. The one I did not study for one bit. It actually had nothing to do with being a hobo or supposing that Senora would give us the answers. It just had to do with me supposing I was already perfectly fluent enough to mess around with ser to Senoras satisfaction.

Then the hobo becomes quite dismayed and realizes that this is not going to work out as well as planned. I was quite horrified at the failure that was on that paper. It was even my handwriting.

Only, strange twisted surprise, the pruebita was credited to me with 100% accuracy. Darn you, Senora, that skater guy that sits next to me, you must have got ours mixed up. Cause I'm darned sure he did better than I did.

Upon further thought I decided that I was definitely right in the beginning. I am just a genious at the Spanish language. The skater guy and I are a team.

And these were both quite forthright tests, all nicely announced. What will pop quizzes do to me next?

"Retarded people make the best comedians. Everything they do is funny."

This, a disturbing quote from someone in my suitemate's room. Most of the people in their room I find disturbing, and I only see the ones that are there in the daytime. And the ones that show up in my doorway to inform me they're going to use the middle bathroom. Thanks for sharing.

When Intellects Debate the Earth's Shape

I never understand people who say they are bored. Never. For the simple reason that if you are so unimaginative that you cannot even manage to do something productive or physically active, I mean at LEAST go to Yahoo! answers and be entertained there.


Is the world really round?
Obviously the Roundism theory is a lie. The world must be flat, why? Because if the world is round, people on the bottom side would fall off! So simply put, if the world is NOT round, it must be flat. Not triangluar or anything else like that.

Also this Theory of Gravity is nonsense, scientists can't prove it, that's why it's called a 'Theory' duh...

While it's true that many 'real' scientists in the world believe that the world is round, their faith is unfounded and forced on to them by their bosses and peer pressure. To date there are up to 600+ eminent scientists who have proofs that the world is flat, however their studies are ignored by the media and the secret organisations that run the world.

The FACT is there is very little evidence supporting Roundism.

Also if the world is round, how does Santa Claus deliver our presents in one day? It's much easier to fly over flat land than round land.Is the world really round? Obviously the Roundism theory is a lie. The world must be flat, why? Because if the world is round, people on the bottom side would fall off! So simply put, if the world is NOT round, it must be flat. Not triangluar or anything else like that.


Best Answer - Chosen by Voters:
I had a world map. The world is flat.
I also had a globe, I hit it with my baseball bat several times, now it is also flat...


This is one of my favorite answers, though admittedly not as good as the Best Answer:

"i thought thomas friedman said its flat? thomas friedman is a very popular dood i don't think he will lie? so i also tinking tt the earth is flat

to prove it, i take a ruler and triangle and put it on the floor its flat rite? no curvature at all? i totally agree with you man, excellent point. brilliance"


then there was this person, who for some reason thought that destroying fruit would prove somebody's point...


"Put an orange on the table and gently push down on it. See how it turns into an oval? S'what the world looks like."



And all this starts with a question that isn't even a question - besides the last paragraph, which asks about how Santa Claus delivers presents. How much better could it be?



http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20081119030751AAmiOcz

I am Uganda

A dusty road under a stormy sky
A thousand footprints every day
A thousand miles to run from the nightmare
That may never go away.

Just another night under God's starry sky
Go to sleep now, go to sleep.
Maybe they won't come for you tonight
And hope is all you keep.

There's no one around to hear my tears fall down
I walk alone in the moonlight.
Can anyone out there hear my weeping
Would you save my soul tonight?

Across the ocean children laugh and play
Do they know we bleed and die?
Did God mean to let them take our children away?
Does he hear my mother cry
Now they are gone and I want to know why.

There's no one around to hear my tears fall down
I walk alone in the moonlight.
Can anyone out there hear my weeping
Would you save my soul tonight?

hey didnt think i would get a connection tonight with everithing so cloudy up in the atmosphere. things are worse since i talked to u last -- the news reported 25900 more cases of cancer in the last week. do u remember what cancer is? well its not the same anymore. like the other mutation, something is wraung with it. none of the hospitals here have the cancer yet, just the starving people. -- no, i dont think so. i wish….

i didnt used to be afraed u knowe. things were bad, but i was okae. i pretended not to knowe when the detonations killed the others. now i do not look away. my fishbowl here gets more and more transparent - i dont look through water animore, i look through red blood. and i am afraed.

i went to see kiska yesterdae. its getting pretty bad over there. kiska says they laust two more old men since i was there last. and -- they cant get medicyn now. the medics cant climb in anymore, and even if they could, we hear the medicyn is gone anyway. it hurts me badly not to be able to help kiska but in the end theres nothing more i can do. kiska knowes that.

before i left we looked up at the heavens for a whyle. the earth down here is swallowing life up, but the stars never stop shining. funni to think of the stars outliving alaska -- what again? oh, i suppose so. they say the sun will quit very soon.

i was thinking of kiska as i left -- the kiska we knew before all this. perfect, irrepressible, dwelling in poppies. as the poppies dysappeared, kiska became faculty and satire and lava rock. kiska was created for this time, u would knowe if u could see. and still, the old kiska is not yet quite gone. when kiska looks at eternity -- the poppies live forever.