Lexi’s blog

Sorry,I completely forgot to do this blog, but its still before monday. This semester I really liked some of the discussions that we had in class. Using the blogs was also good because i fell like it is more informal and it isnt as big of a deal as writing out a response and bringing it in to class. I feel like sometimes when we have to do that in classes and then read them aloud in class, some people dont like to share because they are embarrassed. But, when we do the blogs, we can still read what people say without having to have them feel like they are being put on trail in front of a bunch of people who are going to criticize what they say. We can still respond and comment on teh blogs, and we can get the ideas that poeople have that way.

I hope we keep using teh blogs this semester, but maybe we could have some other system of commenting on them other than groups of 4, because I dont think that worked very well.

The article about the new remote conrol from the Onion was a really funny piece of satire. It made me realize how ridiculous the idea of a remoe control actually is. Are Americans really that lazy and obese that we can’t get up while we are watching tv to change the channel. And, with this new remote, you dont even have to get up if the remote is in a “barely-hard-to-reach place”. Also, it was funny when they were deliberately making fun of how lazy americans are, and they said, “”This puts an end to distracting remote searches, frustrating lifting and stacking of cushions, as well as eventual cushion replacement after retrieval, an annoying task that can sometimes result in missed programming and, in some cases, serious waste of valuable television-viewing time.” I think that TV is a much bigger part of our lives than it should be, and im not saying that i dont watch TV, im just saying that, especially with kids, americnas as a whole have much to lazy a lifesyle, and that is what the aritcle was trying to say.

The narratives have made me realize that slaves werent just farmhands, they also had other jobs, not just around the house, but one narrative talked about the slaves being blacksmiths, crew on boats , or people who worked with horses.

Also, i knew that the slave masters were cruel, and that they often whipped them and beat them. But, i had no idea that they would do it for no reason at all. In the narrative by Issac Mason, it said, ” His tyranical passion was so great that on the day of his death he called in the men from their work and with a stick in his dying hand struck each one across their hands.” This struck me as completely unreasonable, and incredibly cruel. The only reason that a person might do that is that they want to leave thier slaves with a hateful feeling of them. The entire slave system was so corrupt, and that is what Twain was trying to show in Huck Finn

From these narratives I expect to get more of an instight into the lives of slaves. I have read of how things worked on plantations in the deep south before, but hopefully these first hand accountswill help me to further understand what their lives were like.

As i watched the Colbert Report clip, i thought that i was really funny. Also, it didnt personally offend me, but i could clearly see how it would offend someone who was a supporter of the draft, or anyone who was a college student, or a protester of the war. So, it was satire.

Stephen Colbert’s character is promoting the war in Iraq, but i think the message be hind the clip was really showing how ridiculous the idea of having a draft really is.

Today in class, one of the things that i found most interesting was that people were saying that president bush is basically going to ignore the report and STILL try to “stay the course.” Obvoiusly, the course that we are on right now isnt working, and the people at the report made some very useful and practical sggestions. America can’t stay in Iraq forever, especially since it is costing us a billion dollars a day to be there. We need to have the surrounding countries help iraq and make the Iraqi government stronger.

Also, i found the informaton that Halliburton is selling teh oil for 25 dollars per gallon shocking. It is completely ridiculous that the US would buy the oil at such a high price.

I looked on CNN.com, and there wa an article i found about a jury in court that had issues witrh some of the jurors being racist. The case was about a black trash man that was accused of killing a white woman.

Here is the Link: http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/12/12/writer.slain.ap/index.html

Three jurors got into a fight and used racist comments against the defendant. The judge was told of this after the man had already been declared guilty.

This Article really made me think about the way that our court system is set up. The judge is trained not to be baised towards one person or another, but the jury are just everyday people, who can have their own beliefs that influence the way that they see the case. This also sortof reminds me of to kill a mocking bird, where it is the same situation of people being racist when influencing the law. You would think that our country would have come a long way since the time of Boo Radley, but I guess not.

Satire is a joke, but its a joke about society and how wrong it is. It is supposed to open up people’s eyes and make them see the problems in the world and change them. This is te reason that Scary Movie isn’t considered satire. It is using societal problems to make jokes in some cases, but it isn’t making people see the errors of thier ways. The crude humor may make people uncomfortable, but it doesnt make them get defensive about teh topics being joked about in the satire. This is another property of satire. Movies like Borat make people like those in the movie get very defensive about what they said in the movie.

On the site with first accounts from people who experienced segragated schooling, there was a quote that i thought related well to A Lesson Before Dying:

<blockquote>”Elementary school was split up during the year due to sharecropping, and it took two years to complete one grade. The county was so poor that our parents would have to pay the teacher to teach straight through cotton-picking time”</blockquote>

In A lesson Before dying, Grant is very angry that he has to stop teaching for 7 months of the year beacause his students had to work the land. It didnt make that much of an impact on me when i read it in the book, but the fact that kids really had to only go to school for half of the year in real life was really depressing.

For the Shakespeare movie we had to watch, Kristen, Anna, and I watched the version of Romeo and Juliet with Leonardo Decaprio and Claire Danes. I didn’t actually think it was that good. The beggining with the gas station scene was really confusing, and if i hadn’t already read the play in eigth grade I don’t think i would have understood it from this version. Also, for a lot of the play it was set in this really wierd amusment park place that sortof looked like a desert. but, one hink that i did like was the way that they presented the lines.