What's Up Doc? A Bloody Outrage, That's What

The article I chose is titled, "What's Up Doc? A Bloody Outrage, That's What" and is found in chapter sixteen. It is written by Katherine Ellison, a foreign correspondent for Knight-Ridder Newspapers, along with the author of three nonfiction books. In the article, she reacts to violent internet cartoons. Ellison begins the article by describing a horrifying cartoon she had found her six year old son watching, “Happy Tree Friends.” In describing what she saw, she provides a lot of detail, using phrases such as “Craaaack!!” While reading this description, it’s as if the reader is also watching the cartoon exactly as it happened. She then relates this back to what kind of influence shows like this are having on young children, also providing a couple of quotes to support it. A quote from a fellow colleague is mentioned, discussing how “Happy Tree Friends” isn’t harmful because it is just like “Tom And Jerry.” Ellison then provides a brief comparison between “Tom and Jerry” and “Happy Tree Friends.” She suggests that children be monitored more closely when on the internet.  

More Active Classrooms

An issue that has been bothering me lately takes place in the classroom. I recently came across a CNN story that presented the question of why we make students sit still in class, which really got me thinking. We send our children to still, quiet classrooms, and by doing so are neglecting meaningful, hands-on learning that could be occurring through physical activity. The concept of our minds being nestled within our physicality has been a forgotten concept, but can be very useful when dealing with students. Getting up and moving around in the classroom can benefit the students because we learn about the world through our senses, drawing in information through our bodies. Many classrooms have been set up so that they consist mostly of lectures, and since the average attention span is ten to fifteen minutes, they prove ineffective. Movement in the classroom is a way to narrow focus and attention, and release energy so that students can focus on a different activity.

Why The Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero

The article I chose is from chapter fourteen and is titled, "Why The Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero." Jeff Howe, author of "Crowdsourcing: Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business." The article discusses how the new forms of media, such as guitar hero, are bringing about changes in the music industry practices. Howe organizes the article as a sort of problem-solution essay, which provides for a very effective argument. He begins by discussing how music sales have moved to the new platform of video games such as Guitar Hero and Rock Band, and that the success of these new games is good news for the music industry. The article continues much of the same way, and throughout the article there is a photograph. It's of an arm holding up a deflated inflatable guitar. This photo improves the argument because it deals directly with the musc industry, along with the whole Guitar Hero and Rockband concept.

Dancing With The Stars Changes

As more and more entertainment news has been brought to my attention throughout the week, there was one story that caught my interest the most. Having been my favorite reality television show for the past nine years, Dancing With The Stars has decided to make yet another major change. While they're on their eighteenth season, I believe the show has been making way too many changes recently, which is only hurting their ratings. In the past, Dancing With The Stars has made small changes to help boost ratings, such as creating themes for each week and adding new dance categories. They should've stopped there because, in more recent seasons, much larger and unnecessary changes have been made. It started when the show decided to completely change the ballroom, making the scene seem like a completely different show. Another bad decision was made when they began choosing one or two weeks in each season to replace one judge with a celebrity. While this may boost ratings for those weeks, it weakens te credibility of the show because the selected celebrities aren't always professional dancers, forcing them to judge mainly on whether they liked the performances or not. Another major change made to show was to make Dancing With The Stars a Monday night show, when it had been a Monday and Tuesday night show. This was a poor move because it dramatically decreased the ratings, along with the entire Results Show. The show has also replaced hosts, which brings me back to the reason I'm writing this blog. In its upcoming eighteenth season, Dancing With The Stars will be replacing yet another host. I feel like they've made way too many changes, changes that are so major that many original fanatics are losing interest in the show.

Nature-Deficit Disorder

The article I chose was from Chapter 15 in the textbook, and is titled “Out of the Woods: Today’s Kids Can’t See the Forest for the MTV.” In this article, Joel Achenbach addresses the issue of children and teens participating in indoor activities rather than outdoor activities. Joel Achenbach is an experienced writer for for the Washington Post. He bases the article on the subject of the book Last Child in the Woods, which discusses how children stay indoors too much and are alienated from nature, which causes them to go crazy, also referred to as Nature-Deficit Disorder.

Achenbach claims that parents beg their children to go outdoors, but they prefer to stay inside because they don’t know what to do. He repeatedly provides the example of, “The child always asks, ‘And do what?’ And we always say, ‘Climb a tree!’” Going off of this example, he then concludes that children must be under the impression that all their parents did as a kid was climb trees. A majority of the article is based on what Achenbach did when he was stuck indoors as a kid. This element contradicts his original position because as he explains everything he used to do, he complains about how boring it was. As he goes into detail about these activities, he explains how boring each and every one would become, whether it took place indoors or outdoors.

He also contradicts himself by stating, “Face it, we had no choice but to play in the wood, because civilization; hadn’t yet invented Nintendo.” In stating this, he implies that they only went outside because that was that was all there was to do, but with the technology we have no, children have a logical reason to stay indoors, which I completely agree with. Children today prefer to do seek entertainment from the comfort of their own bed or couch because it requires far less effort than actually getting up and going outside.

Achenbach also uses a great deal of humor throughout the article, providing for a more lighthearted feel. He pokes fun at the effort it took to watch a TV show, and even addresses the fact that younger readers would have no idea as to what he was talking about. He continues to use humor when explaining each of the activities he took part in as a child. Although Achenbach’s article is humorous, he contradicts himself many times, providing for a somewhat weak argument.

Puppy Mills

     An issue that's been bothering me for quite a while is that the operation of puppy mills is still legal. Every year hundreds of thousands of dogs are forced to spend their lives among the ten thousand puppy mills in the U.S. They've been around for decades and continue to thrive because too many customers are persuaded by the too-cute-to-resist puppies they produce. In my opinion, puppy mills should be outlawed because of the physical harm and emotional damage they cause.
     Outlawing puppy mills is crucial because it would end physical harm to the dogs. In order to make room for more dogs, cages are stacked on top of one another. The floors of those cages were designed with a grid wire flooring which included spaces large enough for feces to easily pass through to dogs in the lower cages. What wasn't taken into consideration was the possibility of injury. Since the spaces are large enough for feces, they are large enough to trap a dog's paw, increasing the risk of injury. The stacking of cages encourages over crowding, which can cause diseases to spread very quickly. Diseases such as epilepsy, cataracts, and mammary tumors are the most common way dogs die in puppy mills.
    While puppy mills provide a way to breed and sell dogs with little effort and investment, such dogs are not well bred. It is assumed that since the dog comes from a pet store it must be a good dog, when in reality these dogs have been neglected and are unhealthy, which brings me to the emotional damage they cause. In a puppy mill, puppies are taken away from their mothers as early as six weeks of age, and since the first months of a dog's life are a critical socialization period, they begin to adapt to fearful behavior, and lack socialization with humans and other animals.