Listening Journal: November 28, 2011

The subject matter of the song "Don't You Want Me," by the Human League is a guy can't understand why this girl broke up with him and left. The guy says that the girl wouldn't be who she is today with out him because he, "and turned you around. Turned you into someone new." The guy also says, "but don't forget it's me who put you where you are now." The girl says that "the five years we have had have been such good times." She also says that she still loves him, but she is ready to move on and live her own life. I sided with the girl because the guy is trying to make the situation out to be more that it really was.

Brave New World Chapters 1-6 Response

In the book Brave New World, equality is created by the Central London Hatching and Conditioning Centre, where the Bokanovsky and Podsnap Processes that allow the Hatchery to produce thousands of nearly identical human embryos. The embryos are shocked to split apart and form 96 identical embryos in the Bokanovsky process. The embryos travel in bottles along a conveyor belt, where they are conditioned to belong to one of five castes: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, or Epsilon. Each caste has its own color, so everyone in the Delta caste wears khaki all that time. There is no drive for religion because all the tops of the crosses were chopped off to great T's. The citizens also are not allowed to think alone or even  have leisure time for pleasure, they essentially have no rights. Happiness has been forced on the citizens by being conditioned to be happy with the caste they are placed in and they are also conditioned to enjoy certain things and dislike other things to bring revenue in. This society is clearly a distopia because the citizens are conditioned to be like everyone else in the same caste, and they are not allowed to have individual thoughts. 

Reading Response: November 16, 2011

The benefits of EMIC perspectives is being able to understand why the people in a culture do certain things. It is also beneficial because you become completely submerge in the culture. The benefits of ETIC perspectives is observing people in their natural habitat. It is easier to just study the culture and compare it to other cultures this way.  Personally I believe EMIC perspective is better because you can understand why the people do certain things in the culture. It is important to acknowledge one's bias in one's research, because that person is used to doing things one way and the way other cultures do certain things can seem weird to outsiders. It is important to have an informant in a group because then it is easier to understand why things are the way they are in a culture. Its important to let the group know what you are studying and why so they don't think your a spy or intruder and try to kill you.

Listening Journal: November 14, 2011

The song, "Rain on the Scarecrow" by John Mellencamp is about how this man is having trouble caring for his farm and when he can make profit off the farm, it isn't enough. This song addresses the financial difficulties farmers are having to deal with. The song also deals with how the farmer cannot pass on the farm to his son to live on as a legacy. Mellencamp uses the idea of a farm going out of business to demonstrate the financial hardships people have been going through. In Mellencamp's song, farmers are having to battle to the death to save their farmers, as shown in Mellencamp's word choice. Mellencamp favors the working class by presenting them sympathetically. He believes that the working class should be more appreciated than they currently are, and they are the ones losing jobs.

Reading Response: November 9, 2011

The narrator's tone is dark in mysterious in the first three paragraphs. The word "barbarous" and the phrase "mysterious life" in the 1st paragraph displayed the tone along with the "grotesque masks" in the 2nd paragraph. In the 3rd paragraph the narrator described something as "deathlike" which also demonstrates the tone.
A country would manufacture the idea of the other because it makes that country seem superior. It also unifies a group by creating the idea of an enemy.

1984 Book 3

Big Brother has won because after Winston is brainwashed and tortured, he loves Big Brother. This was a big change from the beginning when Winston said "Down with Big Brother!" (19). The one state could possibly be brought down by the poorer, under supervised population. They aren't as intelligent, but it would be easier for them to break down the power because they aren't payed as much attention. I think that Winston is kept under close supervision, but will still continue on with his day to day life. He is basically a walking zombie now because he has been brainwashed, which doesn't give the Party a reason to kill him.

SOAPSTone: November 7, 2011

Subject

The subject of Dave Barry’s “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is that men and women have vastly different outlooks and priorities in life. Men and women viewing the same dilemma differently is illustrated with the cleanliness of Robert’s bathroom. Barry is the typical man, if it looks clean and doesn’t have any obvious spills or piles of dirt then the room is clean. On the other hand the wife sees even a messy stack of papers as filth and clutter.

Occasion

“Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” was written during the 1980’s. The essay’s time of creation is illustrated by the source of the essay, Dave Barry’s Greatest Hits (1988). The essay would have had to have been written before 88 but not long before it. The probable place of the essay’s creation is America or Miami because Barry began writing as a humor columnist in Miami in the 80’s.

The time and place of the essay’s creation influence the essay in what stories he told from his life to support the points he was trying to prove. When Barry talks about the amount of housework men do compared to women he talks about how the man does very little, showing he is out of the time period when women were believed to do 100% of the cooking and cleaning.

Audience

Dave Barry’s specific audience for “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is a father or a married man. The author’s target audience is exhibited by how Barry always talks about the way he does things and the way his wife reacts to them and never the other way around. By never giving how Barry reacts to things his wife does that he asks her to do shows that he is targeting this piece to married men.

The author’s general audience for the essay is men. The author’s general audience is shown by the constant explanation from the man perspective of everything.

Purpose

Dave Barry’s purpose in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out,” is to express a man’s viewpoint vs. a woman’s viewpoint. Situations are viewed differently by men and that is illustrated with, “She is in there looking at the very walls I just Windexed, and she is seeing dirt! Everywhere!”(230). Barry thought that he had cleaned the walls; however, they were not up to the wife’s standard of being clean by any means. The purpose is further revealed by the statement, “Soon all four of us were in there, watching the Annual Fall Classis, while the women prattled away about human relationships or something,”(231). The men could have cared less what the women were talking about as long as they got to watch the baseball game.

Speaker

Dave Barry, receiver of the 1988 Pulitzer Prize, believes men view life differently than women. The value is illustrated by their wanted to watch a baseball game instead of socializing. Men value sports as a higher priority then being social.

Dave Barry, Haverford College graduate, also believes men have lower life standards than women do. When Barry cleaned his son’s bathroom, it was not to suit for his wife. Her level of clean is vastly greater than his.

Dave Barry’s use of word choice is evident in his description of his reasoning for things and the feel of the piece. When he is discussing the 600 action figures you can feel his frustration but also his light heartedness of the situation.

Dave Barry’s use of structure is evident when he discusses a point and then gives personal explanations of it. He talks about how men have a different view of what clean is and then he gives and example of his definition of cleaning the bathroom compared to his wife’s.

Tone

Dave Barry exhibits a humorist and serious attitude about men and women life viewpoints in “Batting Clean-Up and Striking Out.” These attitudes are expressed with filthy, dirt, and social gaffe. He is putting emphasis on filthy and dirt to show how serious his wife took cleaning the bathroom, yet he is serious in some sense because he uses academic words, phrases, and tones every now and then.