http://boston.barstoolsports.com/featured/adam-corolla-with-the-most-amazing-occupywallstreet-rant-you’ll-ever-hear/
I came across this rant and blog which is a bit inappropriate with language but it shows a cool outlook on the Occupy Wall Street ordeal and relates to what Ty's project is about.
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Comedic Cartoons and their Effect
How has television shows like Family Guy and South Park shaped the tolerability for vulgar and aggressive humor on national television with a specific audience of young teens? Although I wouldn’t call myself an avid viewer of many of the cartoon comedy shows that you’ll see on television today, like Family Guy and South Park, I have seen enough episodes in order to understand the gist of the overall jokes in both shows. That being said, I’m familiar with the jokes that have created controversies because of the satire, mockery, and backwards humor that offends the victims of the comic attacks, and/or spectators in general. In many cases, these two shows have made a mockery of high profile celebrities, businesses, religions, etc. by either casting them in a bad light, or poking fun of them for recent embarrassing events. If you were to watch an episode of either show, there’s no doubt that you’d find an occurrence of aggressive humor. Consequently, I have heard that there has been a number of lawsuits filed against both these shows, and complaints regarding their content. From some of the most famed celebrities in our world today, to the common parent that doesn’t want their child watching such “garbage” television, many people have spoken up about their opposition to these shows. I would assume that many of the people who have felt, and are feeling victimized by either of the shows have sued the management or television network who created it. I’m not sure exactly what these charges may pertain to, but I would imagine they are probably along the lines of censorship.
After I Googled “South Park controversy” and “Family Guy controversy”, a whole list of articles came up that covered the topic. There were articles written by a number of blogs as well as the mainstream news sources like CNN and NY times. I only skimmed through the articles but I found that the more serious cases of displeasure for the shows came from religious groups that felt very offended by South Park and Family Guy’s nature. Not only that, but Family guy has stirred problems with political figures like Sarah Palin over her depiction in the show. Palin also complained about the way Family Guy made fun of a character in one episode, who had down syndrome. The number of complaints rolls and I’m very curious as to what other areas of the public sphere that these two shows have caused problems with, and how those problems are reacted to by the media, and if there has been any sort of solution to prevent there occurrences.
Therefore, I’m also curious as to how the databases work here at Trinity, and what tools are provided in order to fulfill student’s research needs. In my high school, we used online databases in mainly history so that we could find old documents, and encyclopedia type information that was essential to writing a research paper. I would expect that the Trinity library has similar tools.
This topic does in fact interest me because I enjoy watching South Park and Family so much when I get the chance to. But when I view some of the vulgar content in each show, I wonder how they still air on Fox and Comedy Central, both widely popular stations. I’m curious if my assumption that people respond negatively to the controversial subjects in each show is true, and to what extent.
Thursday, November 10, 2011
Penn State's Paterno Fired
If you have been paying attention to any sports broadcasting station or any other news stations, you probably have heard about the tragedy that is unfolding at Penn St. University. Earlier this week Jerry Sandusky, former assistant coach of the Penn St. football team, was arrested for the molestation of nine young boys. Despite the severity of these atrocious actions, the mass of the media reports on the subject have been in regards to Penn States head football coach of 46 years, Joe Paterno.
Earlier yesterday, Paterno announced that he would retire after coaching the remainder of the season. This is because he allegedly knew about the acts of Sandusky and failed to come forward and report the acts. Although, the senior officials at Penn St. felt the humiliation had increased to the point where they had to let him go. Therefore, they fired the man considered to be the face of the school later yesterday over a phone call.
“This is devastating for us,” Kathryn Simpson (A junior at Penn St.) said. “I never in a million years thought I’d see this.” This reaction speaks for the rest of the Nittany Lion nation, as they have been rioting at the school, furious with the way “JoePa” had been dismissed, and for the causation.
I think the issue that, it’s not what Paterno did, but what he didn’t do, and that has angered the masses the most. Especially considering the way Paterno let go over phone call, after he donated 11 million dollars to the school library, and committed himself to the football program for 62 years.
Thursday, November 3, 2011
NCAA makes changes
Major news hit the media this past Friday as the NCAA made a huge change to the way money is dealt to college athletes at the highest level. "With all the reforms today and the reforms the Knight Commission has promoted, the NCAA is more aligned to a principle that puts students first and treats student-athletes as students and not professionals," Ms. Perko (Knight Commission executive director that promotes reform for college athletes) said. Athletes may be seeing an advance of 2,000 dollars in spending money added to their scholarship value in some time. However, this caused the NCAA to enact a new Academic Progress Rate (APR) standard. Meaning, students will have to receive higher graders to be eligible to play.
Therefore, there is plenty of debate between schools that are for and against this. University of Connecticut is one school that is already feeling the tension, because if this regulation were passed last year, their basketball team wouldn’t have qualified for the NCAA tournament; which they won. While this news is very supportive of my bias towards college athletes, there still plenty of debate to be had which should delay the process.
Pitt and Syracuse leave Big East
Due to the lack of recent investigations in college sports, I directed this week’s focus to the hot topic regarding schools like Pittsburgh and Syracuse changing their athletic conference. These schools have been two of the longest tenured member in the Big East conference as Pittsburgh has been a member past 30 years, and Syracuse a founding member. As of September 18th, the two schools announced their plans to vacate to the ACC conference for all sports. While the Big East still maintains its strength in basketball with 14 teams, the league of football teams has been cut down to 6, which is considered to be inadequate for league play. Consequently, there are scares now that Big East football will cease to exist.
Pittsburgh and Syracuse claim that their main reasons for joining the ACC is to unite with a community of schools with strong academic values and football spirit. But when looking at the outcomes economically of this adjustment, it clearly shows that these schools are simply looking to play a roll in the 1.86 billion dollar television contract that comes with their addition. News likes this just frustrates me more and more because collegiate athletics is becoming more of a financial industry, than it is about pure athletics. Similar to what I said in a previous blog post, people are beginning to discuss about whether college athletes should be receiving benefits or not. This will certainly add heat to the conversation, especially if fans of football teams in the Big East find themselves without their sport in the coming seasons.
Sunday, October 23, 2011
College Suspensions Presentation
Brief Background:
Ohio St star receiver Davier Posey is re-suspended for four more games after apparently being paid too much (matter of 60-700 dollars) this past summer and hiding evidence in the initial investigation.
However, Posey’s attorney states all the evidence was already provided; hence he should be exonerated of all charges.
The debate in the video questions the NCAA Judicial process because it seems to ignore the rule, innocent before proven guilty. The experts in the video argue whether independent arbitrators are needed to approve suspensions, and diminish discrepancies within the system.
How it is presented?
· The way it’s presented with 5 experts analyzing and debating the topic suggests that it is an unresolved and controversial issue.
o They argue whether arbitrators are needed or not. This highlights two issues that appeal to everyone and includes innocent before proven guilty problem, and punishments not fit for crimes.
· The reporters also use frustrating tone that speaks for all viewers of college sports that the NCAA’s punishments don’t fit the crimes.
Selective exposure and perception- NCAA looks at evidence against Posey with an existing belief. They initially just think it proves what they had always suspected.
Monday, October 17, 2011
True Enough: Selective exposure/perception
What I found most influential to me after reading True Enough by Farhad Manjoo was the insights that Manjoo opened my eyes to. Although I favored reading the topics about controversial events like the attacks on September 11th, I connected more strongly to the text with a focus that I could relate to my own everyday life.
The basis of this focus that Manjoo covered involved his theories on selective exposure and selective perception. Just to restate these definitions, Manjoo defines selective exposure as being “we simply steer clear of information that contradicts what we think we know” (30). Therefore, growing off this term he defines selective perception as, “that even when two people of opposing ideologies overcome their tendency toward selective exposure and choose to watch the same thing, they may still end up being pushed apart from each other.” (78). After having been exposed to these explanations of sociology, I’ve realized how frequently they apply to my outlooks and the perspectives of others. Similar to how Manjoo describes the way certain people that possess a strict political view only watch a certain television station, I have a strict preference to a certain sports pre-game show. Every Sunday morning-afternoon whether I’m trying to do homework or not, ESPN’s NFL countdown must be playing on the television. For one reason only, to watch reporter Chris Berman share his analysis on the upcoming games that afternoon. This is because like myself, Berman focuses more on analyzing the underdogs best chances for victory. Growing up in a family with no severe preference for any sports teams, I root for the underdog team to pull an upset in most games. The neutral, yet somewhat selective style of game viewing is what Berman offers that many other broadcasting stations like CBS and Fox don’t with most their reporters being former coaches or players.
I also felt that the Dartmouth versus Princeton football game example that Manjoo used to highlight selective perception demonstrated this concept well. Whenever there’s any form of competitiveness between two sides, there’s an initial opinion of each side whether it is good or bad. I feel Manjoo is trying to show is that people from opposing sides will always have different perspectives before and after the game, but more times than not, the before and after don’t change the perspective. In the case of the outcome of Dartmouth and Princeton game, the Dartmouth fans just thought Princeton was just as whiney as they’ve ever been. Likewise the Princeton fans felt the Dartmouth players were only on a mission to hurt others. Whether these accusations are true or not doesn’t matter, as long as the fans on each side felt that their pre-existing beliefs were supported.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)