Feb. 21

Today we talked about ideas of gays and lesbians back in the day compared to today. This topic kind of hit home because I recently had a friend come out of the closet. It took him 23 years to do this and he said it was the hardest thing he has done. Today gays and lesbians are more accepted then years ago. People are more open on the idea. It still is not extremely popular but like I said it is more accepted. It helps tremendously that people are backing this lifestyle. One name that pops to my head immediately is Lady Gaga. She recently just dropped her singles off of her new CD, Born This Way. The title itself shows her support. She voices her opinions often through her music and through rallies that are put on around the United States about this topic. In the past people have not been that willing to put their opinion out there like that. People say that gays and lesbians won't go to heaven and this idea is still around. They use to think that being gay or a lesbian meant that you had a disease or made you a pedophile, which is not true. I am glad that people can come out and still live a decent life. There still is room for improvement.

Feb. 14

We watched the pilot of Veronica Mars. If I was to watch it outside of class, I would not think to much about anything other than the plot. Since I was in class while watching it, our assignment was to look between the lines. We got in groups and discussed the ideas behind how they set the plot and used race, class, and gender. One thing we noticed is that the "gang" was black Mexicans. There were no white people in the gang. The setting was a rich neighborhood where everyone was rich or they were poor. There was no middle class. The rich white kids drove expensive cars, had snotty attitudes and dressed nice. It was clear and cut who people where and their social and economic status. It was typical American view of the world today. Veronica was kind of looked down upon because she is a girl and tries to be respected. A lot of the people don't respect her because she is a girl and it is not her social role. I like watching shows now with the mind set of reading between the lines. It makes shows a lot more interested.

Feb. 7

Super bowl commercial are my favorite part of the super bowl. It blows my mind that a company would spend 3 million dollars on a thirty second add during the game. Then I see the stats of the game, the viewing stats. The 2011 super bowl was the most watched television program in history. Then it seems like that 3 million is probably a pretty good marketing strategy. The bad thing about the high cost is the smaller businesses really have no shot of getting an add during the game. It is one thing for Coke or Doritos to fork out 3 million, but for a small business 3 million is a lot. The commercials sure are funny though.  The classes are divided up in my mind as poor, getting by, and rich. The rich can go on vacation whenever they want. They drive the nice cars and have the big houses. Getting by is my middle class, blue collar working class. If they want to take a vacation, they will need to save and plan. They have a nice house and they got rid of their bigger cars and trucks and got something with better gas milage. I don’t really know how to describe the poor class. When people think poor they think homeless. I guess sometimes when I think of poor I think of people who barely can pay the bills and are normally late when they do. They don’t take vacation because they don’t have the money. That is why education is so important now days.

January 31, 2011

In the world today, I do not believe your economical status really hinders your friends our click you hang out with. I am not saying that this is true a hundred percent of the time. I have seen people not accept people because of their money situation. More times than not, it does not affect your friendships. There still are clicks, but now it is more involved with interests and beliefs. My high school the clicks that stood out were the jocks, Goths, preps, and skaters. We were all not rival gangs, and at my high school all the groups got along for the most part. I did not feel hatred for any of the other groups. I might of thought they were weird, but it never stopped the groups from hanging out together. I also think that it has a lot to do with how small our town was. Everyone knew everyone when we were growing up. So by the time we hit high school people started finding new identities and not all of them were the same as before. So our group of friends didn’t de-friend you for going goth or becoming a skater. Once a friend always a friend, unless you try to steal a girlfriend.