New York Times:Professors fear that e-mail has made them TOO available...

One student skipped class and then sent the professor an e-mail message asking for copies of her teaching notes. Another did not like her grade, and wrote a petulant message to the professor. Another explained that she was late for a Monday class because she was recovering from drinking too much at a wild weekend party...
[e-mail has erased] boundaries that traditionally kept students at a healthy distance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/education/21professors.html?ei=5090&en=361f9efce267b517&ex=1298178000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

Do you know where cashew nuts come from?

Every fruit has ONE nut in the gray seed hanging below (hence the reason it is so expensive). The fruit is DELICIOUS !!

Every 3.6 seconds someone dies from hunger...

On the contrary...
"The world has enough for man's need, but not for man's greed."
-Mahatma Ghandi

Can you believe this?!

I am trying to figure out what year this Somalian picture was taken...can never be in 2007! I know never say never...but it's hard for me to wrap my mind around.

World's Ugliest Dog Competition

2005 WINNER (MY FAVORITE!)
2007 WINNER

2006 WINNER

Get rid of him with ONE CLICK!

Get an online divorce
As long as there are no disputes over property or kids, these online services can generate the forms you need for as little as $199!!! All you have to do is file.

Ain't that somethin'???

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/SuddenlySingle/GetAnOnlineDivorce.aspx

At gunpoint: BMCC's Out in Two Scholarship Fieldtrip

This is not how I will act if this happens in real... ( don't be alarmed -it was a paintball gun)

Beliefs and who are more susceptible...?

I did a research paper on cults for a Psychology class I did last semester. I was reminded of this study during the class discussion today. On the topic of beliefs, many think that someone cannot change your belief, influencing you to believe what they believe. This is in fact a falacy. Once you have adopted a belief that your belief cannot be affected by someone else's belief, you are in fact more susceptible to changing your belief into their belief. In my study, these are the types of people who were more likely to be inducted into a cult. The "never me", "I can never be brainwashed/influenced" attitude is in fact what causes you to fall prey to others influence. Viewing yourself as invincible and disregarding the possibilities is detrimental. However, knowing that anything is possible and being aware of the tactics are actually what guards you from being subject to adopting another's beliefs.

The N word burial...

During the study of a class called "Engaged Ethics" at Vassar college, dealing with issues of race and prejudice, one of my fellow classmates decided that he needed to bury the N word. He felt as though this belittled blacks and is being use as slang and taken very lightly, neglecting that fact that it was used against his very own people in times gone by. He did not deny the fact that he himslef, having grown up in the Bronx, used the word as a term of endearment - this burial was a symbol that he understands the weight this word holds and its original intention.

Initially, I had found this ceremony to be the most ridicualous thing, burying a WORD?? However, I did attend the ceremony to support him, though the word had never bothered me personally. Where I am from if someone said you're behaving like an "ole n***a" it simply meant you were acting inappropriately. I did know that it was disrespectful, and I never felt comfortable using it.

I called my mother and had told her about it and she said "YES everyone is doing it"...to my surprise.

I then found this article on the NAACP website:


The "N" Word is Laid to Rest by the NAACP
July 9, 2007

Thousands gathered in Detroit, Michigan to participate in the NAACP’s funeral and burial for the “N” word. A horse drawn carriage carried a wooden coffin that adorned black roses and a ribbon with the word “nigga” displayed. NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, hip-hop legend Curtis Blow and R & B legend Eddie Levert led the procession today from COBO Hall to Hart (Freedom) Plaza. The burial was a part of the 9th Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Making sure that the crowd understood the significance of this event, Kilpatrick stated that we should take the word out of our spirit. “Good riddance. Die, N-word,” said Kilpatrick. We don’t want to see you around here no more.”

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm told the crowd that she was proud the funeral was in her state. “We can plant the seed to a new word, the “A” word,” said Granholm. “All – all our people. We’re all in this together.” She encouraged attendees to also bury other racial injustices, such as predatory lending, disparate healthcare and the fight to end affirmative action.

I don't get the big deal on race...

Call me naive, but last class just reiterated that fact that I so don't get the whole racism against blacks...in the media and elsewhere. While I do think it exist, it think it is almost an overrated issue. I think it is over dramatic to say that some while people are still mad because blacks are not still slaves...

I am from a country that is extremely diverse and the race issue does exist, but in small portions. I grew up never feeling "black" or being race conscious. What differentiated people was their hair for the most part. It is very hard for me to look at a TV program or movie and see evident discrimination against blacks. While I think that there are some really iffy black shows that are just lewd and unfunny, they are just mere comedy for me - "laughs".

But my critical eye is open for the subliminal meanings....haven't seen it just yet.

Where are her RIBS?

I just don't get the dire need to be "HOTT"...

Perception...

Some of the wildest, slackest convos occur in the office.

On the discussion of nudity, one co-worker, who served in the navy said it doesn't bother you after a while because you grow so accustomed to seeing it...100 men in the showers all at once. A female's breasts would not be BREASTS if they weren't covered up.

There goes some PERCEPTION!

So he went on to say that he's certain in places like India where women dress traditionally, covering they knees and ankles that they must have had good "ankle sex"... of course he had the enitre office looking at him like he was mad. But I got what he was saying. Because ankles were perceived as a sexual body part and were covered up, when they were uncovered it was desirable...

So your perception of something totally changes the way you feel about it and its meaning entirely.

Well you can see we get bored in this office lol... atleast my attempt to live critically is being put to the test even in 'nonsense talk'.

The Beauty Myth

Here is an excellent excerpt from The Beauty Myth: How Images of Beauty Are Used Against Women by Naomi Wolf - its kinda long but interesting!

We are bombarded today with images of the "perfect" woman. She is usually a gorgeous blonde, although sultry brunettes, redheads and exotic women of color are also shown. She is tall and willowy, weighing at least 20% less than what her height requires. She rarely looks older than 25, has no visible flaws on her skin, and her hair and clothes are always immaculate. One "perfect woman" looks pretty much like the next; she is essentially not human, interchangeable and disposable. In fact, quite often she is presented in bits and pieces like a mannequin- -a torso, some legs, a shapely fanny--completing the assembly- line metaphor.

Our culture judges women, and women judge themselves, against this standard. We forget that "beauty pornography," as Wolf calls it, pictures underweight models that are usually between 15-20 years old. We never see a picture of a woman who is not wearing makeup applied by an artist, hair professionally coiffed, clothes professionally designed or chosen. Any natural flaws or wrinkles in her skin are airbrushed out. Unsightly lumps or anomalies in her body are also airbrushed out. Even when we see a photo of an older actress we know must have character lines on her face, they are never shown--the focus is fuzzed or the airbrusher strikes again to remove them. These are the pictures they show us of the "average woman." Yea, right!

The Beauty Myth standard of the "perfect" weight is especially interesting to explore. If you watch a movie made before 1970 you'll see what I mean. Women and girls shown in the hottest, cutting-edge movies of the 50s and 60s actually have hips and a fanny!!! They actually look like real women!!! Judged by today's standards, we look at these movies and think that the women in them look a little fat. It's striking to notice that the beautiful women shown in movies and TV these days never have round, feminine, bottoms and thighs. We've all been trained to believe that this boyish silhouette is the way healthy women should look, but the reality is that healthy women rarely, if ever, look this way.

The attitude portrayed by the media in the 80s and 90s "includes and aspirational, individualist, can-do tone that says that you should be your best and nothing should get in your way." This attitude contributes to women's guilt about their bodies by saying that if you don't look "perfect" you have only yourself to blame: If you don't look as gaunt as the fashion models, then you should starve or exercise to get that way; if you have lines on your face, you should have them cut or burned off; if your breasts are small, inject them with chemicals; if your thighs are round, have a doctor stick a vacuum cleaner under your skin and suck the fat out. In other words, the culture of today puts incredible pressure on all people, and women in particular, to look "beautiful," whatever that really means. And it maintains that if you don't look perfect, there must be something wrong with your willpower, because if you really wanted to you could.

Make me beautiful...

The need to be beautiful is on a rampage. Women, young and old, even men, have been bitten by the 'beauty bug'. What is up??

Though I am not a fan per se, I am very saddened by what has happened to Kanye West's mother - but it makes me realize that no one is exempt from this beauty obsession. I would think that having been a professor for 30 odd years and obtaining her PHD and all these "wise woman" qualities would exempt her from being susceptible to such a frivolity as plastic surgery. That to me is like Maya Angelo or Cecily Tyson going under that knife...bizarre.

I would like to this that at some phase in my own life physical beauty is not my main criteria. I would hope I can find joy in other things rather than being let down by my breasts that touch my navel or my belly that won't allow my pants to be zipped. I would hope that with education, experience and age that superficial nature withers away.

When your back's against the wall....do what you gotta do!

I'm broke! I get this job in a new, dinky restuarant in the village. My boss has some of his friends come over to taste some of the food. This one friend, a lady, is superrrrrr picky, she can eat almost nothing! don't eat meat, cheese, nuts, basil and the list goes on. After inquiring about ingredients, and my boss getting gittery because he wants to impress and she can eat almost nothing! She decides to have this fancy pastry we make out of spinach - after we call the chief who had left for that night to find out every nitty gritty ingredient. She puts an end to my annoyance and my boss is relieved. LO and BEHOLD, I drop the pastry on the floor - the nasty floor that even I scorned. I look at it for a split second on the floor, look up and no one saw - they were busy talking. I go to get another one and there is NO MORE. What to do? WHAT to do? I quickly pick it up and serve it to her with a smile. (Please! not like you would have said it dropped and there's no more!)
She LOVED the pastry and told my boss how much of a good waitress I am!

Perceiving...

Pictures, video, audio tapes DO NOT actually tell what happened. Any amount of detail left out can alter the facts of a story, therefore making it seem like something its not.

Facts, in my opinion, are always influenced by perception. There is no untainted fact. Someone always has to relate the fact - 10 people can look at the same video, the same picture, hear the same tape, witness the same incdient and have several different perceptions. Who's to say that Jack's perception of what happened is factual and is indeed what actually happened?

Just like that?

I have been following this story since it occurred in the week of September 11th and I still am not sure the whole truth is being told. While I think racism do exist, we are in NYC not Kentucky, diversity is pretty common. I am not sure it is very likely that bottles would be flying in the air at random black youths. Perhaps the group of white men were drunk or provoked to behave that way? I don't know, but something is missing. Even if they were walking peacefully as they said they were and bottles and slurs fly...they kept walking?? Bottles and racial slurs...and you keep walking?? Not likely to me. I would be in fight mode. Something had to have happened prior to this. While I have seen the student who was well-beaten then arrested (the condition of his face is very believeable). The details are detail enough for me. I need to hear the second by second recall of that evening.

BMCC student beaten but arrested...

NYC victim of racist assault is arrested
By Dan Clemente | October 5, 2007 | Page 15

NEW YORK--Days before tens of thousands of people mobilized nationwide to protest for justice for the Jena 6--six African American high school students who face long prison sentences in Louisiana--a group of Black college students faced the same racism in New York.

Members of the Borough of Manhattan Community College (BMCC) basketball team, who are mostly Black, were in Lower Manhattan heading home from practice when someone threw a bottle at them. According to student Marquis Scott, a group of white men in front of a bar began shouting “Niggers” and “This is what slavery feels like!”

“We kept walking to the [subway] station, and when we look back, a group of six of the white men had run up behind us and were attacking us,” said the 18-year-old Scott. He said he was thrown to the ground and attacked.

But when police arrived, they arrested Scott. “The first cop who got there...had to tackle two of the guys to get them off me,” said Scott, who is the son of a police officer.

When the team’s head coach Chester Mapp got a call from one of the players as the assault was taking place, he and some other players went to look for them. They were assaulted and robbed by group of thugs.

“I see four white men jump over the turnstiles, and they start to attack my kids,” Mapp said. “Then four more of them rush in. They’re all yelling ‘Nigger time,’ and ‘Niggers, we’re gonna get you.’”

“Never in my born days have I seen the kind of racism I witnessed last week right here in New York City,” said Mapp, who was angry that only three of assailants were arrested at the time and charged with assault, not a hate crime.

Activists and the victims’ schoolmates have urged BMCC to launch an internal investigation and for the NYPD to file hate crime charges. City Council member Charles Barron called for a protest at District Attorney Robert Morgenthau’s office to demand the prosecution drop additional charges against Scott.

At a rally at City Hall on September 20 in solidarity with the demonstration in Jena that day, Barron welcomed everyone to “Jena, New York.” The similarities are chilling--and not just because of the assault on the BMCC students.

In Oceanside, Long Island, a Black victim of a vicious beating by a gang of white youths was indicted on assault charges, despite a McDonald’s security camera recording the entire incident. The victim, Aloysius Staton, could face a sentence of 25 years. None of his attackers were arrested.

“People better realize that they are living Upsouth in New York City,” Barron said. “Right on our doorstep...we have cases where Black people are being assaulted and end up being charged with a crime.”

People in cities across the country have their eye on Jena--as an example not only of the racism at the heart of the justice system, but also the possibilities for organizing resistance.

Developing the skill...

Thinking critically isn't as hard as I thought.
I am known for zoning out when people are talking to me and hear just the main points of what they are saying.
I had began to practice listening carefully to DETAILS and trying to analyze when a story seems to be missing some element or some detail. Consequently, I am learning to ask more intelligent questions - the right questions that will give me the right answer. Very interesting!

Be very conscious...

I worked in this restaurant my first semester here. This guy came in - black, tall, looking kinda shady. He orders a salad, places his money on the counter (a $20 bill), saying out loud it was the smallest bill he had. Then he proceeds to make small talk with me. I hand him his salad and he stands there looking at me expectingly and I look back at him just the same. He then says, "My change?" And I reply, "You didn't give me the money." He gets very defensive and with his burst of emotion I suddenly wasn't sure if I did take the money up. I then said, "Oh did I? Ok" and I proceeded to give him his $15 change. As soon as he walk out that front door I realized what had happened. He ensured that I did in fact see the $20 by commenting about it and ordered the cheapest thing so that his profit would be more.
He left with his $20 and my $15!

The moral:
Be very conscious, these people are skilled. Even though I did find him suspicious I still wasnt sure if i picked up that $20. But 20 secs later, I was sure I didn't!