"Slacktivism"

Madonna in Africa

We often see celebrities out on the news magically turn into a major humanitarian. Whether it is supporting education in Africa or the stop of vaccines, every celebrity seems to have some cause they are fighting for. It seems suspicious that a celebrity will talk about Africa for a few months, spend about a month in Africa, taking pictures with kids and then come back talking about what a lifetime experience they had. Sure, they might have donated a lot of money, but to what extent are they actually helping to get better education or end world hunger. They are fighting for great causes but they really aren't doing anything helpful to stop the issue. They portray Africa as a helpless place which calls help from everywhere except the country itself. This New York Times article, "Celebrities Should Not Victimize Africa" compares these celebrities to the old Christian Ministries, which ended up turning Africa into a place of "racial hierarchy" and "economic exploitation."

The ways of these celebrities have seemed to rub off onto many high school students. I have seen many kids go on to do a service trip in South Africa or Thailand. They go for 2 weeks at a time, and get credit for helping out, but what can be really accomplished in 2 weeks. Everyone is looking now to be a humanitarian, and are willing to take large strides to get there. The largest example of what I have heard as referred to as "slacktivism" was the Kony 2012 campaign. Middle Schoolers and High Schoolers everywhere changed their Facebook statuses to promote catching Kony. Many people didn't even know who Kony was or why they wanted to catch him, but it sounded like a good cause and something good to do.

With this new trend of "slacktivism," it could potentially lead to results of people thinking they're being helpful when they aren't. What are some potential results of this? What are some real solutions that people could do? Is there something kids could do if they really wanted to get involved?

A Picture's Worth a Thousand Words

I recently came across an interesting blog/website called Humans of New York, a photo blogger, Brandan Stanton, who spends everyday wandering the streets of New York to capture pictures of everyday New Yorkers. He finds people who seem interesting, talk to them for a little bit and then take their portrait. He then posts the portrait on his blog along with a caption, either from him or a quote from the subject. It is his aim to really capture the spirit of New York through all of the different people the public never hears or sees about, the average American just like us.

Through spending a lot of time looking through many of his portraits, I really felt that I could get a feel of someone, a snippet of their life. I was also able to get a feel of what Stanton wanted us to get out of his photos. For example, he posted the photo of a family reading at a train station with the caption, "The Readertons." From this photo, I was able to see a family reading in a train station, see that it is probably a mother, a father, with two similarly aged daughters. I can also see that they all hold a book. I am also able to interpret Stanton's message from this image. I noticed that he framed the family inside of closing train doors, and to me it seems to imply that we, as Americans are closing our doors or shutting out the processes of reading, and instead turning to other things. While this may not be the message that Stanton intended, the ability to interpret photographs differently allows for different, interesting viewpoints.

Because photographs can tell us so much either about the photographer, the subject, or society, it let me to wonder what photos are chosen to display in the media. Often, the front page of any given news website is a photograph of a politician or a celebrity of some sort. Instead of focusing the public's eye to real issues in America by showing photos that make us think, we are left with photographs that nearly go along with a story. According to Neil Burgess, who runs his own picture agency, NB pictures, the art of photo journalism is dying. Publications "no longer fund photojournalism. They no longer fund photo-reportage. They only fund photo illustration." We are no longer supplied with photos that provide insight, but maybe through higher quality photographs, it would be possible to direct people's eyes to see the bigger picture instead of  just tiny parts.

Additionally, more and more people are going away from newspapers because they are unwilling to read the articles when they could just watch T.V. According to a 2012 study, only "23% of Americans say they read a print newspaper the previous day." This percentage continues to decline. It is possible however that newspapers could draw a readers attention, while maintaining the quality of journalism, by inserting photos that tell us something interesting about society that require thought and interpretation.

What benefits do you see in valuing high quality photo journalism? To what degree do you believe that adding better photojournalism to newspapers could help stop the decline of newspapers?

Required Saftey?

On Monday a tornado devastated much of Oklahoma, and destroyed many homes and uprooted thousands of people. Many people also faced serious injury or death as a result of the tornado. Now, we can only attempt to restore what is left of the towns, as we can not go back in time in order to prevent the disaster. It is impossible, however, to avoid all of the what if questions. What if more safe shelters were required in Oklahoma? Would there be far fewer casualties? Probably yes. That is why we have to consider now whether shelters should be required in tornado prone places.

The aftermath of the Oklahoma Tornado

Yes, shelters are difficult to build and are very important, but isn't the safety of our citizens worth the extra expense? We are willing to put billions of dollars into the armed forces in order to protect our country from foreign countries, so shouldn't we be willing to pay in order to protect our country from natural disasters, which have proven to be much more dangerous and frequent?

It might seem like the tornado was extremely rare, and now that it has passed, nothing as bad will happen again. Because of this perception many places don't feel they need to require shelters at this time. But if we look to 1999, when another devastating tornado hit, according to the NY Times, it was said, "If another storm comes, “there’s only a less than 1 percent chance of it being as strong and violent as what we experienced” before." So while the chances of another equally devastating storm may be unlikely, its better to be safe than sorry.

What else do you think could be done to prevent such devastation from natural disasters? Do you think the government should provide a role in requiring certain safety precautions?

Restrict Speaking Out

A new law is being proposed at an attempt according to this New York Times article to "silence the whistle-blowers" working for the government. This would disable employees from being able to make a report if they notice that something is wrong. The legislation uses very vague language when it defines what jobs have this restriction. "The proposed rules are exceptionally vague, defining such jobs as any that could have “a material adverse impact” on national security — including police, customs and immigration positions." By using this vague language, it allows the government to restrict many job positions from being fairly reported. An adverse impact could apply to anything that would need to be reported.

If this legislation goes through, it could result in more corruption in these jobs that this law would apply to. If every mistake becomes privatized, it can be dealt with under wraps and corrupt officials can get away unpunished. This seems to go against the system of checks in balances that we value in America. If there is no checks on these jobs, the people are loosing a lot of control and have to put a lot of trust into these positions?

What could be some additional affects of this legislation being passed? Do you see any potential benefits?

$200,000 Head Piece: The Great Gatsby

Lately, with the Gatsby movie coming out, many companies have been using Gatsby as an excuse to help sell there products. One of these companies doing this is Tiffany's. Tiffany's is selling a tiara with many diamonds, which is marketed as Daisy's tiara, for a shocking price. It is being sold for 200,00 dollars! It is really a ridiculous price, and we speculated a little on who would buy such a thing.

You can see the head piece on the Tiffany and Co. website, here.

One of my ideas was that it could potentially be a ploy from Tiffany's to seem even more high and then they already are. When people see that they are selling something that is worth the price of a house, and they see a high class celebrity endorsing it, then they can equate themselves to being high class or being a celebrity if they buy something else from Tiffany's. While another product from Tiffany's might go for a much lower price, it will be equated with the brand that sells a $200,000 piece of jewelry, so it would automatically seem high class.

It is interesting however, that this piece that is being marketed with The Great Gatsby, seems to go against everything the book's message is trying to portray. While the book looks down upon how much our society seems to value class, and how rigid of a class structure there is in America, especially in the east coast, this product seems to encourage a class divide. By someone wearing this, they are clearly advertising that they are high class. I think it is extremely interesting that even a story demoting the class structure can be used to strengthen the class structure.

Why do you think the head piece is so expensive? Also, do you think that the class structure is more or less rigid than it was in the 1920's when The Great Gatsby took place?