Bad Taste, All in Fun

The ugly Christmas sweater; once an embarrassing piece of holiday-wear, and now a fashionable commodity.  But how did this occur? Guy Trebay, a culture and style reporter for the New York Times explains this strange epidemic.  With rhetorical questioning about the beginning of this style, Trebay explains that the true start of this holiday fashion epidemic has no real set beginning.  It might’ve started with the ugly sweater carols on Youtube, or the Ugly Sweater 5k runs, and goes on to an even longer list of possible causes.  It’s a trend that many online stores and brands are and have tapped into, an ironic host of all those old sweaters that an aunt or grandmother may have given and never worn.  All those ugly sweater parties with everyone trying to “one-up” each other with how ugly their sweaters were.  The article’s drawing from cultural memory, a memory of cheesy designs and horror, never giving a true answer to the question -when did this trend start?- but giving hints and reasons that may have all brought this epidemic over the tipping point into what is now a profitable tradition.  But I suppose the true purpose of this article is to show that all these cheesy designs and the remarkable tradition of wearing your ugly Christmas sweater is in fact, all for the fun of it.  

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/16/fashion/ugly-holiday-sweaters-are-all-the-rage-cultural-studies.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

Photographer Says Death Photo was Attempt to Alert Subway Driver

This is an article about a subway-picture incident where a man was pushed onto the tracks of a subway and was then run over, while everyone else stood by and watched, and one photographer took pictures.  It is about the ethics of the pictures, and about why the photographer took them.  It was written by Michael Pearson, who graduated Emory University Professional Learning Program and University of Missouri-Saint Louis and is a freelance writer for CNN.  Using and interview with the photographer himself, Pearson paints the picture of what was going on at the scene, using liberal ethos with quotes from the photographer, Abbasi, of how he would have done things differently, and recalling how others urged the soon-to-be-dead man to move, to try to escape the subway train.  Pearson lets Abbasi speak with his writing, why Abbasi took the pictures -to get the subway driver’s attention, to do something productive- as well as the reactions to Abbasi’s pictures.  Using quotes from different people, Pearson presents the arguments for and against the publishing of the picture, which provoked an outcry from readers.  He raises the ethical concerns of the picture and its use.  So the question he leaves for us is, was this ethical? Or was this simply too private and insensitive?

http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/05/us/new-york-subway-death/index.html

Wars of the Roses

The War of the Roses by Alison Weir, educated at the North Western Polytechnic as a history teacher.  She writes “popular” history, which is history aimed less to the scholar and more for the masses, using layman’s term and emphasizing narrative, personality, and detail rather than academic analysis.  After writing The Princes in the Tower, a popular history novel about last half of the Wars of the Roses between the Tudor and York families, Alison felt that she needed to write a prequel, about the first of the Wars of the Roses, between the Lancaster and York families.  Her main intention was to portray the human side of history - the people and their personalities, the main players in this feud (Weir xiii).  This is a story about not only the history of the Wars of the Roses; the causes, the facts, the analysis, but also the people; who they were, what they were like, why they did what they did.  With primary sources, Weir starts off with the events leading to and indirectly causing the Wars of the Roses.  The characters are portrayed, not as names, but as people, who had dreams, issues, personalities, hobbies, and lived in troubled and peaceful times.  Certainly, with her layman terms, she shares this rich history beautifully, making the characters seem more alive with choice events, such as the vivid death of the usurper King Henry IV.  

House of Parliament -Stormy Skies

This is a beautiful piece by Monet, a very famous Impressionist painter who was quite fascinated with water and light effects in nature, taking great care with the effects in his paintings to highlight them.  This piece is part of a series of paintings, the Houses of Parliament series, as they depict the Palace of Westminster, where the British Parliament met.  Each are painted at different times of day, in different conditions and seasons.  This particular painting depicts the Palace of Westminster with stormy skies in the background.  Monet uses gold to highlight the light of the sun peaking through storm clouds, falling in a single ray that is highlighted in water, making the churning waters sharper in contrast to the more shadow-like palace. The shadows of the palace stretch onto the water, the sky is a tumultuous mix of greys, golds, purples, pinks, greens, and russet brown.  Truly, it is a beautiful play of light and water, and unique in that it shows stormy skies with gold, not grey.  The contrasts in light and color provide for a more natural and unique view, rather than plain old grey.  Of chiaroscuro, which is the use of light and shadow, this truly is a wonderful piece of the House of Parliament on a day with stormy skies.  

A 'fiscal cliff,' a 'fiscal slope' or ... let the readers decide

In these times where Congress can’t seem to get it’s act together, and the people are thoroughly confused with each new metaphor and euphemism for political disasters, Jon Healey, an opinion writer and member of the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times, share’s his opinion on the term, ‘a fiscal cliff (or slope)’.  His view? Both metaphors are inadequate, as they only reflect a specific party’s ideas.  So he want’s the reader to coin a new phrase.  For all those people who actually like politics, I’m sure some will take the chance to coin a new phrase.  Healey makes a point for each existing version: cliff and slope, and provides logical reasons as to why they will not work, defining each term, and how they work in terms of politics and ideals.  He gives his opinion to the reader and supports them with evidence from the CBO and the ideals of the two political parties.  Healey extrapolates on the possible outcomes of the ‘fiscal cliff/slope’, and leaves the reader open to disagree and write back to refute it, writing “I look forward to the many comments from readers taking issue with me on this point”.  I believe he get’s his point across quite well, and even if readers do not agree with his views -that ‘fiscal cliff’ needs to be renamed- it still provides a lasting argument as to why it ought to be changed.  

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/opinion-la/la-ol-fiscal-cliff-by-any-other-name-20121116,0,2814282.story

A Chocolate Tour of the Carribean

    In a journalistic article Baz Dreisinger, an english professor at John Jay College, details her experiences and revelations while touring the chocolate tourist attractions and factories in the Trinidad Caribbeans. Using beautiful metaphors, “sleeping in a cocoa pod”, and then both refuting and supporting her metaphors builds a wonderful description of the Hotel Chocolat, and is then continued throughout her tour of the Carribeans. Her usage of beautiful imagery makes the decadent chocolate she describes seem all the more real -a phantom taste, aroma, and feel, pleasing the reader’s senses with illusionary images. Dreisinger spins together the rich history of cocoa, starting with its origin with the Aztecs, into the businesses of today, providing a brief interlude in her description to weave together the past and present. Reading this, a person cannot help but feel that Hershey chocolate is not quite enough, that perhaps Trinidad cocoa of the Carribean is truly, as Dreisinger describes, “The Champagne of cocoa”. Certainly, I, as one reader, have fallen for this ‘essence of chocolate’ which Dreisinger describes, shaped in unique and decadent ways. To find the experts, and to share her experiences with them and their creations, has evoked a craving within myself and perhaps her other readers to try these creations for ourselves. 
http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/11/11/travel/a-chocolate-tour-of-the-caribbean.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&

The Omnivore's Dilemma -the Finish

The goal of this book is to provide an answer to the question: “What should we have for dinner?” (Pollan pg 1). It proceeds to answer this question in-depth, starting “all the way back to fields of corn growing in places like Iowa” (Pollan pg. 5).  The author is Michael Pollan, educated at Bennington College, Oxford University, and Columbia University, and has a Master’s in English. In this time where most American’s are experiencing a health craze, this book has opened the eyes of many to the alternatives in eating, and what exactly they are eating.  Pollan mixes the appeals together, using the expertise of Billy and George as corn farmers, and Joel’s opinions as a grass farmer as ethos, taking statistics and then weaving them together into a single cohesive argument that is based in both ethos and logos.  He uses a sort of parallel thinking, comparing two different types of meals -the industrial, and the hand-picked, neither existing without the other.  Their virtues and detriments, arranging them using cause-and-effect arguments, as well as his logical appeals make this text very effective.  His diction is such that any educated person would be able to read it with no problem, and he explains concepts in depth using layman’s terms. Even the chapter titles are arranged artfully, some chapters with little sub-titles that give little hints of information, like “The Feedlot//Making Meat//(54,000 kernels)” (Pollan pg 65).  With each addition, from industrial, Big and Little Organic, Hunting and Gathering, Ethics of Meat Eating, all the way to the Perfect Meal, Pollan leaves it to the reader to discover their own perfect meal, using this book as a means of learning where their food comes from and what is in it.