I'm taking Media History under the same professor who, last year, docked points from my presentation on military advertising because I failed to address her claim that people have become leery of enlisting since 9/11. An acquaintance who happens to be an Army recruiter debunked that statement (he provided me with most of the material I used in my presentation), but my grade remained unchanged.
This semester seems as though it will be equally interesting. On the first day of class, she tore into the failures of Vietnam, and according to our syllabus, our topics of discussion will include the following: "Abolition," "Exposing Joe McCarthy," "Is This What You Mean By Color TV?," "The Black and the Beautiful," "Restrictive Portrayals of Asians in the Media," "Consumerism and the Construction of Black Female Identity," "Lesbian Chic," "Lots of Friends at the YMCA," "Popular Culture and Queer Representation," "Vietnam War," "Watergate," "Rush Limbaugh," "9/11," and "What We Really Miss About the 1950s." Do you know what I really miss about the 1950s? Women as homemakers, rearing kids and making sandwiches for their husbands. We're also going to watch "Hairspray" and "Pleasantville." And if nap time could be worked in there somewhere, that would be lovely.
This morning, we managed to talk about Glenn Beck for a rather lengthy amount of time, though none of it was really positive (on the other hand, the discourse never became completely became uncivilized, either). We also watched a segment of the Thomas Paine video that is currently on YouTube and was featured on Fox News, and my professor mentioned that Beck had written a book titled Common Sense. I almost volunteered to bring in my copy for her to read.
And we talked about the Tea Party movement, at which point my professor asked if I'd attended a tea party, because she thought she remembered me mentioning something about that. So I explained that yes, I'd attended a small tea party locally, and I'd also gone to the one in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12, and I'd also met Glenn Beck when I attended his show last Spring. And then, since I thought I might as well shovel the dirt on top of myself since I'd clearly just dug my grave, I told her that there were quite a few liberals and Democrats at D.C. on 9/12, and the media lied about the number of people actually in attendance, and Glenn Beck is really a nice person.
I decided to add the video we watched today. We stopped around 1:37. 1:00 - 1:27 is my favorite.
[EDIT]
Aside from Media History, I am also studying Human Diseases (like ebola and anthrax, which make any class exciting), Contemporary Middle East (Iranian Revolution to today) and Psychology. Are my courses interesting? Yes. Are they applicable? I don't foresee myself needing to know how to create trypticase soy agar after this semester. On the other hand, one of my best friends attends a Christian college (and it's not just a nominal one, either). She's taking a course titled "Christian Home" this semester, which, according to the college's course catalog (yes, I admit I researched it), "explores the biblical views of dating, engagement, marriage, parenting, and other family life issues. Special attention is given to the development of an effective family ministry within the local church which addresses contemporary family life problems." I don't even know how to file taxes properly. But then again, neither does Sec'y Geithner.
No comments:
Post a Comment