First off, yes the blog count for second semester was lower than first semester. And although not quite an excuse, yes Junior Theme and other deadlines in between were attributed to this.
Having said that, where the quantity of blogs this semester has visibly decreased, the quality has improved extremely. Take an early blog this semester, for example, on the sampling of music Sampling or Stealing?. Although an interesting topic and a good comparison of videos with musical sampling, I did not conduct nearly enough research. In fact I was told after I had already written the post that my argument in the post was invalid as there already exists rules on piracy and sampling.
Now, when you look at my most recent post What is the American Dream?, pondering the composition of the American Dream and how money shouldn't be the tell-tale sign of success. Rather, in this newest post I made a reference to topics we discussed in class and gave a connection to American Ideals that should be rethought.
I think I did a great job in terms of writing quality blogs this semester, and other than the fact that there weren't too many of them, I am happy with my work.
After watching the movie "Citizen Kane" and reading the book "The Great Gatsby" in class recently I have had to some rethinking of the "American Dream". Both stories feature fabulously rich men, Jay Gatsby and Charles Foster Kane, who despite their vast sums of wealth were ultimately very lonely and unhappy. The common goal for every American is to get rich, but is success determined by how much money you have? Or is it how happy you are? To begin to answer these questions I think I should first re-define the American Dream in my own words.
If Charles Foster Kane can't buy happiness nor can you!
The American Dream should not be defined by a list of wants based on financial goals. Rather, I believe the American Dream is being happy in your own skin no matter how rich or poor you or. I think people can fall into the trap that with money comes happiness, but you can't buy happiness. Love and happiness cannot be bought, and for that reason the American Dream should be rethought so that there are other factors in people's aspirations besides money.
Having said that, you can buy things that could lead to potential happiness; you can buy security, luxury, possessions, and even sex- but there are all short-lived avenues of happiness. Love and happiness are eternal, and for that reason Kane and Gatsby were very unhappy individuals. They thought that material objects and possessions could buy them love, but in the end they died lonely and their lives unfulfilled. Americans have a bad habit of putting money as their first priority, and although it is a necessity in becoming successful, our character and happiness with ourselves is a far more important priority.
They don't require gasoline. They have a tremendous fuel economy. They could potentially save our skyrocketing CO2 emissions. But no, Americans are not ready to accept the electric car into their lives just yet. Many models and concept cars have tried in the past- the Chevy Volt, the Tesla, and the Nissan Leaf among others- without much success. Perhaps the biggest roadblock electric cars need to face is not so much the larger amount of initial pay, but the fact the Americans don't like change. According to Forbes, the average KWH (Kilowatt per hour) is $0.11 versus the $4.00 per gallon of gasoline. This adds up in the long run, and should be very appealing to Americans who need to save money. Yes, electric vehicles are more costly than standard models, but they should pay for themselves after a year or so. The main reason Americans aren't biting is because the concept of a car that you can charge not refuel is too different.
American men (and women even) love the manly appeal of a loud exhaust in a car, whereas electric cars are silent. Not to mention EV's don't have nearly the horsepower or torque of your pick-up truck or muscle car. For this reason EV's appear feminine and weak to countless car lovers in the U.S. Also, Americans are afraid of the new idea of having to recharge their car. The dramatically different concept of plugging your car into a charger rather than filling up your car from a pump at a gas station is alien to Americans. For this reason, and many others involving the irregularity of the use of an electric car, Americans are unwilling to invest in a more expensive vehicle that is so new to them.
The Chevy Volt, also known as the
Chevy Joke
I also feel like Americans have a huge dependence on natural gas. When we think of our daily or weekly expenses on necessities, (depending on how much you drive) gas costs exceed nearly all other costs. This is why gas companies have become so strong; that they have a stranglehold on car-driving Americans. The vast introduction of EV's would intimidate American gas "giants" along with Americans who have used gas for so many years.
There are many other very legitimate cons to EV's, but I found that most other reasons are technical and criticize the range of electric cars or the lack of infrastructure for charging them and whatnot (Bankrate). Although these reasons are valid, in my opinion Americans are less afraid of the technical aspects of EV's than the are the obscure concepts that come along with it. I think this goes along with the American ideal of normality, and a lack of obscurity. This doesn't apply to just electric cars; Americans don't like radical changes in their everyday lives. Electric cars may be good for our economy and environment, but the American ideal of not diverging from the "norm" prevents the EV business to move forward in the U.S.
It has come to my attention during my research for my Junior Theme question ("Why is the NBA predominantly African-American?) that there is a very common conclusion, or stereotype rather, that quite simply black people are better athletes than white people. Although I do not agree with this, people who do believe this conclusion would say that black people became better athletes from slavery when the stronger and healthier slaves thrived more than weaker ones and hence was an example of evolution. To give their side even more credibility, there is a historical study that supposedly 200,000 years ago the first human population in Africa split, and the population that remained in Africa developed genetic variations increasing muscularity and fitness (paraphrased from NY Times review of Taboo).
First off, it would take an enormous amount of time longer than 200,000 years to create any significant genetic mutations. Furthermore, the genetic makeup of each and every single human on Earth is 99.9% identical, so the variations, if any, aren't much. And to claim that in the period of slavery of Africans (roughly 400-500 years) that any adaptations were made is absolutely preposterous.
So with not nearly enough time for African-Americans to adapt, then how are they better athletes, Casey?
Well, in my opinion, they aren't. I believe that there other factors at play here besides athleticism. I think it's very important to first dissect what is needed to play basketball. Unlike most popular outside sports, all you need to play are sneakers, a ball, and relatively small court. In densely populated inner-cities, there aren't many open fields (for soccer, baseball, football, etc.) if any, however basketball courts are a commodity on nearly every street corner. It's also important to note that in inner-cities it tends to be segregated (especially in Chicago) and African-Americans live in these lower-income big city neighborhoods. So in this case it would be fair to claim that African-Americans in big cities tend to be playing basketball more than higher-income whites for example.
Carmelo Anthony overcame poverty in Baltimore to become on of the NBA's greatest stars
Having said that, I think that the playing field for all athletes, black and white, is completely even. I do believe that poor African-Americans have a larger opportunity to play basketball as they have narrower options for sports, and in many cases use playing on the court as a means to escape gang violence, drugs, or poverty at home. To prove my point, if you look at many of the superstar basketball players, the trend shows that they have had rough upbringings (Carmelo Anthony grew up in the very poor and dangerous part of Baltimore and Dwyane Wade and Derrick Rose each grew up in the south side of Chicago just to name a few).
Stay tuned for more deep blog posts like these.......
Best-selling novelist, Rhoden, could be a potential interviewee
So the current front-runner for my Junior theme topic is, "Why is the NBA 85% African-American?" Yes, this is subject to change, as other options come about and others fade, but I think this is a very interesting topic for a variety of reasons.
First off I love basketball, especially the NBA. For this reason it won't be hard to stay interested and focused on my research. I love watching it, but I also like learning about earlier eras and how the game has changed. Secondly, I believe that this "why" question doesn't have a right answer. While some may immediately conclude that this phenomenon is a testament to physical superiority, I believe that there are also cultural, economic, and historical factors that apply to this open-ended question. Or perhaps I could try to prove in my paper as to why black people are better athletes, tracing it back hundreds of years to slavery. I could compare the NBA now to what it was in the 1950's- or perhaps even earlier when black people weren't even in the league.
This could also be a terrific interviewing opportunity. I could talk to former basketball players, maybe even former Bulls players, about their experiences in the NBA and any racial hurdles they had to face. I could talk to players who didn't make it far playing basketball and draw a claim in my paper as to why. Or I could take a different path completely and could interview writers like, William C. Rhoden, who have already tackled the debate of the black athlete to get an expert's outlook.
This is just the beginning. Stay tuned for more posts strikingly similar to this one. Baer, out.
Yesterday New Trier hosted a "friendly" track meet, in which 5 teams from Cook county (sorry kind of forgot which teams exactly) came and ran a non-scored race at our indoor track. In my 400 meter sprint heat, a senior at Mather High School and I had a very brief conversation about New Trier. He first pointed out the size of the New Trier field house. Here's how the conversation went for the most part:
"Damn dude this gym is at least half the size of my whole school!" he said very enthusiastically.
"We don't mess around, hey!"
I chuckled then said, "You're kidding right? Wait 'till you see the rest of it. I got lost here all the time when I was a sophomore."
The conversation continued briefly and then stopped as soon as it began since we were rivals in a race about to compete against each other. The thing is, that even after the race, what he said about New Trier really got me thinking about how privileged the over roughly 4000 students currently attending New Trier are.
You can walk down any hallway, or look in any classroom and the results will be the same: you will immediately notice how unbelievable the New Trier campus is. What's more is that just under 99% of its students finish all four years of high school, and 97% go to college. Compare that to the national average of 55.5% graduating high school. That statistic is pretty amazing, but what I found very strange was that I hadn't really noticed how unbelievable the school I went to was when I was shrouded by its walls 5 days a week.
The bottom line of this post is that sometimes you don't notice how privileged you are when you are surrounded by the things you are most privileged by. I am thankful for the school I go to, and also for the kid I raced against for helping me re-realize my surroundings.
One of my favorite rappers, let alone musical artists, goes by the name of Kanye West. Despite his incredulous ego, fiasco at the Grammys last year, and horrific album, 808's and Heartbreak, I still love his style and in my opinion he is one of the most influential rap artists of the last decade. Kanye West's career began as a hip-hop producer who used a highly popular method called, "sampling"- when an artist takes a hook or riff from another song to create a new original one. Even though sampling is in a sense taking from what has already been made, it takes a lot of skill to make it work in the way Kanye West does, as he often turn soul classics from the 70's to modern urban hip-hop anthems.
I can see why many criticize this form of music-making: it's easier to make songs as a significant portion has already been made, and that it is "stealing"somewhat from the original song. One could also argue that, in some cases, sampling violates recent piracy acts. This brings up an interesting debate about the fuzzy line between sampling and stealing.
Before I can even begin to create a hard line between these two I need to ask a crucial question: how far must an original piece of music be altered in order to become its own new piece? Must the song undergo significant rhythmic or harmonic changes throughout the song, or can one single note change make it a new song? Can the edited song simply be called a remix? Or can it be given a new name despite the minor differences?
The answer to all of these questions are opinion-based, as different people have different assessments of the boundaries of music. In my opinion, a song is its own original song when it does not simply copy another, but rather uses another for inspiration or even as a backbone for new creative additions. For example, in the Kanye West produced song, The Food, featuring himself and the rapper Common, he clearly uses a piano riff from Sam Cooke in the song, Nothing Can Change This Love, and yet the song is still original and equally creative as the other.
If you listen to the Sam Cooke song, it's clear
that Kanye used the piano riff throughout the song
To sum it up, I do not think sampling is taking the "easy way out". Obviously, if a song rips off an entire verse or blatantly mimics another song it isn't acceptable; but if the producer does it in a way that does not steal from or copy another and uses his/her own creative input then I encourage it. I don't think laws should be made restricting the boundaries of music-making, rather I feel like it should be policed by ones own morals.
