Dedicated to Colin, for clarification

This is totally irrelevant to what we talked about in class today, but I just wanted to explain this to Colin especially, who was baffled during the induction ceremony last night (Honor and Service Society)

So my official (Korean) name is Ji Hwan, and my English name is Joanne. Obviously, Joanne is so much easier to pronounce so I use my English name.

However, Colin, there is nothing to be confused about. Even though I can be called by both Ji Hwan and Joanne, remember, map is not the territory. That doesn't mean that I have two different identities depending on which name I use, because both of them are my names.

I think that names are symbols, not just words. Whatever people use to call me becomes my name. Therefore, names have more meanings on how they are used, not on what they are.

This can be also related to deciding what the official national anthem is. I think that the national anthem is important for its symbolic meaning, and not for its exact words and the melodies of the music. The modifying of the national anthem should not be prohibited by the government because, just like names, the national anthem has more meanings on its symbolic use than it has meanings on the words and the other components of the song.

-Joanne

The National Anthem Issue

While watching that video in class today, I couldn't help but laugh to myself: people were honestly getting fed up over the translation of a song to a different language?

First and foremost, I personally consider this to be a trivial issue compared to all the other major problems we have in the world today. Most importantly, however, I think those that were infuriated by the Spanish translation of the National Anthem were hypocrites; after all, didn't Francis Scott Key, the man who wrote the lyrics for "The Star-Spangled Banner," simply use the tune of a popular drinking song and replace the lyrics with those of his own? The same exact concept applies here: somebody believed it would be a good idea to translate the National Anthem to Spanish, thus creating "Nuestro Himno." Sure, "Nuestro Himno" may not be exactly translated word for word from English to Spanish (all languages have that same issue), but the translators of "Nuestro Himno" didn't completely obliterate the original lyrics and create their own like Francis Key did, either.

So, in the end, whose National Anthem is it? In my opinion, it's everybody's. Anyone has a right to interpret it their own way, as well as translate it to any language he or she wishes. The lyrics of the National Anthem are not copyrighted. Just as many Hollywood movies and books written by American authors have been translated to different languages, so can a song, that is not owned by anyone specifically, be translated to any language.

One more interersting tidbit: Weird Al needed the permission of music artists to completely change the lyrics of their popular songs, but he didn't receive nearly as much criticism for his version of each song as the "Nuestro Himno" producers did. Why is that so?

-Chloe Martianou

An Interesting Article http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/climate-engineering

After watching Levitt on The Daily Show today after I got home from school, I decided to search the internet to see what exactly "geo-engineering" is and what all the hype is about. I found this article that was pretty interesting and I thought you all might want to check it out.

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200907/climate-engineering

-Bryce Cody

Book Access Affecting Culture?

Hi guys! I was thinking about the books in the rare book room. I noticed something interesting concerning the impact of the invention of movable type. Before its invention books were produced in fairly small numbers and were fairly expensive, but afterward they became more widely available and more affordable. In the centuries following the invention there was what could be considered a fairly dramatic leap in progress, at least in some areas. I was thinking maybe that production of more books had something to do with it.

The invention of movable type (and the introduction of the printing press in Europe) occurred in about 1450. That's only about 560 years ago. The progress that has been made since then is pretty astounding. Of course, there were fairly remarkable new discoveries and systems invented before that time, but it didn't tend to stick around as well (think the Roman Republic and the civil engineering of ancient Rome in general). Maybe it was books that made this progress more permanent and readily attained.

What are your ideas on this?

Melissa C.

More on Polls

After hearing Dubner speak today about the often skewed nature of surveys, I found myself thinking about his comments all night. I found that the more I thought about the topic, the more I found his comments to be extremely truthful. With this thought in mind, I was intrigued by a comment made on page 1186 of Lit for Composition where Caldwell Titcomb references a poll taken by the Boston Globe, as part of the proof for his argument. The survey stated that 493 people would prefer to have a different national anthem while only 220 would prefer to keep the anthem the same as it is now. Using the information I learned today, I attempted to analyze the statistic to see if it was representative of the whole population or not. Since the survey seemed to be only conducted in Boston during a time of controversy, and the survey results are utilized in an essay that is heavily pushing for a a new anthem in the United States, I came to the conclusion that the survey statistic is probably biased and most likely not to be fully trusted. What does everyone else think?
- Tara

Language = identity ?

I was at some event and I happened to listen to this college professor's lecture. He was a Korean who lived in many different countries like the US and Japan for many years to study. His lecture was on the importance of learning one's native language. He said that the language one speaks determines one's identity and emphasized that learning the native language is immensely significant.

I do agree that a person's ability to speak his native language plays a huge role in helping him to shape his identity, but I slightly disagree on his statement that language is everything that determines one's identity.

Any other ideas?

-Joanne Park

Baby Blues

I saw this cartoon in the newspaper recently and it made me laugh. I know its kind of random, but I thought you guys would like it.

~Elizabeth

"All the World's a Stage"...In a Way

Throughout our discussion of the play today, I found myself constantly recalling the phrase: "All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." Mr. Lazarow asked us if there were any times where we weren't acting a part, and I formed my own opinion on the matter.

We truly do seem to always act in front of others. Friendship cliques, family member and occupation roles--we all act a part under these circumstances. When friends go out to the mall, for instance, they behave differently with each other than they would if they were hanging at the mall with their mothers. I've heard many people mention how different someone is when they hang with certain "crowds." We behave differently depending on who we are with.

But reverting back to the question of whether we are always merely "players" of a stage: I don't believe that...not entirely, at least. Everyone indeed plays many roles each day of their lives, but nobody can just be defined as "actors." After all, if all we can possibly do is act a part, how real are we? I personally believe that what defines us as real--and not just simple characters searching for a role to play--are our mindsets.

Through personal experiences, and our development in maturity that results from them, we become very opinionated on matters. Our very personal opinions make us individualists. Of course, some people opt not to express their personal opinions openly on certain topics, and may instead simply agree (or pretend to agree, that is) on what others have to say. Those very opinions, however, though possibly not expressed openly to others, are a part of our mindsets that make us amount to more than mere "actors." Nobody else can view our personal beliefs on matters, (unless we choose to express them, of course) but because we have those very thoughts, we may "act" differently in front of others, but our mindsets will never change.

-Chloe Martianou

Non-existent places?

While in Philadelphia today, my mom told me a story that I had forgotten. Four years ago, when I first went to Richmond, Virginia, my parents went to the visitors' center to see what there was to do in the city. My mom asked one of the staff members where the bad parts of the city were. The staff member handed her a map, pointed to a blank spot, and said, "Oh, thats the part that's not on the map."

When my mom told me this, I was shocked, and immediately thought of Hayakawa's "map and territory" idea. After some digging, I came up with this map of Richmond. Some parts look like normal city streets, but others look like they should be in a more rural town. From my experience of Richmond (I've stayed there for several weeks each summer since), I know there are streets in these parts, where the map says there are none. By not putting them on the map, the visitors' center was in a way hiding the fact that they exist.

Can we really make places "disappear" by not putting them on maps? What do all of you think of this?

-Audrey

Four Characters in Search of a Guitarist

Has anyone seen the new Guitar Hero version with the Beatles? My dad and I were discussing it, and marvelling at how realistic the band members appeared in the game. They look almost exactly like the real musicians. But in this game, who are the "real" Beatles?

I allude to the current classroom text, Six Characters. One argument made by on of the characters (the father, I believe) is that the characters are more real than the actors who play them because while human beings change from day to day, the characters in a play are always the same. They are static, never changing, and for this reason their personalities have fixed definitions.

So using Pirandello's reasoning, we could say that the Beatles in the Guitar Hero video game are more real than their human counterparts. Lennon and Harrison are dead, but the video-game versions are alive in the mind of the gamer-guitarist. And Paul McCartney and Ringo are portrayed as their much younger selves on the screen, while the physical men age by the day. The Beatles are only human, yet are immortally preserved within the game.
-emily donahue

Book Review

No Title Yet
When it comes to economics books, Freakonomics is unlike any other. It contains no lists of endless data; nor does it bore you with an infinite assortment of bell curves, supply and demand charts, or cost-benefit analyses. The thing that truly makes the book unique, however, is the fact that the book does not have a unifying theme (and perhaps the fact that the authors are so proud of this). It would be easy for Levitt and Dubner to write an entire book about how schoolteachers often cheat to improve their students standardized test scores or about how drug gangs have payrolls similar or greater in inequality to most corporations. Instead, the authors choose to explore whatever curiosities catch their fancy, devoting a few pages to each of a multitude of random topics.
Perhaps the most intriguing topic explored in Freakonomics is the correlation between the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision and the drop in crime in the 90s. After the legalization of abortion, millions of women who otherwise would have had children turned to abortions to rid themselves of a burden they were not prepared for or did not want. Many of these women were likely to be single mothers, many of them were poor, and many of them were teenagers. Demographically speaking, children raised by these women would have been far more likely to become criminals. Therefore, the fact that millions of these children were never born played a much larger role in reducing crime than the many other factors cited as explanations to the 90s drop in crime (innovative policing strategies, more people locked up in prison, more police, aging of the population, gun-control laws, etc.).
This conclusion has become what Levitt is most known for among economists and perhaps the reason why Levitt received the John Bates Clark medal, an award given to the most influential American economist under the age of 40. It has also become one of the greatest sources of controversy surrounding Levitt. He was attacked by the right, which was angered by his argument which apparently promoted abortion as a crime solution. And from the other side of the political spectrum, he was attacked for suggesting that poor and minority mothers raise broods of criminals.
Despite being the most acclaimed part of Freakonomics, the abortion-crime link is by no means the focus of the book. Instead the book jumps from topic to topic, rarely spending more than ten pages discussing a single subject. Have you ever thought about a lucrative career in the crack industry? Think again, according to Levitt and Dubner. The average dealer makes only $3.30 an hour and stands a 1 in 4 chance of being killed over the course of four years. This topic and various others are explored ranging from what schoolteachers have in common with sumo wrestlers to whether a name affects someone's success in life.
While many of these topics may be trivial, they make for a fun read. And, besides, the purpose of the book isn't to outline a methodology for maximizing profits, but rather, as the authors state, "explore the hidden side of everything". While the snobs of economics may detest Freakonomics and accuse it of being without practical purpose, there is no doubt that the book is able to captivate its readers in a way that no other economics book ever has.
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Well, here's my first draft of the book review. I decided to put it up so everyone can tell me what's wrong with it/how I can make it better. Be honest, be scathing, I'm not sensitive.

-Bryce Cody

Driving through Philly the other day, some advertisements piqued my interest. Since we've been discussing language in advertising, I thought I'd snap some pics of them so we could tear apart their meanings on the blog. Have at 'em!
Wawa: "New toasted flatbreads. Ciao! Hola!"

Temple University: "FACT #27: Temple University generates $2.7 billion for the Deleware Valley each year." (really? what do they mean by "generates $ for"?)

Snapple:"We found better stuff." (it's better - trust 'em)

Geico: "The money you could be saving."

Wawa: "Prices you can trust. Same price, cash or credit."