Author: giannanigro

Summaries- lmj20

Principal Encourages Cheating

It seems counterintuitive that a principal, whose job it is to enforce and promote a love of learning, would encourage teachers to help students cheat. However, at Cayuga Elementary School, that is what is allegedly happening.

Teachers at Cayuga Elementary have confessed that they were told by their boss, the principal of the school, to “do whatever had to be done” in order to improve scores on the upcoming state exam. Those statements are backed up by research showing that the odds of a pattern of erasures on a fourth grade reading test were one in 100 million.  With a national education system that puts so much emphasis and power on exam scores, it does not seem so far-fetched. Since improving the district’s test scores, cheating or not, Cayuga has been granted more flexibility in curriculum and more money. According to reports, Principal Cortez was going out of her way to cheat on these exams. Between bluntly telling teachers to check student’s answers before writing them in the booklets, or coming in suspiciously early and going into a locked room where the test booklets were kept, Cortez did anything possible to improve the test scores.

Overall, Cortez might not be the only one to blame. When a school’s performance is being based solely on one state test, even a powerful figure may feel like there are few choices besides cheating. The fact that possible cheating was able to reward the Cayuga district with more funding and more curriculum flexibility even though the students were not really performing at the expected level, shows that maybe school evaluations must go a little deeper than just one state exam.

Do Multivitamins Really Work?

It seems counterintuitive that multivitamins, which have been promoted by countless doctors and media outlets, could really be doing nothing to strengthen human health. In reality, multivitamins may just be perpetuated by business who want to make a profit.

The supplement industry is a 28 billion dollar business and it’s continuing to grow. Today, about one in three people take multivitamins. However, research has shown that not only are vitamin deficiencies rare in the US, but the multivitamins don’t do much to make the average person more healthy. In fact, some supplement takers may actually be exceeding the recommended amount of vitamins. To top it all off, research has concluded that nearly one third of labels on multivitamins are misguided or somehow at fault. So the multivitamin that claims to boost immune systems, may actually be causing vitamin overdose which could lead to several health issues such as birth defects or heart disease.

All in all, most healthy Americans do not truly need daily multivitamins. Despite persuasive ads that make people believe that multivitamins could help them in more ways than one, businesses are just feeding off of the nutritional insecurities that Americans tend to have.

Men Defining Rape

It seems counterintuitive that men have dictated the meaning of rape since the beginning of time despite the fact that rape happens to both genders, and more often women. However, that is what has happened over the course of history.

It all began in 1290 in Britain when Todd Akin attested that if a woman got pregnant then she could not have been raped, since only consent allows conception. In this case, technically, it is legal to rape a woman if she became pregnant because in their eyes it was not rape. As a male, it would be impossible for him to know for sure that in every case where a woman became pregnant she gave consent. The only parties that would know would be the people directly involved in the behavior, and it would be unique to every case. Another example of a man deciding when it is or isn’t okay to rape a woman took place in 1670. Sir Matthew Hale dictated that a man could legally rape his wife because she was bound to him. Even though these example seem far in the past, this is still happening today. The majority of males from the Republican Party press for bills that defund services for rape victims. Their justification is that “non-forcible” rapes should not be covered by federal funding. As with the case in 1290, how is a man to judge whether a rape is non-forcible? The woman victim is the one who knows whether or not she was forced, not the man who judges whether or not to fund her abortion.

The future is not all dark, though. Over time there has been a new wave of feminism that is challenging male power on the topic of rape. Many men do not take these women seriously but they continue to fight and some changes have been seen. The male domination on this topic has led many women to be fearful of even telling anyone about their rape. It is time that men begin letting women have a say on rape, so that all victims can feel safe and protected.

 

Moving Image-lmj20

0:01-0:04: A gray car is in the middle of the screen and serves as the focal point of the shot. This could mean that the car is the main idea of the ad. To the right, walking towards the car, is a man and a woman. We can assume that the car belongs to the man. They have their arms around each other indicating intimacy. They may be a preexisting couple or they have just met in the building behind them that they are coming from. There is a line of people outside of the building and what looks like a bouncer so it can be inferred that the building is a club. The couple is stumbling only slightly so they may have been drinking.

0:05-0:07: The couple stops in front of the gray car in the center of the screen. They are both nicely dressed which means they are decently wealthy and trying to impress each other. This could be their first date. The man is wearing sunglasses, even though its night time, and a leather jacket with a collared shirt under it. The woman is nicely dressed as well in a blazer, jeans, and heels. They are smiling at each other and leaning against the car, indicating that they had a good night and are both mutually interested in each other. Cars drive by behind them.

0:08-0:09: In this shot, the couple is no longer focused on each other. At this point they both look directly at the camera and the shot quickly focuses right on the man’s face. He is no longer lovingly smiling. His grin quickly fades into a more concerned look as if he had just heard bad news.

0:10-0:11- The man’s sunglasses vanish off of his face. The camera then zooms back out so both members of the couple are visible. The man is looking at the woman with a confused look on his face. The woman is no longer touching the man, she moves her arms away from him and closes her hands together, indicating a loss of interest. She also has a confused look on her face.

0:12-0:13: The camera zooms in again, this time on the man’s hand. He was wearing an elegant looking watch, and the watch vanishes. The man looks at his hand, realizes the watch is missing, takes a deep breath, and looks off into the distance. Are his possessions being stolen?

0:14: The shot zooms back out on both members of the couple still leaning on the car. This time, the couple is not lovingly touching and smiling at each other. They are simply standing there, the man with a confused look and the woman with an apathetic look.

0:15- 0:16: The camera zooms into the man’s nice jacket pocket. The pocket features one black button with red stitching. The stitching unravels itself, and the button falls down the man’s body and down his leg. This indicates that his possessions are not being stolen by a person, but rather his wealth is being taken away.

0:17: The camera follows the button’s path and it stops on the street right by the man’s feet. In the shot, the camera is focused on the man’s black dress shoes and black pants.

0:18: Still focused on the man’s feet, the man’s attire suddenly changes from nice shoes and pants to flip flops and destructed light blue jeans. This new look indicates a loss of wealth.

0:19: The camera pans up so now we can see the top half of both the man and the woman. It is revealed that the man is no longer wearing his nice jacket and collared shirt, he is now only wearing a white tank. The man is looking down at himself. The look could mean that he is confused and/or shamed by his new appearance. The woman is glaring at him. This could mean she is shocked or disgusted that she chose to leave the club with a guy dressed like this. She is not looking him in the face but only at his ragged clothing.

0:20: There is now a close up shot on the woman’s face. She is looking at the man with her eyebrows down and a concerned look on her face. She even rolls her eyes as if she is embarrassed to be with him.

0:21: The camera zooms all the way out onto the couple and the car again. The woman stands with her hand on her hip and looks as if she’s judging his looks. Cars continue to drive by behind them.

0:22: The woman vanishes. The man stands there, looking down in shame, at himself.

0:23-0:24: The car disappears. The people waiting in line and the bouncer at the building behind him disappear. The lights in the building turn off. The man stands in the street alone in his cheaper looking clothing. There are no cars driving by anymore.

0:25- The man looks back at the building and realizes that everyone is gone. Then, the camera zooms in on his face. His mouth is open and his facial features indicate sadness, shock, and confusion.

0:26-0:30: Words pop up on the screen: Buzzed, Busted, Broke. Buzzed driving is drunk driving. These words reveal that this couple was drinking inside the club and the man was about to drive buzzed. The ad shows the consequences of buzzed driving before they even got in the car. The man, busted for buzzed driving, would lose his wealth and his lavish appearance either from fines or paying for damages if there was an accident. He would lose his car, either through a car accident or through losing his license. He would lose the woman, either because they could get in a deadly accident or she wouldn’t want to be with someone who is broke and carless.

 

Stone Money- lmj20

Money powers our world. From economics to international affairs, money can make or break a person’s quality of life. The power of money has led many, including NPR broadcaster Jacob Goldstein, to question where exactly money originated, how it evolved, and how it gained the inherent value that it seems to have today. In his studies, Goldstein cites a peculiar story of the people of Yap. In their village, there was a huge stone made of limestone, a metal considered precious to the Yaps due to its rarity. The citizen that held ownership of the stone, even if it was not in his direct possession, could make purchases with the stone. If he or she chose to make an exchange with the stone, the ownership of the stone would then change to that seller. The stone never had to move, the only thing that changed was the village’s knowledge of the owner of the stone. Even when that stone accidentally fell to the bottom of the ocean, the villagers of Yap continued to use it as a means of currency. The stone did not have to be present to have value. As long as villagers continued to exchange using the stone, it had value.

The story of the Yaps, although it seemed bizarre at first, sounds very familiar. America started its currency evolution in an almost identical way. Gold, a metal that is considered rare and beautiful, was used as a means of currency. When gold became a hassle to transport, paper money was created. Each paper dollar represented an amount of gold. So as the Yaps exchanged their stone through word of mouth, Americans exchanged their gold through paper money. The gold never moved, only the ownership changed. As time moved forward, American money was no longer backed by gold. A dollar bill was just a dollar bill. Its value was not an amount of gold, but now just valued at whatever it can be exchanged for. In present day America, even cash is starting to go out of style. Now, the average American’s finances are based on electronics. Salaries are awarded, bills are paid, and purchases are made just by numbers changing on a bank account statement. This present-day economic system can only survive on human faith. If everyone lost their faith in the banking system and attempted to withdraw all their cash, the system would collapse. This is because there is not enough money to back every number on every bank account. As long as people continue to trust the banking system and the value of their dollar, the system can continue to grow.

This idea of faith ruling a country’s economic success is shown in Brazil. When the Brazilian economy began to stumble and inflation was increasing, Brazilians began to lose faith in their currency. The citizens no longer felt as though their money was valuable, so there was a rush to spend it all quickly instead of saving it. This made inflation even worse and so the cycle continued, until Edmar Bacha created a system of “real value” currency. Units of real value meant that prices always appeared to stay steady, the only thing that fluctuated was the amount of cruzeiros that was equivalent to the real value currency. Since steady prices made the Brazilians regain their faith in their economic system, soon the economy began to level out. This fake currency even allowed Brazil to thrive economically more than it ever did.

All in all, money runs on faith. If people have faith in the value of their currency, they will feel safe saving, spending, and accepting it. If one day all American companies decided that the dollar was worthless and they would not accept it as payment, then it would be worthless because it cannot be exchanged for any goods or services. However, as long as companies continue to feel as though the dollar is something to be sought after, the dollar does have value. When it’s broken down it means that one day someone can be rich and the next day they could have nothing. Despite the system’s apparent fragility, it’s not time to lose faith now. Currency systems like ours are essential to society and as illogical as they seem, they work. By how things are going now, people are not likely to lose their idea of value in the dollar any time soon. Companies continue to seek the dollar crazily. People work tirelessly just to see the numbers in their bank account rise each week. Therefore, I believe the American currency system will not collapse any time soon because citizens continue to believe that currency is valuable and the key to a good life.

References

Goldstein, Jacob. “The Invention Of ‘The Economy'” Planet Money. NPR, 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

Friedman, Milton. “The Island of Stone Money.” Diss. Hoover Institution, Stanford University , 1991.

“How Fake Money Saved Brazil.” Planet Money. NPR, 4 Oct. 2010. Web. 13 Sept. 2016.

“The Invention of Money.” This American Life. This American Life, 7 Jan. 2011. Web. 13  Sept. 2016.