Casual Contemplation

Like many girls, I played with Barbies when I was a kid.  Every now and then I would get a new doll or some new outfits for them. When my friends came over we played with (and fought over) them, dressing them in various outfits and playing pretend. To be honest though, I don't recall ever comparing myself or other adult women to Barbie. At 7 I knew that she was just a toy and never saw her as anything more. After an hour or two, Barbie and her friends were put back neatly in their box and replaced in their spot under the bed. My sister, on the other hand, turned 7 last month. While she's never played with dolls much, she loved watching Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse on Netflix.  I happened to be sitting in the same room a few times, and I was appalled by the show. Not only is Barbie super skinny, she's got this huge house with a closet the size of the White House and 36 hot tubs and an elevator. (I'm not exaggerating the closet btw. Her friends got lost in it once. An...

In A Measure of Restraint , Chet Raymo calls attention to the potential dangers of "the unexamined quest for knowledge", citing the story behind Radium. While we have much more knowledge about radioactivity than we did then, the current scientific excitement and concern is all about DNA. Nearly everything in our supermarkets is genetically modified or contains GMO ingredients. Supporters say that genetic modification allows plants to repel insects, eliminating the need for harmful pesticides, or that it lets food to be grown in places where it normally couldn't, helping to solve world hunger. Opponents argue that while it sounds good, messing with nature may have unforeseen consequences later. Some scientists are trying to extend human lifespan or even try to make humans immortal. Again, it sounds wonderful - how great would it be to get to know your great-great-grandparents in person? But there is always another side. If people are living longer, will the earth be ab...

One of the most important tools that politicians used in the past and still do today is to relate to their audience. By telling anecdotes and providing occasional glimpses into their personal lives, they attempt to shift the public's view of them from someone of a high, powerful position to someone who shares their joys, their tears and their struggles. In a way, politicians humanize themselves in this manner. Take President Trump, for example. Much of his popularity was due to the fact that he was not a politician, but a businessman, by profession. The people wanted change, and he had a different background than other politicians, which played out well for him. Every Trump supporter said the same thing: "He is the change America needs." He told the story of his success (the infamous "small loan of a million dollars") and this resonated with the public.  This strategy was especially used by President Obama during his campaign as well as his presidency. He so...

The debate about establishing an official language in the States has been going on for a long time. English only? Or Spanish too? Should we have an official language at all? Truly, this topic has two parts. The first part is, should we even have an official language? I think we  should. It makes sense to have a common and unifying language with which everyone can communicate, and which one must know how to speak upon becoming a citizen. Some people think it's racist, like Krauthammer pointed out, but having an official language doesn't mean other languages are any less, or that anyone is restricted to speaking only that language - it just means that to be naturalized into the country, one must know how to speak and understand it. Most immigrants end up learning the language anyway - how else are they going to communicate in this country? - so making it official just gives more incentive to learn it. So we have established that English should be made the official language....

Language is defined as "the method of human communication, either spoken or written, consisting of the use of words in a structured and conventional way".  Basically, it's how we communicate. The way we use language shows a lot about who we are.  Steven Pinker talks about how we use language to allude to what we want to say instead of saying things directly. A lot of it is just common politeness, something that I had never though about as being "indirect" before. While he does exaggerate (I don't think anyone would  really say "If you could pass the salt, that would be awesome"), he makes a valid point. Very often we use language in a way that benefits us, my including and omitting certain words or phrases. How many times have you written a short email which should take less than 5 minutes to write, but ends up taking 20 because you keep editing it and rewording things? I do that all the time. I can recall a specific example of what Pinker would c...

I visited the Great Smoky Mountains National park in winter break two years ago, en route to Florida. It was an amazing place, saturated with breathtaking natural beauty. The stream of mountains and trees with leaves of various hues were filled with life, like they were the very veins of the earth, a small area of land untouched by the plague of industrialization. The pinks, yellows and blues of the blossoms; the reds, oranges and browns of the leaves; the green pine trees, all against a background of a white blanket of snow, made the place seem like a painting, a visualization, something that only happens in movies - but it was real , and it was, at some point, what the entire continent looked like before the year of 1492 when Columbus sailed the ocean blue. Currently, the paradise on earth is protected by the government. Soon, though, it too will be destroyed, used to make 293.4 square miles more of houses, schools, malls, corporate offices, factories....and no one will remember or...

Everybody seems to think that the more wealth one gets, the happier they will be.The ability to buy a fancy car and the latest iPhone equates to ultimate bliss, right? It sounds outrageous - and it is - but deep down, we all believe so. Eighner contradicts this in his essay on his life of "Dumpster diving".  He owns no tangible items other than the clothes on his back and his dog, but he is happy. In fact, he avoids taking anything from the dumpster he doesn't need. Even though he has close to nothing, he "hardly picks up a thing without envisioning the time [he] will cast it away". He has intangible things, though, such as a companion (Lizbeth). He therefore has a "healthy state of mind". Contrast this to what may the exact opposite situation: celebrities. They own big fancy mansions with every tangible thing they could ever want, and the money to buy anythi ng beyond that. They live a life of luxury. But how many celebrities have we heard of w...

On the surface, tourism seems completely harmless; if anything, it benefits the economy of the country being visited. Right? This was true at one point, when less people were traveling. But the number of tourists has gone up in the past several decades, from 25 million to 1.1  billion, and this has created mass tourism - tens of thousands of tourists visiting popular destinations, much to the dismay of local residents who feel as  though their residential neighborhoods are turning into amusement parks. Locals often feel like these herds of tourists are unaware of the fact that they are supposed to be there to experience a different culture. Hence, in places that are perpetually saturated with tourists, the tourists' behavior seeps into local culture and becomes a part of it, instead of the other way around.In this way these mass tourists are "spoil[ing]...the very unspoiledness [they] are there to experience" (Wallace).  This result is not paid attention to becaus...

Once upon a time , married women were always unhappy. They always had to do housework and take care of their children and spouse - who often was the biggest baby of all - and were expected to do so happily. Today , though, things are different. We, as a society, have accomplished full equality between the sexes. So now, I want a husband.  I want a husband to take care of me. By "me", of course, I mean my every desire too. I want a husband who knows what I want at the moment without me having to speak. I want a husband who will get me everything I want when I want it, and surprise me with gifts every so often, too. And if every one of my friends' husbands are buying them gifts, I want a husband who will buy me the same thing, but better. If all my friends are going to Africa to play with elephants for Valentine's, my husband better bring me some pink elephants right to my house. Bonus points if my husband brings a couple blue zebras with him too.  I want a husba...

A few years ago, I had to dress business formal to go somewhere, and I had no idea what to wear. The few times I had to "dress up" for a presentation in school or something, I managed to fly by wearing dark jeans with flats (and still do), but that wouldn't do this time. I remember thinking how guys had it so easy - the classic black dress pants, white shirt and black tie work for any situation, with or without a coat. But I was lost. Dress? Skirt? Slacks? Blazer or not? Help??? I think that what makes women marked and not men is that women have many more options. If we ignore colour, in a formal setting a man can typically only wear a suit, where a woman could wear a dress or a skirt or slacks or a suit.....A man in a suit shows nothing about him, because he has no other typical options. But a woman wearing a dress means that she chose to wear a dress over other options, so it "marks" her.  The example that Tannen uses similar to this is about the titles on...

This was in Pakistan. The seven of us were squeezed into the car and were going to visit a relative who lived out of the city. When we were almost there we took a detour to look for a shop to buy some sweets. This would be totally normal in the city, but here, in a more rural area, our car stood out in a place where people almost exclusively use bikes and motorcycles as their means of transport. As with any public place in Pakistan, there were some beggars standing idly here and there. When they saw us park, however, they slowly started moving towards us. Soon a young woman started knocking on the window. We pretended not to notice her for a while, but eventually my uncle pulled out 10 rupees and gave it to her. What happened next was interesting. We had, unknowingly, altered public space simply by being in a car and then giving some change to a woman in need. The woman thanked us and walked away - towards two younger girls. She nudged them and pointed in our direction, then walked of...

vase or two faces? (Sorry about the font - I don't know why but I can't make it bigger.) Our perceptions and opinions about something can be drastically different from the reality. We forget that our perception of something may not be true, that there are many different angles to everything and we can only see one. We always feel entitled to establish our own perceptions about something and treat those perceptions as fact, even if we aren't able to fully understand the situation. The disabled mannequins, which were created in Sweden for the International Day of Persons with Disabilities, were met with a variety of responses from the public. Most of the viewers looked at the mannequins with what looked like confusion or displeasure. My interpretation was that they believed that the mannequins made this way would offend people with disabilities and make them upset. This was the public's perception - that disabled people would feel that they were being mocked by su...