One of the reasons a few of Super Bowl ads were banned was probably due to the ridiculously extreme stereotypes, poking  fun at certain people who are out of “norm,” or was due to the expectation of audience.

Coming from  different culture, I was never interested in football game or never heard of Super Bowl. However what interests me is that each commercial  not only promotes the game but also grabs and interests the audience throughout the whole break time. It wouldn’t be surprised people watched Super Bowl for ads as well. It is possible that Super Bowl was most watched (106.5 million people watched)  in American TV history because of appealing commercials.

“Go Daddy” commercial extremely stereotypes a gay man, who doesn’t speak a word throughout the entire 30 second commercial but only “mhmm” like a lady. He’s dressed up in a gaudy pink suit with extravagant jewelry around his wrist.  In story he’s a former football player who he dreams big like his size and came out as a gay man and starts his own clothing design.  The media renders a false idea and image of what’s really true in society. I believe stereotypes are constructed by hands of powerful people who work at media. Stereotypes are not only used for promoting products but also for making fun of for entertainment purpose.

One of the possible reasons this ad was banned was that it’s not “manly” enough to be shown during Super Bowl. Because other ad that was banned was about these two gay guys making out on a couch while watching Super Bowl. Both of these ads were probably banned for audience who’s mostly men; they expect rough and aggressive commercials during Super Bowl instead of seeing a gay fashion designer or two gays kissing. Or it’s possible for “protecting” conservative families who want to prevent their children from non acceptable gay commercials.

Here’s a collection of Super Bowl ads you can see all at once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOZ5y2ibcsc

Everyday it’s mundane for us to see a weatherman in his nice suit, pointing out at locations and explaining formaly on weather forecast. But what made this Accu Weather meteorologist Jim Kosek’s weather clip to be seen more than 300,000 on youtube and all over the media is that he freaked out while discussing about the snowfall in Baltimore.

I’ve never seen a weatherman who exaggerates and explodes his emotions like Kosek did. He definitely succeeded on catching the audience eyes on TV screen. Unlike other formal weatherman he uses interesting vocabularies with tones and freaks out on bizzar snow which really made weather forecast interesting. I admire his courage to show his character/personality through his job, not following traditional rules…

his clip:

http://www.asylum.com/2010/02/08/jim-kosek-accuweather-weatherman-viral-video-interview/?icid=main|main|dl5|link1|http%3A%2F%2Fwww.asylum.com%2F2010%2F02%2F08%2Fjim-kosek-accuweather-weatherman-viral-video-interview%2F

Universal Orland Resort’s Islands of Adventure park  in Florida is promoting its new 20 -acre theme park “The Wizarding World of Harry Potter” based on  popular fiction series, Harry Potter. It allows fans to take a look at Hogwarts castles, dragon challenge, and Quidditch matches.  It ‘s thrilling that it brings fantasy to reality and relating themselves to the book; fans, or Muggles (non wizard/witch breed) can see more details and experience being presence at castles and Quidditch games.

The commercial of this theme park is aired for 30 seconds at Super Bowl as well as on MTV to attract mostly youth. The purpose of advertising is obviously for promotion, targeting mostly from kids to teenagers.  I’m guessing Harry Potter has a big range of fans from kindergathen to high school kids, who have already either read the book or watched the movie. But it’s still interesting how the company has chosen to show a commercial at Super Bowl since range of age of audience who watch Super Bowl is approximately from 18 to 25 or so.  They are probably targeting at  a wide range of people for promotion and marketing to get the word around.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2zQdjoG5G0

Vanity Fair is owned by a publisher, Conde Nast which establishes magazines covering fashion, food, technology, travel, including Vogue, The New Yorker, Allure, Glamour, Architectural Digest, Bon Appetit, etc. Its March issue front cover shows a group of nine white Hollywood rising stars, and it seems to be an issue to the crowd because the magazine has omitted other race- African American, Asian, Hispanic, Indian, etc.

Back in the days, it was hard to see colored race model on a magazine, such as Vogue but more and more fashion magazines mix up race either to break the tradition or to appeal “exotic” feature and beauty of race other than just white. But there’s still definitely “white superiority” in fashion model industry and Hollywood where standard of beauty is based on white features, which came from classical Greek culture. Alot of European beauty standard is influenced by classical Greek art, such as its perfect proportioned body and its classical and refined feature, which society admires. And it has definitely affected standard of beauty in America and in other countries nowadays.

Not only this is a racial problem but also it affects the audience who reads fashion magazines; they can be easily manipulated that beauty is defined by models and atresses media chooses and shows. Such results can be shown through  female teenagers and young adults who are more exposed to fashion magazines and media. It causes many of them to start on a diet at young age which may lead to anorexia, or eating disorder. Most importantly, they lose self-respect and mirror themselves through these celebrities and models on papers and TV.

“Michelle Obama Works With Health Officials to Roll Out Anti-Fat Effort”

Michelle Obama, on the hand also helps out improving the state’s health problem. Dealing with obesity in the country isn’t going to be easy overnight and it isn’t something government can work alone.

The quality of food can be changed, especially for children who need better nutrious during their growth period. School can put more energy and fund into improving school cafeteria food with healthy options and using healthier ingredients and oil. Children could be picky most of time, but if chefs could think of using healthier alternative ingredients, there will be less chance of obesity in society.

Also in supermarket can sell more choices of organic vegetables and less instant noodles,pasta,pizza, etc..I enjoy shopping at Trader Joe’s where they sell many organic veges and food. Becoming healthy is a choice for everyone therefore more choices of healthy food should be given to everyone.

“Berkeley High’s equity plan sparks race, class debates”

The debates goes on as Berkeley High’s campus leadership has proposed cutting before-and after-school labs of Advanced Placement science classes, which gives college credits for high school work. Decreasing science instructions by 20% to 40% , and using this fund to support “equity” programs for struggling students, who are mostly African Americans and Latino students, ” to close one of the widest racial and ethnic achievement gaps in the state.”

This became race and ethnic issue because AP science classes with  labs are predominated by whites while regular science classes without labs are predominated by struggling African American and Latino students. Some parents, students, and teachers who protest against this move spreaded the words and seek for support through internet petition with headlines saying, “Berkeley High may drop ‘white’ science labs.”  This  seems to bring a debate between ‘whites’ and ‘colored people,’ stimulating it more racist problem.  They disagree with helping less wealthy, or underachieving students, who are moslty blacks and Latinos.

However, I see this more as a financial/family income problem.  Berkeley High is the only high school in town, therefore you get the white kids of professors, doctors, and working-class. However it seems like most of African American and Latino students come from less income families; they have to take care of their younger siblings while their parents work.  It became more race issue because majority of students who take AP classes are whites who could spend their time in labs, meaning they worry less about financial problems.

According to the state Department of Education, at Berkeley High, 30.8% of African American students are proficient in English and 31.3% in math whereas over 90% of  white students are proficient in English, 87.1% in math. It seems as if the society pushes less wealthy kids off the side; if parcel tax money on education was equally used for both advanced class and regular/struggling student class, it will narrow the ethnic achievementl gaps in the state and will give equal opportunity of education to every race.

Thousands of public schools in Washington cut  off foregin language classes except Chinese class, which has become a new trend language.  As economy and business trades have been developed more in China, many schools decided to teach Chinese as an important language. Not only in the States, but also in S.Korea, many children, teenagers, and adults started learning Chinese as another language other than English, which has been a global language throughout many decades.

Education government seems to shift their education plan/system according to where business is moving toward. In Korea, many public schools started adding Chinese as a second language other than English, many students went study abroad to China, and even kindergartens have started teaching Chinese to kids because they learn faster than adults do.

Kasey Nicholson-McFadden, who’s raised by lesbian mothers, Marcey and Karen Nicholson-McFadden, speaks out for same- sex marriage. He says, “It doesn’t bother me to tell kids my parents are gay. It does bother me to say they aren’t married. It makes me feel that our family is less than their family.”

According to UCLA law school, in 2008  approximately 116,000 same-sex couples in the United States were raising about 250,000 children under age 18. Compare to before, there’s definitely more same-sex couples raising children and developing families in the country. The children of gays and lesbians, including Kasey have become very active in campaigns to fight for same-sex marriage/ social justice. These children, who are raised by same-sex couples must be hurt in such situations where they feel excluded in the society and feel pressured by the government.

I believe that social norm or expectations are all socially constructed through chronicle. From the prehistoric time, man and woman, for survival and reproduction, formed a family or a tribe. Even in mideval times, I’m sure there were homosexual couples hiding from the society, afraid to come out because of prejudice and judgementals. Such concept has been deeply rooted into our minds that now, we react scared and upset against the same-sex couples being in love, which is just like heterosexual couples are in love- just like anybody is in love.

It seems to me that being different and being out of norm threatens people or breaking their “right,” or “linear” belief system creates fear. And domination in society definitely causes fear among people, and cause people to think who’s right or wrong, or who’s superior or inferior. I’m not a religious person, but I believe that God, or Universe has created all of us equally and has given us right to love who we love. I don’t see why government doesn’t approve gay/lebian marriage. Even alot of opponent-sex married couples fall apart and divorce nowadays, so why are they trying to prohibit people who are in love and have children from getting legally married? Does it really matter which genders raise children? Ibelieve it’s also important how parents nurture and educate their children.

Interesting fact I found on internet. This study by the Williams Institute proves a point that marriage to same-sex marriage will benefit economy of New Jersey.

http://www.law.ucla.edu/williamsinstitute/pdf/NJEconImpactMarriage2009_FINAL.pdf

(CNN) — A 10-year-old Arizona boy who admitted to shooting and killing his father and another man in 2008 was sentenced Thursday to “in-patient treatment” that could go on for several years, according to the prosecutor.

He was 8 year old when he shot his father and his roomate in 2008. He confessed his crime the next day he had killed them. Regardless of where his father kept his gun, I believe guns should be banned from people to use.  If noone owned guns in their pockets or in their houses, there would be less possibility of killings. Although there’s higher chance of getting killed in a car accident than getting shot by an elementary kid, I believe guns should be prohibited from citizens to use for everyone’s safety. Regardless of how good person he or she is, “accidents” may happen around your neighbor.

I remember experiencing a few numbers of  low level of earthquake hits in Taiwan. They usually started with small earth shakes, shaking the buildings either horizontally or vertically like salt & pepper bottles. Lights on the ceiling moved back and forth, toilet water shook in waves, and picture frames on the wall tilted. They even left some cracks and lines on the wall. I could imagine how terrible this natural disaster has brought nightmare to Haitians on Tuesday night.

Humans have invented so many things throughout history; from invention of a light bulb to that of nuclear weapons. Yes,  with scientific technology, we could sometimes predict where the earthquake will occur. However, it seems to me, most of times humans had failed to fight against Nature just like Tsunami 2004 and Hurricane Katrina 2005. Noone could fight the natural disaster of Tuesday night. Including the president of Haiti  he became ”homeless” and has been working to save his people. 

Fortunately, the Red Cross, Aid, and other organizations had flown over to Haiti to light up hope.  The Pan American Health Organization said, “up to 100,000 people may have died in Haiti” (CNN). And many children and babies have lost their parents and family. The media should definitely report more information about Haiti to the world and deliver messages and images for those who can’t help on hands.