More News - This Really Happened-

This is from the AP: COSTUME INCIDENT COULD COST MYERS POST. Myers, director of Immigration and customs Enforcement, and two other agency managers gave "the most original" costume award to a white employee who came to the agency's Halloween party dressed as an escaped prisoner with dreadlocks and darkened skin.

Where do they get their news?

We are doing focus groups in our qualitative class on the topic pertaining to where certain classifications of people get their news. One student said she did a focus group with newspaper reporters. She described them as being cynical. They were also expressed that they get a lot of news from a lot of places and feel saturated. I'm not a reporter-yet... but I already feel saturated with so much stuff people just throw on the NET and here I am comparing and contrasting trying to figure out who is doing the factual reporting - if anything like that exists. So what's my point - how much saturation does it take for humans to be ate up with consumption (flaky news and entertainment) before they retire or expire literally and figuratively? Is there a pill we can take for this so we won't get too bloated and uncomfortable and at the same time don't feel any side effects?

Just to let you know - Santa Claus is a fat dude who is a bad role model for children who are overweight. If you are planning on doing the Santa claus thing this season (extra employment at the mall) don't say HO, HO, HO, but say HA, HA, HA (that was posted in the news online) and if you are worried about recalled toys from China - just think of all the toys we've had in our lifetime before 2007 that had tons of lead paint that weren't even from China. And as far as the bad hamburger meat, does anyone out there knows that the U.S. has more cases of e-coli going around that most underdeveloped nations? Why? Because people in underdeveloped nations eat fresh meat (when they have it) and don't eat ground beef that is processed in unsanitary processing plants. Like the local bovine personality says on TV - "Eat more chikin!"

Do yo think you may be a nerd?

Find out if you are a nerd. Take a test. Go to www.nerdtest.com. Don't worry, you won't be graded.

A Lesson in Semiotics

My qualitative classs required that we search journal articles reflecting semiotic analysis.

I located an article "The male heart and the female mind: A study in the gendering of antideprressants and cardiovascular drugs in advertisements in Irish medical publication" by Phillip Curry and Marita O'Brien . They showed how messages directed to an audience are created to influence consumers - in this case how signs were used to influence the consumers of medications. Signs are associated with meaning and are associated with "codes" we pick up. Distinct images are used by advertisers in medical publications to identify patients at risk of or suffering from depression and cardiovascular disease. Content analysis in advertisments displaying humans showed that 91.17 percent of the users of cardiovascular medication were male and 85.7 percent using anti-dperessants were female. This showed the difference was highly significant and there was an extremely strong relationship between gender of user and the category of the drug advertised. Women in anti-dpressant medication ads are shows as being passive, sad and helpless. Men in cardio-vascular medication ads are shown in control, engaging in activities such as dancing and jogging - think of our own American ad with the inventor of the Jarvik artificial heart and the doctor jogging with his son. The images focused on activity rather than on the individual. Also signifiers, such as clothing - outdoor clothing for men engaging in outdoor activity imply a continuation of a healthy lifestyle whereas women are depicted as aging and becoming depressed, becasue of it, and are shown wearing grey and sitting on a floor holding their knees. In Ireland men have a higher suicide rate than women, yet men are shown less in ads for anti-depressants. it is interesting to note that in the Republic of Ireland the legislation controls drug advertisements and those advertisements are only permitted in medical publications. Think of how we are bombarded in the US with pharmaceutical advertisements in every magazine from Newsweek to Family Circle.

I attended the Holocaust testimonial of William and Rosalie on November 7 at UNT. For those of you who missed it, William and Rosalie are Holocaust survivors and gave their testimony that was subsequently written into a book that was published through the Mayborn Literary Non-Fiction conference . Rosalie spoke about Oskar Schindler , the German Catholic entrepreneur who saved hundreds of Jews who were destined to go to death camps during WWII by convincing the Nazis that he would make the Jews productive by using them as forced labor working in his factories. Those Jewish survivors and their families will never forget Shindler and what he did to keep them alive by using this ploy. Oskar Shindler is buried in a Catholic Cemetery outside the Old City of Jerusalem in Israel. Jews customarily place stones on the gravesites of those they wish to remember and honor. In this picture, Shindler's gravesite is shown covered with stones. I paid tribute to Shindler in January of 2006 and took this photo. The enamelware made in Shindler's factories are on exhibit at Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem. A facsimile of Shindler's list is also on display.