Postman Opportunity

Chapter 1-"The decline of Typography and the ascendancy of the Age of Television". This is exactly what is happening in today's world. Politics are even being broadcast and using technology and entertainment to win over the hearts and minds of voters today.
Chapter 2-"I am arguing that a television-based epistemology pollutes public cocmmunication and its surrounding landscape, not that it pollutes everything." Once again, this is 100% true. Television is definately changing the way people look at life and the world around them. Almost everyone uses television today and it has created a large impact on our lives but it hasn't gone so far as to "pollute everything".
Chapter 3-"America was as dominated by the printed word and an oratory based on the printed word as any society we know of." Now in the twenty-first century, technology is beginning to dominate American culture. Postman reveals this throughout the whole book that society needs to be careful with all of this technology becasue we may start to lose our communication skills. It is already happening in schools that are using so much technology and going away from the concrete material such as textbooks and writing over to computers and typography.
Chapter 4-"Is there any audience today that could endure seven hours of talk?" This is where I disagree with Postman. If there was a speaker that appealed to the intrests of a group of people, then they would definately be able to listen to someone for that amount of time. If it didn't intrest someone then, obviously, they wouldn't want to listen to someone for 7 hours straight. For example any big college basketball fan, especially intrested in coaching, could most likely listen to Coach K speak for a whole day.
Chaper 5-"The news elicits from you a variety of opinions about which you can do nothing except to offer them as more news, about which you can do nothing." Everyone has an opinion about everything and the news stimulates these conversations and controversies. You can talk all you want about it, but really it doesn't matter what you say cause your opinion really doesnt matter! Everyone wanted Rich Rod to be fired and it was talked about on the radio all the time but the Michigan AD didn't care what they thought. He was simply thinking who is the best coach for the University of Michigan? The public talked and talked just like many other news topics, but really, it doesn't matter in the long run.
Chapter 6-"The problem is not that television presents us with entertaining, which is another issue altogether." In today's world, people find literally everything to be entertaining in one way or another. I agree that with this because teachers are always looking for new ways to present their information in more entertaining ways in order to keep their students attentive.
Chapter 7-"I should go so far as to say that embedded in the surrealistic frame of a television news show is a theory of anticommunication, featurning a type of discourse that abandons logic, reason, sequence and rules of contradiction." Postman is wrong here. The news doesn't give any in-depth information and goes from one topic to the next in the blink of an eye but it doesn't take knowledge away from people. They are still informed about things, just not as much as they should be. And it is not the newscaster's fault either! They have to do this in order to keep the audience entertained and attentive.
Chapter 8-"...religion, like everything else, is presented, quite simply and without apology, as an entertainment." Different speakers of different religions go on television and try to make their religion look good to attract more followers. This is absolutely wrong how they do this but, it is so true. Speakers represent their respective religions and present them as entertaining to try and attract people. Religion isn't a topic that you can just focus on the good. There is some bad that you have to be informed about and most everyone that speaks on TV about religion hardly focuses on the bad at all.
Chapter 9-"The television commercial is the most peculiar and pervasive form of communication to issue forth from the electric plug." Many people will just by a product advertised on television for two main reason. 1) the person/people who represent the product and 2) the way the product is presented. Television commercials make everything look so appealing to the eye and thats what hooks people. It's amazing how powerful that these commercials are because they really are the major factor in selling products. So many people watch TV and will see many commercials so they will exposed to all kinds of flawless-looking products.
Chapter 10-"I mean only to say that, like the alphabet or the printing press, television has by its power to control the time, attention and cognitive habits of our youth gained the power to control their education." Some may deny that television isn't that big of an influence on people's lives. They would definately be wrong. Television can get you hooked easily and keep you there for awhile if something that you really enjoy watching or listening to is on at that time. It's crazy how much time it consumes in our lives and we need to be careful that television as well as other technology doesn't take over our lives completely because it is becoming a bigger and bigger factor each day.
Chapter 11-"...all Americans are Marxists, for we believe nothing if not that history is moving us toward some preordained paradise and that technology is the force behind that movement." Technology is shaping our lives more and more each day and slowly taking over our lives. People are now looking for entertainment in everything and there is not a better way to make something entertaining than to use technology. We need to be careful and limit all of this entertainment and techology or we may end up "Amusing Ourselves to Death" :)

Lack of knowledge=tragedy?

Postman attemps to tell us that we are falling so far away from typography that soon anything will be entertainment for us. We won't listen or care about anything and we won't have any valuable knowledge. Typography is falling away as our main way of communication and Postman makes the point that eventually this will lack of knowledge will end in disaster.  This information is revealed in the last paragraph of chapter 11 when Postman makes a distinction that is similar to that of Aldous Huxley's point in "Brave New World." He tries to make the point that we will become so uneducated that we will want entertainment in anything and everything till we end up literally "Amusing Ourselves to Death".

The effectiveness of a whiteboard

Friday was a very intersting day to say the least. There were some teachers that laughed at us and thought it was humorous to make us do things with the whiteboards. Others were not so fond of the idea and made us break the rules of speech. During band, Brian Centala was quite bored because he had no one to talk with. he tried many ways to try to get me to talk but I stood strong. He then resorted to taking my keys and he told me he would give the keys back as soon as I talked. I didn't. I eventually got my keys back after chapel and everything was okay after school. I think, in not talking the whole day, we were not the only ones affected because everyone else had to try and guess what we were trying say as well. They also had to look at us differently because of the actions we were portraying. So our image was effected just as others look at the image of some in the world of politics and such. All-in-all, it was a fun day for me!

To text or to talk? That is the question

In both the interview and the book, Postman talks about out how we are becoming "pets" to technology. He goes on to say that we use so many different ways of communication that aren't actually face-to-face conversations such as Facebook, texting, e-mail etc. This technology is taking over our lives and people need to somehow turn away from at least some of this because as Postman notes, this technology is affecting our public discourse.

Also, Postman reveals that the image in a persons life becomes what is most important to them. In the interview, he gives examples of cloning and how things will be able to just be created one day so people will not have to worry about what happens to them because they can just replace it with the same thing! He also discussing image in the book in a way that the public views politicans and athletes can be based on outward appearance. He gives the example that President Taft would never be able to become the president today because he is too fat. This just furthers Postman's point that people care too much about image and are/will start to rely on technology to improve image.

What language should be appropriate in public?

I think she is stating that, while it is still important to keep civility in public discourse, she doesn't believe that our public discourse and other discussions among politics should be impeded on just because events happen and people become offended too easily.

Bellicose means eager or inclined to fight. This was a good word choice in her description of politics, as sometimes these discussions can get heated and intense. She later goes on to describe that the word "campaign" was used in English as the time spent on the battlefield. Politics can be like that most of the time. Everyone is inclined to their own opions and many times there are arguements from both sides of the political parties. This word definately added effect to the purpose of describing the world of politics.

I think that the main purpose Chavez is trying to make is that she believes that civility is important in public discussions but it should have the effect as to take words out of our vocabulary when we are talking in public. In doing this, it can sometimes take away the true meaning of what someone is trying to say and does not allow us to freely express ourselves in public. Her best example of this is the example from the book "Huckleberry Fin" when the word "nigger" is extracted from the original text so that it could be passed in schools. It takes the effect away from the story because the term "slave" does not produce as much of an effect as the word "nigger" especially based the mistreatment of the African Americans back then.

I agree with her in that we should watch what we say but we shouldn't have words taken from us. We should be able to freely express ourselves but we need to watch what we say.

Going green?

I think his point is that you can go "green" in almost everything that you do. I think the sentence that gets his point across is the one in the very beginning "Of the three, I prefer to focus on reuse". Hhe goes on to say that people don't want to or just don't use things and only until these things do not work is it really time to recycle. I agree with this statement. People should not just use things once and then get rid of it. They should use it as many times as they can to get the maximum value out of it and then they can recycle. It would just save so many products.
I also like how he kept things from the reader. It kind of let the reader decide what they wanted to think about his opinion. He did not exactly tell them what to do but gave some examples from his life on how he reuses his talents and abilties to work because he wants to work until he dies. The intent was to encourage others to get the best out of whatever they are using or doing and it created an effect.

Savior of the Nations Come

I personally really enjoy this hymn and the message that it portrays. It gives the message that God sent Christ down to earth as human, not a Spirit, to save us all and how he did everything for us and we have to do nothing. I think a language tool that was used well and often was description. The hymn describes the process of how to receive salvation. It tells how God sent his "wondrous child" from a "virgin undefiled" and the process of Christ being perfect and coming to earth and living the perfect life. Then, it continues to say that he died, conquered death and hell, and rose in "triumph". These words reveal the greatness and holiness of Christ and why he is the reason that we can someday live with him. The last verse tells all believers that we should give all of our praise and honor to God. The hymn does so much use great descriptive words but use a great description process of how we are saved and how God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit did it all for us! All we have to do is believe and everything else is taken care of!