2speak

2006-08-06T11:29:00.000-07:00

The Wage Gap And Discrimination In Workplace by Anri

The wage inequality between men and women continues to be a major topic in the feminist movement and throughout the country. Because of the male labor shortage during World War II, the United States Government was obligated to involve women as laborers. The implementation of women in jobs outside the home created a problem after the men came home from the war; men wanted their jobs back. The newly found jobs gave women the start they needed to work for wages. With the entrance of women into the labor force, another inequality issue was made visible: the wage gap. According to www.infoplease.com “Until the early 1960s, newspapers published separate job listings for men and women. Jobs were categorized according to sex, with the higher level jobs listed almost exclusively under "Help Wanted—Male." In some cases the ads ran identical jobs under male and female listings—but with separate pay scales. Separate, of course, meant unequal: between 1950 and 1960, women with full time jobs earned on average between 59–64 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earned in the same job”. According to the Labor Bureau of Statistics, “Women who work full time, regardless of age, race, or educational background, earn less, on average than men” (Rowland, 2004, page 389). The wage gap was one of the main concerns that facilitated the National Organization of Women (NOW). Brigid C. Harrison states in her book “Women in American Politics”, that NOW was born as a protest organization to advocate for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission which would enforce the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the prohibition of sex discrimination in employment (Harrison, 2003, page 66). Founders of the organization asked: What is the wage gap and why does it exist? According to the Labor Bureau, the wage gap is the difference between women and men’s pay. Women are getting paid 76 cents per every dollar that men make. Even though the gap has shrunk from years past, the gap should not exist.
Year White men White women Black women Hispanic women
1970 100% 58.7% 48.2% n.a.
1975 100 57.5 55.4 49.3%
1980 100 58.9 55.7 50.5
1985 100 63.0 57.1 52.1
1990 100 69.4 62.5 54.3
1992 100 70.0 64.0 55.4
1994 100 71.6 63.0 55.6
1995 100 71.2 64.2 53.4
1996 100 73.3 65.1 56.6
1997 100 71.9 62.6 53.9
1998 100 72.6 62.6 53.1
1999 100 71.6 65.0 52.1
2000 100 72.2 64.6 52.8
2003 100 75.6 65.4 54.3
2004 100 76.7 68.4 56.9

Source: U.S. Current Population Survey and the National Committee on Pay Equity.

As the table shows that the gap has shrunk more for white women, with black and Hispanic women lacking behind. To counterattack the wage gap problem, U.S. Government introduced the Equal Pay Act in 1963 to stop discrimination on account of sex. Sex discrimination may lessen the chances for a woman to show her work, side by side, in performing the same duties equally as well as men. There are a variety of theories about how and why women face discrimination in the labor market. According to http//clinton4.nara.gov, an employer may not like female employees because the employer might believe that female employees don’t have abilities to run a business; customers may feel the same and male co-workers may refuse to work with women. These attitudes may not be directed toward all workers but may only focus on women in higher status occupations. Most of the male employees would complain if they had women bosses, but they are fine if the women work for them. Another type of discrimination is "statistical discrimination,” which is the assumption that one woman has the same characteristics as all women. The U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission found that discrimination of pay directly effects an employee’s health and efficiency, it tends to be a cause for “labor disputes” and as a result not good for the business. Another point brought by the Commission was that paying women less “ was an unfair method of competition”. Paying women less would make a product made by women cost less than a product made by men, and as a result a higher demand by employers but at a lower pay. After the Pay Act of 1963, little has changed, the wage gap is still widening.
Because of the wage gap injustice, many women have taken this matter to court. In the early 1970s, Lola Kouba took a job with Allstate Insurance Company; she found out that the company was paying her less than her male counterpart on the same job. According to Equal Rights Advocates, “Allstate based employees’ salaries on prior income—since women traditionally earned less, Allstate’s women workers started a step down the wage ladder”. The case, Kouba vs. Allstate Insurance Company, was a part of the fight for women’s equality. Lola Kouba won a $5 million settlement against Allstate Insurance. According to the Vermont Cynic, the most recent cases have involved corporate giants such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. The Cynic states that a class action suit was recently brought against Wal-Mart, the nation's largest employer, with a large female employee population about 1.6 million. Statistical analysis shows that Wal-Mart pays female workers less and gives them fewer promotions than men. The Cynic goes further to say that “…women make up more than 70% of Wal-Mart's hourly workforce, they are less than one-third of its store management. Even in the same job category, pay gaps exist at Wal-Mart, and the salary gap widens over time even for men and women hired into the same jobs at the same time”. Isn’t this the “unfair method of competition” that the U.S Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is trying to address?
At Home Depot, the story is almost identical. According to Cynic, new employees were assigned to sales and cashier jobs. Being in sales is being a step closer to promotions. The Cynic states that the “ legal case against Home Depot provided evidence that about 77% of newly hired men were given sales jobs, but only 20 percent of women had the same option”. Women were kept out of entry-level jobs that could lead to promotion. The cynic brings up the real case of Patty Nichols, who was employed as a cashier in a Houston Home Dept in 1988. Eight years later she started to be interested in assistant management position, she was qualified on the education side considering that she had a bachelor's degree in management, and a good work record. She was interviewed many times for 2 years but was not hired. The company decided to hire less experienced and less knowledgeable men each time that Patty Nichols applied for the position. These stories remind us that the wage gap won’t diminish unless women start to move up the promotion ladder; and part of the earnings gap problem is the belief that women belong at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Wage differences are more visible when we observe the earnings ratios between women of different color and back round. According to Institute for Women’s Policy Research (IWPR), the wage gap between white women and men in 1999 was 70.0 percent. The wage gap between Asian American women and white men was higher, at 75.0 percent. The wage ratio between African American women and white men was lower, at 62.5 percent, the wage ratio between Native American women and white men was 57.8 percent and the wage ratio between Hispanic women and white men was the lowest of all at 52.5percent”. According the IWPR, the wage gap is different among the states. West Virginia leads the way with highest wage gap between white men and African-American women at 72.6 cent per dollar. The closest that white women can get to men’s one dollar is in the District of Columbia, at 82.0 cents. If Asian American women desire to get the most for their work they must go to Delaware were they will get 87.5 cents for every dollar men make. Arkansas represents the best chance for Native American women 78.7 cent per dollar with Maine following with best pay Hispanic women 80.0 cent. IPWR shows the best case in United States with the best states narrowing the gap but the wage is still not even. IWPR makes the point of presenting the worst cases in the states as well and starts with African American women in the state of Louisiana who make 48.9 cents per white men’s dollar. Rhode Island is considered by IWPR as the worst state for Asian American women 53.8 cents per dollar, which is followed by New Jersey, who pays Native American women only 52 cents per dollar. The District of Columbia has the highest for white women but the worst for Hispanic women at 41 cents. Most of this data shows how race and gender work inseparably against women when it comes to the wage gap. This data compares women of different races to the white men since they are the highest paid; if you compare the respective races, the census would not show a big gap since men of different color make less than the white men. Even that the men’s pay varies from state to state the gap between men and women in these states is still significant. “It is important to recognize however” says IWPR, “that women of color in the District of Columbia have among the highest earnings in the nation. Several other states with relatively large populations of women of color also do worse on this measure than on the measure of all women’s earnings to all men’s. For example, California would rank second for the overall women-to-men ratio based on 2000 Census data (at 79.0 percent; data not shown; Urban Institute, 2004b), but it ranks 45th for the ratio of all women’s to white men’s wages (at 63.2 percent), because of its large minority population and its relatively high earnings for white men. California is another state with relatively high earnings for women of color compared with other states, but it also a state where white men have particularly high earnings. Similarly, Hawaii drops from 3rd to 13th, Florida from 4th to 21st, and Nevada from 7th to 29th.” (IWPR). IWPR goes further to report the wage inequalities among similar races as well . Japanese women have much higher earnings than Vietnamese women, Cuban women have higher earnings than Central American women, and Eskimo women have much higher earnings than Yaqui women. By why does the wage gap exist?
According to Coalition of Labor Union Women (CLUW), the fault is placed on the choices that women make but it is hard to believe that women don’t like money. Why would anyone like low pay? The truth is that in every field, from sports to teaching or from nursing to sales, the women make less than men and it is not because of choice but because the direction that women are steered by men. CLUW says that another reason is attributed to motherhood and asks the question “why the workplace punishes women for being mothers, but fatherhood carries no economic risk at all.” By paying women less we are paying children less. In a time where the percentage of single mothers is growing, the choices that mothers will make will affect the future of this country. It is worth saying that men with children get a boost in their earnings but women don’t. Nonetheless, the women with children have less of a chance of being hired or promoted. According to CNN, in an article titled Are Moms Less Likely to Be Hired, new research suggests that women managers who have kids are less likely to be hired, and if they are hired, they're likely to be paid less than those who don't have children. The author Annie Fisher, who is a senior writer and researcher for CNN, starts her argument by saying how important this is to women and stresses that many women have written to her about this. She brings a live example of discrimination when a women applies for a job "As soon as I let slip that I have little kids, it's as if I had the plague. Job interviewers don't run screaming from the room, but they do find an excuse to wrap up the interview fast." Most of the employers don’t admit that they are doing this on purpose but the truth is that in the end it does create a wage gap because women that suffer unemployment will settle for a low paying job instead. Annie Fisher presents an experiment done by two Cornell University sociologists, Shelley J. Correll and Stephen Benard, who published a paper titled "Getting a Job: Is There a Motherhood Penalty?" The research done by the sociologists shows that women with children have less of a chance to be hired as well as to get paid less. Benard and Correll asked Cornell students to assess female candidates for a job position. The participants that were getting the assessment had the same qualifications but some had children and some did not. Bernard and Correll`s results showed that “student evaluators said they would hire 84% of the women without children, but only 47% of the mothers. What's more, the gap in starting pay between mothers and childless women averaged $11,000. In fact, the more children a mother was described as having, the lower the salary that the test subjects said they would offer, notes Correll. "Other studies have shown that the reverse is true for men. The more children they have, the higher the salary offers they receive”. This experiment shoes that even that we hold mothers in high regard we see them only dedicated to their children and not work. Annie Fisher goes further to say that is this fair since, 72% of American women have children. According to the Census Bureau figures, she says “the gap is narrowest when women are in their 20’s, that is, when many have not yet had kids. In 2004, for example, college-educated women in their 40’s who were working full time earned, on average, 38% less than their male counterparts. Between men and women in their 20’s, the gap was much less, at an average of 25%”.
What is a mother to do since having kids is hard to conceal. The system is making mothers choose, but should they? It is obvious that having children affects the pay that women receive. The discrimination is not just US problem; it is a problem all over the world. According to Human Right Watch (HRW), women’s discrimination in Russia is more visible. "When factories take on workers they announce that they want men, and when women are rejected it is their sex which is entered on their application forms as the reason.” HRW quotes Russia's labor minister in 1993, Gennady Melikyan, when asked about the women’s unemployment responded, "Why should we employ women when men are out of work? It's better that men work and women take care of children and do housework. I don't think women should work when men are doing nothing." Although we must agree that with better economic changes women's human rights, have a chance for improvement right now they are being put in the back of the political scenes.
The gender pay gap is an issue in Germany as well. According to www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int in 2004, women working full time earned, on average, 23% less than men. This wage gap is one of the largest in Europe. Only the United Kingdom, Germany, Slovakia and Estonia had a wage gap greater than 20% states the website above. In Germany just like in the US, the gap is explained as the choice job and career opportunities open to women but a big part of it is the result of wage discrimination. The website article make a careful analysis of women’s life in Germany and gives statistics “The fact that so many women work part time leads to a considerable difference in the effective weekly hours that women work, compared to men. This gap in working time increased between 1991 and 2004. In 2004, women worked on average 30.8 hours a week, compared to men’s working week of 40.2 hours. This working-time gap exists in all EU countries, but Germany has one of the biggest. (Only the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have a bigger gap.) Increasingly, women work in marginal part-time jobs. The percentage of women employed for less than 15 hours a week increased between 1991 and 2004, from 6% to 13%. According to the WSI report, many of these women would like to work longer hours.” The website article goes further by saying that women in Germany put a considered amount of time doing house work which converts to 1.6 hours more than men.
Country Women's wages as % of men's
Austria 79%
Belgium 89
Denmark 86
Finland 81
France 88
Germany 81%
Greece 87
Ireland 78
Italy 91
Luxembourg 82.2
Netherlands 79%
Portugal 95
Spain 86.1
Sweden 83
United Kingdom 78
.
1. Estimated.
2. In 1996.Source: The Social Situation in the European Union: 2003

In conclusion the women job a universal mother and employee is not recognized. Women all around the world are getting paid 23 % less than men or sometimes less In some cases the gap is wider by the state and country. Another big role in discrimination against women is (beside gender) the race, women are held accountable for what race they belong too. Women are forced to balance motherhood and employment very carefully, joggling from one to another and sometimes having to pick between those two choices. When new laws were introduced women had to take matters in court to enforce those laws because the proper governmental agencies were not properly enforcing them. In the end if we pay women less, we pay families less. As a result children suffer as well as social services. If women are paid more that translates into more income tax for the government as result more money for the social services. Women as whole are losing millions for years of work. Making less during work years is going to effect their pension plans, investments and inheritance to their children. Lois Duke Whittaker makes it very clear in opening statement of her book Women in politics where she says that the “most difficult problem we will encounter is the invisibility of gender” (Whitaker, 2006, page 4).

References
Rowland. D. (2004). The Boundaries of Her Body. The troubling history of women’s rights in America. Naperville: Illinois.
Whitaker, L. D. (2006). Women in politics. Outsiders or insiders? Bias or
Counterbalance? Women in the U.S. Congress. New
Jersey: Pearson Education, 1993.

Harrison, B. C. (2003). Women in American politics. An Introduction California: Wadsworth/Thomas Learning, 2003.
The Wage Gap." Infoplease.
© 2000–2006 Pearson Education, publishing as Infoplease.
03 Aug. 2006 http://www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/compensation.html
Amy Caiazza, Ph.D., April Shaw, and Misha Werschkul. Retrieved July 27, 2006 from http://www.iwpr.org/pdf/R260.pdf
Burke, M. (2006). 40 year After Pay equity Act Women Are Still Getting Paid Less. Retrieved July 27, 2006 from http://www.cluw.org/programs-payequity.htmlFisher, A. (2005). Are moms less likely to be hired? Retrieved July 27, 2006 from http://money.cnn.com/2005/11/02/news/economy/annie/fortune_annie110205/index.htm
Zavadskaya, Z, (1994). Retrieved July 25, 2006 from http://hrw.org/about/projects/womrep/General-171.htm
Retrieved July 25, 2006 from http://www.eiro.eurofound.eu.int/2006/01/feature/de0601202f.html

2006-08-06T11:00:00.000-07:00

MYSTORY
I grew up in a small town in northern Albania. Towns name was Rreshen and it was a new town. And by a new town I mean that the Albanian government picked a place and started to build .As a little kid I spend most of my life there till high school. I lived about 9 months in Rreshen and the rest of my time I spend with my uncles in Durres. Durres is my mother’s town and Rreshen is my father’s town. Durres was one of the oldest cities in Albania and perhaps in Balkan. This city is right on the Adriatic Sea and has the largest port as well. When I went in Durres it felt that I had so much to do. Till 10 years old my main preoccupation was to lay on the sun in the Adriatic Sea. I loved the sea, the air, the salt, as a little boy I build may sand castles. The Adriatic gave the felling of freedom and in the same time I was reading Jules Verne’s "Treasury Island " and Mark Twain’s "Tom Sawyer". After 10 years old I started to roam at the port and wanted to learn about the ships. I have bad memories with Adriatic Sea as well;I almost drowned 3 times. I know now!” exclaimed Tom:” Somebody’s drowned!”(95) The drowning feeling is the worst I believe because its like a bad dream where you cannot speak but always sinking. Well let’s talk about Rreshen now. My childhood town was in the middle of nowhere. It was new because the government decided that that they needed a capital so the built Rreshen from scratch. I am confident to say I knew everyone there; because it was so small I saw everyone 4-5 times a day. If you did not see them they would see you. Life in a small town is different from big cities. So what do you do to break the monotony in this kind of town? Well it was communism that had lived through I have spent 15 years during communism. When people ask me what it was like I only answer that as kid I did not see any cartoons and that if you were nobody you where to get les rations. I think because of not having done the regular kids stuff I have developed weakness for cartoons at a later age. I own every DVD that Matt Groening has done At this point in my life I evaluate myself as I lived in two periods; communism and capitalism
The first t games I played were basketball, football, and later in 11th grade I tried boxing. I was a goalie because I was not the best player but I could catch very well. First I played for the neighborhood then for the school and after that for the town. In the neighborhood we the kids played building against building. Everyone had shirts with names like Pele, Maradona, Ziko and many other names borrowed from professional players. My name was Adriatik it was the name for the goalkeeper of the nations capital team “Partizani” as well of the sea. I did not just play sports; my parents asked me if I would like to learn a musical instrument.
I chose the guitar because it looked very good and easy but everyone who played guitar in my town was pretty cool as well. My father took me to the Guitar professor to test me if I understand music at all. Understanding music was that the teacher hit keynote in the piano and you had to follow it with your voice. I must say I was the worse in the group of people that tested that day. I even saw the music teacher roll his eyes at me while I was trying; my dad said that he did not see anything and that I was not that bad. I started to take lessons twice a week. Our guitar classes meet at the Cultural Center and there about 7 other students, most of them were pretty good I stilled sucked. This happened during 6th grade and I was bored out of my mind so I moved to another hobby, fishing.
Rreshen did not have a sea or a lake have but it did have a big river nearby. My friend Gaz introduced me to fishing. Fishing was fun because I did nothing but wait for fish to bite. When I was tired of waiting I would jump in the river and swim. Now that I think of me swimming in my fishing place might have not helped because I perhaps scared the fish. I stopped fishing because my mother was afraid that I would drown.
By this time I was in 10th grade and I had no time for fishing. I had other things in my mind. The small town life introduces you to the same thing everyday and it is up to you to break the monotony. By 12th grade I found myself reading for a many books and I moved from reading for pleasure to reading to understand. So one day I proclaimed to my friends at the school that I had become an existentialist. The works of Camys, Kafka, Nietzsche and Sartre explained every action I took or answer that I gave. I felt impervious; it was not till later that I understood that these feelings came because of the “personal fable” that I had created. According Ellen Pastorino and Susan Doyle-Portillo “ Teenagers develop the personal fable that they are special and unique, that their thoughts and feelings can not be adequately understood by others (446). Although I did believe that I was going through “ metamorphosis”; it was different kind of change more intellectual than physical. In his book “ The Trial” Kafka writes “you may object that this is not a trial at all; you are quite right, for it is only a trial only if I recognized as such”(157). Sentences as these fueled my adolescence spirit and made me feel, as no one understood me. It was a time when my parents wanted me to be held accountable for things that I had done but I would not accept the intervention as such. Finally I graduated from “Bardhok Biba” High School and was time for college.
I came from a long tradition of army officers. My father, his father and his father’s father and so on were officers. So when it came my time I was admitted to the United School of Republic Albania. To the disappointment of my father I could not do it so 10 days later I quit. After that I thought I should do Law School, so I did. Two semesters later I decided that I should be leaving for United Stated. I believe it was a mix of MTV and newly found freedom from my parents that fueled my idea.
Music has played a big role in my life. I member one day watching Tom Petty on MTV and it was “Last Dance With Mary Jane” it felt like Tom Petty had grown up in same town as me and had found out different ways to entertain himself. The most memorable words in that song were “ I feel the summer creeping in and I am tired of this town again”.
I always liked traveling; I believe tat is the best way to conform your opinion about other cultures. To me traveling ones your mind and makes him acceptable in any society. I backpacked through Italy, drove through Germany and worked in vineyard in Spain. After I did all this for a year I wanted to something more out there some thing different.
So I decided to go to Detroit. Coming to America for me was like Homer Simpson going to Tokyo. I saw the movie “Coming to America” with Eddy Murphy in Europe and it was not as funny as the second time I see it in US after 3 years. I like that Eddy Murphy just picks Queens because of the name and says I want to live there because it has a beautiful name. I was like that. There is an episode where Homer is in Tokyo and he says to Marge “Hey they don’t speak English here”. I was like that, too. Different language and different attitudes but very open people. I have spent many days thinking why am I in Detroit. It is the most common question that I get, right after the first question which is where does your accent comes from. I think Detroit has history that connects with my past.
After trying orders in the army for a short time, critical thinking at law I decided to crunch some numbers. I think my true capitalism period starts here. I decided on finance because I always liked stocks, future value of money and present value of money or perhaps I am getting more conservative as I grow older. I like the future jobs that finance has to offer but in the same time it is competitive market and I did not have that in communism since everything was collective so it could take some time to get used to it. The future at Wayne State has to show if I want to move toward a MBA or decide in another masters program like International Affairs.

References
Pastorino, Ellen, and Doyle-Portillo, Susann. What is Psychology? 2006.
California: Thomas Wadsworth , 2006
Coming to America. Dir. John Landis. Perf. Eddy Murphy. Arsenio Hall. 1988
Twain. Mark. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. 1875.
Groening. Matt. The Simpsons. 1989.
Petty. Tom. Last dance with Mary Jane. 1993.

2006-07-18T14:13:00.000-07:00

My song mix is: Freedom /Rage Against the machine
Dear mama/ 2pac
Immigrant Song / Led Zeppelin
Civil War / Guns and Roses
El Capitalizmo/ Gotan Project
Moonlight Sonata/ Beethoven
I feel good/ James Brown
Last dance with Mary Jane/ Tom Petty
Life Sporting Blues/ Skip James

These songs are important to me because they represent the moods that I am during the day. This mix helps me take a break from the city noises and wonder away. I encountered them through radio and TV, mostly from MTV. This mix says that I am diverse, open-minded and I use music as a tool to express myself. Most of my music choices reflect me in some kind of way. I use my songs as connection with others, icebreaker in parties and i consider myself a “Pop Culture Buff”. I find myself turning the radio off if the music does not make connection with me. When people listen to my mix they will learn that I have “major mood swings” and every music style is acceptable to me. The mix has connected me to something larger such as community and entertainment.

2006-07-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

David Chapelle walks away from a 50 million dollar deal. The comic is getting paid 50 million dollars to tell jokes on TV. I find that unbelievable that humor pays so much. On second thought humor is dangerous and witty. By being funny the comic explores ares where no one else dares to enter.It is obviously a powerful tool; it brings people together but in the same time divides them , too. Humor is the language that everyone understands. We use humor in celebration of life but as well as time of death. Alain De Botton writes” Beyond being a useful weapon with which to attack the high-status of others, humor may help us to make sense of, and perhaps even mitigate, our own statues anxieties”. Humor is a perfect weapon because it does not ignite anger right away. The jokes are funny first and then they become sharp and critical. Humor is understood by everyone, its as we are born with it, as babies we laugh with facial expressions three months after we are born. By using humor as a mitigation we don’t feel as attacking the other person or party, but as merely being funny. By mitigation of our own status anxieties Botton means that we see upper or lower class as something with flaws. By making fun of them we feel a connection because we realize they are just like us.

2006-06-27T14:17:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of a list of tips from Samantha Daniels in Remix considering that myself and probably many other men never thought that a list existed(C, Latterell, 2006, page 299). Lets see what I have done wrong:
I always asked for dinner date.
I have never confirmed a day ahead
I only gave my cell phone number.
I always came up with a supreme (surprise!!!) place.
I don’t think she will know if she had a couple of drinks.
Sounds right, one for me.
Always checked and changed my temperature.
No comment.
I don’t like music.
No, I like women that are independent.
Only if I see her twice.
Yes I remember.
I doubt it.
Waiting 90 sec, that’s too long.
Technology changes everything this is tricky; what if she is wearing colored lenses?
Momentum, I am all about it, I call it speed dating.
Yes that’s sounds right.
Been there done that. Two for me.
Not if you tell her you have MS.
Ill call you.

2006-06-20T17:20:00.000-07:00

Tar-Nation

Unfortunately, I walked in the middle of the movie, but I do feel that I share the same feelings with rest of the audience when I say the movie was a confusing, disturbing and a detailed life story. I walked in the class and the movie montage hits you with strong clips that my eyes could not handle: blurring, fast pictures and different colors were incorporated. I believe the filmmaker was using this process to describe the way that he saw his life filmed in front of his eyes.
The movie was confusing because it leaves you wandering with many questions. Why the life of the personages did turned this way. It does help you think about families and how important it is and it raises another question of can the families help or ruin your life. In his movie “Tarnation” Jonathan blames some of his problems his family. He tries to get answers from his grandparents about the claims that his mother make. He wants to know if they are true. He needs an explanation for his mother’s chemical imbalance.
I find this movie disturbing for the reason that human being at this time and age live in Jonathan condition. I find the claims Rene disturbing, that she was sexually and psychically abused by her mother and that, she does not think that they were her real parents. It was a cry for help even if she would be making that up.
The filmmaker does a great job in describing his life story and paints a great picture as actor by directing himself. He tries to ask unanswered question so he can find out about his life through his mothers life. I admire the courage and strength that he put himself through. Through his movie, he shows the compaction and love that he has for his mother.

2006-06-13T14:05:00.000-07:00

Reading Richard Pillsbury’s essay I am surrounded by familiar picture, I can hear the noises, the “organized chaos”, I can see the hand waving and the recognition. I work in the restaurant business and I deal every day with situations that are described in his essay. I find it disturbing that the author can tell what everybody was doing around his table and does not concentrate on his table. The reason why I enjoy taking my family and friends out to restaurants is because I have more time to talk and listen to them. Many times has my mother missed dinner or got up in the middle of because she was the one cooking and had to turn off the stove or try to keep the food warm. In authors case the women did the cooking and the men washed the dishes. Sound s great but it sound like the family was not together in the same time same table. I believe that a tradition where the whole family sits down at a table, same time is a great tradition. For the people to eat, somebody has to cook which means that somebody has to be in the kitchen away from the table. I prefer all my family to be around me at the dinner table, whatever food it is Mexican or American as long as I have everybody around me.

2006-06-06T16:34:00.000-07:00

Anri Beleshi

In his essay “ You Are Who You Know” Andrew Leonard writes about “social identity”. In his essay the author agrees that Internet has changed our lives but he plays question. Did Internet change our lives for better or worse? As a user of Skype my connection is gender, background and cheaper phone rates to speak with people overseas. Leonard asks” When so many people are your friends, can those “friendships” be worth much (150).
It is true that I have divided my friends in categories. I have my real friends that I discuss real issues and I have the “other friends” to whom I speak because I see future benefits. Most of my friend are useful in finding information about events, ask the questions, one might say that they are my life line. In asking the question Leonard is right, my Internet community is bigger than the face-to-face community. “Social networking has arrived on your PC, and is coming to your phone … and everywhere you might consider taping into the Net”(150). Social networking helps entertain my curiosity of what is out there and improves my ability to expend my social skills, even if it is in a minimal level.
I consider mapping my social connections a useful way to think about my identity. It is through the process of selection that I have chosen these friends and I rely on them for information as well as their knowledge in public issues, events, trends and experience. In some way I am a data miner and a strategist, the author finds his information also from internet ” A posting on Tribe.net had led me here”(151). I connect with the author because I use the internet for the same purpose.The purpose to of information gathering.

Latterell, Catherine G. Remix: reading + composing culture.
2006. Boston: Bedford / St. Martin

2006-06-03T21:01:00.000-07:00

“ Our most important communities are no longer determined by family and geography, ” says Andrew Leonard in his essay “You Are Who You Know”. The old fashion communities are over, people brought together by chance of living in the same building or going to the same school does not exist as much any more. Unfortunately, we are caught in transitional period; generations coming after us will not have this problem. Future generations will know only of the digital community. Entering the digital age words like friends, family and community are taking a different meaning. They are been connected by one word. Internet is the word, what used to connect us in the time of “no internet” does not exist anymore. We find our “friends” through Internet, a gift to us from digital age. Our boredom and curiosity is conquered with video cameras and keyboards. We join communities with purpose to network, data gather and sell so we can rip future benefits. We join these communities because there are no expectations. No expectation of responsibility, care and loyalty for one another. Nothing is expected of us but information about our selves. Information that can make us more marketable. Can the glue of responsibility, care and loyalty hold us together? I don’t think so.

2006-05-30T14:14:00.000-07:00

I decided to spend memorial weekend in New York. Many times have I heard a joke about that no one speaks English in New York. It is “true “ I heard and saw every nation living together in New York. It may be true that they might not select English as their primary communication language but in the same time I did get the feeling of community. The New Yorkers don’t identify themselves with one language but the area they live in.
“We are no longer a black-white nation,” writes Richard Rodriguez in his essay “Blaxicans” and Other Reinvented Americans. I am writing about New York because Now that I read about community the first thing that comes to my mind is New York. I have never felt that a community so diverse could in the same time maintain traditions and behavior. There were different neighborhoods with different nations names but above all they were New Yorkers.
The New Yorkers used their community to serve their needs. This assumption was best shown after 9/11 when all New York was helping the victims’ families with direct or indirect donations.
There was acceptance, in New York because every one fit somewhere and that you were not the first one to arrive from the “boat”.

2006-05-23T17:35:00.000-07:00

Nietzsche identifies the human race with smaller groups which were easier to dominate, as people evolved so did the techniques of dominance The first thing that strikes the most is the order that Frederic Nietzsche puts the “identifying groups”. He puts family groups first, and than family groups build communities, states and nations but above all is church. Religion dominates us all and it is the ultimate top on the pyramid of dominance. His claim is similar to the other authors, in particular to the essay “High School’s Secret Life” by Emily White. He mentions that we belong to” tribes” the same word the Emily white mentioned in her essay.
In our age the leaders and followers are digital by that I mean that are mobile and have a tool to use to command over the followers. The digital age has created its own leaders but it has complicated the notion of leader. A digital leader does not have a race or gender but it has an opinion that can be distributed around the world with the speed of light. Going back to Nietzsche pyramid of dominance the digital leader must be put on top.
The digital leader is the all Seeing Eye. The digital age has complicated the notion of leaders and followers by giving the same tools to everyone. Using this technology has become easy for everybody. Nietzsche says, “nothing has been practised and cultivated among men better or longer than obedience”. This not the case anymore the digital age has brought the age of the fast traveling opinion and with that destruction of obedience as well.

2006-05-16T10:12:00.000-07:00

In her essay Emily White suggests that our social relationships shape our personal identities. She tries to support the assumption by bringing evidence from her observation of the “ proving ground” the cafeteria at Calhoun high school. White starts her argument by writing about of one of the girls that feels left out of information and parties because she is at the second period lunch while her friends are in the third period. For the girl this meant that she “ had to operate on deeper level of loneliness”. The same happens to the students with physical differences like the obese girl and the boy with strange muscle conditions.
Another passage in the essay that shows evidence of her argument is the statement. “ the kids that have it their way because they have perfect hair, perfect teeth etc. “. She goes further by saying they imitate each other; they shape their group’s identity by wearing the same clothes, same brands, “in contrast conformity is a way of broadcasting that you aren’t a weirdo”. White divides the school in “tribes” and rightly so.
She notices another tribe that they are held together by “their energy of trouble”. These are the troublemakers and rock and rollers. White suggests that the “tribe” that we belonged in high school shapes our identities, that we are product of exposure to our peers. This might as well be my school.

2006-05-12T23:29:00.000-07:00

Ispeak