Changing of a Regime?

Fidel Castro stepped down as the leader of Cuba last Sunday. The media covered it for a couple of days but it was not a huge news story. Fidel has been in power for 50 years and has been a thorn in America's side for just about the same amount of time. The American government has taken a huge stand against Cuba by having an embargo against the country. You would think that Fidel stepping down would have caused bigger shock waves in the United States. The United States has had a plan to transfer Cuba to a democracy when the time was right. Obviously it is not the right time. Fidel is not longer the head of the country but that does not mean he is gone. Raul, Fidel's younger brother was named the official head of Cuba. In all reality though Raul has been in charge since last summer when Fidel had surgery. Could that be why there was not a bigger reaction. It can be argued the transition from Raul to Fidel happened months ago and nothing changed. Cuba is still a communist country. Freedoms are still limited and nothing has changed. It seems that the US stance on Cuba has been wait it out, Fidel is old and will eventually leave. That day has come and there are no changes. How many more "Castros" are there. It seems like the United States needs to take a different approach. Raul himself acknowledged that Fidel would still by Commander and Chief. Fidel no longer has the formal title but he is far from gone.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/24/AR2008022400963.html

School Violence

My attention this week was captured by the school shooting at NIU. There were tons of articles written about it and it was on all of the major news stations. My heart went out to every student on that campus and I was interested to find out that the shooting at NIU was not the first shooting on a school campus this year it was not even even the first on a campus in the past week. In the past week there had been 4 school shootings. I found on article at U.S. News that chronicled all of the shootings on campus starting in 1966 it is truly mind blowing to look at. Of all the school shootings on campuses in the United States 22 of them occured from 1966 to 2000, 33 have occured since 2000.

There is no way to say that one paticular thing has had an impact on the rise of violence in school systems but it is hard to rule out the effect of media. In 1966 there was not violence on television and movies, people did not have the violent video games and computers were not even a reality. By 2000 all kids are exposed to violence. There certainly seems to be a correlation between violence in the media and the rise of violence on campus. Violence has become such a huge part of society, because of that people become desynthesized to it. People expect the things they see on to be more lifelike so images have become even more gruesome. People have seemed to blend reality and fantasy

It will be interesting to see if people in my generation raise their kids differently. We have seen the effects of media violence and the media is not going to change unless there are government regulations put on them. Protecting kids from violent media will have to fall on the parents. I wonder if my generation will be more savy about the damaging effects of constantly watching violent images can have, or will things just get worse.

http://www.usnews.com/articles/news/national/2008/02/15/timeline-of-school-shootings.html?PageNr=1

One of the Crowd

Today I was sitting in the b-school looking at the Wall Street Journal. There was an article called "Designs to Set Us Apart From the Crowd". I thought the article was overall interesting. It focused on five companies that allow consumers to customize their item. The stores were, Steve Madden, Nike, Oakley, Converse and Feddy and Ma. The thing that struck me when reading the article is how much of an influence the media has. It is not enough to have the newest and best, you now need the newest and best that was additionaly designed especially for you. It is consumerism at its worst. It is amazing how much people think they need based on what the media tells them. People are constantly being told that the $50 sunglasses are not good enough instead they need the $250 pair that has been customized. It is such on unrealistic standard that people think they need to live by. I recently read an interesting case study studying for a test. The study focused on the island of Fiji and the body image that women on the island had. Prior to 1980 women in Fiji thought that bigger was better. They did not want to be stick thin and eating disorders were unheard of on the tiny island. In the 1980s their views changed, eating disorders grew dramatically and most young women on the island were on diets and suddenly unhappy with themselves. The change on the island was that TV was introduced. In just a couple of short years hundreds of years of precedent was changed and women had a new standard that they were encouraged to live by.

"Let's Facebook them"

The concept of Facebook amazes me. I truly have a hard time grasping how all consuming it has become. Everyone is a member and if you want to see anything about anyone all you have to do is "facebook" them. The website has even been made into a verb.

I noticed the other day that Facebook was partnering with ABC to bring election results on the night of "super Tuesday". In a way this is a good thing it gets more students involved. A politically unactive generation has an outlet to get involved in. On the other hand all that is Facebook is not good. The amount of pull that this website has is amazing. A website is advertised on it and students flock to it. Every single aspect of a students life is documented through wall posts and pictures.

I guess all things are like this, with the good comes the bad. It is interesting to think about. Does the good outweight the bad? Is it worth having a Facebook account? Do people my age realize that once something is out there it is there for good?


http://www.woi-tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=7805332&nav=menu115_2_7
http://uk.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUKL0435648520080204?sp=true