The Allegory Of The Cave

I found the Allegory of the cave to be some what confusing, yet enlightening. I believe Plato was saying you have to go through the darkness to truly be able to appreciate the light. If you have been in darkness and the light is forced onto you, will you not want to turn away? The light will burn your eyes and seeing things for what they are might hurt. "The world of knowledge the idea of good appears last of all and is seen only with effort; and, when seen is also inferred to be the universal author of all things beautiful and right,parent of light and the Lord of light in this visible world..."(756)

The same goes in the opposite direction. If you have seen nothing but light your whole life, would it not do you good to dip down into the pit for a while. Plato, I believe is saying it will give you compassion for those who are hurting and whom have lived their entire lives in darkness." i mean they remain in the upper world: but this must not be allowed they must be made to descend again among the prisoners in the den"(759)

To be a good leader and to raise a group of citizens to be appreciative of culture, they must not be self taught. The goodness of light must step in and overcome even when the darkness abodes. " When you have acquired the habit, you will see ten thousand times better than the inhabitants of the den..." (760) 

Plato is stating if you have a leader who has been through the darkness and light. He appreciates the good even more and has much more compassion than someone who ahd not such darkness. " you m us contrive for your future rulers and a better life than that of a ruler, and then you may have a well ordered state; for only in the state which offers this, will they rule who are truly rich not in silver and gold, but in virtue and wisdom, Which are the true blessing of life" (760)

In this day in age of me, me, me, this short reading was a breath of fresh air. Life is bigger than just you and your wants and desires. We should strive to give back to community and to our families, more than we ever received. 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

The skinny on advertising

With everything I do, I think of my children first. With advertisements being overly sexual and having unrealistic images of so called perfect women. I thought this would be the perfect assignment to bring this problem to the forefront. The pressure society places on girls to be perfect I believe is a direct result of such advertisements. Many times the images depicted are unattainable and unrealistic. So i have chosen to promote the Dove for Beauty Campaign.

I have also posted the video below to my facebook page. You can follow this link to find it on my facebook.https://www.facebook.com/tiffany.trotter.75

http://www.youtube.com/v/Ei6JvK0W60I?autohide=1&version=3&attribution_tag=d6vUt3lsjW7G5eAz8s-l1A&autohide=1&feature=share&showinfo=1&autoplay=1
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Advertisements and Such

I don't know about y'all, but it seems since we got this assignment I  have been dissecting billboards and commercials. Ha! One thing I feel I might struggle with is the fact I do not watch many commercials. We do not really watch regular TV. At my house we use Netflix and Hulu ,which Hulu does have some commercials. Still, I now there is no shortage of advertisements all around us.

 I read a statistic that 50% of teen girls are either dieting or say they need to be on a diet. Having three daughters, this made me sad. I was thinking this directly correlates with our assignment. I know I could stand to lose some lb's, and I want my daughters to be healthy. However, I do not want them comparing themselves to stick figures, who are not at all healthy.

Our assigned readings, I feel, have helped me figure out how I am going to re create an advertisement and  put it into a speech. Page 137 of the LBH, I found helpful. It tells you how to have a strong introduction and what you should avoid. Also it goes on to say when to use visuals and what is effective. For instance using a graph or chart can help support an idea and make you more credible.

Advertisements must be persuasive. Some of the ways to make advertisements persuasive are to use Logos, Ethos, and Pathos. Logos is to appeal to reason, and use logic. Next is Pathos, which is appealing to your emotion. Lastly, is Ethos, appealing to authority. A person is more likely to respond well to an advertisement if there is a person that is honorable or trustworthy selling a specific product.(Kirszner p 9-13).

Midterm Review

Lately, I have had a hard time keeping up with my life. With everything my kids have going on with their school and sports, and with my school, it is a lot to keep up with. Yesterday, I completely forgot about my son's parent teacher conference, talk about mother of the year moment right there.=) The past few days I have found myself yearning for the end of the semester. Then I go back to my mom's words, don't wish your life away. So, as crazy as my life is and how tired I am. I am going to be thankful. You only get one shot at this life, so if I go down, at least I can say I went down giving it all I had.

Now, for a few things I have learned over the past few months. How to use an EPI pen. My 3 year old, Kendall had a very scary allergic reaction ( the doc thinks is is peanuts) and now has to undergo some test to see if they can find the culprit. This allergy stuff is new to me, none of my other kids have ever had any allergies. Next, A and P II is just as hard as the first A and P. I am stressed to pieces over this class. I keep telling myself it be all worth it and when I get my nursing degree, and it will. I learned how to blog! I do feel blogging is a good way to de-stress and just put ALL these crazy things going through my brain  into words. Another thing I have enjoyed about this class, is not being censored in my writing. We have been allowed to be very open with our writing, which I feel, makes writing more fun and I am sure more interesting for the reader. I am thankful for this because in my previous classes, everything was overly formal.

Fall is my favorite time of year. I am also looking forward to taking the kids trick or treating. This year they are dressing as  Doc Mcstuffins, A ninja, Little Mermaid and a Witch. Pictures to come!
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Final Proposal

I finally finished my paper, I am such a procrastinator. I am also in anatomy and physiology II, which could easily give anyone a nervous breakdown. I wrote my paper on harassment and bullying in schools, and in cyber space. Children have so much to deal with concerning harassment. It is so sad what they have to go through. reading some current news stories on suicides of kids as a result of bullying, broke my heart. I do not know if my thoughts or hopes for protection of these kids will ever happen, all i can say is I hope so.

Enough Is Enough

After dealing with my daughter being harassed at school last week and all that craziness. Late that week she spots a boy with a GUN on the school bus!My daughter is bus monitor on her school bus so she walks the isles and makes sure things are running smoothly. A new kid on the bus had gotten into a fight and she had him move to the front. The next thing she sees is him grabbing inside his backpack to grab a gun! She yells "everyone get down" she then proceeds to tell the bus driver, by that time they were arriving at the school. 

The gun ended up being an unloaded bb gun. Still, bb guns look like real guns, especially to a 10 year old. I found out about this via a mass phone recording from the school. However I had no clue it was my daughter that found it or that it was my children's bus until my children arrived home from school. 

My proposal is more about sexual harassment of kids in schools and what is being done about it. Still, I wanted to blog about this since it is about violence in schools. I know a few of the types of criticism I will be using is moral criticism and reader-response criticism. 

Basically, in my proposal you will see a fed up parent tired of the way the school system handles harassment. What I think parents should do about it and why. 

A Modest Proposal: Review and My Topic

My 11 year old daughter came home from school yesterday upset. A boy in gym had touched her inappropriately.She was upset and embarrassed to tell me. My first reaction is why am I hearing about this from my daughter? Why didn't the school call me and inform me, giving assurance such things will not be tolerated? Being a mom of three girls I feel to protect them I am going to have to get a little psycho. This experience has inspired me to write about American Children and how society affects them. Children are our future, we all should care deeply about them.

While speaking to the administration at my daughters school today, this is how I felt. It is time to start teaching kids personal responsibility and consequences. I do not see violence ending in our schools until then.

When I first read A Modest Proposal, I had to go back and re read it a few times. I was like, "is he really talking about eating kids"? He had seemed so sincere and concerned about these starving women and children. However, I feel like he wrote it to send a message. He wanted to make a proposal so shocking people would have to listen. Putting light onto desperation and starvation in such a way where one cannot deny its existence.