Monday, August 31, 2009
sorry
Kidnapping
If I remember correctly she was taken from her home in the middle of the night by a man that the family knew. I think they were helping him out or something. Hey was apparently a religious fanatic who believed that god wanted him to have many wives and that this girl was to be one of them. Back to my point though about the psychological deal, the man had her under such control that he took her in public wrapped in the Islamic garb and went so far as to bring her into the same room as her parents and she did nothing to try and escape.
OK I found it here is the quote: Ed and Lois Smart, with their six children, resided in the affluent neighborhood of Federal Heights in Salt Lake City, Utah.[1] On the evening of June 4, 2002, the family attended an award ceremony at Elizabeth's school. After the family returned home and got ready for bed, Ed made sure the doors were all locked, but he did not turn on the alarm. "If the children got up and moved (in the night), it would set the alarm off. And so we just said we’re not going to bother with it," Lois later explained
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5x8ARIxg51I&feature=PlayList&p=067A3DFA73B57BBE&playnext=1&playnext_from=PL&index=16
Sunday, August 30, 2009
More on kidnap
Philip Garrido Investigation
blogger
Saturday, August 29, 2009
Under The Veil, “the Woman on p. 194”
Glamour magazine’s online daily health and fitness blog Vitamin G had the following to say about all the hooplah:
“It's a photo that measures all of three by three inches in our September issue, but the letters about it started to flood my inbox literally the day Glamour hit newsstands. (As editor-in-chief, I pay attention to this stuff!) "I am gasping with delight...I love the woman on p 194!" said one...then another, and another, andanotherandanotherandanother. So...who is she? And what on earth is so special about her? Here's the deal: The picture wasn't o
f a celebrity. It wasn't of a supermodel. It was of a woman sitting in her underwear with a smile on her face and a belly that looks...wait for it...normal.”
Glamour magazine seemed to waste no time getting in on the excitement many re
aders apparently expressed over the photograph. The editor-in-chief of the magazine made the following statement, as printed in Vitamin G:
“…let's start off this week with something we can all get behind: a toast to the woman on p. 194, and to the spectacular sexiness of owning who you are. Trust me, Glamour's listening, and this only strengthens our commitment to celebrating all kinds of beauty."
On one hand, in seems almost heroic for a leading women’s magazine to make an effort to reach beyond the typical “double zero” models we seem to have become immersed in as a society. Logic has silently died weeping as America climbs in per capita obesity rates and yet issue after issue of fashion magazines boast women with every decreasing waist lines. Not to mention that in the span of these two extremes, women generally considered to be “normal” in size, by and large, go unrepresented. But hark! Glamour has stepped up their game by appealing to t
he “normal” women in our society by feautering a “normal” sized model.
Due to the general hysteria over such a gracious act on Glamour’s part, the other side of it all is almost completely veiled. On that other hand, a variety of subtle decisions on the magazines part leads me to question their motives. Has Glamour truly committed to celebrating all kinds of beauty? Or has Glamour committed to celebrating their vision of beauty, and in the process thrown a bone to those women who just don’t fit their standard?
Amidst the excitement as women of all sizes flocked to the stands to purchase this magazine was lost a painfully obvious misnomer: Lizzie Miller, the 20-year-old plus size model (at the size of 12) is known to the fashion world and Glamour readers alike as “the Woman on p. 194.”
Just what is contained in those first 193 pages, we seem to have failed to ask, out of a 296 page magazine? The cover of this September’s issue feautres Jessica Simpson, not too long ago criticized for her weight gain and yet looking skinny and sleek for Glamour. Around Miss Simpson are feautred such advertisements as “3 Flat Belly Secrets,” and “331 Sexy Looks you can afford!” Both corresponding articles appear in the issue well before the half-way point, which is already well before Miss Miller’s photo towards the very end.
(Image detail: check out this link for a larger view of the cover. You'll be able to see the featured articles concerning flat bellies and Jessica's weight loss)
For a magazine dedicated to celebrating all kinds of beauty, Glamour’s efforts seem to fall pathetically short when they include a model such as Miss Miller in their spread, only to stuff her well past their true ideas of what is beautiful, sexy, and glamorous: women with flat bellies and the perfect size jeans.
PSA from the UK regarding teens texting while driving
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KF0_7qC6YFo
Similar to the picture of Emmit Till's brutalized body that we talked about in class, this video uses a realistic, graphic senario of what could happen if you text while driving. It is a public service announcement that was made in the U.K. to try and scare teens so perhaps they will think twice before they text while driving. This PSA has been highly controversial as to whether or not it should be publicized or not. Many argue that the video is far too graphic for a general audience, while others believe that it would be good for young teens to see the potentially devestating effects of texting while driving.
Personally, I thought what made the PSA so effective was the fact that it was so horrifying and graphic. If it was a news reporter standing up there merely, talking about the topic and stating that it is dangerous to text and drive, it wouldn't have been as effective as this video of a horrible car wreck, becasue although the video is horrifying and terribly sad, that is what it took to really get the seriousness and urgency of the message across to the audience.
I know for me, it has definetly changed my mind about texting while I'm driving. Before seeing this video, I used to sometimes text while I would drive, not believing anything like in this video could ever happen to me...but after seeing this horrifying PSA, I will never text and drive again!!
What do you guys think? Do you think the video is too graphic to show young teens? Or do you think it's something that should be shown to them to maybe prevent such a bad accident from really happening?
Friday, August 28, 2009
More behind the image, Emmett Till
We discussed the photograph of the murdered Emmett Till in class, and what that image meant to the world. What Emmett Till’s mother might not have realized when she insisted on an open casket, and the subsequent photographs, is just how powerful that image would become…Just this evening (Friday August 28th) I was watching the Channel 5 News and a report on Emmett Till surfaced.
To delve into a short tangent…apparently, based on another report, by the Associated Press, just last month Emmet Till’s casket was discovered in a storage shed at a cemetary near Chicago. The casket allegedly had been pulled from the ground when his body was exumed back in 2005 (for autopsy and later a reburial in another casket).
Now that is has been recovered, the original casket is now going to the Smithsonian Institution where it will be featured in an exhibit in the planned National Museum of African American History and Culture.
This relates back to what we also discussed in class concerning signifiers and the signified.
When Till’s mother insisted on an open casket for her murdered 14 year old son, she knew the power that image would have even fifty years later. People would remember what happened to Emmett Till.
I wonder if Mrs. Till knew that one day Emmett's picture would not only remind people of what happened to him, but that his casket would become a signifier for, in the words of the Associated Press, “the civil rights movement that helps tell the story of what is both one of the darkest chapters in U.S. history and a moment that helped change it.”
Perhaps the people responsible for Emmett's death, and those who shared their sentiments, didn't give the images a second thought. I don't know about anyone else, but this leads me to contemplate which images of our time, ones we might not give much more than a passing glance, may one day impact the world in some great way.
