Stewart's"Lets Leave it There"

Stewart brings up a lot of good points criticizing the current way the media discusses issues. Media organizations today do not really want to inform people about current situations or encourage discussion about topics. Instead their main concern is attracting viewers regardless of the reasons for why those viewers are watching the news.
Stewart points out several ways CNN in particular fails to accurately inform viewers or encourage discussion about topics. One criticism is the lack of overall coverage. He shows that CNN covers issues that are popular rather than issues that are significant. For example Stewart brings up how CNN covers Sunday football games but fails to cover a protest in Washington. Stewart's second criticism is that CNN fails to do successful fact checking on significant topics. He points out that CNN checked SNL sketches, which the general public assumes is exaggerated, while they failed to check numerous sources regarding the health care issue or the success of Obama's reforms. Stewart goes on further to criticize the way that CNN cuts off discussions about issues even though they are a twenty-four hour news station. Additionally when they cut experts off they then present news that is insignificant or even trivial, such as youtube videos.
If these topics were discussed in an academic setting the issues that Stewart discussed would not be evident. In an academic setting certain facts and numbers would be agreed upon. There are studies on how many people can not afford healthcare and similar issues. Furthermore, in an academic setting any facts would be checked if there was any disagreement on the validity of the facts. Secondly an academic debate would never be cut off each side would present their arguments and rebuttals, and discussion would be ended at an appropriate time. Academic discussions however have a very different goal from a TV news station, and it is because of this that the two differ so greatly. A academic discussion tries to inform it's audience and encourage discussion about a topic. A station such as CNN only wants to produce a program that attracts viewers.

Response to Non standard dialects

In the present society we should not have to force a person to speak a certain way. Americans are ensured free speech by the constitution, and I interpret this to mean that American citizens have not only the right to speak anything on their mind but also say those thoughts in any way they please. However, there are many aspects that I believe affect why a person would speak with an accent or without one. The biggest reason that people talk with an accent is for solidarity reasons with a certain group. Many minorities develop their own way of speaking in a way to distinguish there group from the rest of American society.

The way that accents determine the way a person views another person is somewhat exaggerated. In this day and age it is general knowledge that there is a great mix of people across the country and that most people are not going to make assumption from how a person talks. No one thinks that all people speaking a British accent are highly intelligent. This reason for eliminating non standard dialects is not valid. Eliminating dialects is not going to eliminate regional discrimination.

The biggest tool for changing dialects in America is the economy. If standard English is seen as a way to make more money a vast amount of Americans will want to speak standard English. Because of this reason, there would be no value in forcing people to stop speaking dialects. Dialects will always exist in American society because there will always be small minority groups that will try to establish their own identity. However, because of the economy and market, standard English will always be seen as a way to improve yourself economically and therefore will be the way of speaking for the vast majority of the population. Because of this no reason exists to why it would be preferable to force people to speak standard American English.

My Fair Lady Review

"MY Fair Lady" is the story of a young street woman who wishes to speak English well so that she can move up in society. She encounters a professor named Mr. Higgins who makes a bet that in six months time he can change her from speaking cockney English to speaking King's English at the Embassy Ball. The young lady, who's name is Eliza, seeks English lessons with Higgins, and he eventually agrees after some hesitation. Higgins uses several harsh techniques to try and teach Eliza to speak without and accent and in the end finally succeeds in teaching her to speak perfect English. However, even by changing the way Eliza speaks, Higgins does not make Eliza into a High class English girl like all the rest. What does end happening is Eliza becomes stuck in between tow different spheres. She does not completely fit in with high class society but at the same time does not really fit in with her old friends selling flowers from the street.

The the themes of this movie I believe can be portrayed in many different ways in modern society. Language being a main factor for deciding social standing is the most obvious theme in the movie. However there are many others that I believe are portrayed by the film. The film also deals with many issues regarding the roles of different social standings. I think the movie can even go as far to relate to race relations today. Race in many ways is like a dialect. It determines where you are from, and in some cases your standing in society. I think this film heavily criticizes the capitalist society, and how it creates these social classes

Saving the Environment Part 2

This second lecture was much better than the previous lecture, because the speakers discussed positive, as well as negative ways people affect the environment, and they stayed to the point and focused. The first speaker was a girl named Rachel. She was a graduate of Berkeley and spoke about her involvement with on campus groups and how they changed the Cal campus. At first when she joined the environmental group on campus she was highly disappointed with what little she was able to achieve. However, in the end she was able to raise a lot of money to make her campus greener. Her story was especially compelling considering that she was a student just like us, and was able to achieve so much in the end. She now has the job of going around to different colleges and speaking, which is something that she never thought she would be doing, but at the same time is something that she loves.

The last speaker was named Erica, and she discussed how the poor environment that she grew up in greatly affected her childhood. She also discussed how race and class can define the type of environment that someone lives in. She described how many Mexican Americans live in her neighborhood and how certain polluting industrial centers were built in her neighborhood while they purposefully bypassed the high end neighborhoods. Although I believe that Erica's information was very good and interesting I believe she lacked a bit in he speaking skills. I liked how she gave me a different perspective that I have never heard in regard to environmental concerns however in some ways her rhetoric did not appeal to me and did not express the message as well as it probably could have.

My favorite speaker was the second speaker,named billy, because he related the environment to issues that are more related to ways that a current student could help out. He described how he created the Energy Action Coalition, which quickly grew to be a very popular and strong youth group, and helps people all around the country be involved in changing the way we interact with the environment. He also showed a study at the end which showed that students that do what they love often are more successful than students who just want to make money. This study was probably The most fascinating part of the entire lecture to me, because it can be applied to so many different things. If you are really driven to help the environment then it shows that you can do what you love and in the end perhaps be very successful, but it can also be applied to any field. In a society that is driven by money I think this is an important consideration.