Pizza Is A Vegetable?

     Recently around the internet I've been seeing a lot of jokes and comment about Congress making pizza count as a vegetable. At first I dismissed it because I didn't think it could possibly be true. However as the joke came up again on Saturday Night Live I decided to check it out. It turns out there is some legitimacy to the joke. You can read about it in the article attached HERE.

      Basically, Congress wants to keep pizza and french fries on school lunch menus in order to help schools regulate costs. The Obama administration is trying to take "unhealthy" foods out of schools and by doing so they would need to place more restrictions on the types of foods allowed in schools. Some people argue that the government shouldn't be able to tell them what foods they can't serve and that since money in schools is so tight, demanding schools to pay more for "healthier" foods is unreasonable. The idea is that if pizza and french fries count as vegetables, schools can cut costs for foods.

     According to the article Pizza As A Vegetable? Congress Proposes New School Lunch Bill (as attached above), "School meals that are subsidized by the federal government must include a certain amount of vegetables, and USDA's proposal could have pushed pizza-makers and potato growers out of the school lunch business." Food companies have lobbied congress to not allow these restrictions to pass.

      I understand that the government is trying to find a balance between schools budgets and healthy food choices for kids, but I don't think that that is necessarily their job. I think that this is a responsibility for each state to figure out a solution for within their own boundaries. Every state has a different economical and health situation, so I think it is impossible to find regulations on food in schools that will benefit every situation.

How much power do you think the government should have over food in schools? Should pizza and french fries be counted as vegetables? Should the of the students health be sacrificed because of lack of money?


     
     

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

     This blog post was inspired by the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind that I watched a few weekends ago. I would highly recommend the movie. It is beautifully filmed and stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as Joel and Clementine, a couple in love. However the main idea of the movie and what I want to focus on in this post is the importance of memories. The movie has two quotes in it that address this topic and that I wanted to figure what they meant exactly. 

The first was a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche:

"Blessed are the forgetful: for they get the better even of their blunders."

The second was a quote from Alexander Pope:

"How happy is the blameless vestal's lot

The world forgetting by the world forgot

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd."

     The quotes both express the idea that "ignorance is bliss." In the first quote, forgetful people are lucky because they don't remember the bad things they've done. They only remember the good parts even of their "blunders", or mistakes.
     The second quote is longer and a bit more complicated to understand. In the first line, a "vestal" means a chaste or pure woman and "blameless" means innocent since the woman hasn't done anything. She is happy in her innocence and purity. The second line refers to the fact that the woman does not have wordly concerns. She doesn't worry about the world and it doesn't worry about her because they have forgotten about each other. The third line is probably my favorite because I think it is just beautifully worded and it is the title of the movie. It basicaly says that the mind that is clear of bad memories, "spotless", is the happiest since it is in "eternal sunshine." The last line is saying that the woman's prayers for forgetting her problems have been answered and now she has no more wishes. She is completely happy now since she has forgotten her sins.
     Although both quotes seem to express that forgetting the bad in your life makes you happy, the movie overall disagreed with this message. The characters seek to forget certain bad relationships in their past and are able to undergo a procedure that completely wipes away their memory of that relationship. In the end, they fall in love with the same people again and slowly uncover that this is the second time that they've been in a relationship. Some characters find that they didn't want to forget their past completely because then they would lose their good memories as well. Others learned that they didn't want to forget their past because they hated the fact that they made the same mistake twice.
     From this movie I have come to believe that though ignorance may be bliss, we are better in the end if we remember our mistakes and learn from them. 
Do you think that ignorance is bliss? How do you interpret the above quotes? Would people be better if we could forget the bad in our lives?

Make Love, Not War

     This week during dance we were given an assignment to bring in a picture that inspired us. The goal was to look at all the pictures as a class and ultimately chose one to create a dance about. Below is one of the pictures that a girl brought in.

     To be honest, at first, I didn't really like this picture. All I saw was a couple making out on the ground and a man nearly blocking the view of them. However, as we discussed the picture further and I learned about the context the picture was taken in, I slowly started to love the photo more and more.

     This is a picture taken during the riots that broke out after the Vancouver Canucks hockey team was defeated by the Boston Bruins in a championship game. The women in the photo got trampled by the crowds and broke her ankle. Her boyfriend decided to kiss her and comfort her. 

     The first reason that I like this picture is because it is a candid shot. It was obviously not posed and the actions depicted in it were spur-of-the-moment and full of truthful passion. I also like all the contrast in the photo. There are contrasts in the colors-the police officers wearing black, and the couple in lighter colors. There are contrasts in levels-the police are all standing vertical, while the couple is lying down horizontally. All of these visuals contrast highlight and reinforce the overall idea of love versus war. The couple is unknowingly making a very strong statement about how we should always try to find some love and kindness amidst all of the violence and hatred in the world today. In a way they are demonstrating that love is more powerful than hate because it prevailed throughout the chaos of this event.

What do you think about this picture? What ideas does it inspire in you? What else do you notice in the picture?

The First Loser

     My dad jokingly said at dinner one night that I always had to remember that, "Second place is the first loser." At the time, I just thought it was really funny because technically it was true. Everyone that finishes after the winner has lost the race, whatever the race may be.

      However  last week in one of my classes, American Studies, we started talking about America and its need to be the best at everything and the idea popped into my head again. Second place is the first loser. I started thinking about how often the idea of "winning" or being "the best" at something came up in our lives. At nearly everything people try to be better than their competitors. Whether its at work, at school, or even when your with friends, everyone wants to be the best. We constantly try to one-up each other or even go as far as to downplay someone else's achievements to make ourselves feel better. No one wants to be mediocre.

      Although this constant competition in our lives can get ugly, as jealousy and bad-sportsmanship often come with it, I'm not sure if it is necessarily a bad thing. Where would our society be if everyone just strived to be mediocre? If people didn't have a competitive drive, we wouldn't have nearly as many advancements and creations that we do today. Of course one could say that without competition people could learn to self motivate-do the best they can because they want to. I don't think this would work very well because many people simply can't self motivate. Overall, I think the need to be number one is a good trait in people.

Is competition among peers a good or bad thing? Where would our society be without the constant fight to be the best?

Eye Contact: The Unwritten Eye Contract

     Today my mom wanted to go buy a coke from Walgreens, but she made me walk with her so we could also take the dog on a short walk. I'd wait outside the store with our dog, while she went shopping for her caffeine fix of the day. As I sat outside, an old man who was selling magazines outside the store starting talking to me about my dog. I answered all of his questions he had about my dog and also listened to his stories of the various dogs he had growing up.

     Sitting there for awhile, I noticed that each time someone came out of the store he'd tell them something like "Have a nice day" or "Good afternoon", and each time he was ignored by everyone that passed by. No one even bothered to look him in the eye or nod, they just stared at the ground or straight ahead as they passed. This started to bother me immensely because obviously this nice old man did not deserve to be completely ignored by others. He was simply wishing them a good day and they couldn't even acknowledge him or say thanks. As I left the store with my mom, I continued to think about the way everyone treated this man and I realized it is actually very common in our society.
     People always try to avoid eye contact with people they view as lesser than them. When you go to the grocery store, no one really looks at the woman who is behind the check out counter or the man putting your groceries in a bag. You keep your attention focused on the monitor with the prices on it or your food as it passes through the scanner. Some may argue that they don't wish to make eye contact because it would be uncomfortable since you don't know the person well enough. Though this is a valid point, I don't believe that to be the true reasons for avoiding eye contact.

     When you make eye contact with someone for a long amount of time, you are saying with your eyes that you are equals with that person. Since they deserve your undivided eye attention for a few minutes, they deserve your respect. If you avoid making eye contact with someone, it can say two things. Either you are giving them the power in the relationship, signaling that you are too afraid of them to hold their gaze. Or you are saying that you are too important to make the time to look the person in the eye. Eye contact can tell us a lot about the relationships between people and who holds more of the power.

Do you agree that people avoid making eye contact with those they think are lesser than them? Why do we avoid eye contact with people? What does eye contact say about the relationships in your life?

Fat People Don't Deserve Love?

     This friday in dance class our teacher decided to skip dancing for the day and do an activity she had been wanting to do for while. She handed us each a sheet of paper and a pen and asked us to write about how it felt to have a body. She wanted us to describe about how we felt as women about our bodies and how we felt the world made us feel about our bodies. After writing down our thoughts she showed a book she had found this summer (I wish I remember the name of the book, but I can't so I'll find out later). The book had a picture of a woman on each page and then a short paragraph or two about how that woman felt about her body. Some of them describe how various illnesses had affected them, how they felt like their body was in constant inner turmoil.

     One story stuck out to me the most. It was the story of a woman that was very large. She talked about how when she would walk down the street people would give her disapproving looks or make rude comments. They would look at her and think that she had no self control or willpower and that was the reason that she was so fat. It was simply her own fault for not being able to control herself. The most striking thing she said was that a lot of people think that "fat people don't deserve love." 

     To be honest I find a lot of truth in her words. Often times when I see people that are obese I tend to think that it is a lifestyle choice in a way. They chose to eat too much food,  they chose to not excercise, and therefore it is entirely their fault that they look the way they do. However, now I see that there is a lot of fault in that line of thinking. Everyone has very different genetic types and some make it easier to maintain a small figure than others. People can do little to change things like their metabolism rate, which has a great affect on body weight. Twenty people can run a mile and it will have a completely different affect on each and every persons body. We need to learn to be more accepting of different body types and not prematurely judge people based on how they look.

Do you think women face more difficulties with their bodies? Why do you think we judge people based on their body types?

Um So Like Ya...

     So I was sitting in class this week and I was like listening to people talk, you know, about uh their opinions on stuff that the teacher had asked about. And then this one girl raised her hand and was like saying all this stuff but I like could barely even pay attention to what she was saying because like all I heard was the word like. And then um this other guy raised his hand and it was like all I heard was him saying the word um. Isn't that annoying?
    This week I decided to count the number of times people said "like" while we were having a class discussion. I counted a total of 179 unnecessary likes before I gave up and decided I couldn't count anymore. I started to think about all the times that I say "like" or "um" during the day, and I have to admit I say those words a lot. My parents always try to remind me not to say like as much and I never understood why until I listened to the way people talked in school. I found that when people used words such as like or um it was extremely distracting. Their thoughts were broken up by the words and it also made their opinion seem less valid. If they had to make constant pauses while talking, their opinion did not seem as strong or as well thought out as those who did not need pauses to collect their thoughts.

     Interestingly enough, the same day that I counted likes my teacher talked briefly about the word "um" during class. He mentioned how some one had thought at first that the word "um" was used by people because everyone had such a vast vocabulary of words that they were pausing to try and chose the perfect one. After further research however he changed his idea of the word "um." He decided that the word, put simply, meant "shut up." It's a way for a person speaking to let the listener know that they are not done talking. Even if they pause to take a breath or think, they'll say um so that the listener knows they're not allowed to start talking yet because they still have more to say. I thought this was interesting and also very true. It started me thinking on what I thought the meaning of the word like was when people used it unnecessarily. There are two ways that I would describe the ways people use it. People use the word like when explaining what someone said, "She was like 'I don't want to eat that.'" It's substituted in for the word "said." Another way is when people are not sure of something, "Can you pick me up at like 5?" They don't know if they want to be picked up at five exactly or perhaps after, hence the "like" is added.
     Overall, I understand that its hard not to use these words, but I think its a bad habit that everyone should try to break. Used in moderation these words can make sense, but otherwise they are can be frustrating to the listener.
What do you think are other possible meanings of the words like and um? Can you think of any other words we use too often?
     

The Meaning Of Life

     This morning as I was eating breakfast, I reached across my kitchen counter to grab the only part of the newspaper I ever read, the comics section. Skimming through to find the comics I like to read the best, I landed upon Broom-Hilda. A picture of the comic is attached below as well as what the characters say in case anyone has trouble reading the picture.

 "Irwin I'm trying to develop a philosophy of life. A phrase thats sums up everything in a neat little handbasket of words.

Something applicable under any condition.

The key to life in a nutshell"
(Broom-Hilda).
"Yawn. I'm going to get something to eat" (Irwin).

"That's IT!" (Broom-Hilda).


At first I just enjoyed the joke implied by the comic, that the "key to life" is "going to get something to eat." I eat all the time because I swim a lot and need a constant flow of food to keep my body healthy during swim season. I absolutely love food, so the idea that the point of life was to simply eat was quite amusing and appealing at the same time. However as I thought more about the comic while finishing my breakfast, I realized there was some truth to it.
     The majority of our lives is centered around one thing and one thing only, food. Its not just a way of sustaining life, its a thing we use for comfort, entertainment, religion, and creativity. There are new tv shows being created everyday centered entirely around food that people love. I know, I myself have spent countless hours watching shows on the Food Network Channel. Also, different religions and cultures are very specific about the foods that they eat and cook daily. If someone goes to church there are times you'll be ask to eat and drink bread and wine. However its not simply just bread and wine, it represents the blood and body of Christ. Furthermore, even most holidays are centered around food. Thanksgiving has turkey, Christmas has ham, and Halloween gets all the candy. On a simply a daily basis eating is important to every culture. Meals are a time in which everyone must stop what they are doing for awhile, relax, and usually converse with friends or family.
     Food means many things to many different people and since its such a normal part of our daily existence its sometimes hard to notice the impact it has on us. Eating has become much more than just simple activity needed to sustain life. Our entire lives revolve around food.
So is eating food a good philosophy to life? Does it sum it up in a nice little handbasket? I think the key to life in a nutshell is that we need to go eat food.

The Need To Be Green

     For some reason I have been having been having extreme difficulties trying to think of a way to start this post. I have gone through about a million different ways to phrase it, and it never seems to turn out right. So finally I've decided to just write and see where it takes me.
     This morning my mom sent me a text telling me to "Come outside and get some sun." So I picked up my homework, brought it outside, and sat on a bench in my backyard to finish it. I felt proud, like I had bettered myself today by simply making a choice to step outside. This feeling got me thinking and I wondered, why nature made me feel better about myself. Why did more "natural" things in general make Americans feel better about themselves? I decided to focus on the food industries change to be more natural.

     Everywhere you looks nowadays, people are changing to try and be more "natural" with their food.  In grocery stores there are large organic food sections. Even the normal food sections in the store feature newer, "healthier" options. Frito Lay chips for example now display their "All Natural Ingredients"stamp on the front of all their bags. Also Sara Lee now has "Whole Grain White" bread, containing "No High Fructose Corn Syrup." The bread still looks the same, but contains none of the ingredients though to be unhealthy anymore. Although the ingredients are changing to become more natural, all the labels insist that everything still contains the "Same Great Taste!"Its not just the ingredients that are changing, its also the labeling. More shades of green, brown, and blue are appearing as the dominant colors in packaging.

Its unclear exactly when everything started changing and why. I think that with all the technology surrounding us today people have started feel uncomfortable with it. We live surrounded by artificial things (air, food, chemicals, etc.) everything is processed over and over again before it finally get to us, the consumers. People have started doubt the quality of the products we receive through this long process. With new organic products, people find they trust nature more to make their food great, not machinery and chemicals. Many people prefer to get their fruits and vegetables from farmers markets because then they know their food was produced naturally. Consumers feel better about themselves when they purchase more natural foods because it is now seen to be the smarter choice.
What do you think about this change to more natural food sources? Where else can you see examples of this need to be more green?

Set The Fire To The Third Bar

     This weekend I was hanging out with my friend in her room. We were talking and listening to her very vast music collection. The song Set The Fire To The Third Bar came on and I realized I had heard it before, like it, but had never known the title of it to be able to look it up. I asked my friend what the title of the song was and I have been listening to it since. I checked out the music video and felt it does an amazing job at enhancing the emotions of sadness and longing expressed in the song.

The video starts out with two different rooms, one black and one white. There is a woman in the black room and a man in the white room, however both are wearing the color black. Already you can tell strong choices have been made based on the simple but definite colors; the artists want you to know that these are two very separate rooms. There is a one-way glass mirror in between the two rooms. The woman is able to see the man throughout the song, but he is not able to see her. Also, she is occasionally in his room as well as her own, but she seems slightly opaque when she is in her room, as if she is not truly there.
     The song is describing the pain of losing someone you love. More specifically, the pain of knowing that you will never be able to be with them again. In this case, the woman is in the black room (to symbolize her being dead) and the man is in the white room (to show he is still alive). Both the man and the woman are wearing black, demonstrating that their both mourning the loss of the one that they love. The entire video expresses the struggle that neither of them can be with the other. The one-way glass is the most obvious display of that. A very powerful moment in the video is when they are both looking into it; the man is longing to see her again and the woman is yearning to be seen by him. Their hands and faces are so close, but can never truly touch because of the glass. Furthermore, there is a time when the man is trying to touch her fingers on the table, but they are just beyond reach. And later, the woman is standing next to the man but he never turns and looks her in her direction. All these instances demonstrate their need and also inability to be together. The irony of the lyrics is interesting as well. They say "I'm miles from where you are", yet technically their rooms are adjacent to one another. They are separated only by the extreme difference of life and death. Finally at the end of the video, the woman walks out of her room. This is showing how she is letting go of him, so that he can move on with his life.
     Overall, it is a beautifully sad song that anyone who has lost a loved one can relate to.
Here is a link for a full view of the lyrics: http://www.metrolyrics.com/set-the-fire-to-the-third-bar-lyrics-snow-patrol.html
Do you agree with the message this video is trying to send? Do you agree with my interpretation of the video?