WHO AM I END OF YEAR

          The year is ending and so is sociology class. Honestly sociology has been the best class I have taken in high school. We have covered many ideas and topics that aren't covered in any other class. Every argument we had could be tied in to sociology some how. Most of them anyways, Dblanch sometimes had invalid arguments. I will also admit that every movie we watched was very good.  They actually did teach us about sociology and how people act. Despite what you might think I have learned a lot in this class and I would like to think I'm smarter and better person than I was at the beginning of the year.

WINNERS AND LOSERS

“Losers” important  to society

First seeing this article I had no idea what it would be about. But then as I read it, it made a lot of sense.  Basically his definition of the losers is; people who are not compensated for what they contribute, but what they can get. The people that do the hard labor low paid jobs that not a lot of people want to do.  All these jobs are critical to the functioning of our society. What actually makes our society run? These super high paid “winners” or these “losers”?

                Probably my favorite part of the article is when he says, “Some would argue that these people should “better themselves,” but the fact is, we need people in these “loser jobs more than we need people in the “winners” circle.” I think that statement hits the nail on the head. People in our country including myself; don’t give the “losers” enough credit.  These people that do the tougher jobs and are paid less are the reason our country can have “winners”.    

                Then the article goes on about more money stuff and crime rates. I didn’t follow the article as well after the 5^th-6^th paragraph.  But it does make another good point about the stock market and casinos. How would casinos survive without losers?  If everyone won they wouldn’t be able to stay open and operate.  All of the losers made the winners winning possible. 

                Would all the “winners” be ok with switching spots with the “losers” more than likely no. But what would happen to our society if everyone was winners or if everyone was losers? The winners would not be ok with that.

                People who read this article could have many different points of view. But what I am taking from it is how our society started and it just keeps getting worse. There have always been “winners” and “losers”.

 

Catfish

    "They used to take these live cod in these giant vats on ships from Alaska to China, but by the time the fish got to China, their flesh would become mushy and tasteless, so some guy had the bright idea to put catfish in the vats with the cod to chase them around and keep them moving, and he finished by saying that he thanks God for the catfish because life would be droll, boring and dull if we didn't have someone nipping at our fins." That's a quote from Angela's Husband.


    Even though that family didn't seem very smart, especially the husband. He had some pretty good quotes. Like he said, "the catfish keep the cod agile." We all have those people in our lives that keep us on our toes and add some life to us.  I myself probably have many people in my life who act as a catfish. All my friends are probably a catfish to my life. They keep me on my toes. Every person who I associate with has an affect on my life. Then the people I interact with on a daily basis shape me into who I am. That's probably not the best thing but it's true.


   As for catfish as someone who pretends to be someone they're not- using social media to create false identity. That has never happened to me and I don't know anyone who has been in a situation like that.

Reaction to Articles

    The first article I read was about a high school basketball team in Illinois that had a record of 26-5.  The journalist that wrote this story was not a good writer at all. He first talks about how he is surprised by how the team wins. Then he talks about how the teams leading scorer is Korean, and how there are no good Korean basketball players. The article explains how the team has success because of the great defense they play. But the journalist states he is still stumped on how they are good. That guy was probably fired and hopefully when he reads what he wrote he is embarrassed.


  The next article was about Jews and basketball. It talked about how basketball was dominated by Jews in the first part of the 1900s. When immigrant Jewish families found themselves in the inner city and needed a way out, they turned to basketball. It was kind of humorous to read because during that time Jews were stereotyped because they were short and had "God-given balance and speed", now days we talk about how the African Americans dominate the sport of basketball.  It's just kind of funny how everyone thought all the short guys were good and had an advantage and now its the total opposite.

   Both of these articles point out obvious observations, that stereotyping happens all the time. In basketball words Jews are the has-beens, Koreans are the never-beens, African Americans are the now, and plain white people are just average. Kidding, but stereotypes don't just happen dealing with sports, they literally happen in everything. People stereotype all the time without even knowing about it. Its not a good thing to do, but I feel like people don't make a huge deal about stereotyping. Maybe there should be attempts to try to stop it.

Alien Commuters

   Norma Cortez is fifty nine years old, she harvests lettuce heads in the fields of Yum, Arizona. Tough job little pay, but that's not the worst part. The worst part is the commute. The commute takes around seven hours. Most of the time is spent waiting to get across the border.  “The life of a farm worker is hard enough,” Norma says, “but the waiting time to get to work is worse.”
     Rush hour for the wait is at 4:30 a.m., eight to ten thousand people are sometimes waiting in line to get across the border to go work. You can just imagine what the scene must be like. People who step out of line lose there spot and will not get it back. There are no bathrooms available so before entering the long wait people urinate at the entrance of the tunnel. The whole area has a terrible stench of urine. 
    Because there are so many people waiting to get across eagerly, people are jam packed in line.  A worker named Monica, 29, said she is often fondled in the crush of people. “The lines are so packed it’s hard to see who’s doing the touching to be able to do anything about it,” she says. “Sometimes we don’t even want to come to work because we know it’s going to happen. But we don’t have a choice.”


  The question is this activity of all these people wanting to come work good or bad? I think its alright I guess because California's Imperial Valley and Yuma, Arizona have the highest unemployment rates in the nation (23-27%).  United States citizens don't like to take the minimum wage harvest jobs. Therefore I think if they aren't going to do it might as well let the people who are willing to do it.

Animal Farm Round Up

Animal farm is a story made to give the animals in the story the characters of real people. For example Napoleon is Joseph Stalin, Mr. Fredickson is Hitler, Old Major shows sort of like Karl Marx.


When Old Major dies the pigs take over as leaders of the farm. At first it all starts out as a sort of fair farm. But as time goes on the pigs gain more and more power, led by Napoleon. They make ten commandments and at the end of the story many of them were changed and worded different, because the pigs changed them. Napoleon and the pigs just think about themselves not any of the other animals. They make them work all the time and keep food away from them and tell them lies. As a result animals die from multiple reasons and more and more animals die as the story goes on. Napoleon as a leader should try to keep everything going well for the whole farm but he does the exact opposite he just tries to make things go well for himself.


Conflict theory-
   Conflict happens through out the story and the pigs use all of the conflict to keep their power. The pigs get everyone to think the humans are the biggest enemy to create conflict and pull all the animals together. To keep the animals working the pigs force the building of a windmill. Conflict always brings people together or tears them apart. In this case it was supposed to bring the animals together but it was actually tearing them apart.


Functionalist theory-
    The pigs separate themselves from the other animals. This sort of shapes the animals into classes, as most of the animals besides the pigs are all working class and the pigs are upper class. Boxer worked the hardest out of anyone in the story and got very little. He deserved higher rewards but did not get them. No one was really given rewards because the pigs wanted all of the power. The animal's society never reaches a healthy balance.


At the end the pigs and the humans were sitting playing cards together and they couldn't tell who was pigs and who was a  human. That describes the whole story, the humans started with all the power over all animals. Then the pigs gained power over all animals and at the end it shows how they both were controlling and power hungry.

Fight Club

        The video we watched was about a guy who was troubled in his youth just like the kids he was helping. He opened up a gym for boxing, basically to keep these kids of the streets and keep them out of trouble.  Some people may ask, well what happens when they stop going to the gym? Its hard to say if it's a temporary fix or a permanent fix. Each person is going to be different. My honest opinion is that if the kids had put there time into the boxing and stayed away from all of the negative stuff, they will be ok. If they know what it's like to work for something and how much better it is to be away from all the negative stuff why would they want to go back. But then there is always the worry that if it doesn't work out the kids will just be worse and be more violent.
 
    Having these kids work for something is very important. After they are all done with boxing hopefully they have the working attitude to put there energy towards something positive like a job. Their instructor was in a troubled world when he was that age and he is doing good now. Like he said he wants his boxers to be people who can give their two cents to society.


 
 So I think this is overall a good thing. It gets kids off the streets and keeps them out of trouble for a little time at least. A lot of them will maybe turn their whole life around just because of this. It shows them that when they work they can achieve. It gives them hope.