I found the reading and podcast to be very inspirational and a nice thought-provoking way to begin to wrap things up for the semester. One of the quotes from the reading that stuck out to me was “Sometimes we convince ourselves that the ‘unnoticed’ gestures of ‘insignificant’ people mean nothing” (p. 51). This is something that I think about a lot and try to combat. A simple example of this is if someone is walking down the street and sees a piece of trash, maybe small enough to stick in a pocket and throw away later or not too far from a trash can. That person can either ignore it and continue walking, or pick it up and throw it away. I see this on campus all the time. For whatever reason, people leave trash around or pile on top of full cans, ultimately littering and creating someone else’s job more difficult. It is such a simple task to reach down and pick something up to throw away, yet many people have convinced themselves that that task is insignificant. The dilemma intensifies when no one is around, or at least if you think no one is around. Then the decision seems to be even easier for people, removing the fear of judgment if they fail to pick something up. But why is this? Sure picking up only one piece of trash makes only a small difference, but if 7 billion people each pick up one thing, the world would be a much cleaner place. I see a lot on social media about blaming big corporations, and it’s certainly true that they are responsible for more than their fair share of pollution or corruption or whatever it may be, but I think it’s a dangerous mindset to always point fingers. Every action has an impact on something and I think that’s easy to forget. Like the reading said, you don’t have to be a famed hero or saint to make a difference.

I always enjoy when school assignments involve music, so it was nice to listen to the podcast and the two music videos. I think music is one of the best and most effective forms of expression, and that has been the case for quite some time. I was previously aware of the origins and background of jazz music, but “Alice’s Restaurant” was a new one for me. I was a little curious about some of the background of the song, so I looked up some additional information. The full song is over 18 minutes long and inspired the movie Alice’s Restaurant, but what I found most interesting was that in 2009 and 2005 interviews Arlo Guthrie describes the song as “anti-stupidity” and not necessarily anti-war. In those interviews Guthrie also considered the song to be as significant then as when he first wrote it. The fact that it has maintained its relevancy is a little disappointing, as one would hope that the cautionary tales of a protest-type song would not still apply to the modern day. I found this to be a common theme as I read through some of the YouTube comments on “This Is America.” Some comments were saying Glover’s 2018 song had predicted the future, while others corrected them saying that these events have continually gone on and were not some sudden change. One of the main things that the song addresses is gun violence in America, among other issues, which is something that is seemingly only worsened since the song’s release. In the past month alone, I’ve seen a news headline about a new mass shooting nearly every other day. It’s not like attention isn’t being brought to these issues. “This Is America” has over 769,000,000 views. If that isn’t a big enough statement to bring attention to something, then I don’t know what is.

One of the other things I thought about while listening to the podcast and music videos is the misinformation and irony of playing some seemingly “American” songs during patriotic events like the fourth of July. A big example of this is Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the USA,” which I’ve heard at every remotely-USA-themed event. The contents of the song is reflective of American values, but not in a positive way. The song is about a working-class veteran who has returned from war (not explicitly mentioned which war in the song but it was Vietnam era) and been abandoned by the government. I’ve written a whole paper on this song alone for another class before so I won’t go too far in, but the main gist is that this song has been misappropriated as some sort of iconic patriotic anthem. The “Born in the USA” chorus is definitely catchy, but it’s always funny to see people unironically play it without paying attention to any of the other lines. The same is the case for “Fortunate Son” by Creedence Clearwater Rival, which was created in irony as an anti-war song. Many people, including President Trump (who was given a cease and desist by band frontrunner John Fogerty for using the song at campaign rallies), have completely missed the point of the song, turning it into a patriot anthem instead. I think music is really great to analyze, and important to do so, because it’s almost always at least a little deeper than one may have originally thought.

While listening to the podcast, one of the things I was reminded of was my high school English and literature classes. I haven’t really taken a formal literature class since, so this is my most recent comparison. I always enjoyed going over books and readings, but I think we’ve all had those teachers that seem to stretch just a little too far to find “the author’s message.” I don’t deny that there is almost always some form of intentional symbolism or message, but sometimes you have to wonder what the author actually intended, versus what the audience chooses to pick out. I used to get kind of frustrated with this because you hardly ever know the exact message and individual symbols that the author is trying to showcase unless they explain it later, but now I think I have a different perspective. Even if an author or creator puts out a piece of content and people pull their own takes from it, I don’t think that it does any harm and can even be beneficial. Now, if this extra underlying message takes away from the author’s intended take, maybe the audience should hold back. Then again, is it the fault of the audience if they don’t understand a message, or is it the fault of the creator? I feel like some creators make their work inherently difficult to understand, or at least target a very specific audience. I think one of the things that makes a writer or producer or creator great is when they can create conversation about their work, but still have a defined vision that can be supported and proven through what they said, without any plot holes. At the end of the day, if someone can create something that’s captivating and includes a lesson, I don’t think you can go wrong.

After reading the Harvey paper I was left with a big question. Pop culture and all of its various forms of media create a lot of division and diversification. Because of how many different groups people are able to separate themselves into, how can you be an effective leader and align them all? Even within myself, I can pick out some hyper-segmented niches that I associate with, most of which didn’t even exist a hundred years ago. While it is very easy to separate people into different interests, I think it is very difficult to bring them together. I do not think there is a blanket solution, which is what I think a lot of leaders try to come up with. If you were to think about a large group of diverse people and then put all of their interests and needs into a venn diagram, the area where every single one overlaps would likely be very small, if it even exists. The problem with catering to everyone’s individual needs, however, is that it is usually very expensive and resource-consuming. I guess that just leaves a mix of the two, trying to meet everyone’s needs and interests in the most efficient manner. But then who do you decide who gets left out? I think differences and individuality are beneficial for many reasons, but it sure does create a lot of problems when it comes to decision making.

I thought that both the podcast and reading were very interesting and they left me with a lot of thoughts. I find it wild how much the collection and recording of history have changed in the past, especially in the past few decades alone with so many technological advances. Just the other day I saw a post about how historical archivists have already collected and saved many items that relate to the COVID-19 pandemic. This has lead me to question that with so many current historical records, will the past be overshadowed by the present? In some ways, I think that it already has, which is unfortunate because there are so many stories that will be forgotten or that we will never get to hear. Still, even with so many current ways to record things, facts and events continue to get misconstrued.

Part of the reason that I see for the misconstruction of history is because of oversimplification and convenience. I think that the American education system is severely flawed and leaves out or gets wrong a lot of things, but a lot of it has been done because it is the easier way. For one thing, it is nearly impossible to teach everything in school. While it is true that Rosa Parks was not the first to give up her seat, or that MLK Jr. was not solely responsible for leading the Civil Rights Movement, it is a lot easier to tell elementary and middle school students that. Discussing the other factors of those events takes time, and would necessitate covering other complex topics in order to gain a full understanding. This is not to say that we need to leave in things like telling students that Christopher Columbus was a great guy or that George Washington was a perfect man, but I find it unrealistic to expect people to learn the full history and stories from all of the past. Of course, no one is saying that we need to learn everything, but I think it makes the debate about fixing our education system very complicated. I think a good start to creating positive change in education would be to look at who is writing our history books. At the end of the Civil War, the United Daughters of the Confederacy wrote their skewed perspective of history in textbooks that have continued to have a lasting impact on the education of students in southern states. Textbooks need to be written by diverse groups of people, not just the historical white and rich people of the past. With all this said, education is still a luxury and privilege that not all have, and there is always more to learn. You can’t learn everything, but you can do your best to learn the truth.

I was assigned the year 1952, so all of the ads I watched were quite old and were focused on the Eisenhower vs Stevenson election. Nearly all of the ads were under a minute, and many were under 25 seconds. My favorite ad was the Eisenhower “I Like Ike” video (http://www.livingroomcandidate.org/commercials/1952/ike-for-president). There are not really any political statements at all in the video, but the musical jingle was just so catchy. Additionally, I really like the old-style animation cartoon clips, so the whole thing was very fun to watch. This ad was the first on my watch list and I thought it created a high standard for the others I saw. The slogan and song were just too good. I found that cartoon clips were very common in the ads that I watched. If the ads were not cartoon style, just about every other was done in the style of a debate, with a citizen asking a question which would then be answered by the candidate. These ones were usually around 20 seconds.

What surprised me the most was how little substance each ad had in terms of making political statements. Sometimes there would be very general references to things, but it seemed like neither candidate truly wanted to take a stand. This was especially apparent in one of the ads where it was a cartoon person (who represented someone from the GOP) with two heads, each contradicting itself when asked a question by a citizen. One head would say that they should be out all troops and the other would say they should send in more troops. What I found odd was that the person responding to the two-head candidate didn’t take a stance. They only said that they can’t do both of those things. Nowadays I think of ads as being extremely divided between stances amongst the Republican and Democratic parties. I would be interested in seeing the progression of divisive stances in political ads over time. One thing that has remained the same since the ’50s is that the ads still like to attack the other party and speak very little or not at all about their own.

I played this game for way too long. Before starting I saw the high score list, so I knew it was at least possible to do well. Unfortunately, my villagers ended up dying every round I played. On one of my higher rounds, I had a child, but then my partner died after childbirth, and the child kept getting sick and died. I thought that another person would give me more labor resources, but it was also another mouth to feed and came with expensive medical costs. I wanted to reach the point where I could add infrastructure to the village because it should’ve made things easier, but it was extremely difficult to get that much money. I thought I had figured out the right limits for fish and wood collection, but it made me more reliant on the harvest. All it took was a couple bad harvests and sickness and I lost a lot of money. When you have almost nothing, it makes it nearly impossible to progress. I guess that’s the point of the game, which sounds weird saying considering that some people face things like this every day.

It was frustrating that sometimes the government in the game would offer to subsidize things that the village still didn’t even come close to being able to afford. It would’ve been much better to inject that discount as cash into the community. When there is no time or resources to develop a small business, you can’t create more wealth for yourself or the community. That left only wood and fish as constants to sell, but without limits, people would take too many and everyone would be left with nothing. I’ve seen some others mention it in their posts, but this whole simulation is great at showcasing poverty traps. Lack of education, poor healthcare, zero infrastructure, and severely limited labor choices are just some of the things working together to prevent progress. It makes me wonder how humans have been able to get as far as we have but leave so many people behind.

I sat for a moment thinking about my favorite ad of all time and one video, in particular, stood out to me. Made by filmmaker and Youtuber Casey Neistat, this video is currently sitting at 31 million views, and was put out in 2012. This video ad stands out to me for a few reasons and is quite different from most traditional ads. For one thing, if you don’t pay attention to the first 8 seconds of the video, you may very well miss who the advertiser is and what the product is.

The premise of the video is simple. Nike paid Neistat to make a video for them advertising their Fuel Band (he had produced two prior ads for them for the same product), and instead of using it to show off the product, he uses the money to travel around the world until it runs out. It took 10 days, shown off across a little over 4 minutes. The video is full of cool sights and adventure with the occasional inspirational quote over the screen. The quickness and sporadic nature of his travels are part of what makes it such an attractive ad for me. It all ends with the #MakeItCount in white text on a black screen, which was Nike’s slogan for the product. Nowadays this kind of risk-taking and flexible attitude towards brand deal advertising is a bit more common, mostly on Youtube and various social platforms, but this was revolutionary at the time. The advertising isn’t forced down the viewer’s throat, but it definitely gets the idea across. I think it paints Nike in a cool light as it shows they want people to take risks and to, as the slogan says, make it count. Was this a successful ad? I’d say so, despite Neistat not even wearing the product (Nike Fuel Band) for the majority of the video. Aside from the millions that have watched it, many articles have been written on it as well. Some of the articles praised it while others criticized it, but as they say, all press is good press. It’s unique and meaningful, and that’s why it works.

It was very easy for me to think of my favorite chart, as this is one that does not lie. I think that Bitcoin is a very fascinating work of technology, especially while viewing the all-time chart. This specific chart is not even the all-time chart, as it should technically go back all the way to 2009, however, this was the easiest chart I could grab that reflected the current price. I believe the “all-time” on this reflects how long Bitcoin has been on Coindesk, which is a cryptocurrency exchange. Compared to the price of $60,000 now, the price in 2014 and before was virtually zero. I think that there are a few important takeaways from looking at this chart. The first is that the price of Bitcoin here is highly volatile and just a small portion of the chart (the far right half) tells a large story. Only looking at half the graph would make it seem worth next to nothing, but the other half shows the complete opposite. The second takeaway that I have is that the graph is that by zooming out all the way, Bitcoin appears to have parabolic growth, meaning there’s no telling how much higher it may rise.

Stock and other asset charts are very interesting. Some people think that you can conduct technical analysis, which is just a fancy way of saying charting, on stocks in order to predict future price points. In this case, there are many different patterns that charters look for on the chart in order to figure out where it will go. Other people consider the technical analysis of charts a waste of time, given that there are so many different external factors that play into determining the price of a stock that has nothing to do with its past price points. A single large announcement from a company could make the chart go crazy in either direction. There are many people that sell courses on how to interpret stock charts to make money, and while it may work sometimes, it isn’t always the case. I think stock/crypto charts provide a unique perspective on interpreting other data charts. Just because everything seems to be there does not mean that the full story is being told.

One side note about the reading, I thought it was funny how long statistics, ads, and charts have been manipulated for. Now there’s a big emphasis on fact-checking statistics and charts, but even that isn’t always accurate. I think over time more regulations have gone into play with commercials and advertising and using statistics, however, it isn’t hard to work around those.

While the main name debate here at UR has been focused on Freeman and Ryland, another name that I also have an issue with is Paul Queally, whose name is on three buildings. Paul Queally, class of 1986, is the rector of the Board of Trustees (only 3 of 25 members are people of color, one of whom is President Crutcher) which gives him the most power on the campus. Paul Queally has a number of offenses that do not justify the University having three buildings with his name attached. He was caught telling sexist and homophobic jokes in front of an audience of other powerful and wealthy people that participate in multiple off-color and inappropriate jokes. In response to his words, he said “My brief remarks were in the spirit of the event but they do not reflect my views or my values. On reflection I should have said nothing. … I believe my record in support of education, diversity, and economic advancement defines who I am and what I stand for.” If he truly supported diversity then he would make a bigger effort to increase diversity on the Board of Trustees and wouldn’t say things that offend and make others uncomfortable.

A bit lesser known, Paul Queally is also responsible for the creation of the men’s lacrosse team. It’s great to have a lacrosse team, but at what cost? Paul Queally paid $3 million to eliminate the men’s track and soccer teams to make room for the lacrosse team. How was this decision made? The details aren’t clear. Queally did, however, have an incoming son who played high school lacrosse. Ultimately this lead to a fallout among the Board of Trustees with Bobby Ukrop (class of 1969 and CEO of Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods), who was a big soccer fan himself. He wasn’t the only one to leave either, as donations to school dropped 10% after the decision to remove the soccer and track teams was made.

Until this school changes its leadership and values morals over money, I do not see much progress in making this campus more inclusive and supportive for people of all backgrounds. Everyone makes mistakes, but surely we can get someone who makes fewer mistakes than Paul Queally. Our school already has a few billion in the endowment, so we should stop taking his millions.