Selfie Surveillance

A new piece of information that came out just this past week from Edward Snowden, former N.S.A. agency contractor, was that the N.S.A. is now using collecting millions of digital images, intercepted from social media and texts and online interaction. I can relate extremely well to this, as I am a teenager living in the era of the "selfie," where many students take pictures of themselves many times a day and send them out to friends around them. There are social media sites dedicated just to posting pictures of yourself for your friends to see, phone calls are now allowing you to show your face with Apple's "Facetime"software and there are applications on the app store dedicated to the sending of your face to your friends, like "snapchat." You could say we are a generation that is obsessed with our faces.

That is why this new N.S.A. campaign will affect so many people, and with something of such great an impact, I wondered what kind of impact it will have on people like me, as I myself am an avid selfie taker. I questioned how much of this goes against my right to privacy, and as it turns out, we don't have much right to privacy at all when it comes to the sharing of digital images. According to a New York Times article, congress has largely ignored the issue, and, "unfortunately, our privacy laws provide no express protections for facial recognition data," as stated by Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. This is too bad because although the N.S.A. has not technically done anything illegal, they have overstepped their moral bounds in my opinion, because many people have pictures of themselves that they would not like to be publicly collected by a government agency. For example, "they have intercepted Webcam images, including sexually explicit material, from Yahoo users." Although I am not a proponent of exposing yourself to others online, I do think those who do make the choice to participate in that should have the right to keep that private material private. 

It worries me that since there are no regulations at all now and the N.S.A. has already gone to the extent of taking Webcam photos, what is stopping them from trespassing even further onto private property? 

Classism Explored

We have been considering the factors and causes of class and classism in class and this made me think about how some of these factors play out in my own life. One of the influences on class is you're group of origin, and my group of origin is the North Shore suburbs of Chicago because that is where I have been growing up and my high school, New Trier High School feeds from most of the North Shore area. If you look up New Trier on Urbandictionary.com the image attached is what comes up. New Trier is stereotyped as having all designer clothing and even outfits that "cost as much as some people's monthly salaries." Of course this is a stereotype and does not apply to the general population, but it is true that it applies to some New Trier students, and what does this mean for their group of origin? This means that there are many different factors that influence their class that come from the source of their class or their group of origin (the North Shore). One of the tell-tales of your class is the cultural aspect, or what tastes you are trained to like because of your social class. The specific tastes apparently for New Trier students are, "kate spade, louis vuitton, tiffany, and range rovers." Where another group mentioned that pertains to your class is the education you receive. That is also mentioned for New Trier students as it is said that you must have, "at LEAST two friends going to ivy league schools."

Now these are obviously stereotypes, but it is interesting to see how they are described as ,"rich bitches," so the class for most of the North Shore area would be the upper class or the rich, and many the factors contributing to class, such as education, and cultural tastes, are mentioned just like we discussed in class. I would guess that this person is definitely expressing strong upper classism, or prejudice against the upper class when they describe the New Trier district as, "a rich bitch bubble...too stuck up." It is classism for sure, however, I cannot be positive it is upper classism because I don't know what class this person is in to begin with.

The College Query

As my junior year of high school is coming to a close, there is a constant buzz at my high school about what people will do after high school, because senior year is the time to prepare for whichever path you will end up taking. At my high school, the norm it seems is to go to a university after high school. So it seems most adults who I have had conversations with recently and even most other students have asked where I am looking, in terms of colleges. I just can't seem to escape that question, and even as I was browsing Facebook earlier today the question was posed for me to update my profile with that very information.

I have thought about the fact that this question is always asked many times but the fact that people focus on that so much in this area I something I did not consider until we studied social classes in my American Studies class. But one of the topics we learned about that is a source of social class is group of origin and group of aspiration, or the group that you are taught to want to be when you are older. Here in the North Shore we are raised by parents who mostly all went to college and have high paying business jobs, so that is the standard that has been set by our group of origin. Also, the group we are taught to aspire to be nowadays are high paying business men with degrees maybe even past what we the degree of our parents were so greater than a 4-year degree. I do not believe the group of origin and group of aspiration are always so similar however. For example, in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we learn that Gatsby's parents were, "shiftless and unsuccessful farm people," yet instead of aspiring to be just like them when he grew up he, "never really accepted them as his parents at all." (98) This shows that Gatsby did not have any desire to be like his parents, instead he joined the army and got as far away from home as possible, even being sent across the world, in order to pave his own path to his version of success, as an East Egger. 

It is just very interesting to think, after exploring the origins of my class, how in my area it can be so normal to hear the query about college multiple times a day, but in other neighborhoods it may not be even on the table and so therefore never mentioned. That is the difference between class in America, and it is sad because if someone does not have the option of college on the table, how are they supposed to secure a position from the ever decreasing number of jobs if they are competing against college-educated people. It would seem to me that the American dream value of mobility between classes is not nearly as simple as people would want it to be. 

Hard Work Doesn't Beat Money Even though Money Doesn't Work Hard

It has come to my attention as we read in class the Fitzgerald classic, The Great Gatsby, that there is a growing gap between the rich and the poor in America. Fitzgerald's novel explores the high society of the rich versus lower social classes as a main theme and through this novel I have began to think about what factors determine your social class. The factors I personally believe have to do with you're social class are education, wealth of your family to begin with, neighborhood, race, and gender. Sadly, none of these factors include how hard you work, contrary to the typical American dream. Obama asserts as quoted on the Pew Research Center website that this growing gap between social classes undermines, "America's basic bargain--if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead." This "bargain" is the American dream I mentioned before, but unfortunately it seems to be just that, a dream in our modern day society. There are so many various problems that are stopping the gap from closing between the rich and the poor in our systems in America, including the fact that the better schools are in the better neighborhoods, so where you live automatically determines your level of education and therefore your future job. That leaves little room for movement if you are born into a neighborhood with a high school dropout rate of 1 in 2, which sadly is very common.

However, despite the cold hard facts that hard work just simply doesn't grant access to high society, there are many of us who are still holding on to that American dream. In a survey conducted by the Pew Research Center,  "35% of Americans agreed that “hard work offers little guarantee of success” while 63% disagreed in our survey last year." Keep holding to that hope America, because maybe what is now pure imagination will become reality. 

Openly Gay NFL Player Scandal

This past week during the NFL draft something revolutionary happened to America's favorite sport, the game of football. Even though it was previously unheard of, an openly gay man was drafted into the NFL. This was arguably the biggest news story of the week and ESPN replayed it over and over again, just to be certain it was seen from sea to shining sea. The Guardian referred to it in awe as, "the kiss watched 'round the world." This is a miracle and a huge leap in a society that would leave a homosexual professional athlete with little or no endorsements if they revealed their sexuality. Michael Sam is living proof that our society has adapted and become more accepting because already as of midweek, "Sam's Rams jersey was the No2 seller among rookies at NFLShop.com." 

However, despite the fact that this is an amazing event that will change the future of professional sports in America, we can't give too much credit to the NFL for making this change happen. They are indeed a business and play to the wants of their fans in order to make a profit. One of the main reasons it would be beneficial to draft Michael Sam for the NFL is that the LGBT community is becoming a larger fan-base. Bragman, the vice-chairman of reputation.com is quoted in The Guardian, commenting on the NFL in regards to the draft of Sam, "It understands very well that LGBT fans are passionate, they have good incomes, they're concentrated in NFL cities." This means that the fanbase of this LGBT community is going to be centered around the major cities that happen to have NFL teams and the NFL wants to speak to the demand of their customer, just as would any other smart business. 

There is also room for criticism of the fact that we were bombarded with this scene of Michael Sam and his boyfriend kissing repeatedly on national television, and yes, of course I am happy for him and what this means for the future of the sport, but why this kiss in particular? I do not believe they would show a heterosexual couple kissing near as many times if at all as this couple on air, simply because a heterosexual kiss is not as "scandalous." The things we see on the news are not the every day accepted things in society, they are the scandals and out there things that people don't hear everyday. This goes to show that as a society we still have some work to do in accepting the LGBT community as nothing different from heterosexuals, because they are still the scandal and not the norm. 

Real Life Junior Theme

The other day I was on my lacrosse bus with the team driving to Notre Dame to watch a college lacrosse game and I passed some vast farm lands. I was aimlessly looking out the window when all of the sudden I spotted it, the very thing I have been studying for the past month now, a real life factory farm. It was everything I had ever read about, with the unwelcoming long metal building and the mud soaked ground with no green grass in sight. However the most shocking part was the feces reservoir which looked like a small swimming pool, yet it was full to the brim with disgusting black sewage. I knew from the many sources I had poured over that these reservoirs, aside from overflowing and causing considerable harm to the water supply, had a tendency to have a terrible odor so I braced myself. Sure enough, I only smelt it for a short minute before we put enough miles between it, yet it was putrid.

I have read so many places about the terrible affects of these factory farms on the townspeople nearby and the environment but it never became real to me that this was a problem effecting America and even effecting places only an hour from me until that moment. Suddenly all those first hand accounts about the stench that I had read in Andrew Kirby's, "Animal Factory," became so much more credible because I had experienced it first hand.

It was especially interesting to me to see the type of town that has these factory farms. There is a reason that in these lower-class rural communities they would put a foul smelling contamination like a factory farm, but in the Northshore suburbs they wouldn't dream of it. This class divide was hinted at in Michael Pollans novel, "The Omnivore's Dilemma," and Kirby's. It was all the more real to me to see it in person.

Red Wood to Stainless Steel

As I have been exploring my Junior Theme on factory farming and the truth about where our food comes from in America I have begun to pay attention to more brand names and labels on the food products I consume. I was sitting at the dinner table and drinking a tall glass of milk, something I have had every single night since I can't remember, but I never thought to examine what really lies behind that nice looking label. The label portrays a green field with the bluest sky with just the right amount of cloudsI have ever seen, and the sun is shining so bright it's blinding. All of this makes the product seem natural and from the earth, as it portrays the ideal fresh green field of grass. However, the harsh reality of the food system in America is that the cow from which this milk came from will never actually see the light of day, let alone graze in the fresh green grass.

Dairy milk in our modern day food industry comes from what is called a factory farm, where the cow will spend an accelerated lifespan of just six short months. By the time the cow has finished that time though they might as well wish they were dead, because the entire time they have been standing knee high in their own feces in a pen so small they cannot move around, and constantly fed engineered corn products all hours of the day that make them sick because it is not their natural diet. There is no green grass to be seen, and no sunlight whatsoever entering through the tinted windows in the harsh metal factory.

Lehigh's marketing picture on their cartons of milk could not be farther from the truth, it is simply a tool to appeal to the customers because certainly painting the real picture of the origins of their milk product would not be pretty. In fact the way most American's see their food being made is the way they want to see it, so it is not entirely the companies fault. They want to think that their food is made in a place like this valley of lush green grass and sunlight. They don't want to know or believe that they are endorsing these cruel factories with every daily grocery purchase. The company markets to the consumer's interest, so we as American consumers need to change our standards of food production in order to make any changes to the entire system.