2/29/08

Article: The Man Behind Abercrombie and Fitch
By: Benoit Denizet- Lewis

This article caused me to have some disregard about what goes on behind the scenes of some high fashioned stores such as Abercrombie and Fitch. Hearing about the CEO of A &F Mike Jefferies being a 61 year old man who dresses preppy, tans, whitens his teeth, wears flip flops, and dyes his hair, actually struck me as a bit odd and disturbing. Some of the comments that he states in the article have to make not only myself but others wonder what the man is thinking sometimes. He contradicted himself with the comments he made, for example about the younger middle school girls thongs. It is amazing how much such companies dwell on things such as image, labels and popularity. I feel as though clothing stores really set up so many stereotypes. We distinguish between people at times by the things they wear and the places they shop. Along with that, when it comes to getting jobs at these different stores like A &F you can only get hired if you are good looking and give off the right look. In my opinion who is to really say that someone is good looking or not? A 61 year old man? It all seems a bit ridiculous. When you look at the models and the clothing that is in the store you can see where all of these stereotypes arise from. The A & F website is a perfect example of this http://www.abercrombie.com. It shouldn't be that just by looking at a stores website you can figure out what type of people wear the clothes, the clothes should just look like they are for anyone. Now this doesn't mean that you shouldn't advertise the style for example surf clothes versus conservative, it just means the actual people who wear the clothes. They should not all look the same with perfect bodies, perfect faces, and just lead that perfect life.

2/22/08

Article: How Computers Change the Way We Think
By: Sherry Turkle

When finished reading Turkle's essay I can not help but dwell in on some topics. The fact that children who are in elementary school are using such high levels of technology. When people talk about how much technology has changed it really is true. Students in elementary school are using e-mail, word, computer simulations, power print software, and more. I know that they say our generation was born into this technology era, but i can honestly say that at that age I was not using those types of programs or even really knowing what they are. Turkle talks about new technology versus learning new ways to think. I feel as though this is a very interesting way of looking at the aspect of these young children. In my opinion the reason that times have changed so much is becuase yes there are indeed new technologies, but the reasoning behind learning new ways to think is that of having more options and being able to expand the ways of learning. There are so many more ways for younger people and older as well to learn. Students can learn based off of how they understand things whether it is visual, auditory, or even aesthetic. This makes learning now a days so holistic and allowing our simple past ways of learning completely expanded on now. Along with such an opening in how to learn the new technologies that we have only allow for more opportunities and easy ways of understanding. With these changes it can only make us wonder how much more we still have to learn as a society about technology.

2/8/08

Article:
Casa: A Partial Remembrance of a Puerto Rican Childhood
By: Judith Ortiz Cofer

This article was about a remembrance of a Puerto Rican childhood by Cofer, who describes the powerful influence that her grandmother had on her life. From the beginning she talks about this boundary between California and New York City that they called, Los Nueva Yores, meaning the New York. This term struck me as something very interesting because it why are they considering that all of this territory should all be called the New York? I thought that Cofer should have went on more about why such a term is given to the United States, or at least that part of it. Another thing that stood out about this article was the term that she said she was called which was Gringa. The term is what they called her because of her English speaking ways. With her putting this term in the article she adds slang to it. Right along with that she uses the words cultural chameleons, which I really liked. I feel as though this phrase is very appropriate and is such a good adjective to be given to those people who have to or just do blend into other cultures. It is everyday in todays world that people have to adapt to other cultures around them whether it be any where from business to vacation. Cultural chameleon just fits so well because of how they adapt into things and blend into their new surroundings. Overall I was not very impressed with the article by Cofer I thought it did not really stick to one subject very well nor did it get much detail, however some of the points and certain parts of the article were very intriguing like mentioned above.