Responding to Peggy

I'm going to have to admit that I'm having trouble with most of these statements. It's not that I can't open my mind to how other races might have trouble with these issues, because certainly there are these troubles, but just as many white people have troubles like these. I think that this goes beyond white people, or black people. Even hispanics are having an easier time of finding themselves in the media; Dora the Explorer and Diego are mainstream children's shows. What if we extended it to gender? Even then, I have a hard time because I don't see too much in the way of sexism. I can disagree with quite a few of them when I look at it from a class standpoint. A lot of these could be hard for a person with less money.

Gender, race and class figure into every part of every day life. We like to think that we are not biased towards races or genders or how much money someone makes, but every time we look at someone we subconsiously, and automatically appraise them, at least to the extent of "this person is male, or this person is female", and "this person is *enter ethnicity*, or what ethnicity is this person?". We then attach our stereotypes and preferences before anything is ever said by that person. Often our opinions change after we have gotten to know that person, but as humans, we have to have a place to start.
Discussing these issues help us to identify our biases and evaluate them. We can decide if there is something we need to learn more about or confront. Sometimes the bias is against us, and we can extend our views to other people who might not understand where we are coming from.
I tend to read everything at least once without letting outside influences into what I'm reading. Inevitably, however, one or more of these issues will creep into my mind. I think about whether it is a male or female writing the piece, what sort of background they might have...

Multimodal McCloud...

Here's another attempt at getting this blog posted now that I'm back in the states! (As if I don't have enough trouble trying to figure this blogging thing out in my OWN country!)

Greetings from Grand Cayman!

“Multimodal” simply means to have more than one mode. In context, “multimodal” refers to the many different ways in which our society is communicating. I absolutely encounter multimodal communication in my everyday life. I am raising two small boys right now, and the perfect example arose the other day when I was teaching the word “soft”. I was referring to our cat, and so I used long, broad strokes as I pet the cat, and changed my voice to a “soft” quality as I repeated the word soft over and over as I helped the boys feel what I meant by having them pet the cat. Likewise right here on the cruise ship most of the crew is from different countries all over the world, and in foreign ports we all use hand gestures, common words, and vocal expression to communicate with each other.

Is McCloud’s text multimodal? That’s kind of hard for me to answer definitively. Certainly it is linguistic, visual, and spatial. Is it actually gestural or audio though? I can argue either way. Really it is only ink on paper, and not making actual gestures or sounds. But it conveys gestures and sounds in a way that our brains process them as if we really were hearing or seeing them, and if we are experiencing the gestures and sounds in the same way, isn’t it about the same?

An Almost Comical Understanding...

I've never really read much past the Sunday comics in the newspaper... I think I can honestly say that I've never opened a TRUE comic book. I've always thought them to be simple ideas, nothing with very deep plots, nothing I could really relate to, I mean, after all, I can't fly, sling webs, or create laser beam or storms from my eyes. So I guess to be completely honest, I kind of looked down on them and saw them as kind of geeky and childish. Reading McCloud's book has changed my thoughts on comics... I mean the very fact that an informative book was written/drawn in comic book fashion shows me that complex ideas CAN come from such pages. Likewise, we can take complex or serious thoughts, and with this medium add a bit of humor to what could otherwise be kind of dry. For example on page 5 in the lower right corner, he simply says "But to DEFINE comics, we must first do a little AESTHETIC SURGERY and separate form from content!" What makes the statement hilarious is that he is holding a double bladed ax. :)

Bang's Big Theory... :)

I looked at La Guernica and was immediately struck by the picture. I was able to apply Bang's thoughts on shapes and colors and height of pictures without any struggle. The colors of various blues, whites, blacks and grays lend a cool (read "not comfortable") feeling. Going beyond the angst on the faces, we look at the different body language to see feelings of alarm and distress. At the very left of the picture there is a person looking strait up, giving me the idea that they were crying out to a higher being, like God. After I had that initial conclusion, I looked closer and realized that it was a person holding a smaller, limp being (baby? child?). Then I noticed the hair on the person and was able to view it as a mother mourning the death or sickness of her small child. Upon second inspection, I further see her palm facing up, outstretched, indicating a question or confusion. People on the right are looking on with suprise, etc. indicating that this isn't an everyday occurance. The jagged lines around the light at the top of the page don't make us feel like this light is warm or soothing, but like Bang says, it creates a feeling of uneasyness. Reading into what she says about things at the top of the page being more spiritual, I wonder if this "light" might represent a diety, and the jagged lines might represent anger or discontent which is what causes the strife in the picture below?...

I love the comical Calvin and Hobbes! They remind me of my everyday life!

Calvin On The Art of Writing...

I love the comical Calvin and Hobbes! They remind me of my everyday life!

My Fave Poem...

Everybody's Free to Wear Sunscreen
Luhrmann Baz

Ladies and Gentlemen of the class of ’99.
Wear Sunscreen.
If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be
it. The long term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by
scientists whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable
than my own meandering experience…
I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth;
oh never mind; you will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they have faded.
But trust me, in 20 years you’ll look back at photos of yourself
and recall in a way you can’t grasp now how much possibility lay before
you and how fabulous you really looked….
You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don’t worry about the future; or worry, but know that worrying is as
effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubblegum.
The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that
never crossed your worried mind;
the kind that blindside you at 4pm on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing everyday that scares you

Sing

Don’t be reckless with other people’s hearts,
don’t put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss

Don’t waste your time on jealousy; sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind…
the race is long, and in the end, it’s only with yourself.

Remember the compliments you receive, forget the insults;
if you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters; throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch

Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life…
the most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.

Get plenty of calcium.

Be kind to your knees, you’ll miss them when they’re gone.

Maybe you’ll marry, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll have children, maybe you won’t,
maybe you’ll divorce at 40, maybe you’ll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary…
what ever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much or berate yourself either –
your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s.
Enjoy your body,
use it every way you can…
don’t be afraid of it, or what other people think of it,
it’s the greatest instrument you’ll ever own..

Dance…even if you have nowhere to do it but in your own living room.

Read the directions, even if you don’t follow them.

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents; you never know when they’ll be gone for good.

Be nice to your siblings;
they are the best link to your past
and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but for the precious few you should hold on.
Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle
because the older you get,
the more you need the people you knew when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard;
live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft.

Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths,
prices will rise,
politicians will philander,
you too will get old, and when you do you’ll fantasize that when you were young
prices were reasonable,
politicians were noble
and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don’t expect anyone else to support you.
Maybe you have a trust fund,
maybe you have a wealthy spouse;
but you never know when either one might run out.

Don’t mess too much with your hair,
or by the time you're 40, it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but,
be patient with those who supply it.
Advice is a form of nostalgia,
dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off,
painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it’s worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen

What is an American?

An American is anyone within the United States (which include "American soil in foreign countries) either natural born or made a citizen, or someone from these areas who upholds the Constitution of the United States and her laws as their own before ANY OTHER country. Past that, there are as many kinds of Americans as there are kinds of cheese! :) Americans have many religions, opinions, political views, hair colors, eye colors, music preferences, diets, and names.

Hello Fellow Bloggers!

So, the very fact that you can read this is a HUGE accomplishment in my life!  Welcome to the world's very first blog by Jeanine Kemmer!  I don't even have a MySpace page... I know, I know, how is that possible?  But, I'm on now... so watch out World Wide Web!  :)