E-Portfolio!

Welcome! My name is Ashley Maynard and I am currently a student at The Pennsylvania State University. Here in Happy Valley I am pusuing a degree in Psychology B.S. and Sociology B.S. with a minor in the French Language. After completing my degree I hope to return to my hometown of Philadelphia, P.A. for graduate school. In the long run I see myself becoming a family and teen therapist in Philadelphia.

As a result of my first year here I have learned that there is an emense amount of information for me to learn about in this world. Also that there are many accomplishments to be had along my journey to graduation.

This E-Portfolio was created as a location to compile any works and accomplishments I achieve while contining my education, working towards my goals, and learning more each and every day.

To see what else can be found on my E-Portfolio click here

Immaturity at Penn State

This past week I had the unfortunate opportunity to overhear something that one cannot just un-hear. On Wednesday as I was walking to class the two guys in front of me were talking about Easter and being Catholic I was intrigued be as though I am excited for this holiday. Until I heard him say something along the lines of “I am going to celebrate Easter by watching a bunch of porn that shows girls wearing bunny costumes.” Now I hear a lot of crap from guys at this school that is disgusting and I just brush it off as guys being guys; it never really makes a difference in my day. But this made me frustrated angry and embarrassed (I attend a school where idiots like that share a classroom with me?)

This got me thinking about the way people use different rhetoric in different situation. I pray that he would never say something like that in an interview or during class but with his friends things like this is perfectly fine. This also shows how your rhetoric can make other people feel about you. After I heard that I automatically assumed that he was an immature idiot but in front of his mother or teacher he could easily change his word choice and appear as a mature intelligent young man and this is what we do every day. We assess the situation that we are in and change our rhetoric based on our audience. We have those that we do not mind looking stupid or mean in front of and those that we know we need to impress. I truly hope that everyone does not take it as far as this guy did, but we all change how we act and what we say the same way that he did. 

Justice for Trayvon Martin

Trayvon Martin was a seventeen year old African American male who was shot and killed by a Caucasian (some say Hispanic) neighborhood watchman, George Zimmerman. I am not here today to speak on the injustice of this situation, which has been all over the news and todays media. I chose to look at what methods both Zimmerman and Martin’s family took for society to see their respective sides as innocent.

I was first introduced to this story about two weeks ago, almost a month after the shooting. When I read what those who were “fighting for justice” had to say about Martin, I could not help but side with his family. On their Facebook page, Justice for Trayvon Martin, the supporters were sure to use images of Trayvon which made him seem as an innocent child. The picture which is the face of Justice for Trayvon shows a young boy who looks no older than fifteen when he was reported to be killed at seventeen. The biography makes sure to emphasize the good that Martin has done and his immense innocence. This does not mention the fact that Martin was suspended for having drug paraphernalia more recently.

George Zimmerman, on the other hand, has been repeatedly attempting to make himself look innocent and remorseful of the situation while old news from his past continue to arise. Originally he was reported as a white male which his family later began to argue that he was Hispanic (trying to pull the race card there?) Now he is identified as a half-Hispanic male who reportedly was fired from a security job for being too aggressive.

But do these old facts make this a black and white situation? In cases like these we always tend to look at a person’s past as if that will somehow explain everything that caused this death. Martin having drug paraphernalia does not mean that he was a vicious drug user that was out to rob houses that night when Zimmerman caught him and was attacked. And Zimmerman having “problems” at work (a statement that was not given by reputable sources) does not mean he can bring himself kill an innocent child. I personally do not know what happened that night and I hope that justice is served on this case but I cannot forget that every man is innocent until proven guilty. 

Semi-visible Children?

  Over our (ridiculously short) spring break a YouTube video was released. But not just any video, this short documentary initiated a conversation that should have been happening for years now. If you do not know by now the video I am referring to is the Invisible Children’s 29 minute documentary on a man named Joseph Kony. If you do not know who he is here is my super-duper watered down version of it. So the International Criminal Court named the worst criminals of the world and Joseph Kony is at the top of that list for conducting a civil war in Uganda for about 26 years with the Lord’s Resistance Army. Even though the LRA is no longer in Uganda, this army continues to kidnap, mutilate, rape and kill families in Central Africa. Invisible Children, the group that created this video believes that if we as a society make Joseph Kony famous then congress will continue to support the US troops who are in that area helping armies with intelligence to capture Kony.

But that is not what I wanted to talk about to. I wanted to bring up how society reacted to this video and why. This KONY 2012 video received close to 80 million—MILLION views in about a week. Our generation definitely did what they had to do to make Kony famous. But why? This has been going on for 26 years and now is when people take the stand to say something about it? To make this situation even worse the majority of the people who are making the tweets and comments do not even take the time to get a well-rounded view of the situation. Rather they watch this one video and assume they know everything. After researching the topic, I learned that there was a lot left out like the fact that the LRA is no longer in Uganda and that the people of Uganda do not even want to be seen in this light. But the majority of this generation will not even learn more on a topic that they are so verbal about on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr etc. What I want to know is what does this say about our society if so many people can only learn about the world around them by someone else forcing it into their faces on social networks? Are we becoming a society that just keeps the blinders on and only focuses on our backyard?

Here's the video if you would like to watch :)

Abortion

Recently I came across some very interesting rhetoric on Facebook.  Abortion being the controversial topic it is I was surprised to see this come across my news feed:

As many of us know, Planned Parenthood is known for providing abortions to women across America. With abortion being such an opinionated topic people were guaranteed to respond to such a powerful image. The response I encountered was a female in my age group who was stating the claim that pulling funds on organizations like Planned Parenthood was especially detrimental. Her argument to this was that 97% of the services Planned Parenthood provides do not include abortions and that pulling funding means pulling funding for sexual education, breast exams, and other healthcare services not just abortions. But that is not the problem. The problem in her rhetoric is the fact that she did this by completely attacking the person who posted the picture. She claims “things like this boils my blood” and “I hate people who cannot see what good this company does”. This is what I think is wrong with the current and following generations. Instead of letting the facts make her argument she decided to turn to angry words. Being someone who is against abortion, even though I did  not comment on the picture I felt personally attacked and wanted to yell at her, call her stupid and prove her wrong.  When individuals act like this in these situations it causes people to shut down or fight to be the one who is right. This makes it harder and harder for generations to have meaningful discussions that can lead to legitimate conclusions which will further their thinking. Is this what our world is becoming? Is there no way to make a sophisticated argument without attacking the one that you talking to? 

*I believe that Susan G Komen has chosen to return to funding Planned Parenthood*

Can you hear me now?

Cell phone companies today have resulted in some very ruthless tactics in their advertising. Directly attacking another company to show how superior they are. As a consumer, instead of agreeing with the commercial that supports the most facts, I have however found myself pledging my loyalty any time my company is attacked. So today I want to look at how successful these tactics are.

                The two biggest companies right now are AT&T and Verizon. From my understanding of the situation Verizon began to attack AT&T stating that “there’s a map” for why their 3G service is so much better than AT&T's service. Verizon claims that they have more 3G coverage which is shown by comparing coverage maps of the two company’s 3G coverage:

 This was a really sneaky commercial on Verizon’s part because AT&T works on more than just 3G and Verizon knew that they could show just the 3G and make it seem as though AT&T had no coverage whatsoever. To me, their attempt at logos was pretty sad. Yes they provided facts for the consumer to take in but it felt like a lie which made me dislike the company even more and question their liability. AT&T on the other hand utilized ethos with their “rebuttal” commercial and kind of said we’re going to take the high road. Instead of attacking Verizon, AT&T used satellite coverage to show all of the areas that they cover playing with logos:

 Then they also released another commercial going to all of the cities and playing with the word coverage and covering all of the places they provide service with an orange blanket:

 This was classy and a lot more receptive than the Verizon commercials.

While these two companies are having their little fight in the corner T-Mobile steps in and basically states the claim that both of these two companies suck and you should just join my company. You can see this here:

I thought that this was a very smart move for T-Mobile. It came at a time where everyone was tired of the bickering between AT&T and Verizon so there was the perfect exigence. This commercial was still mean and attacking the other two companies but T-Mobile used and playful girl wearing pink to downplay the gravity of the commercial. You kind of feel like this woman is just stating the obvious not making any crazy claims so why not believe her, right?

The fight between companies is pretty silly to me. Yes, it is nice to be able to check my email or facebook while traveling but all I really care about is the ability to make a call which I always can. I say let them keep fighting, it’s the easiest way to get the cheapest price for the best phones.

Leisure Reading

Many of us today love curling up to a good book. But what makes it good? Is it the most talked about publication with your group of friends? Is it on Oprah's booklist? Or was it just a bright pretty color on the cover? Before this class, I never really stopped to think about why I chose I book to read, it just simply seemed good to me. But now that I think about it, publishing companies have been slowly becoming advertising gurus.
First, the infamous on the back or inside of the publication. It has to be intreguing enough to get your attention but leave you wanting more. Some can do this very very well but others not so much. Without this however, the reader is left confused and annoyed and probably will not read that book.
Then, the quotes reputable strangers. This tactic is basically lets show you that a bunch of people you do not know love this book and use adjictives that can apply to anything such as "beautifully written", "delightful", or"excellent", so that you love it too. To me, these are extremely rediculous. These are people that you never met before and are not garunteed to love the same things that I do. Therefore, why would I choose a book based on their comments?
And the last thing I will touch on today is the color chosen for the cover of the book. Darker colors are used to portray a more serious, adult-like situation, whereas, colorful book covers attract children and teenagers. While this seemed a bit rediculous to me at first it makes perfect sense. If you are attracted to a bright pink book then I highly doubt that you will be looking for a tragedy where someone dies in the end. It is a great strategy and works pretty well along with the other two.

This I Believe

Hey guys. You can listen to my This I Believe essay here. Thank you.

Legen- wait for it- dary

Sitcoms. We all watch them we all love them and they are always there to give us a laugh. But why are sitcoms so great? Isn’t reality TV taking over the market which has existed for many many years? I personally doubt that will ever happen. Sitcoms are great because of their rhetorical standing. There is an audience for them because people like to get away from their humdrum life and be entertained. Sitcoms fulfill this need and also do it in a very inexpensive way, which in turn creates another audience. An audience of people who would like the additive of cheap entertainment to their lives. If we focus more on specific sitcoms, we can see that there are different subgroups of this general audience. People want to laugh at nerdy jokes, and the Big Bang Theory is born. A different audience wants to laugh at the stupid things that happen at work, so The Office is created. Any successful sitcom has been created at a time where the exigence is perfect.

Furthermore, sitcoms either poke fun or support the common places we have in our society. In most family sitcoms there is the episode where x child actor/actress steals lies or cheats. This is something that our society finds wrong so x child gets punished, or reprimanded in some way. Or the sitcom includes the mischievous male child who gets into all sorts of crazy things. We find these situations amusing because they are common things that happen in society and we can each relate.

Then there are the sitcoms that are so general that anyone could love it at any point in life. Think about it; Golden Girls, Friends, and How I Met Your Mother are all just a group of friends in different adventures. You don’t have to be an elderly white woman to understand the jokes in Golden Girls, nor do you have you be a twenty-something year old living in New York to find the jokes in How I Met Your Mother funny. These are each pretty much the same concept the only difference is they were created at the right time for them to be successful.

Essentially, I do not see a world without sitcoms. As we continue to grow as a society, things change and we have more situations to poke fun at. No one would walk away from a good laugh and as long as that continues to be provided there will always be an audience for sitcoms.

Oh Westboro, just shutup.

This week, the little bubble of State College Pennsylvania was shaken up. We lost a legend this week and while I can go on about the many things he has done for the school, that is not what I wanted to focus on today. Being in this aforementioned bubble, I happened to run across the news that Westboro Baptist “Church” would once again be visiting the happiest of valleys. Even though I come from a big city, one abundant with homosexuality, sexual acts before marriage and many other forms of debauchery which this particular “church” would consider the devil’s work, I have never come in contact with this entity. Being as though they were returning to Penn State and have been pretty prevalent in the media I decided to get some background on this “church”.

Before I focus on WBC’s rhetoric- or lack thereof- I would like to first say that they disgust me.  How someone could follow the word “God” with “hates” is just incomprehensible to me. It makes me sick to think that they would bring their messages of hate to funerals or other places of mourning a fact which results in disgrace and sympathy for the future of the human race.

Ok. I know I went a bit over the edge there but I had to get that out. Now, for their attempt at rhetoric.

The thing that frustrates me most about this group of people is that their approach to persuasion is to yell hate slurs such as “God hates fags”, “You’re going to hell” “God hates America” essentially  God hates everyone. While these are good ethos (What God says is right seems to be an ethical truth) and pathos (emotional tug realizing God hates you) examples, they are not very good in convincing people. WBC’s tactics are judgmental and hurtful and makes you (or at least me) want to throw rocks at their heads. They also take a stab at logos by providing excerpts from scriptures that can be twisted in any way. This fails, however, because anyone who knows the slightest about any holy reading understands that the sole purpose is that God loves everyone and forgives sinners point blank.

 These people yell and scream instead of approaching the situation rationally then finish with laughing at your demise. How welcoming. I must say I can never understand how this brainwashed bunch can live a life full of hate, which is probably the one thing God actually hates.

Could You Pass the Artificial Cheese Flavoring?

Being a freshman and having the new found responsibility of buying all the food I intake; I must say this is a bit bombarding. All of the labels just attack with exclamation points and fancy terms. Made with 50% less plastic! No artificial colors or flavors! No preservatives! And my favorite : Made with REAL cheese!( … Oh.. well what was that on my cheezypuffs the other day?) This doesn’t even include the organic everything which is what should have been sold in the first place. You can only imagine my disbelief when I saw organic coconut water for sale in the grocery store.  I mean with all the coconuts in the world why there really inorganic coconut water for sale? Guess they really do find a way to add chemicals to everything.  

Anyway back to the labels. These marketing buffs really have the ethos logos and pathos thing down. They have the green foods which are supposedly making the world a better place appealing to ethos.  Every item must come with a heart-warming story about how families love our real, organic, naturally flavored, great-tasting food item with ingredients from family farms which covers pathos. They definitely hit the marketing goals out the park with logos based ads. This is natural/organic/made with real ingredients so clearly it must be better!

 As with any business, the main goal of these companies is to make the most profit. They have clearly found the way to do it. How many people buy that naturally flavored item without even reading the ingredients? Yeah I’m guilty too.  But even when I do read them I can barely understand or pronounce some of the words. First there’s words like Guanylate or Annatto which instantly gives me a headache. Then, after all the big words it just says “natural flavor”… Ok natural flavor of what? So since being ignorant to these things is not the way to go I decided to do a bit of research and it turns out that the Code of Federal Regulation defines “natural flavor” as “the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional” (21CFR101.22). That’s a lot of flavoring for my Vegetable Crisps. Food companies, as stated before, know how to make the most money for themselves. They take consumers down a path of big words and even bigger smiles hoping that no one will ask further questions. Furthermore, when questions are asked they just lead to more questions without specific answers and all you want is a snack to go with your movie. So you drop your thinking cap and go with the one that tastes the best.