Chunk #2

In the second chunk of The Culture of Fear, Barry Glassner continues to go on about how the media repetitively are still using facts -- but sometimes, they facts, numbers, and statistics they use are false, wrong, and incorrect. For example, in the chapter called "Youth at Risk", as the title obviously screams, it focus on media and media's take on children. He talks about these "crack babies" and how society decides to refute them. The media also talks about how the youth produce these children and that these young moms and dads are only a menace to today's society. Again, the media is only exaggerating again. But this time, they're not only exaggerating, but they are lying as well. Making out the youth to be something they're not. In this chapter, Glassner again exploits these "fear mongers" he had previously talked about and how they use fear to real in people and get them to buy their lies.

Application Question:
Why is it that the media goes as far to tell a story and not even get their facts straight?

Classification Question:
Do you think that children are purposely having children because they want to?

Precis #2

In this online opinion piece, "Please Stop Screaming At Me" the author, "GE MODEL 19GT270" humorously asserts a claim about how maybe people in general take out their frustration on TV and that maybe people should do something other than watching TV all the time. The author supports his claims by personifying the TV. But he supports his first by showing many points in which the TV suffers being yelled at, or as previously mentioned, having the owner take its frustrations out on it by throwing a burrito for a horrible DVD the owner rented -- as it was obviously not the TV's fault and, if anyone's, it should be the DVD's fault. He again supports his first claim by saying the owner snaps the TV's remote control out of angry due to a golf matching being watched. The author supports his second claim, that people should not watch TV all the time, by having the TV suggest the owner going out more, or at least, doing something that doesn't always involve the television. The TV humorously adds that it has "been on every day for at least a year".

Clarification Question:
Why is that some people feel the need to carry their frustrations about what they see on TV on their TV?

Application Question:
Do you ever find yourself doing this? Do you maybe get angry at your TV when you lose a game? Or pissed when a sports match isn't going the way you want it to?

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/41255

Precis #1

Nancy Gibb's online article entitled "Fending Off the Swine Flu", Gibbs begins the article explaining that even though Bush may have handed over a mess to Obama from his last administration, this time, Bush's mess may prove useful this one time. Gibbs makes a claim about how measures must be taken, and how measures have been taken, though a bit extreme. She supports this when she said that Obama helped to put the Americans on a high alert level and when numerous Texas children stayed home from school, missing out on a standardized test to be given that day. Gibbs also talks about how during Bush's Administration, he had a plan fund that was suppose to reach $7 million for the National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza, but that plan fund was never reached. As the article says, at least the plan for fending of this flu is "much more clear and cogent response than in the past" says Laurie Garrett a senior of Council on Foreign Relations.

Application Question:
Do you think it was necessary to make such extreme precautions for the swine flu?

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1949870_1949839_1949665,00.html

Frederick Douglass

In the Narrative of Frederic Douglass, I most immensely enjoyed the part where Frederick is being given knowledge, more specifically, for example, when he goes out with a piece of bread. He has this bread for these white children he encounters when he goes out each time. He trades the bread to these hungry little children in exchange for the real "knowledge of bread". This is one way in which he gained knowledge. Another important thing is revealed in this scene from the story between Frederick and the white children he gives bread to: that racism is a learned thing.

Chunk #1

In the first chunk of the Culture of Fear, pages 1-70, Glassner states the claim of how media like newspapers, reporters, and journalists uses a lot of statistics when in fact, they are simply abusing them, and not only that, but are using these statistic numbers to make a hype, to exaggerate a small situation into a big one. Worse, the people usually buy into these exaggerated reports. He supports this claim when he explains how on Oprah's show, she explains how many have been in dangerous road rage situations, and then Glassner says she backs this up with "an impressive but ultimately meaningless number". A statistic. Glassner is showing how media abuses facts, using them when reporting, but are usually just as he says “impressive but ultimately meaningless”. Another claim Glassner makes is how the not only media focuses and makes a hype of mere subject matters like road rage, but hardly focus on the subjects that truly matter. He supports this by stating how the media will continue to hype the silly road rage topic, but will hardly give the time of day to the discrimination and death of a disabled black man in Texas, or the gay discrimination towards the gay in Wyoming.


Application Question: Why does the media feel the need to use silly numbers to report things to us? More importantly, why is it that we fall for these silly numbers?