1. At the end of the NYTimes magazine there is a piece called "Lives." Today, the piece focused on a topic we at MA speak about often: privilege. Last week, the piece focused on food and a child's passion for the forbidden. I liked both so much and I couldn't pick which one to post. Lucky you! The topic of the first piece is well covered territory, but accurately articulated in such a simple piece. The second piece just made me laugh. What do you think of the writing? As mentioned before I would love to see more of this in the My MA section of the newspaper. How can we get more people to participate?
2. While the article about Obama and basketball was interesting, the graphic was even better. Check out this link so see what I'm talking about. What do you think of the manipulation of the simple headshot? This article was in the Sunday Styles section — a fairly light-hearted section — but what do you think of the idea behind the dream teams? Could we put together a dream team of sorts at MA? If so, what would it be. We have the artist skill and know-how to make this work graphically.
3. This piece — again from the NYTimes Magazine — confused me a bit. No, I wasn't confused by the content rather how I felt while reading the article. It's about service and companion animals and their role in society and the life of their owners. Great writing, awesome sources, but still hard to take seriously. Why? If you were assigned this piece, how would you tackle the naysayers that might think your story was a joke?
12 comments:
I really enjoyed both articles about food and priviledge but I especially enjoyed the one about priviledge. It is interesting that the writer went as far as to pinpoint the exact "shame" of priviledge rather than broadly discuss the issues with his assumptions. I feel like many people, including myself, find it easier to not go very far in discussions of priviledge and as a result are satisfied with general, sweeping conclusions. It was refreshing to see a specific discussion of the topic.
Also, I was struck by the concept of shame associated with priviledge that the author expresses after he realizes that his assumptions about the child and his mother are entirely incorrect. His reaching out to a child and trying to find common ground with another person on the train is not a sinful act but his quickly-drawn assumptions make him regret his actions and be ashamed of his overall complacency. A kind act based on purely good intentions causes him grief due to the fact that it represents a larger societal issue rather than simply a friendly gesture.
It would be great to have more people be able to write into the paper with personal stories like this that explore an ethical dilemma that they found in their own lives. It would be fun to have other people be able to comment and open up a dialouge within the whole community via the paper.
The dream team graphic is pretty brilliant. At first, I didn't notice the small text below the goofy images, but those add so much to the different "players" by not only saying a little joke blurb about basketball or a their job, but adding in their actual height - pure genius. If there is one thing a real team lineup will have, it's the height of the members of the team.
I think we can pull this off in the voice, similar to how we did the "who's in the wildcat suit". My idea would be to shrink down a picture of the MA Wildcat suit (just the body part), stylize it to be goofy/cartoony looking, and then put on the picture of a face. We could have the administrative dream team, student senate dream team, and more. These are pretty easy to do, so I think this is potentially a very realistic idea.
I love the idea of the dream team! I agree with Josh that their heights make it even better. I've been wanting to run a piece that is a "get to know you" about the board members for a really long time... They make all these important decisions, but students have no idea who they are. Maybe the "dream team" would be an appropriate place to introduce them in an interesting way for students. We would just have to make sure that they don't feel disrespected by making them look cartoon-like.
I loved the graphic of democrat and G.O.P dream teams for basketball. I think we could incorporate this for something relating to class games. For example when we used to have dodgeball tournaments at MA, or capture the flag, or the pillow fights. We could make "class dream teams" for the spirit competitions. Maybe we could compliment the humorous graphic with a little bio on each player, and why they are selected for this specific sport. This could even work for something like the assassin teams if it comes back to MA. Really any sort of competitions going on at MA.
The article about privilege really stuck with me. Especially the line about being comfortable. Because I am comfortable it is easy for me to assume that everyone else in my world is as well, and I do. It is only when I ask if someone will buy me lunch and they hesitantly say "no" when I am reminded of my good comfort.
I assume that others at MA do share in my comfortableness (but then again I should probably stop assuming all together) so maybe we could write an op-ed about it. I know that it may be a sensitive subject but I think it is high time that the voice delved into those sticky non-PC (whatever that means) areas.
Also, I loved the dream team graphic. I assume (without any real computer knowledge) that it wouldn't be that difficult. We should for sure do something like that. But with like music kids, or just something unexpected; not athletes.
I've been thinking alot about privilege and touched on it slightly in my column for the coming edition but even I was timid in tackling it full on. Everyday I see a representation of my privilege and others disadvantages or simply of other peoples privilege. It's a difficult subject to speak about because sometimes when trying to work through what privilege means for our community the conversation can sound insensitive. But personally, sometimes I have to be a little insensitive to others while I work out the tough issues in my mind. (Granted I never work this issues out in public for this exact reason.) But I wonder if the fact that we are all so worried about offending one another actually hinders our ability to bridge the gap between the have and have nots.
The article also portrayed a really strong image in my mind and a situation which I could imagine myself in. When people are walking down the street sometimes I come up with what I think their story is or I smile sympathetically at the people that I think have less than I do, but the fact is that beyond exterior clues, I have no idea what that person has been through. At a place like MA it is even easier to forget about the discrepancies because we are all attending the same school, eating in the same cafeteria etc., we forget that after school we all go home to different places and different lifestyles.
I read the article about food and really enjoyed it. I think the reason that it stuck with me was that I had a similaar, if not quite so drastic experience growing up. My mom, who grew up on sixties junk food was obsessed with fresh fruit, whole grains, and peanut butter minus anything that makes it actually taste good. I too felt like getting a taste of anything that wasn't fresh grown and organic and didn't taste like rabbit food was a heavenly experience. However, now that I am older and the rules have lightened up a bit, I find myself enjoying healthy food often more than junk food, as the author did.
What really interested me was how this article proved the amount that ones childhood can affect them in adult life. It is similar to the debate about whether personality is inherited or aquired. It is an interesting topic to explore what aspects carry over from childhood and how similar children are to their parents in terms of taste and personality.
I also read the food article and I thought it was hilarious. In a way it reminded me of the recent staff editorial we did on teenage alcohol consumption. That article talked about the "forbidden fruit" appeal of alcohol for teenagers just as the unhealthy food was the Joshua Yaffa's "forbidden fruit."
It also reminded me of how the Voice asked if students' parents were voting the same way as they were in the mock election last year. If I remember correctly, most students voted the same way as their parents, revealing how much of an influence your environment has on you.
I think it would be fun to have an article from an alumni describing their life after high school and how living away from their parents changed their habits or identity.
I also highly appreciated the piece about privilege. It identified a very real, important point within the context of a short story. A simple story, too. Many people can relate to taking a train and meeting somebody on there.
The shame that the writer felt is something, I too, can connect with. It is sometimes too easy to expect people to connect with you, but not everybody can experience the things you do. It is all too easy to forget this at times. Things that are necessities for you, can be considered luxuries for others.
I think these sort of student perspectives would be nice to have. Any sort of learning experiences that students or staff writers would be willing to write about would be fine. We could definitely do more with guest writers. I remember seeing a couple of guest writers in the past. We could also encourage guest writers by having competitions. Several people would write their own stories and whosever gets published would win some sort of reward. This would encourage participation while at the same time drawing more attention and excitement to the Voice.
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