Vogue cover with LeBron stirs up controversy

Amber Samson

article:http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/23797883/                                                                                                                               vogue cover: http://blog.nj.com/entertainment_impact_celebrities/2008/03/large_cover.jpg

My morning routines usually involve watching the Today show, which typically consists of superficial news stories, tips for health and beauty, relationship advice, and the intermittent weather reports. Last Wednesday, however, one story particularly caught my attention. Until that day, I had heard nothing about the Vogue cover that was, allegedly, causing so much commotion. The cover features the NBA star LeBron James and Supermodel Gisele Bundchen who share a spread together within the magazine. Yet the controversy surrounds the one photo chosen for the cover, which is claimed to be a ‘King Kong’ like pose.

            My immediate reaction to this argument was that it seemed unfair, even inflated, to say that the cover was perpetuating racial stereotypes. I think if I had seen the cover without first seeing the Today show story, I would not have thought twice about the so-called demeaning pose. Although, looking at the photo after hearing the suggestion that it was King Kong-esque, well, I couldn’t help but see what the critics meant. Still, I can hardly fathom that Annie Leibovitz, an extremely respected though at times controversial photographer would purposely put the two celebrities in such a position. In my opinion, the energy in the picture represents both well. Gisele is a bubbly, good-natured model and LeBron is a fierce competitor on the court. Why wouldn’t the cover choose to feature both as they are known to the world? After all, LeBron James isn’t called King James for nothing!  At the same time, knowing this fact, was Vogue careless to have chosen a picture that has a basketball player with the nickname of “king” in a gorilla-like stance? It seems hard to believe that with all the time put into choosing a Vogue cover that none of the editors would have thought the picture could be interpreted to have racial stereotype undertones. Even though I believe the cover has been overanalyzed, hopefully, it will lead other influential media sources to think twice about how they’re product could be perceived.

Alternative to Affirmative Action

Kunal Patel

article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080328/cm_usatoday/texas10admissioncouldteachcollegesathingortwo 

I think that it’s a good idea to give students from inner city and rural areas a chance to get a good college education.  This 10% automatic admission rule does just that, but now it has gone a too far.  If 81% of the incoming class falls under the 10% rule, then that doesn’t leave much room for other students who are just as qualified but fall just below the line.  The supporters of the law say that those in the 10% category get better grades than other students, but the higher grades are usually from students who would’ve been admitted into the university without the law anyways.  It’s good to let poor students from rural and urban areas get a proper education, but the increased diversity comes at too great of a cost.  I see people here at Michigan who should have clearly not been admitted but were because of certain loopholes and policies.  What makes me mad is that I knew a lot of people from my high school who didn’t get accepted here even though they were way more qualified than these people.  Just because my high school was quite competitive shouldn’t be considered a punishment to those who weren’t at the top of the class.  If this 10% law was implemented in Michigan, then these people I knew would have clearly been excluded from coming to places like here.  Things as important as college admissions shouldn’t be considered in such simple senses; a person’s college education is a vital part of their future and colleges should make sure to look at more than if a person was in the top 10% of his or her class.  Things like test scores, such as the SAT and ACT, as well as extra-curricular activities are important parts of a person’s application and should be given its due diligence during the admissions process.  I think that while this 10% law has potential to be beneficial for state education, it needs to be scaled back in order to compensate for the unfairness to other equally-deserving students.  

“Love It or Hate It, In-Flight Cellphone Use Has Arrived”

Suny Kim 

article: http://blog.wired.com/cars/2008/03/love-it-or-hate.html

After one more month, I will be going back to Korea. It takes about 13 hours to get to Japan from America, and another 3 hours to get to Korea from Japan. I would say that 16 hours of flight is not the most exciting thing to experience. I used to enjoy plane rides because I got to watch several movies all throughout the ride and there were some good snacks to munch on. But now, even though I am excited about going back home, it is dreadful to even think about the 16-hour plane ride. Seats are terribly uncomfortable (at least in the economy class). Falling asleep in those seats require immeasurable effort. And when I finally find the right posture to fall asleep, someone sitting next to be asks me to move in order for him to use the bathroom. Moreover, food in plane is the worst ever. Extremely annoyed by the entire situation, I get irritated very easily when people chat with each other, laugh hard, or snore. And if cellphones are introduced to the planes, ah, I don’t even want to imagine. I am not saying that all the people in the plane will use their cellphones during the flight, but you know what happens during the phone calls. Well at least for me, when I call my friends, I get all excited about what I’m talking about and my voice gets unconsciously louder and louder. I don’t know how I would bear this when I’m in a highly irritated state. For the business people, this might be very good news. They can continue their business talk while they are on the plane. But for me, 16-hour plane ride is torturous enough. I don’t need any more pain involved in my way back home.

A parent’s gender shouldn’t matter…

http://www.gay.com/news/article.html?2007/09/21/1 

and for Info on state Adoption laws…. see the Human Rights Campaign’s website at http://www.hrc.org/documents/parenting_laws_maps.pdf .

 And now for my actual Blog…

It’s nice to see that some people are of the understanding that it doesn’t matter if you have one mother, two mothers, one father, two fathers, or one of each. WHO raises you doesn’t directly affect how you are as a grown up, but HOW you are raised does.  The fact that this study was done in more than one country, with each having a different set of social standards means that this information is reliable enough to have an impact on the laws that govern the lives of LGBT people throughout the country. With so many states not allowing either a joint adoption between two people of the same sex or second parent adoption by someone of the same sex as the original parent, a study like this has the ability to fuel the change of these restricting laws. It can also be used to combat organizations such as Concerned Women for America, the American Family Association, and the Traditional Values Coalition, all who are extremely anti-LGBT.

I also think that it’s kind of interesting to see that most of the lesbian couples were happier with their partner and their contribution to the raising of the child than those in a heterosexual relationship. It also mentioned that lesbian couples split the responsibilities of raising the child more equally than those who were in heterosexual relationships. This kind of logic helps to defend the point that LGBT people can enter into fulfilling relationships and are ‘normal’. I wonder what will happen in the future with studies like this, and legislation that we have now…

People Power – Chen Li

People Power

Chen Li

http://www.economist.com/science/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10640707

With oil price wobbling around $100 per barrel and other natural resources shrinking in our planet, it seems crucial to save resources and develop alternative energy supplies.

This article is interesting that it provides us some cheerful news and unique solution—we can rely on the power of ourselves!I really love the idea of generating power by ourselves; it has a bunch of advantages: 1) A backup of current depleting resources. 2) Ecological, environmental friendliness. 3) Cheap, low costs. (We do not need to pay for the electricity bills…) 4) High mobility and flexibility. (In case we go to the middle of nowhere.) 6) A cause for workout. 5) Simply fun.  More importantly, it promotes a social responsibility and do-it-yourself philosophy.

Admittedly, such “human power” might still be insufficient to support our laptops, turn on the TVs or whirl the fans; but it’s very likely that we use our power at a humble starts to our portable radios, iPods and cell phones. The performance of these people power facilities might still undergo several tests and the industrialization of these products needs time; but they will become a success.

I believe with advanced technology and successful marketing, such promising people power products will become buzzes and grab frenzies. After all, we are pursuing a healthy lifestyle and a good cause. Innovation not only involves designing or creating new stuffs, but it might also mean creative combination and application of existent knowledge and technology in some other fields. The principle behind such energy-generating appliances is really simple physics law of conservation of energy, yet the ingenious application of the law shows the real mastery of knowledge and transforms such knowledge into power. “Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self worth.

Only you can be responsible for that.”—Stacy Charter

Chinese hackers – Amalia Briggs

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

Reading this article evokes a couple of very different responses. On one hand, knowing that, what are essentially Chinese Internet-Terrorists have free access to our countries most powerful and privileged secrets makes me very nervous. On the other hand, this article is also very unreliable in the way it presents its information, and this makes me cynical. There were three different instances when CNN said within the article “there is no way to confirm if his claim is true.”
Now, I’d like to believe that our government is taking the necessary precautions to keep our knowledge safe. I’d also like to believe that these cyber-geniuses are completely bluffing. However, if what is presented in this article is becoming a serious issue then both the Chinese government, and our government, need to find a solution…and fast. I’d like to ask the CNN correspondents why the law enforcement was not notified or brought along, in order to make a few arrests, while on this little remote island. If these twenty-something scrawny kids can make on entire news article and major news corporation happen on their terms…what else can they manipulate influential sources to print, or do?
Here is an idea, let’s make these tech-smart kids be “useful idiots” for the United States, instead of the Beijing regime. Pay them. Put them to work. If they are the masterminds they say they are, give them an offer they cannot refuse, and we have an automatic fix. Instead of working against our government, they work for us, and maybe they could even create a security program to block some of the weaknesses that other’s like them currently exploit.

Michigan Sports and Media Turmoil By Eric Kinnaman

Michigan Daily Article

Youtube Video of Coach Borseth 

So this article is from our own Michigan Daily and I thought it made some good points. For those of you who haven’t seen the video of Michigan Women’s Basketball Coach Kevin Borseth, you should check it out. It will give you a better idea about what the columnist is talking about and it’s pretty funny. So basically I’m just disgusted with the current state of sports media right now. I’m just angry that these people like Tony Kornheiser, are making outrageous comments like asking for the Coach Borseth to be fired on national TV. After I watched the video a few times and finally got over how funny he acted, I realized that the guy must be a great coach. His passion and enthusiasm were remarkable. He seemed like he knew what he was talking about and he had nothing bad to say about anyone. Yet somehow this is all overlooked, and instead of talking about how bad Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens are with the looming steroid and perjury indictments, they talk about how bad coach Borseth is. It feels like all across the board our values need to put back into perspective. In the spring training game one of our players goes for a bunt and the pitcher for the New York Mets, Billy Wagner, gets angry cause the Michigan player is trying too hard win. We look at it and think “Ok, he (Billy Wagner) is kind of being childish about it but no big deal”. But then Jim Rome, again this is on national television, criticizes Michigan player Kevin Cislo and eventually says “Kevin, exactly what were you thinking?!” This is absurd to me, this kid did nothing wrong. Here’s just a sample of recent articles I found on Yahoo sports under NCAA Football News.
• Penn St. judicial panel clears defensive tackle in campus fight 9:12 pm EST (AP)
• Indiana quarterback suspended indefinitely for violating team rules 8:24 pm EST (AP) • Kellen Lewis suspended indefinitely 6:36 pm EST (Rivals.com)
• Iowa dismiss Cleveland, Nelson after arrests on drug charges 5:33 pm EST (AP
• Police charge 2 Syracuse football players with criminal mischief 3:26 pm EST (AP)

Somehow these off-the-field issues that have seemingly become an epidemic in college athletics, are largely ignored. Instead they target the Michigan player and the Coach. Overall, I’m just disappointed by the way TV sports analysts are adding to this overall problem in sports. Continually athletes think their above the law and it’s the media’s job to admonish these people like Barry Bonds or Marion Jones and try to help restore credibility to sports. By criticizing people like coach Borseth or Kevin Cislo, they are doing a disservice to everyone by attacking the same values like, integrity and sportsmanship, we expect them to protect.