Deflate Gate Report

As I am sure most people know, the report for the Deflate Gate investigation has been released. What really gets me is that fact that it took almost four months to release an over two-hundred page report just to basically say "Yeah, they probably messed with the footballs." Oh gee, thanks for letting me know. Is it that silly of me to have expected a little more of a conclusion to this investigation? Now are we supposed to wait almost four months for a decision to be made about Brady's consequences? I am predicting that it will go something like this..."Yeah, we will probably punish him." Below is an image from an article found on Yahoo! Sports regarding the report. 

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nfl-shutdown-corner/long-awaited-deflate-gate-investigation-implicates-pats--tom-brady-173408354.html

Baltimore

The image above sums up any rant I could go into about what is currently happening in Baltimore. Before we act, we need to think about what these actions are really accomplishing. I feel as if the people rioting are doing nothing but ruining their city. 

Sarah Thomas

I'm sure most, if not all, of you have heard about the new female NFL referee by the name of Sarah Thomas. While reading articles on this woman and how she came to be the first female referee for the NFL, I came across one article in which the first line sucked me in. It reads, "before every kickoff, football referee Sarah Thomas looks in the mirror and tucks her hair into her cap." When I first read this I thought it was some kind of insane rule that she was being forced to follow. As I continued to read I discovered that Thomas does this for the simple reason that once she is on the field, "it makes her practically indistinguishable from the rest of the otherwise all-male crew, just another black-and-white striped shirt and authoritative bellow" and this is exactly what she wants. Thomas says that when she is officiating the other male referees do not think of her as a female, they thing of her as just another official. This is the reason that she has been and will continue to tuck in her hair and do her job. Although the other referees may see her as one of them, I can guarantee that there are a large number of players and fans who do not feel the same way. I am totally for a female NFL referee, however, I do not completely agree with Thomas choosing to tuck her hair into her cap. I understand the not wanting to distract aspect, but I think that she should not feel as if she needs to hide the fact that she is a female. At the end of the day, regardless of how anyone thinks or feels about this situation, I am glad to see society taking a step in the right direction by hiring a full-time female referee for the first time in the NFL's ninety-five year history.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/04/09/how-sarah-thomas-became-the-nfls-first-full-time-female-referee/

Gender Stereotypes

I have a 2002 Chevy Cavalier that has lasted me a good about three years now. I will be graduating May 2016 and plan to get a new car afterwards. After changing my mind about a hundred times I have landed on a Honda Civic. Once I made this decision I wanted to get some outside opinions. My brother and step-father had a common answer that rubbed my mother and I the wrong way. They said, "Yeah, that's a good car for a woman." For a woman? Why isn't it a good car in general? Why isn't it a good car for men too? After hearing their response I then told my boyfriend what they had said, his response was, "Well....it is". This all made me remember the paper we just wrote regarding gender stereotypes. What makes a Honda Civic a better car for a woman than for a man? Who makes these rules and preconceived notions? A day after this happened, my boyfriend and I were driving and we were approaching a Honda Civic, about to pass by, so I decided to see if it was a man or woman driving in hopes it was a man. Once we both realized it was in fact a woman driving, my boyfriend immediately yelled "SEE!" and I proceeded to remind him of a male friend of mine who owns a Honda Civic. Instead of realizing that a car is good for any gender regardless of what it is, he made an excuse as to why it was okay for my friend to own this car even though he was a male. But why make an excuse? Why is there a need for this?

Katz

There were a couple things that stuck with me after watching the Katz documentary. One being when the Bumfights films were being discussed. A man was interviewed saying how it was hard to defend something so absurd (referring to the Bumfights). This made me question why someone would support something that was so insane that they couldn't even defend it? If I cant come up with any good reasoning as to why something should be around, then that is reason enough that it is not a good idea. Another thing that stuck with me is a question that was brought up during our group discussion. Many students were asking/answering the question of what we can do to change the violence. To a point, I can agree with many of the students opinions regarding parenting and other influences. However, at the end of the day, the only people we can control are ourselves. We can do anything in our power to influence or help a person be less violent now and in their future, but only they can stop themselves. As much as we may like to be the ones to make a change, we can only change how we live and not how someone else does. If we can get people to realize their own actions are harmful to the point where they can change them on their own, then we can hopefully start to see a world with less violence. 

Addict

I was required to do a "media log" in my theories of mass communication course. For this log I had to choose a four hour time frame during the day to log all of my media usage. Yesterday from 230pm-630pm I logged about how while doing things around the house I downloaded music, listened to my iPod, watched Netflix, used my iPad, and checked social media. When I finished logging I thought to myself, "wow, I should have picked a different time frame because I haven't used media nearly as much as I normally do..." but then it hit me, I had been texting during the entire four hour span. Our phones have become such an important object and such a natural thing to always carry that we don't realize how much we use it. Its become a cultural norm to constantly text so it doesn't feel like I am using an unusual amount of media. Even when I am not texting anyone, I still repeatedly check my phone like I should have text messages when in reality, it doesn't matter.

Mediated Communication

Yesterday was my birthday and it got me thinking, does social media give people the excuse not to call on any special occasion? Even my own family members resorted to a simple happy birthday post on my wall instead of contacting me another way. It just made me wonder if we as a society has gotten to the point where we now think that social media can replace any other form of contact on a day like someones birthday, or even in general. Also made me wonder if we have all gotten to the point where we think that it is just as thoughtful to post "happy birthday!" on someones wall as it is to take the time to call them and wish them a happy birthday over the phone? Social media has taken over our lives to the point where we prefer mediated communication over anything else. Yes, it may be much more convenient than meeting up face-to-face but that doesn't mean that we should eliminate getting together with someone just for convenience. It scares me to think how things will be in five, ten, twenty years.

That Stupid Dress

So I am sure that all of you are just as annoyed with this stupid dress thing as I am. At least I hope you are. Once I got home last night a friend of mine asked me if I had seen anything on Twitter about this dress. I had no idea what she was talking about so I checked Twitter to see what the rage was all about. Sure enough, my feed was covered with people so confused, upset, and outraged about the color of this dress. Within seconds I was annoyed with all of the media coverage about something so stupid. This morning I was checking Facebook and yup, you guessed it, there were countless links to sites with actual articles concerning the color of this dress. Is this really what we are worried about right now? Who cares what color it is, who cares if its black and blue or if its white and gold, who cares if its some trick your eyes are playing or if its just the brightness on your phone. WHO CARES. The media should not be covering stuff like this when there are things with much more importance going on in the world. Especially when its something as stupid and useless as the color of a dress. Okay, rant over.

Sick of "Deflategate"? Well The Media Isn't.

So I thought that everyone was just as sick of hearing about Deflategate as I was. But apparently the media is not. Stories are still being published as recently as today making this now month long investigation still ongoing. There has been so many different Deflategate stories put out by the media  that people have gotten to the point where they don't even know what to believe anymore; we are all over it. Well, at least I am. First I heard that the Patriots "cheated" by playing with eleven out of twelve under inflated game balls, then I heard that the balls were taken away at halftime (which the majority of the people I talked to weren't even aware of). During the second half of the championship game the Patriots scored 28 points while the Colts scored 0, in my eyes, proving that cheating was not even a factor in the winning of this game. Later on I heard that the entire thing was started by Indianapolis followed by information stating that the entire thing was made up. Eventually I heard that it was in fact only one ball that was under deflated and various team and players, including the Patriots and the Colts, had no idea any balls were under deflated in the first place. Following these stories, I began to hear various other stories surrounding what may or may not have happened. The Patriots then went on to Superbowl XLIX and all the media seemed concerned with was Deflategate. Now, over two weeks later, it is being said that a "Patriots locker room attendant attempted to put an unapproved special teams football into play" during the AFC championship game on January 18th. Quite frankly, I don't want to hear anything else until a conclusion has been made. At this point, what are they going to do if everything is true? Take away the trophy? I don't think so. We (yes, we) earned that trophy after a beautiful play and nothing can change that. So come on media, give it a rest.

Here is the article I quoted:

https://www.bostonglobe.com/sports/2015/02/18/pats/MBR5rOZxVYGO57iSKkhncM/story.html

A Day Without Media

Its only a few minutes past 1pm and I have already failed to go an entire day without media. However, I knew I would fail before I even tried. My alarm is on my phone so from the second I wake up I am already using my phone. While driving to campus I didn't even hesitate to turn on my music, it has just become habit. I am picking up a textbook for my brother and I needed the name of it so naturally, I told him to "just text it to me". Using media is just something that I don't even consider anymore. You never really realize how much media you are using until you have to get rid of every piece of it. Ironically, I feel as if social media makes me anti-social. If I have my phone, laptop, or iPad then I have some form of social media outlet to bury myself in so I end up being anti-social. But if I don't have anything with me then I am forced to acknowledge the outside world and be social.