Saturday
Darwin, final para - 1-2-3-4 - and new Qs
1 - Growth with reproduction;
2 - Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction;
3 - Variability from the indirect and direct action of the conditions of life, and from use and disuse;
4 - a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less improved forms.
Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.
Darwin left ROOM FOR "GOD" and ROOM FOR nature!
1-2-3-4:
Which is conflict consensus pattern change.
Which is peacock lion porpoise owl
Welcome Winter Thinkers

What do you think is the relationship between individual and society? How does your everyday life reflect the thought systems from which you come? Can you direct life? Can a group direct you? Yes, of course: both. How do we orchestrate that?
Image of brain is from a site on sales and gender http://michelemiller.blogs.com/marketing_to_women/2005/12/your_brain_on_s.html
Tuesday
Wednesday
Is Homosexuality a Choice?
Thursday
The Bad Economy is on me.
Zeitgeist
http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/main.htm
Friday
700 billion bail out
But yet when millions of Americans lack of free health care insurance (for all), a decent budget for the CSU, UC system, college, veterans psychological treatments, benefits (like giving them all a deed of their dream home), youth programs, after school programs, arts and job skills programs in high school, social security, etc, etc, Congress turns around and says "sorry we have a $700 billion deficit." And the only thing we do is what Parson's said, we define our integrations of loyalty to social collectivity by pretending to be happy that the $700 billion bail out will bring us some benefits. Will the bail out make things better for stress home owners, students, small business owners, for us or for the bourgeoisie? Absolutely not! Marx will say "political parties only serve those who control the means of production (i.e. corporations, the 8 (or more) most rich families in the world)."
Wednesday
Women, Men, and Other?
In a few of my other sociology courses, some of my TA's have emphasized that it's not just the men in this culture, it's the men in the upper class; rich, white men who are the one's running the game and in certain cases they use the issues of race to deter our attention away from the issue of class. By doing so, the separations in class according to race will keep people fighting so they will not realize that their enemy is the upper class, not each other.
I'd like to point out that something that tends to be underplayed in discussions about sexism, or anything in general and that's hetero-sexism. Hetero-sexism is the assumption that everyone is heterosexual, and by doing so people are lumping together a whole sub-culture into an assumed mainstream culture just because they look like one particular sex; as with the case with gender roles. Our culture of maleness and femaleness emphasizes this (or at least did emphasize this a lot more before) in a lot of ways, as pointed out by feminism (the GLBT movement wouldn't have worked as well if feminists didn't pave the way); i.e. girls wear pink and boys wear blue, boys like sports and girls like to play kitchen.. etc. One or the other.
There are other cultures that are more inclusive of these other sexual orientations or in some cases called the Third Gender. There are several Native American tribes that believed in the people with Two Spirits who fulfilled varying roles rather than the set gender roles. There's actually 2 countries where you can see the how the influence of the colonizing powers on the population's behavior towards these third gendered individuals.
The Hijra of India used to be honored and called upon for births and other special occasions for blessings. As someone once put it to me, "In some places in India still, you cannot imagine having a birthday, or some kind of celebration without them..." you can see how integrated into their society Hijra's were until the British (an imperialistic colonizing power) came and colonized them. With their feelings and ideals about Godliness guiding them and justifying their actions, they felt they should "civilize" these polytheistic heathens by teaching them our ways, their attitudes towards the Hijra changed from a position of honor to some sort of perversion.
Thailand on the other hand was one of the few powers that was not colonized by a western power. Their version of the third gender, the Kathoey, are more readily accepted. For example, when I went on a trip to Thailand a while back, there was a biological male working at the Baskin Robin's there with a full face of makeup on, AND IT'S NORMAL TO THEM! Doubt you can see that in any westernized/post colonized country.
Anyways, my main point is that not ALL generalized men should be blamed. In fact, by acknowledging that there's more than just the roles of man and woman and destroying the dichotomy, it would destabilize the power that said masculinity is supposed to have. You can't really ask a homosexual couple, "Who wears the pants in the relationship?" because they both can at the same time (ideally speaking of course, but that's another blog there..).
Sunday
Welcome Autumn Thinkers
Monday
last 10 weeks
Sunday
Class Memory
Monday
Can we really do Gender? Somthing they dont want you to konw!
Thursday
Functionalism
I think that functional theory of inequality has its merits because it helps us understand how a society functions and the reason behind the existence of inequality within a society. It addresses the issue of class and social inequality on a broader spectrum as opposed to concentrating only on narrow issues such as ownership of poverty or bureaucracy and occupation.
Functionalism, however, does have some shortcomings. First of all, this theory favors social stability instead of change because of the view that inequality is functional and inevitable. Second of all, it underemphasizes the significant impact of wealth attained through inheritance on the creation and perpetuation of inequality. Also, this theory could be viewed as circular as it is hard to establish the causal relationship between high paying jobs and their functions in society, i.e. are high paying jobs defined as the ones with most function simply because they are high paying or vice versa. Furthermore, if the assumption of interdependent nature of people in a society is true, then all roles should be equally important and therefore deserve equal compensation.
L.O.V.E
Love can be broken down in many different meanings and expressions. What do people first think when they hear the word LOVE? Is it the face of their lover, their crush, their family, their life, their job, their pet? I mean, really, what is really love?
Let me tell you what i personally think, i think the word LOVE is overrated. Don't you agree? The word love has been commonly used among people. The strong three words "I LOVE YOU" supposed to be this sacred word to say to someone you truely love right? or no?... My first "I love you" was to my parents and i slowly started to say it to my dog and relatives because i was told not to say "I LOVE YOU" unless you truely mean it so i have not said those words to any of my lovers...
has that beautiful phrase lost its meaning?
Recently, my friends and my girlfriends say "I LOVE YOU" to each other all the time like its water.. I hear it quite often among my group of friends and others.. I usually hear it when people are quite drunk..why do people tend to express themselves with these words while being under the influence? is it really their true feelings or just an expression of word to make someone feel love and special, or just saying it to SAY it?
Love can not be explain into words but should be express through actions. Love should be felt and remembered. It should make you feel GOOD. Love shouldn't loose its' meaning. Love is a like medicine to all wounds. Everyone wants love and be loved but what is it really?
Wednesday
I have not been able to get my mind of the heated class session about the "N" word
Meet My Representative
Tuesday
Man school is for fools! Maybe not?
Wednesday
When is it okay?
The Controversial "N" Word
To point this specific word out... let me bring up monday's class, the heated argument about who can and can not use the "N" word was debated. As i sat quietly listening and observing to my classmates argue about their point of view and explaining the meaning of the "N" word; i began noticing people's reactions to this subject. I observed how everyone whether speaking out or just listening began to become noticibly uncomfortable with the subject being argued. I began noticing how a few of my classmates who were speaking out about their point of view became heated and eager to get their point across and how they each wanted for everyone to see it the way they saw "their world".
At that moment i began to think to myself that there had to be a middle path in which this debated word would be lost in the past and where it would not have such a negative feeling whether it was said by those who can say it or those who can not! I began to notice how some people live in the past and how most of their present actions are well expressed by their beliefs and how they only see black and white. As my mind wondered off... i also thought that if some people only see black and white something can be done to get them to see GREY .... Do you understand me? Well if you dont, just think that when you mix a bit of black and a bit of white it creates GREY.... and i honestly believe that in order to get rid of any stereotypes and prejudice created by words such as the "N" word we must come to a common understanding of meanings to such words. “Ignorant people see life as either existence or non-existence, but wise men see it beyond both existence and non-existence to something that transcends them both; this is an observation of the Middle Way.” -Seneca-
Tuesday
Wait there goes a black person!
Monday
heated discussion "n" word
I was at work and I read something out loud from a magazine article with the n word. My coworkers are mostly black/ African-American and I am Mexican.
Also at work, a Mexican-Chinese coworker constantly tells her boyfriend to "go eat some beans"
Tuesday
2ness, Social Structure, Personal Responsibility
- What happens when a leader speaks of personal responsibility instead of structural matters?
- What happens when a leader speaks of personal responsibility for just one race or one sex?
The repercussions of slavery: whites systematically broke down slave families; it was an achievement of a black man NOT to work so hard; slavery was followed by decades of violence and prejudice; it has only been a bit over 1 generation since the Civil Rights Act, which was the next attempt to stop the structure of slavery. History indeed left the AfAmer community with fewer fathers & proportionately more children and more strong women alone - and left all politicians and sociologists in a quandry about how to approach the issue. And now immigration surrounds it with more complexities as racism comes in varieties and sometimes creates what we in soc414 could call ... 3-ness~!.
Reread DuBois beautiful writing PP. 154-156 in text about how a father who faced discrimination is to teach a child. Though progress has been made in the 3 generations since Dubois wrote, the question remains: if life is "unfair" how does a father teach fairness? How do we find a path thru structure + motivation and thru all colors?
Take the problem of rape and femicide: Is it less complex? It seems more obvious and "ok" to target either men or women, but that personal responsibility route sometimes goes like this for the girls, cover up and don't be 'provocative;' for strong-arm boys, don't use brute strength to overcome: muscles give you not a cultural right. What if we taught our children - boys and girls - to honor and respect the sacred temple of the body? When we focus on a sex or a race - how do we avoid singling it out for even more "isolation?" you get the drift .... comments?
Monday
Bomb it
Thursday
The Real World
Tuesday
Update on Bella's I and Me
Hip Hop
Furthermore, how do you feel when you see people of other races listening to rap music? Ever since I first started to listen to Hip Hop, which is over 15 years ago, I was told that it was "black" music. That was the time of Tupac and Biggie. I never cared because I felt like I could relate to it. I was a young kid from the hood that was poor, that was always tempted to join a gand and was discriminated by the administrators at my high school. So, why are people of other races influenced by Hip Hop even though most artist of Black?
Wednesday
I and Me
Tuesday
Online Gaming Society 2
Internet websites are first to beginning with Shock Wave and Pop Cap which are website who target individual’s form 10 through 35 years old with casual games. These games are puzzles, number games, word games, board games, and arcade games. These games are aim for the causal gamers. Now lets focus on console and personal computer (PC) games these are for true gamers. These formats have much more to offer like Real Time Strategy games (RTS), Role Playing games (RPG’s), and Massive Multiplayer Online games (MMO’s). All these types of games offer more in visuals, graphics, sound, and much more and are amid for the more serious gamers. As PC games target individuals ranging from 12 through 35 years of age with these types of games. On the other hand console game is where the major industry is. In just the past four years or so there has been term thrown out there by major business gurus as the “console wars”. The console wars are between Nintendo’s Wii, which targets everyone young to old, Sony’s Playstation 3, which has specifically targeted age groups between 12 through 25 years old, and Microsoft’s Xbox 360, which targets 18 through 35 years olds. PC, Internet, and consoles have made gaming mainstream and evolve.
The biggest evolution of gaming is the online multiplayer mode that is offered to gamers. Online gaming has created small societies in these games. For example Microsoft’s Xbox 360 offers Xbox live where you are able to make friends, communicate friends, and still play games while you play a game or play the same game with a friend or a random stranger. Yet Sony’s Playstation 3 is offering there version of Xbox live called Playstation Network (PSN). Nintendo is also offering the same type of network to there gamers. These forums create small societies that are rule based. For example Durkheim expressed that rules are the glue that holds societies. Just like societies these networks (Xbox Live, PSN, and Nintendo network) have rules to help individual integrate into this society. Further one can say that when an individual breaks a norm society sanction that individual, so that individual can be integrated back into society. Just like society these network have codes of conduct when you brake a gaming norm the gaming society sanctions you and tries to help you integrate you back into the gaming society.
One can sociologically brake down the gaming society even more. Durkheim gives us division of labor from where he names two types of societies mechanical and organic. With these two types of societies one can explore and define online societies. For example massively multiplayer online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, Final Fantasy and many more where large number of players interact with one another in a virtual world can be considered a mechanical societies. In these games the development of the player's character is a primary goal. One cannot achieve this goal without other individuals that participate in these virtue communities, which are self-sufficient and knit together so one can develop their character and improve their virtual society. So these games are similar to Durkheim’s mechanical societies. On other hand Real Time Strategy games like Gears Of War, Halo, Bad Company, Grand Theft Auto, Mass Affect, and many more are what Durkheim would call organic society. These games focus are not in development of characters where they help virtual society grow but one chooses characters with specialized duties. These specialized duties would create what Durkheim calls organic solidarity. Having specialized duties where player would rely on each other to finish this game. Games like Halo, Call of Duty, Gears of War and many more have online modes where individuals come in groups where they choose specialized characters for example on Call of Duty on need choose a sniper because one might not be able to win without that specific character or in Mass Effect where choosing the character a specific character is vital for the true growth of the virtual world.
As told my friend that gaming has evolve from just one playing by themselves to playing with a whole community, which would make a virtual society and yes the rules that holds this virtual and the same rules that holds a real society. Because individuals bring their own values and norms into this virtue world making it a society and who best to describe this virtual society best to my fiend but Durkheim
Wednesday
Easy to blog
first page>Enter valid email address
Enter an 8 digit password
Enter word verification
Read terms of service and click accept
Second page>Enter password
And that is it.
Your in the blog