Reflection on Twitter, Facebook, and Blogs

I have never really used Twitter and Blogs. However, I do have a Facebook but don’t really update my statuses like some of my friends do. Before this assignment, I never understood how timely these social media examples could be. I have always thought that these were just websites where people used to keep in touch with close friends and family. After reading through the Twitter, Blogs, and Facebook pages that I currently follow, I have learned how useful these pages are and can be helpful in receiving information quick and easily. I really liked how these pages and posts I liked that dealt with agriculture. I feel like that the majority of the world isn’t informed about agriculture. These websites help keep the people informed and what is going on with agriculture today. After reading posts and blogs I feel like that there wasn’t really anything I didn’t enjoy reading and learning from them.

I do see a personal value in using Twitter, Blogs, and Facebook pages because it helps keep me informed on the current agriculture issues and also other personal things I enjoy reading about. This is also beneficial for others and businesses because they are useful tools in keeping people informed on what’s going on. For businesses it can be used as a marketing tools for showing their products and also cut down on expenses on paper if they mailed magazines to consumers. For example, John Deere can advertise new equipment and post videos of equipment functioning, which can’t be done on paper.

In conclusion, I feel that Facebook, Twitter, and Blogs are the new way of finding out information. They can also help you research information much easier than looking and waiting for the news to break on t.v., a newspaper, or magazine. I will continue to use Facebook and Twitter to keep myself informed but also to keep others informed about agriculture.

McDonalds

Katie Weimerskirch

English 110.01

Hannah Stephenson

March 14, 2011

English final

The Bigger Picture

When the word McDonalds is mentioned, negative thoughts enter the minds of many. Items like the Big Mac (550 calories) or the Southwestern salad (over 400 calories) is the reason this restaurant is thought of in a negative aspect. What McDonalds does for the community should and does overshadow how many calories are in their food. From the first Ronald McDonald house charity in 1974, McDonalds has provided families with a place to stay at little or no cost near hospitals their child is staying at (www.mcdonalds.com). From then on, they have established 300 houses worldwide. This foundation does not only help families but provides over 1,700 scholarships worldwide for students to achieve a higher level of education, totaling to over 40 million dollars since 1984 (www.mcdonalds.com). These are only two examples of the widespread involvement McDonalds has in the community. It is safe to say McDonalds has gone above and beyond to get involved and help improve the lives of children through out the world.

Ronald McDonald House Charities are involved in working with non-profit organizations like the Kinney Center for Autism Education and Support at St. Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. Without this program, many autistic children would never adapt to their social environment and helps them live their life as normal as possible. This goes to show McDonalds is not just some greedy big business looking to get rich. Six grants alone took place in 2010. The facts speak for themselves, McDonalds has spent millions to help and better the community. RMHC (Ronald McDonald House Charity) is now working to establish sports centers for the disabled, sensory rooms for children with cognitive and physical disabilities and developed other innovative ways to help improve the lives of children all around the world. Knowing these facts, I myslef am more likely to grab a quick burger at McDonalds instead of a fast food restauraunt that is not active in our community.

The heartfelt stories of what the Ronald McDonald house does speaks for itself. When Yana, a four-year-old Russian girl was diagnosed with cancer and sent to Kazan Children’s Hospital, she needed her mother to be there with her, not only for support but because children twelve and under must be accompanied by a parent. Parents slept on cots beside their children, up to six people to a room with shared bathrooms and no laundry facilities. For a parent to have to endure a sick child, the conditions did not make it any better. A year after the treatment Yana and her mother had to return to the hospital for another long stay, luckily this time a Ronald McDonald house was under construction providing her mother with food, laundry facilities and a comfortable place to stay while she stays with her child as she battles cancer (www.mcdonalds.com). Stories like these have inspired the Ronald McDonald charities, that is why it has grown to a world wide organization.

Not only have these stories affected the people receiving help but has been an inspiration to many involved in donating to the chartiy. Supporters such has Al Roker relate to this chairty, “As a father of three, I value every minute that I spend with my children and family” Al is a strong donator and supporter. Along with Al, there are many more celebrity supporters such as actress Cindy Crawford who lost a brother to leukimeia, or Kasey Kahne a nascar driver who donated 50,000 dollars along with helping raise 500,000 dollars in order to get Ronald McDonald care mobile. All of these supporters have one thing in common, they hold this organization close to heart. This may be a result of personally dealing with sick children, being a parent or just caring about children. Futhermore, Ronald McDonald house charities have helped families across the world during hard times. Without charities like this one, many famailies would be separated from their children during times of illness. When families are struggling when children are sick, the community is there for them. People need to recognize the poistive of what this corporation is doing, helping those who need it. The lives that this charity has changed and the foundations it has supported overshadow the fact that some of their food is not the healthiest in the world. Instead of taking something little like the nutrition in a burger, people need to look at the big picture. Rather that be the fact McDonalds has changed the lives of sick children, or donated millions in scholarships to help furhter peoples education. In conclusion, McDonalds supports and gives back to better the world and provide optimism in peoples lives.

Negative Effects on Athletes Marketability

Negative Effects on Athletes Marketability

By: Evan Watson

In todays society many advertisements deal with celebrities and athletes. Many businesses believe that if they use athletes or celebrities to promote their products, consumers are more likely to spend money on their products. This makes consumers want to buy these certain products, because if the athletes use these, customers must use them. Although, being a professional athlete does have its ups and downs. Athletes are placed on a higher pedestal than the rest of society. If they make a simple error on or off their sporting event, they can be hurt financially. Here, I will explain why athletes have more negative effects on their marketability than positive.

Like most professional athletes, they have agents who land them endorsement deals with many different companies, such as, Nike, Under Armor, Reebok, different types of protein supplements etc... This is huge for professional athletes because creates more income on top of what they make playing a sport. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger’s marketability was mostly affected by the loss after the Super Bowl. Darren Rovell of CNBC.com reports “Roethlisberger's "off-the-field troubles have completely taken him out of the marketing game." Although he "wasn’t charged in the alleged sexual assault case in Georgia last year, he became completely untouchable in the marketing world" (sportsbusinessdaily.com published Jan. 25, 2011). This statement explains how Roethlisberger’s actions show a negative effect on him while out in the public hurt his chances of becoming marketable. After Roethlisberger was apart of the losing team in the Super Bowl, his popularity will most likely drop because his performance was not good enough. In addition, even on the court/field gestures can hurt an athletes marketability. The most recent of side of negative marketability is Tiger Woods and his mistresses. Tiger Woods was one of the most marketable athletes throughout the United States. He promoted many products that are known worldwide such as, Gatorade, Nike, Gillette, and AT&T. After, this incident these companies had removed him from all advertising that he was put in. This had to affect Tiger tremendously because more than half of his earnings came from endorsements. This also affected his personal life and relationship with his wife. When athletes create an odd situation as Woods did, it causes businesses to reevaluate the people they use to promote their products. Bad actions create bad business. Bad business means no money. Companies want athletes to have the best public image so that they can gain a larger net income from selling products, or attending public events set up by the company.

Michael Vick Quarterback of the Philadelphia Eagles, has just made his return to the NFL this past season. Michael Vick was accused of using and selling dogs for dogfights. He was sentenced to twenty-three months in prison and fined the Atlanta Journal-Constitution estimated that Vick has incurred financial losses of $142 million, including $71 million in Falcons salary, $50 million in endorsement income and nearly $20 million in previously paid bonuses (http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3148549). Also, Ugueth Urbina, a relief pitcher in the MLB was charged with attempt of murder and was sentenced to fourteen years in prison and ended his professional baseball career. Not only did he commit a crime, but he also ended his career thus making him not marketable at all and hurting his chances of possibly ever getting another job throughout his life. The media can come in and can basically crush you as an athlete. Jacob Volkmann a UFC fighter was asked by a reporter who he wanted as his next opponent for a fight. He wanted to fight “idiot” Barack Obama. Yahoo sports were notified about the situation where (MMAWeekly.com) interviewed Volkmann. “It happened on Tuesday, I was coaching youth practice, and then two guys came up and one of the other coaches that was helping me out, they said there was a cop and another guy out there waiting for me, I went out there and the guy introduced himself and said he was from the Secret Service and he wanted to ask me some questions about UFC 125 and my quote”.

In conclusion, these are some examples of athletes and negative marketability. Athletes have to represent themselves in a positive manner at all times in order to be more marketable. Compete hard and stay out of trouble is the best way for businesses to look at an athlete thus creating their marketability.

EBay; Friend or Foe?

Kayla Michel

English 110.01

Hannah Stephenson

English Final

EBay; Friend or Foe?

If you were out for money, where is the first place you would you start? EBay is practically a play ground for criminals, and these days it’s almost simple, Right? The identifier of eBay’s largest company, PayPal, is that it makes online purchasing easy by saving users’ information but the entire idea is obviously not making things ‘easier’ for the users who have been robbed by this service. Shopping online in an ‘e-environment’ of which it is imperative that you question every user’s credibility has never been so dangerous… or easy.

Today, it is usually second nature to zip to your favorite store’s website and begin adding things to your cart, but have you ever stopped to think about what you’re actually doing? Stores like American Eagle or other large corporations have regulations and policies whereas websites like eBay have to be a little skimpy on their company’s policies, and honestly a bit too general to feel any sense of security. On a website where it’s almost ‘free for all’, there have to be some sorts of policies, however if you significantly study them, it is purely the honors system. In corporate America, who plays by the rules if you can get away with something? Even though cyber shopping has become a huge part of today’s society, it is extremely obvious that you are not supposed to hand a stranger a credit card and trust that they be completely honest with it, and do the right thing.

EBay’s largest company PayPal has become famous for being the easy way to pay, but we shouldn’t make it that easy. PayPal makes it ten times simpler for cyber thieves because once they crack the system even a small amount, they have everything they need to crash as many accounts as they so desire. This is abundantly counterproductive in the case of all users but especially those who are not excessively active and just happen to have their information sitting on the web for the rare instance that they would stumble upon eBay or an alternative website that accepts PayPal.

As convenient as it is, why would a company that literally makes theft easier, prosper? In the case of Josh from AboutPayPal.org, it is evident that the PayPal team is not doing a thing to convince customers otherwise. In the article, he describes his discontent towards PayPal from a malicious experience where PayPal actually sided with the e-thief. After he paid an eBay user for an item and never received it, he confronted the PayPal Service Team about the situation, and a refund. When PayPal would not hear his case and hid behind their policies, he knew he was being scammed. If a company cares that insignificantly about their customers, it’s evident that they aren’t worth your time or your money. “In both cases, I was the victim of fraud, but because of the way PayPal structures their policies, I was completely unprotected, and PayPal even went so far as to PROTECT THE PERSONS THAT WERE DEFRAUDING ME!” says Josh (AboutPayPal.org, paragraph 5). The anger comes across crystal clear in this claim, PayPal isn’t exactly what one would call ‘customer friendly’.

There are already a few corporations like PayPal that are on the rise; the difference is that these new companies don’t happen to have large ties to hugely successful enterprises like eBay.com. It isn’t clear what is holding the world back from realizing that PayPal.com is solely out to scam you. Whether it’s the money behind PayPal, the fact that they’ve been around for a long time, or just their affiliation with eBay, but whatever it is, it should be loud and clear to PayPal that they should absolutely head for the hills. So what will the future hold, there has to be a grand alternative for PayPal.com. When it will emerge is not altogether definite but it’s safe to assume that the world is hoping for sooner rather than later.

evaluation

For this course I think that I have opened up my mind to writing differently. Before this course and throughout high school, when I would sit down to write, I always felt stressed out about how I was going to word my thoughts so that they not only made sense to me in my head, but made sense to the reader. I have learned to not stress myself out so much when writing. Writing to me now is not something I need to get all worked up about it has become a way to put on paper, or put in words what I think about something. As a writer, I think that I have improved on making my point more clear to the reader; rather than rambling on about a subject and adding unnecessary words. Something that I still want to work on is coming up with a good thesis statement for my paper. To me that is the hardest part about putting together a well developed essay or piece of writing. During future writing projects, I am going to keep in mind that writing can be fun and doesn't have to be something to dread.

Perez Hilton

Claire Warner

Hannah Stephenson

English 110.01

March 14, 2011

So many people these days are caught up in what’s the newest and juiciest gossip involving celebrities, famous athletes, and music artists. It can sometimes be rough for celebrities to get by each day with living in the spotlight. There are so many people out there who support and are obsessed with their favorite movie star, performer, or celebrity but then there are also people out there who criticize celebrities for their every move and mistake. Perez Hilton is a unique character that has both of these personas. Perez Hilton has his own celebrity blog and loves to sit on his computer all day updating his website with the newest gossip in the media spotlight at the time. Most of his posts are crude and contain doodles on the faces of the celebrity he is blogging about, demeaning them as a person. Some may say he is the most awful person for poking fun at celebrities, on the other hand some think that Perez Hilton is the most honest and hilarious blogger when it comes to the topic of social media and celebrities.

If you think about how much social media has changed in the last ten or fifteen years it is crazy. There didn’t used to be so many celebrity blogs, there wasn’t as many online dating websites, there wasn’t FaceBook, and there were not so many fanatics concerned with social media. People have always been and always will be curious to see what is going on in the lives of a celebrity. Ever since way back in the day, the community has always respected people who had a lot of money, those who were famous because of being on Broadway or being an actor in a silent movie. Today it is the same way. Though people are famous for different reasons, they are still looked up too because of their salary and their status in society.

The Perez Hilton blog is interesting to me. When I first heard about this website, and heard about who Perez was I didn’t expect his blog to be so loud and colorful, and full of his ideas and doodled images. My first impression of Perez was that he was a celebrity guru, and loved to follow and update the world with what’s new in the media spotlight. Some of what I thought turned out to be true. Perez Hilton’s blog is famous for bashing the celebrities that he is blogging about, and demeaning the character they are with doodling on their faces. After the first time viewing this website I was hooked. Every time I looked at it there was something new for me to laugh at, as well as keeping me informed with the newest and best gossip.

Though many people look at the Perez Hilton blog site to get a laugh, his website can be controversial. Many of the celebrities that are on his website, take offense to what he has to say about their lives, and who they are as a person. But this is what makes him such a well-known and popular blogger. He is famous for knowing anything and everything about celebrity news, and celebrity gossip. Though most of what he says comes of to his followers, and especially distasteful to the celebrity he is blogging about, it is his crude way of bashing celebrities that keeps more and more people interested in his site.

Though the Perez Hilton website has undergone much criticism through the years, his website has turned out to be a success. More and more people obsessed with celebrities have began so be loyal followers of his site; and people who are new to his site, have also begun to really enjoy reading his crude posts daily to get a good laugh. Though his posts can sometimes be harsh, or crude they will continue to attract new readers, as long as Perez keeps his ego of being “The Queen of all Media”.

A Rappers Life

The image rappers portray are not accurate to their life style. Rappers live the life of luxury but rap about how hard life is in the hood. On top of that they use random negative remarks just to maintain the limelight. But who's to blame, the rappers or the fans that allow this non-sense to continue. In fact through their twitters pages, songs, life style, and past most of them do not deserve the credit of being a gangster and it is the followers of these rappers fault that they have become such popularity monsters and don't deserve it.

On Kanye Wests twitter I noticed how he follows no one. This shows his arrogance. He says things like "you don't know how hard this life is." In 2008 the Billboard "Music money makers list put him in 20th with $42,552,402". On his twitter he made light of his inappropriate remark toward Taylor Swift when she got an award and he interrupted her insulting her during her acceptance speech. He also did this when Brittany Spears beat him out for number one. He wrote "Yo Britney, I'm really happy for you and I'mma let you be #1, but me and Jay-Z's single is one of the best songs of all time! LOL." Is this appropriate? The next twitter page I went to was Little Wayne's or Weezys. He wrote things like "Ya'll know I didn't say that." But he continually uses it like a defiance mechanism writing things about the people who supposedly started these rumors. He talks about people saying things like happy holiday slime.

In many of rappers music, since the begging of their careers they have used women in negative way's in their music with statements like "22 percent (N = 107) of the 490 gangster rap music songs had violent and misogynist lyrics" (Armstrong 96-126) that one study showed. This means that even when rap first started they were using profanity in songs and treating women badly through word of mouth. Some people even say that "violence and criminality are linked. The Ghetto Boys (1990g) kick a female employee for not quickly complying with their commands during a robbery. Ice-T (1987) mentions another woman's positioning as the object of opposition to drug use. A homeboy broke his girlfriend's jaw "for smokin' cane." (Armstrong 96-126). Kids that think its cool to do these things in songs would also think it's cool to do these things in real life. They act like their role models and do what they say. Rappers like Little Wayne and Kanye have never lived in the ghetto in face their parents are quit wealthy. With songs like "Hustler Musik" and "Drunk and Hot Girls" the two rappers try to portray a gangster, and obviously talk negatively about women. This is just so hypocritical toward anyone from these parts of society. They also demoralize women with songs like "I Invented Sex" and "Fall For your Type". Are they good role models? It is " shown that at between 2 and 25 years of fame, both North American and European pop stars tend to experience two to three times the risk of mortality expected in an average population matched by age, sex, and in North America, ethnicity" (Bellis 896-901). It is good to idolize someone whose life style is killing them faster than the average person. This faster death rate is because a "disproportionate amount of their mortality appears to be related to alcohol and drug use." (Bellis 896-901) So why is it so great to be one of these rappers.

So something important that these ideas have brought up is if the rappers are the ones who should be blamed or the listeners who let them do what they do. First off, no one can be famous without fans. So if people continue to be fans of these rappers why should they stop. If something makes you a whole lot of money would you ever stop doing it? So are the rappers themselves to blame? The answer is no. So I call for a change in how people see these men. If we change how we view them they will change how they act in order to maintain their fame. So I beg you to not feed their ego any longer, but to rise up and demand change in their attitudes. We should destroy the monsters we created.