Sneakers!

What makes your pop-culture focus popular among large gropus of people?:
Sneakers have become important in our culture through the necesity for sports and excercise, along with the clever endorsements from the sneaker industry utilizing pop culture icons to promote the expensive or desireable ones. They are still popular from continued use and expanded advertising. They are ingrained societies list of necesities.

What does its popularity reveal about our society, culture or nation?:
Sneakers reveal the societies obsession with fitness, or the idea that through them they can become fit. They also show our dependance on figures in the spotlight. Children want the sneakers that their favorite basketball players wear, or that their idol from the oc is selling. They also reveal the consumer nature of the country. Our sneakers are not made to last, we are supposed to buy new pairs when the old ones go "out of season". They are seasonable and getting more and more specialized for what they can do. Our culture turns a blind eye on how they are made, and continues to buy them.

What does this sugguest about Cultural values?:
This suggests that we are a rather shallow culture that cares only about the asthetics of what is on our feet and not about the world that created them. We would rather pay wayyy too much on a pair of shoes that our idol wears, than help out the 5 year old kid that made them in some third world country.

What do these values say about our culture's priorities, beliefs, or fantasys?:
First, it says that we are shallow, and ignorant of what goes on to create the lifestyle that we enjoy. Next it sugests that we would rather be precieved as cool than wear something that may not be the best just because it is endorsed by someone we like.
Our fantasies are also shown by sneakers. We want to be trendy like Mischa, or athletic like Michael Jordan. We want to be able to do all these things that the people in the sneaker adds are doing. We all want to be that fit person, or that trendy person. When we buy the sneakers we buy the image that goes with them.

What alternatives to such values, if any?
The alternatives would be to be less a consumer cultures. To care more about the world than the type of sneakers we wear. We could do more physical work, instead of having to work out. We could rearrange our priorites completely by having no idols and heros, which would change our views on clothing.

Sneakers can teach us about who the public looks up to, and what the styles are. Where the sneakers are made can tell us about the economic state of other countries, as well as our own bye their prices. Sneakers reflect our excess, which we can learn alot from.

ps. i only brought one copy of my paper to class on wednesday, but i do have one written.


Bush's decisions, although he may be a religious person, are not religion based
*different groups in US
*us secular, but not neutral to religions
*Quote from "BUSH ON RELGION..." backing up bush's personal religious views
*percentage of evangelicals
*difference in gov. helps balance out religious domination
*bush has a religious background similar to a large chunk of the country
*bush family
*his wife
*arrest due to intoxication led to religion for bush
*way he chose was mainstream
-answers.com article "George W. Bush"(info): backing up religious info
*has followers who believe his religion which helps
-quote from "Bush on Religion.." from G. Bush about his religion
*opposition to chrisitian expression in government institutions
-Krattenmaker qote: about limits on expression
*although bush's voice comes out as decidedly religious
-Saleeba, religion turning things good and evil
*religion is limited
*state of religion in us, and expected change
*protestant group declining
-Brenner: statistics on religion
*future of christianity and protestant and muslim religions
-Barret, stats on future of religion
*how religion is being seen in goverment now
*used more to garner support
-brenner: on how bush uses his religion for war support
*can't know real reasoning
*large part of the country like the religous backing
*conclusion
*bush's voice can't change the face of government or religion

i still have a lot of work to do rounding out my argument.

Sorry this is so late, i know i have more catching up to do, i've just been sick and stuff....

Topic: Religion in Government

Narrowed Topic: President Bush's current use of religion

Issue: President Bush's religion is heavily influencing the decisions he makes in regard to this country.

Research Question: Are the views of the president based on religion, and does this make them determental?

Thesis: The United States today is going through a crisis of identity of sorts revolving around the peoples beliefs; in a diverse nation the goverment, and more specifically the president hold views modeled by his christian beliefs, which may not be in the best interests of the general public.

Ahhh... i'm trying, i just feel like this keeps getting harder and harder.

So the bibliography got a little messed up when i copy pasted it, but i have the hard copy on my computer. I'm still not completely sure what my paper is going to be on, so i picked a bunch of references about religion in government and the future of that. I figure i can talk maybe about where we stand now, briefly about the war on terrorism which comes up in alot of the articles, and bring that into speculation of where we will stand not to far from now, and how the world will be. I'm going to use the filter of cultural memory/loss that i was talking about before.
The annotated bibliography is the next post down.

Annotated Bibliography
Bartlett, Robert C. "Socratic Political Philosophy and the Problem of Virtue." American Political Science Review 96(2002):525- 534.
This article reviews the idea that virtue and government can only be combined in certain
specific ways. These ways are viewed through the filter of Plato Meno’s past works.
Johnson, Todd M. And David. B. Barret. "Quantifying Alternate Futures of Religion and Religions." Futures 36(2004): 947-960.
The basis of this essay is to discuss the way that religions have been monitored (numerically), and how they will change in the future. The basis for the future data is fact and scientific calcuations, that the authors believe is more accurate than any previous
calculation.
Kraltenmaker, Tom. "A ‘War" on Christians? No." Editorial. 26 Mar. 2006. 6 Apr. 2006.
.
This editorial is a rant on a conference of Christian "stars" who believe that there is a war
against them. The author points out that sure Christianity may be limited in the secular
world, but with a real war going on, one with real casualties, the Christian groups
shouldn’t throw that term around so lightly, and realize they are not really being fought against.
McCormick, Patrick T. "Violence: Religion, Terror, War." Theological Studies 67(2006):
143-164.
This is a survey discussing religious violence and terrorism sometimes with information on how the bible contributes to this violence. The main part of the paper also discusses
how moral values are a needed challenge to terrorism and how contemporary war and violence tie into these topics.
Saleeba, Elissar. "Religion and Government Should never be mixed." Editorial. 9 Apr. 2004.
6 Apr. 2006. <

The Breakdown:
Topic: Religion in Government
Subtopid: Culturla Memory/Loss
Narrowed Topic: Influence of Goverment on World
Issue: How has the religious ideals of the United States Government Affected the wars we have
fought, and how has this changed over the years.
Hypothesis: Religion has given the states reasons to fight through morals derived from religion,
and with the changing morals, the wars themselves have changed.

First of all, i'd like to ask why this assignment is huge, emense, and ridiculously long. I would much rather be sleeping.

1. I would like to explore the oppinions of others revolving around religion and government. I think this will also cover morals, and other idea, but the main point is what rules government?
Should religion have a foothold in government, as the christian religion so clearly does in ours? Is this a problem? There is also a whole gray area middle ground. Is religion just another way of saying morals.
2. I'm interesting in this topic because the one i really wanted to do didn't really seem to be talked about at all the the things i looked at. This on the other hand is very much open for debate. It effects not only what our country does here, but abroad, and how other countries act. Its not a really narrow subject,there is plenty of room for doing different degrees of religion in goverment.
I also like how religion in different countries affects them so differently. Like frances aversion to religion and the laws they passed banning religious garments and jewlery in schools, or muslim countries where extremely religiuos groups have strong footholds. Religion in the U.S. is also a touchy subject for me, since even our own politicians feel they can make blanket statements like saying this this a chrisitian nation. Defining the U.S. by its predominant religion.
3. I'm not sure what i want to find out yet. Why don't you give us a tad more time to breath and work it out, instead of just giving us more work.
4. Right now i know that there are people on both sides of the line. The last election was won on vaguely religious issues and how morals of people were played off of in a religious light.

Ok. i'm going to take a break here and say this assignment is stressing me out since i still have to finish editing the paper and you want me to do MORE research. I'd very much like to be done already.

Someone who has spoken out against religion in the goverment in a really odd way is a man named michael newdow, who doesn't want his daughter to have to say "under god" in the pledge of alliegence. On the other side of the fence there are those like Jimmy Carter who believe so strongly in their religion that it is incorporated into everything they do.

5. the sources i found look pretty good, on usa today online they have a link that deals with faith and plenty of those articles seem to fit. I could look for hard copies too, in the library or in newspapers, since this topic seems to come up alot.

The end.
Ps. next time, maybe you should give us m ore time to comment on other peoples, since 1. i'm not up past 11pm and 2 have not so much time after my other classes before your's to do much work. If i even make it back to my room.