Doc Roldan’s Blog: Writing on Writing

This cigarette ad captures the majority of the younger population. The fact that Camel Lights chose a cartoon camel as their main focus in the picture catches the attention of a younger person. I mean cartoons pretty much do not appeal to adults opposed to a younger crowd. Also, the appearance of the camel portrays a person in their early twenties or possibly teenage years. For instance, he has sunglasses on and a cap turned backwards, while playing a favorite pastime; pool. This ad is extremely eye catching because of the animated camel playing pool with this stylish look of his. I know a lot of money went into this campaign and it is worth it because you have to market your product in order to sell it. Not that I agree with smoking because I am personally against it, however I still give this company credit for such a creative ad.

This reading discusses the fact that sleeping pills are not recommended for people under the age 18, however every 1 out of 500 children take sleeping pills. The reason this medication is not recommended is because it is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration and that is mainly because sleeping pills have not been extensively studied among children. Doctors are concerned with children taking sleeping medication because most teens go through a phase which entails a lack of rest. Therefore, doctors are concerned with the issue that there may be an epidemic of unnecessary sleeping pill prescriptions. Personally, I believe that children should not be taking this type of medication because there has not been a study conducted that entails the side effects. I also agree that teens go through a phase where they do sleep less than normal.

According to this passage, two renowned publications USA Today and New York Times recently had a story about the study on the use of sleeping medication among teens. It has been statistically proven that the usage of sleeping medication has increased among adolescences’ by 85% between 2000 and 2004. The increase has been a huge debate and USA Today presents the idea that children in need of this particular medication are more than likely to suffer from various health problems. Many believe that this data is significant because sleeping pills may have a negative effect; however that has not been scientifically proven.

This advertisement is offending towards athletes. Yes, many people do perceive football players as being big drinkers (and they are not always wrong) but they often fail to realize how much hard work and training goes into winning a game. The producers of this add claim to understand that it takes “raw strength, fierce determination, and a strong sense of pride” to be successful. Now I ask you, how does Budweiser fit into that combination? How does Budweiser give these elite athletes the extra inch of strength to stand their ground? The answer: it doesn’t. The extra inch is going to come from the hard practices and mental preparation; not a night out at the bar. Of course, it may seem like a good idea to have these tough young men as the face of their product because many people look up to them as roll models and therefore are more likely to buy the drink. Budweiser has no right to take credit for the success of these athletes and it is shameful that they should even consider using athletes in their campaign.

This cartoon, taken from the portfolio of advertisements, uses extreme persuasive techniques in an attempt to get readers to buy their product. Yet the claims made in the advertisement hinder buyers willingness to buy the product more than they help. The gorgeous girl in the cartoon is suggesting that the morning after drinking Cossack Vodka you will feel “so beautiful!” The producers of this add take the claim to another level in saying that you will feel “just as beautiful as the night before”. Any person with common sense who reads this advertisement knows that the chance of feeling and looking as good as the night before is very unlikely. These false claims make buyers hesitant towards buying the drink because they question the validity of the advertisement and cannot trust that the quality is as “pure” and “clean” as they say it is. Perhaps the cartoon would be more affective if its claims were less extreme and it did not make promises that could not be guaranteed.

In “Opinions and Social Pressure” by Solomon E. Asch, human response to decision making by group pressure is discussed. The author sets up experiments to put college students to the test. These experiments told participants that they were doing a “psychological experiment” in visual judgment. Whole groups were told to disagree with one person who was unsuspecting of the trials to measure the amount of conformity or independence to social groups. The results were almost very uniform and showed that most people do question themselves when being opposed. Many variations of the experiment were done, for example, adding a partner to discuss decisions with, taking them away during the experiment, and discovering how many disagreeing people it would take to make a person question their answer. The point of this passage is to show how and experiment lead us to know more about humankind and social standards of acceptance even when things may be false or wrong.  /Walker, Samson

This article discusses the dependency of children to prescription sleeping pills. Kim Painter asks the question: “Are we raising pill dependent insomniacs?” The answer, she finds, is no. The number of kids on these drugs is miniscule and those that are on them have complex reasons. Thomas Anders, president of American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, believes that insomnia is a learned behavior that can essentially be un-learned. Because of this, he thinks that medication is not necessary. I agree with Anders when he says that it is a learned behavior. I also believe that sleeping pills are sometimes necessary for a short amount of time to help in the process of ending child insomnia.

In his article, William Bennet discusses why allowing gay marriage is a bad idea. He argues that the definition of marriage involves the union of a man and a woman, and not two men and two women. Having it include gay and lesbian couples would be stretching the meaning. He states that he is not in any way trying to put anyone down with his argument. Bennet says that he is trying to maintain the traditional understanding of marriage.

In “Kids Using Sleeping Pills” Rebecca Goldin and Grace Harris discuss the fact that there is an increase in prescription sleeping pills used by adolescents. The authors of this article found that, although the use is increasing, it is far from and addiction. In the magazine USA Today, it was stated that the number of kids taking these prescription drugs is small. Also, those that do need these medicines do not need them for long. It was found that more than half of the prescriptions were not refilled. Goldin and Harris noted that doctors do not see any large risks with these pills and because of this, continue to prescribe them. Still, USA Today and the New York Times attempt to keep the risks in perspective.

In this article, “The Satisfaction of Housewifery and Motherhood”, Terry Hekker writes about being a housewife and being happy with it as her occupation. I enjoyed reading this editorial. Hekker’s language and style of writing is very clever as well as enjoyable. In her discussion of being a stay-at-home mom, the author includes statistics of other housewives. She also talks about her own experiences in this field of work.

In her article, Michelle Cottle makes many good points about why polygamy can be something positive for marriages in this day and age. At first, when I began reading, I was completely against the idea of man having more than one wife. Cottle’s points, however, made me see how it could be helpful. She backed up her position by discussing the fact that lightening a mom’s/wife’s workload, hiring a nanny or being a stay-at-home mother was not enough to raise perfect children while maintaining a healthy married life. It is not enough, she says, to fill the emotional and spiritual void left by the disappearance of the traditional wife. Enter wife number two. Cottle thinks that with an extra woman, juggling good child raising as well as a successful marriage could be possible. She also states that this polygamy situation would not involve maximizing the number of offspring. Because Michelle Cottle makes this statement, I can see how it could be beneficial. Though, personally, I would not even consider the idea.

In this article, Kowinski deals with a sickness which he calls “Mal de mall” or mall sickness and presents symptoms of different individuals which he made up. The main idea behind this article is that malls are created in a way by which we loose the sense of reality and time and therefore we can be there for hours without even noticing it. Kowinski also mentions that all malls look the same, therefore, we get lost; it’s almost impossible to communicate with others in the mall; malls are compared to a plastic place since it is constituted of plastic people with plastic money buying plastic objects and finally the zombie effect. I thought the comparison of the mall zombie effect with the television zombie effect was really good and I agree with it, since, whenever I watch TV I loose time notion and the same happens at malls.

I consider this article interesting, since it deals with the physiological effects of people while being in prison. Although, here they used a fake prison, fake guards and fake prisoners, the physiological results from these individuals were shocking. The prisoners turned to be completely submissive towards the guards and even two of them were extracted from the experiment due to extreme depressions after only two days had passed. Moreover, Guards were totally authoritarian and practiced despotism by mocking and abusing prisoners. I think this article taught me how people can react on this places and how different circumstances can affect people’s life so easily.

This ad for Camel is cleary targeting the male population.  Theres only a guy in the ad and he looks like the typical tough guy.  He has his hair slicked back, and he’s wearing a white tshirt. He almost has a sort of greaser look to him.  It’s ridicuous to think that smoking this brand of cigarettes will make you more macho or better looking, but this is clearly the image that this company is trying to protray. The man in the ad is seen as being “cool” in the eyes of most and this is what males are going to strive for.  Logically we al know that cigarettes wont make you into the guy you see in the ad, but the association is still there, and people still want to project that image. /Robinson

This ad for Philip Morris cigarettes is obviously geared toward women.  Even though there’s also a guy in this ad, the woman is the center focus and is obviously being catered to by a handsome guy.  Its in a tropical beach setting and theslogan at the bottom is “gently does it”.  The companys aim is to put forth this idea that if you’re the type of girl who likes to kick back on the beach on perfect sunny days while good looking men rub you down, then these are the cigarettes for you.  Of course this is ridiculous, but appeals that involve any sort of sex or luxury are pretty popular in ads and suprisingy affective.  Even though no one has these concious thoughts, the fact that the association has been made makes it an effective ad. /Robinson

Milgram explains how we’ve been programed from birth to follow orders from authority figures, even when its a poor idea.  He talks about how there was apparently some experiment done with some Yale students that proved how some people really dont question authority when it might be necessary.  The experiment shows some disturbing evidence about how people will do some pretty awful things if ordered to do so by some sort of official.  I think to a certain extent most people operate this way, most of us have been conditioned to obey those in charge to avoid the reprecussions and now its something were hardly concious of.  Its easy to lose sight of the real reason behind things.  When were really young its probrably necessary to be conditioned to follow even if the entire reason behind an order isnt known, but this is something that people ought to unlearn as they get older.  /Robinson

This article was very interesting since I know several people that require sleep aids. The article states that many people believe that taking pills would solve most everyday problems that people encounter. Its an increasing epidemic that is happening in America. I think this is such an increasing problem since America is a pill popping nation that rather takes some magical pill than face their own problems. It seems like the easy way out and since many young adults have trouble sleeping they must depend on sleep aids. After they are exposed to these drugs sometimes their bodies require the drug to just go to sleep so this is a building decency./ Tony Nguyen

This ad is very different than that of the other liquor by that it tries to show that Hennessey cognac is for the more elite people. The layout if a little snotty showing a woman that looks very snotty and having the words “the taste of success.” This clearly shows how sophisticated drinking this product will make you and shows that this is very high class. This might attract those that want to have a sample of the good life in the lower classes or those that just enjoy the different taste./ Tony Nguyen