Documentary Midterm

I found the documentary Food Inc. to be quite disturbing and saddening. It is very sad that some farmers, such as the chicken farmers, have to live in fear of their contracts to the large meat companies being terminated if they do not follow every rule the companies create. Such as the chicken farmer lady whose contract was terminated because she would not use the dark chicken houses. It is disgusting that her contract was terminated because she refused to basically torture the chickens by not allowing them to ever see daylight. Another sad aspect was how easily e. coli can spread. If the companies would take care of the cows and other animals before they slaughter them, by simply cleaning their stalls or hosing the manure off of their hide, then e. coli would not be spread so easily. Because so many different chunks of thousands of different cows are mixed together, if just one of those cows has e. coli then the whole batch gets e. coli. But, because it only takes one cow in thousands to contaminate the whole batch of meat it is often hard to detect when the meat is contaminated until it is too late. E. coli poisoning can often be confused with less serious stomach problems so many people do not seek medical attention until it is almost too late, or in some cases do not seek medical attention at all. Then after it is evident that someone has e. coli it is difficult to trace where they picked it up from, and many more cases often arise before the source is found. This can often result in many deaths from e. coli poisoning that could be prevented if the meat packing companies would take better care that no e. coli carrying contaminants, such as manure, can enter the meat. But instead they are too busy trying to find ways to chops up the animal carcases faster and making more money. It disgusts me that the companies that make our food do not care if it kills us so long as they get their paycheck. And the worst part is that those lives could be saved if the company would take a little extra care and time to prevent the contamination.

Wiki #1: Coca Cola

The first recipe for Coca Cola was invented by John Pemberton as an alcoholic drink, called Pemberton's French Wine Coca. However, after the Prohibition passed in1886, Pemberton re-invented the drink, making a non-alcoholic version that he called Coca Cola. The name came from the two main ingredients, the coca leaf and the kola nut. The "k" on kola was changed to a "c" for better marketing. On May 8, 1886 the first glass of Coca Cola was sold for five cents as a medicine. People in the U.S. at that time believed that carbonated water had health boosting qualities, and Pemberton claimed that Coca Cola would cure things such as morphine addiction and headaches. Pemberton than ran his first ad for Coca Cola on May 29, 1886, in the Atlanta Journal. Only two years later a coupon, believed to be the first coupon ever made, was distributed for a free glass of Coca Cola. These coupons were first distributed from 1888 and by 1913 more than 8.5 million had been redeemed. Coca Cola is now a world-wide company, and in 2011 it was distinguished as the world's most valuable brand.

Halloween

Halloween is believed to have developed from the Celtic holiday Samhain, which was held on October 31-November 1. Samhain celebrated the passing of the "lighter" half of the year and the coming of the "darker" half. It was also a time to honor the deceased ancestors or relatives in ones family. This may be where the idea of jack-o-lanterns came from. Jack-o-lanterns where originally carving made in turnips that where meant to honor dead relatives' souls that were stuck in purgatory. When the tradition was carried over to America settlers used pumpkins because they were more abundant and easier to carve. The tradition of honoring the dead also influenced the name "Halloween." Originally in Europe All Saints Day was celebrated on November 1, with All Saints Eve falling on October 31. The name was later changed to All Hallows Day and All Hallows Eve, because the holiday involved honoring the dead, and it was said that the dead should be hallowed. Therefore the term Halloween became a descendant of All Hallows Eve.

Shattered Glass Ops: Messenger Turtles

Snail Mail has Met its Match: Messenger Turtles
Boissevian, Manitoba, Canada.

September 30,2011


The home of the Canadian Turtle Derby has put a new twist on turtle travel. This year they have begun sending "Tommy-grams" in honor of the towns 28 foot tall, 10,000 pound Tommy the Turtle statue, erected in 1974. These Tommy-grams are sent by painting a message on a trained turtles back with a special polish that long time resident George Tantum created. "I got the idea from a turtle I saw along the road once. On it's shell someone had painted 'Tina was here' with hot pink finger nail polish. I knew that Penny was working on training some of the derby turtles to do more than just race so I decided to go with it." Working on discarded turtle shells found in the surrounding wilderness of the town, Tantum created a bright orange polish that can be painted on without harming the turtle, and wiped off with a cloth much like a dry erase board. He then took his idea to Penelope "Penny" Gonzalz, a turtle derby trainer in the town, who fell in love with the idea. "I thought it was a perfect way to capture the town's history and spirit." Gonzalz said. "I always thought that they [the turtles] could do more than just race." she added. After many trials and errors the team finally was successful in sending a message on September 27, 2011. It was a single word "Tommy" and was sent from Gonzalz house to her next door neighbor. They used a fish scented formula to mark the trail in order to lure the turtle to follow it. The turtle obliged and the message was sent successfully. Gonzalz and Tantum both hope that these fun messages will become a tradition at the towns fall festival. "I think if everyone is just really respectful towards the turtles and remember that they are a live animal then it could be a really fun activity for the town."Gonzalz says. Though the Tommy-grams were not part of the 2011 fall festival, which included a town-wide garage sale on September 24th, most of the town is hoping for it's appearance next year.


Boissevian Daily Volume 23 Edition 8 published September 30, 2011

The Orgins of Media

Media began through word of mouth communications between people. Word of mouth communication dates all the way back to Genesis when Adam names all of the creatures of the world. Later in Genesis world of mouth is also used when Adam and Eve speak to each other, when they speak to God, and when the serpent speaks to Eve. This was also the origin of deception in media when the serpent deceived Eve and tricked her into eating the fruit. Word of mouth is still a very important part of media today because it is the main form of communication. Almost all people on the Earth use word of mouth communication every day. Whether it is just saying hi to someone you pass on the sidewalk, or having a long deep conversation about the meaning of life, using word of mouth communication is nearly inevitable. However, sometimes it is impossible to use word of mouth communication because not everyone speaks the same language. When early humans decided to build the Tower of Babylon, that was to be tall enough to reach the heavens, God punished them by giving them different languages. The different languages made it impossible to communicate with one another and led to the abandonment of the tower. Now days people normally learn at least two languages in their life  time so that they can communicate with more people, however, it still makes communicating with other languages difficult. When word of mouth language was developed people often told stories that were passed down from generation to generation. These stories were often histories or traditions of the family that passed them down, and were passed through story-telling, singing, or chants. Eventually there came a time when someone found it necessary to find a way to better record these stories, thus the invention of writing. Writing possibly began by cave paintings, in which important events where recreated using colored paint. From there it may have developed into hieroglyphics, in which symbol represents a specific object. Hieroglyphics first appeared around 3150BC in Egypt. The hieroglyphics made it possible for almost everyone in the Egyptian Empire to receive the same information, because it was recorded exactly and not being altered through different peoples telling. In order to spread the information more quickly, however, roads needed to be developed. Roads are believed to appear sometime before 3000BC. They started out as simple trails connecting different parts of a village, but it was the connection that was important. Roads allowed people to carry information quickly from place to place, and are still important today for people to travel quickly. As time when on the written language needed to be further developed. Instead of using pictures to represent every item in existence, humans needed to be able to use a standard set of characters that could be combined in different ways to represent things. The creation of the Phoenician alphabet enabled this. It was created around 1050BC and consisted of only symbols for consonant sounds. These consonants allowed people to combine different sounds to create words similar to their spoken language. However, the lack of vowels made it difficult to create some words. This was solved when the Romans adapted the Phoenician alphabet and tweaked it to suit there needs by adding vowels. The Phoenician alphabet paved the way for the Greek alphabet which led to the development of the Latin alphabet and so on. Today the alphabet and writing are very important because we receive a lot of information through the written language. Books, magazines, newspapers, the dictionary, and this blog post all use the written word to send a message. This message can be understood by whomever is literate in the language of the message, and does not have to worry about the interference o accents or speech impediments to mess up the message. The spread of literacy was greatly affected by the invention of the Gutenberg printing press in 1440. The printing press allowed documents to be produced in mass proportions and spread throughout different parts of the world. This allowed more people to access the documents, leading to more people being able to learn to read. The printings press was the first invention to allow mass communication, which is a big part of modern day media. People can easily send information anywhere in the world through postal service, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and more. However, none of these would have been possible without the creation of the original forms of media.