I was only here for half the lesson so.....

Unfortunatly I had two disruptions that hindered my ability to listen to the culture lessons in their entirety for the past two days. The deans have no respect for sociology. Couldn't they have waited a period and taken me out of math? Unbelievable. But the culture differences I did hear were vast. Its pretty crazy how simple gestures can mean totally different things in different countries, like the A-OK symbol meaning butthole in Italy. Speaking of that, something even as common as toilets are very different. Japenese toilets are on the ground so there is no seat for sitting, which keeps the experiance more sanitary. Ive got to say it makes sense. Public bathrooms would be much less uncomfortable if there was no seat-skin contact between everybody on earth.
And also signs of respect are really different around the world. Showing respect in the United States means looking someone in the eye, maybe shaking hands, and generally not saying anything insulting. In some eastern asian countries (china, south korea), respect is measured with a bow. I watched a show Lie to Me, which is on Wednesday 9/8c on Fox (which is not on this week because of a two hour American Idol show, I'm furious!) , and on last weeks episode a body guard showed the korean ambassador's son a lack of respect by giving him a shallow bow. The body guard is treating the ambassador's son as an equal, which is a sign of disrespect givin the different statuses. In America we don't even bow. And I doubt the average american would recognize the shallow bow as a lack of respect. This all reflects the cultures we grow up in.

From now on, you're C

C had two people in his life that were father figures, his true father and Sonny. They both played different roles in his upbringing, and Sonny respected them accordingly. Growing up, C spent a lot of time around Sonny and his gang, and Sonnys advice shaped the way he was more than his father's warnings. Sonny gave C his nickname, he let him roll dice, he let him hang around the bar all because he didn't rat. C valued Sonnys words more than his fathers, which is unfortunate because as it turns out Sonny didn't trust C at all. This is obvious when Sonny holds up C when he thinks he did something to his car and yells at him and hits him over something he never did. Despite C's truthful pleas to be let go, Sonny doesn't believe him.
His father on the other hand was never really a friend to Calogero. He kept telling him how to live his life: to stay out of the bar and respect the working man. As much as C should have listened, he didn't respect his father as much as he did Sonny. His father is truly the one who cared about C, and also the person who C emotionally hurt. When C and his dad got into an argument and said he was taking his anger of being a bus driver out on him, his father was devastated by that. C lives his life throughout the movie backwards, giving too much respect to the mob leader and not enough to his father.

Someones gotta go...

The abandon ship activity clearly defined our values of how "worthy" one person was of living over another. The rate at which our group eliminated some of the members was astounding, and some of them we didnt even consider letting them stay. The drug dealer, the old couple, and the fat millionaire didnt have much of a chance because they have no usefulness on the boat. However, we kept some people who were disabled and physically could not help row. The quarter master and the army captain both stayed despite physical imperfections. The quarter master was kept because he was the father of four children at home, and we decided a wounded father was more valuble to keep aboard than a healthy single millionaire. However, the old couple had the largest family of all, but their children were already parents themselves, so nobody depended direcely on them. If the grandparent was raising a grandchild for one reason or another, it definatly would have changed the situation. The new reality on the boat forced desperate decisions to be made, and what easier way to make them then my majority vote. No one person took direct charge, which probably would have been different had this been a real situation. Different cultures that value different traits in a person would have done the activity differently. This idea of a unique sociological reality is prevalent in many different instances, the F227 and the abandon ship are just a couple examples.

Are you gunna eat that?

This week in class delt a lot with cultural norms and taboo regarding consumption of various things. It started with saliva. To me saliva out of the mouth becomes this totally unnatural and unpleasing thing. Being a baseball player, I admit to being a little hypocritical because I have developed an unflattering habit of spitting outside of a baseball diamond. Spitting is acceptable in baseball, but in our normal everyday society it is not. Sharing saliva outside of the mouth is, to me, not even comparable to doing the same within mouths. I think the mental difference lies with focus. If asked to sip spit off a spoon, the entire focus of your brain, and not to mention your stomach, is on that spit. There is nothing else happining to divert you from thinking about what you are doing. However, kissing provides an alternate focus and the mind is not concerned with sharing saliva. There enlies the difference.

The whole F227 cannibal article didnt really freak me out too much, because I have read various accounts of people surviving by eating people, most notably the Donner Party in the westward expansion times, circa 1840. I think it is a terrible and harsh reality to have to do this to survive. Needless to say, the article made me think of if I would do it. And the answer came down to pretty much one condition: temperature. If the bodies were frozen, as they were in the article, and the Donner party for that matter, I think I could eat the bodies to survive. However, if it was very hot and bodies were rotting and decomposing as time went on I dont think I could physically digest it. Blood plays a big role too. With colder weather, blood wont be as free flowing, and therefore easier to eat the meat. But in the heat blood would be everywhere and once again I dont think I could handle that. But who knows, ive never been in a position remotely close to this, so these feelings could be completely wrong if a time ever presents itself.