Blagojevich on "Celebrity Apprentice"

     For the past couple of weeks I have seen various commercials for "Celebrity Apprentice" and happened to see that Illinois' former governnor, Rod Blagojevich is one of the contestants this season. Personally, I am outraged. Blagojevich should be in jail, not on a reality t.v. show. He has used his 15 minutes of fame (and the kind of fame that no one should want) to transform himself into some sort of a celebrity. Before signing on for "Celebrity Apprentice" Blagojevich was originally going to be on a different reality show called "I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!" However, since he is charged with a multitude of crimes, the judge said that he could not participate in the show. But never fear, his wife gladly stepped up and took the role instead. I think it's totally disgusting that Blagojevich would do something like this. He is not a celebrity; he is criminal who has made Illinois the laughing stock of the country. And the media is treating this like it's no big deal. It's like "Hey, if the whole governor thing doesn't work out, just join 'Celebrity Apprentice!'"Another thing that bothered me was the way Blagojevich's little biography is worded on the show's website. It says that Blagojevich was "hijacked from office." He was "hijacked" because he broke the law! That's usually what happens in these kind of situations. I think Blagojevich being in "Celebrity Apprentice" not only gives Illinois a bad rep, but it gives our entire country a bad rep. It's like the media is just shrugging off all of his wrong-doings and glorifying a man who does not deserve to be glorified. It sheds a bad light on American politics, if you ask me, and it definitely does not present a good image of America.

Some More Commentary on Cigarette Advertising...

     After reading both Maeli and Ruchi's blogs about cigarette advertising I decided I wanted to blog about the same thing since I find this topic to be rather interesting. So I guess I'll just elaborate/restate my comments that I wrote on their blogs.
     Yesterday afternoon I talked to my mom about this and she said that when she was growing up, she saw commercials on t.v. all the time for cigarettes. Now, televised commercials for cigarettes are banned. (Here is a little history of cigarette advertising throughout the years). But print ads and billboards are still allowed, of course; it's the tobacco industry after all. But it's interesting to note where you see the ads. You're not going to find Camel ads in Seventeen magazine or Tiger Beat. Now that would be corrupting little kids' minds. But you'll definitely see them in Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, and Rolling Stone magazine. This website actually lists the magazines that cigarette ads are published in and a little description of the ad as well. You can really tell the targert audience for the ads just by the magazine that the ad was published in. For example, from the website linked above, I saw that a cigarette ad was published in Cosmopolitan and the description of the ad was "winter mocha mint- warm toffee." Just taking a guess, I think women are more likely to buy cigarettes that are describes as "winter mocha mint" than men, and that's probably why it was published in Cosmopolitan.
     Like Ruchi talked about in her blog, I think cigarette sales have a lot to do with their packaging. As I saw in France, there is a brand of cigarettes called "Pink Elephants" and the cigarettes are entirely pink. I don't know how many men are going to buy pink cigarettes, so you can really tell what kind of people this brand is targeting. As Ruchi also mentioned in her blog, Camel was targeting women in their ads, as well, with cigarettes being described as "light and luscious." It's interesting to see how cigarette ads tremendously vary by gender.
     So as I walking to my car yesterday afternoon I was trying to think of something to blog about, and being really desperate I looked at the ground to see what kinds of things people litered on the sidewalk near the school. And it actually turned out to be very interesting. This is what I saw: cigarette butts, empty cigarette boxes, and a Ghiradelli chocolate wrapper. Cigs and desginer chocolate. That's the North Shore for ya I thought. Any thoughts?

A Change of Scenery

     Over the weekend I ventured past the boundaries of the North Shore, and keeping in mind last week's discussion of the physical differences between towns even within 30 minutes of us, I noticed these differences almost immediately. I remember Mr. Bolos saying how there was nowhere to quickly buy a sandwhich near New Trier. I hadn't really though about this before, but I realized that he was right. There are no fast food restaurants near New Trier. You would have to drive all the way to downtown Winnetka to the one McDonald's there, or a mall to get to the food court. So driving down the main road through this unknown town, I saw that the entire road was almost virtually composed of fast food restaurants. Any fast food restaurant that you could possibly think of was on this road. The nicest sit-down restaurant I saw was Chili's. And the stores that lined the street were all discount type of stores like Old Navy and Nordstrom Rack. And with these simple observations, I think I finally realized how incredibly different the North Shore was from everywhere else; it is a place where sit-down restaurants are the norm and Old Navy is a 30 minute drive away. It's not like I had never seen places like this before, but I had just never fully taken into account these differences and made something of it. It was like I was looking at the same thing only with different eyes.

Life and Times of the North Shore: Some Memoirs

     So with all this discussion about social class, I thought I should write something about it. So I decided to write about some stories that happened to me (related to social class, of course). I remember in junior high, teachers would constantly make comments to us about how we lived in the North Shore. Before 6th grade, I was pretty naive and didn't really know the status of the North Shore. I had never been exposed to anything else, so I thought that the life I lived was like everyone else's in the world. Obviously I was wrong. But anyhow, starting about 6th grade the comments started. It came first from my gym teacher. I can't remember exactly what she said, but it was something along the lines of how we wouldn't have to worry about the same kind of things as her because we lived in the North Shore. And in 7th grade, one of my teachers asked us to bring in a binder the next day. Naturally, we all started to complain. How would we have enough time to get a binder by tomorrow? And then my teacher freaked out a little and said, "You live in the North Shore. You can afford it." I don't mean to talk bad about my past teachers. But these are the times that I most remember my social class being brought up by own teachers. Even as I think about it now, I find it a little strange that teachers would say something like that to little kids.
     So that was in junior high. And I went to a pretty homogenous junior high. Practically everyone was white and we were all pretty much in the same boat, so to speak. But interestingly, I noticed that once I got to high school, the comments about living in the North Shore stopped. The beginning of high school also marked the time that I truly opened my eyes to the world. I realized that the world is a pretty big place, and not everyone was like me. Not everyone was in the same boat as me anymore. There were people who had to worry about money on a daily basis, which is something I was not really used to at the time. Suddenly, social class actually meant something to me. So like the title says, these are just some memoirs from living in the North Shore.
     Fin.