essay

I don't think the media dictates what is important to most people. Instead the media takes something that's already important to some people and advertizes it. In other words the media appeals to whatever is popular at the time. If it advertized things that nobody was already doing then it wouldn't be very successful.
Before baggy pants that are about to fall off became a trend that was and is important to a lot of people, people were already wearing them. When I lived in Florida, the ghetto area, we took what we could get. If some pair of pants were on sale we bought it. The size didn't matter. We weren't following a trend but were instead following necessity. Now there aren't many people who wear the right size because the media saw what we were wearing and decided to show others the style that apparently appealed to us.
This previous example was something I experienced myself, but there are many other even more obvious examples as well. For example, models. The media didn't one day decide, "Hey really tall, thin good looking girls are something people mioght like!" No, people already liked that. The media didn't show us the idea of ripped and frayed pants either. That was something that had been happening naturally. Basically the media takes what's already there, what's already important to people and publically displays it with the mindframe, "If these people like this then maybe everyone will."
If you took the standpoint of someone looking to the media to see how other other people are conducting there lives then yes, maybe the media does determine what is important to people. For me, however, and a lot of my friends, we've often been in positions where we already found somehting important even before the media spread the idea.Therefore, no matter what the media displays, for the most part, someone already had the idea and people already found it important.

The Singer Solution to World Poverty

In my opinion this paper pulled a little to much of a guilt trip on me. I felt pretty bad thinking that I was essentially screwing some poor kids life up (possibly killing them) by not donating my "fair share" of $200 to the cause. When I sat and thought about this paper for a few minutes, taking in all of the points given, I came up with a conclusion of my own: I agree that Dora was correct in retrieving the child to prevent his murder and I think that Bob was wrong to pick his Bugatti over the child. The part I don't agree with, however, is the comparison between Bob's situation and mine. If I were Bob I would definitely have saved the kid, but when it is said that I'm in Bob's position when I buy any luxuries, and that I could be saving a child's life instead, I'm a little more skeptical. The child's life in Bob's situation was fully dependant on a choice he made between a luxury and the kid, but my position is entirely different. I'm not going to give up all luxuries and live a life of complete asterity just to potentially help a child. I'm not going to go into my life's history, but I was on welfare a while back and am now miraculously in Hawaii, going to Punahou. This is because of help from some rich relatives. Because of this, however, I don't exactly have very much I could give up to help others when I'm struggling to help myself. Therefore, I can say without guilt that I don't directly hold a child's life in my hands because I'm not in Bob's position, and there is a difference between my position and Bob's (the paper disagreed with this saying that while Bob "killed" a kid to save his Bugatti, I'm "killing" a kid by accepting small luxuries), but I do appreciate the good intent this paper holds and I think that if I'm ever rich, or in some other position where I can offer help I will readily do so.