Fantasy vs. Harsh Reality

Taylor Vazquez, Amy Hall, and Jennifer Dobie

Daydreaming is a regular thing for majority of people. A place in your mind that you escape to from everyday life, but I think it would be great to actually escape to my fantasy and simply vacation and view it for a week or three. And of course, I found my solution without having to invent a time machine. Colonial Williamsburg a place where I can connect to my inner eighteen century side which sounds pretty un-freaking-believable! Which of course sadly, I have to say this whole entire time it is only an amusement retreat, where they take you on a journey through their version of history to evaluate our fantasy dreams and keep things “G rated”, but we also have to think of what the reality of the 1700’s. Take for example their advertisements, in the brown colored themed the black male dreams to build the town with his hard work skills. Funny, let us view back to our history books please, in the 1700’s blacks were slaves and had no rights, and I do not remember reading about any free blacks riding no their free will to America. The fact that his man is actually dreaming to give up his freedom to build homes for a master seems very unrealistic. Side note- If you look in the corner picture, you see a black man and his son. Notice anything odd? They are extremely clean for slaves, just saying. That master must be in to appearances since they represent him and his wealth. Another is the homeowner doing some yard work in her front lawn. “A gardener of the royal governor…”, so she gives up being a homeowner to a servant for someone just because she has this abnormal love for her hydrangeas which of course are the pride of Virginia. Now my favorite one, the purple themed ad with the very gorgeous Asian lady, She romanticizes being sailed off to the New Land where a rich man starved for love courts her and they end up married because he is not afraid of commitment. Okay one- she would be the mistress because two- she is not white. Three- her family is not wealthy. Four- no one married out of love. Sorry, the reality of the 1700’s is harsh, yes I know. Of course daydreaming is the use of your own creative imagination where actual history does not matter. Now all I have to say to Colonial Williamsburg is, keep it up. You are doing such a fine job of twisting history to match our fantasies, so you can stick your hands in our nice fat wallets. Dream on my friends… Dream on.

3 Colonial Advertisements

By: Tanner Bennett, Callie Ogilvie, Carolynn Dahlfors, and Elliott Crawford

The three advertisements of Colonial Williamsburg show three different kinds of emotion to appeal to many different audiences instead of just one. The purpose of these ads is to try and get people to come visit the "Colonial Williamsburg" which is a city that takes you back in time to the 1800s to see what life was like during that time.

The first ad is in a green color scheme and has a lady raking leaves in her front yard. The ad talks first about the "colonial me". What she would've been if she lived in the 1800s. She sees herself as the gardener to the royal governor. The two perfectly shaped bushes by her front door show that she loves to tend to her garden. This ad would be directed toward the middle class suburban parents who want to get away for a weekend and have fun. The picture at the bottom right shows a very happy couple walking through a beautiful garden in 1800s clothes. At the end of the ad they throw in a little 21st century text to relate even more to people now talking about the homeowners association.

The second ad is in a purple color scheme and has a lady sitting on her couch at home. This woman's "colonial me" is an immigrant to the new land who gets swept off her feet and marries a wealthy man who lavishes her with the finer things in life. At first purple conveys love, but when thought about more purple conveys wealth. This ad would be directed more toward the upperclass, younger, maybe single women. The picture at the bottom right shows a couple in 1800s clothes on a horse drawn carriage. The 21st century text in this ad talks about how maybe fear of commitment hadn't yet been invented maybe implying that she is going through a relationship problem and is day dreaming of what life could be like.

The third ad is in a tan and brown color scheme with a man sitting at a counter eating breakfast. This guy's "colonial me" is a slave. Someone who worked to help support a family and build the country. The picture at the bottom right shows a group of people carrying crop caring tools and baskets as if they are going to or coming home from working. This ad would be directed more towards the working class. The 21st century text in this ad talks about what he would become later in life. This guy could be at a crossroads in his life wondering what his place is and what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

All three ads convey a different message for the same reason. These ads do a good job at attracting people to come to Colonial Williamsburg. The pictures are a bit more glamorous than what it would've actually been like in the 1800s. It is portrayed as an escape for people to not only learn about the country's history, but to be able to have fun pretending to be someone one you're not.

Captain Morgan

By: Audrey, Morgan, and Sam.

                The  Washington Post babbled again today about Obama inheriting a huge deficit from Bush (who inherited a big debt from Clinton ). Amazingly enough,...... A lot of people swallow this nonsense. So once more, a short civics lesson:    
Budgets do not come from the White House. They come from Congress, and the party that controlled Congress since January 2007 is the Democratic Party. The Democrats  controlled the budget process FY 2008 and FY 2009, as well as FY 2010 and FY 2011. In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.
FY 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.  
And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete FY 2009. Let's remember what the deficits looked like during that period:    (below)

  If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the FY 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets.  That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets. If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself.
In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.

There is no way that this will be widely publicized, Unless each of us sends it on! 

 This is your chance to make a difference.

This email doesn’t provide many lies, but it doesn’t provide the whole truth. Obama did inherit a huge deficit from Bush, and Bush did inherit a big debt from Clinton; this is true. Inheriting debt from the former President is just an ongoing cycle; each President can blame the former President for the deficit. Budgets do come from the President, but Congress does have to approve of the budget given to them by the President. We disagree that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid bypassed George Bush by passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. Barack Obama only had about two months until he could take office. Even though Bush was the President, he was only going to be President for two more months even if Pelosi and Reid did bypass Bush. Barack Obama was part of the Congress that passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets, but the Republican Party proposed the 2009 budget. The FY 2007 deficit was in fact the last of the Republican budgets. The FY 2007 deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. The democrats in Congress did take control of spending, Barack Obama did vote for these budgets. Our group believes Obama inheriting this deficit from himself is still a little harsh just because he was part of the Congress that voted for these budgets.  

                Our group believes this email is unethical, because the email provides a lot of mudslinging onto Obama. The email does not deliver the whole truth, only portions of the truth. The email provides a one sided argument. Our group also feels this email goes against the Washington Post, saying that Washington Post is on Obama’s side. By using the word babbled we feel the writer of this email is disrespecting the Washington Post. The email also uses the word nonsense to describe what the Washington Post is talking about. The writer also thinks we should trust this email because he uses a lot of so-called facts in the email. When in all reality a lot of these facts are not the whole truth.

Black, White, and The Red Barn

Brittany Anthony, Dakota Miller, and Scott Tylenda

At the Red House, everyone can get along apparently. But what is the Red House you may ask? Well it is a furniture store but you may have a hard time remembering that once you watch their commercial. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnOyMSEWNTs  

The message they seem to be trying to convey is that anyone can come to their store and is completely irrelevant to the fact that they are trying to sell furniture.  During the duration of the commercial furniture is mentioned very few times in comparison to the theme of it not mattering if you are black or white.

This this commercial fails miserably at selling furniture. It really has nothing to do with selling furniture, whether the owners of the store realize it or not. They are not trying to sell furniture but are instead trying to sell their “pitch” that anyone can come to the Red House, therefore they should. The commercial does not mention anything truly relevant to selling furniture to the public. There is no mention of what brands they sell, what kind of sales, or anything that would draw a customer to the business for the purpose of buying furniture.

 Another way they fail is that race should have nothing to do with selling furniture. They make the issue of race the main focal point of the commercial instead of the furniture. By trying so hard to prove that their store is not racist and that anyone can shop there, they have made the commercial incredibly racial. Racial stereotypes are rampant throughout the commercial.  Not all white males like to go deer hunting and bass fishing nor do all black guys pump iron. And just in case anyone failed to notice, let us point out the black woman who is in the commercial and is conveniently sitting by an African inspired painting. It seems slightly racist to us.

This commercial not only fails but is completely bologna.

Hide'ya kids, hide'ya wife, hide'ya husband.....

By: Brittany Anthony, Dakota Miller, Scott Tylenda

On August 28, 2010 WAFF48 News aired a report of an intruder breaking in to a home, and attempting to rape one of the women inside. During the report the brother of the victim was interviewed about the case, Antoine Dodson, the victims brother, began his interview very emotional about what has happened to his sister, and warning others to watch out for the perp.

Emotion is the first explanation that comes to mind when viewing Antoine’s very strange and over-the-top performance during the short interview...but is it the real reason that he used such outlandish behavior? 

After the WAFF48 News interview aired and then was posted to YouTube, it became a huge hit. The YouTube clip Link here gained over 2 million views and has had numerous remixes, and spin-offs. Antoine Dodson had become a YouTube superstar by a simple interview that he had done about his sister being the victim of an attempted rape. Within the next few days WAFF48 News aired another story featuring Antoine; this time it was about his sudden rise to fame and how it made him feel.

Antoine’s new interview showed a happy man who seemed to be proud of himself for becoming such a star, whether it be for the right reasons or not. He stands by his claim that he was just doing it to warn his neighbors but we think that he really was just soaking up the spotlight. 

Dale Peterson for Alabama Ag. Commissioner

by. Elliott Crawford, Carolynn Dahlfors, Callie Ogilvie

Dale Peterson, a man campaigning for Alabama Agriculture commissioner is the epitome of a bullshitter. In his most recent campaign ad he states " I've been a farmer, a business man, a cop, and a Marine during Vietnam, so listen up!".  For someone running for Ag. commissioner it seems the only job that would be important to know about, would be farming. He also says that Ag. commissioner is one of the most powerful positions in Alabama, responsible for 5 billion dollars, then he claims the reason you didn't know that was because of " thugs and criminals", and says " if they can  keep you in the dark, they can do whatever they want with all that money!" the relevance of that, is for lack of a better word, bullshit. There is no correlation between thugs, and the money that the Ag. commissioner is responsible for. Thugs and Criminals make there money by selling drugs and stolen property, not corn or livestock. Then at the end of his ad, he pulls out his Winchester repeater and says " were Republicans, we should be better than that.". The need to pull a gun out in a campaign ad should raise some suspicions about how bad he really wants to blow away the competition.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU7fhIO7DG0

The Princess of Bullshit

         By: Katie, Courtney, and Daisha


         Recently in our comp 1 class our teacher assigned us the task of creating a blog based on bullshit. The inspiration for our assignment came from the book entitled Bullshit by Harry G. Frankfurt. The book breaks down the philosophy of bullshit and defines it as having no respect for the truth and fooling people with false motives.                                                                                           

           One very good example of bullshit is Paris Hilton and her purse dilemma. Paris has been known to use drugs before so it comes as no surprise that she was caught with drugs again. The behavior she chooses to follow classifies her as a master bullshitter. Paris is famous for just being famous and trouble seems to follow her around.

            When Paris was last arrested for the possession of drugs she came up with plenty of excuses of why she was innocent. The first was that the purse didn’t belong to her. That story soon fell and she admitted to owning the purse but said she let a friend borrow it and half the contents belonged to her friend, but it doesn’t really matter whose purse it is. The thing that matters is she had drugs in her possession at the time of her arrest. Paris can bullshit all she want s, but people can see through her thick load of bullshit and find the truth.

Dinner for Breakfast!

By: Jacqui, Michael, and Tanner

Bullshit. What is it? It’s not necessarily a lie, because the person spewing it isn’t necessarily trying to deceive those who are listening to them. The 'bull shitter', as Harry Frankfurt, a professor at Princeton University, puts it, is ambivalent toward the truth. He’s only trying to get us to do what he’s trying to get us to do.

Take “The Onion” for example. It’s a website full of satire, cleverly masked as well written news articles. They don’t call themselves “America’s Finest News Source” for no reason. News can often be boring. Who really wants to read about actual current events, health, and celebrities every single day? The stories are always the same. So, the Onion puts a twist on the news, adding a bunch of bullshit to stories everyone knows. (Yes, we realize they just do it to be funny.)

Take this article on breakfast ("Experts Say Breakfast Now Sixth Most Important Meal Of The Day" is the title. The Onion won't allow a link to it.) They say that breakfast is not as important as everyone had been led to believe. However, it’s been proven that breakfast can make or break a day. The energy consumed right at the beginning of the day is the most important. Anyway, these bullshitters have it all wrong. Midnight snack  is nowhere near as important as elevensies and luncheon. Especially not afternoon tea.

Old Salem Cigarette Commercial

By: Morgan, Audrey, Sam, and Cale



     In class on Tuesday we watched an interview with Harry Frankfurt about his essay "On Bullshit". Frankfurt explained that bullshitters aren’t liars, they just have a blatant disregard for the truth, which can be dangerous. We found an example of bullshit in an old cigarette commercial on YouTube. The commercial makes smoking seem like a healthy and fun activity.

     The commercial shows the characters outside on a rope swing with a woman smoking a cigarette. In the background you hear happy, upbeat music. The commercial goes on to claim that the cigarette will freshen your breath with menthol. Also, that the cigarette is made out of a special paper that pulls in fresh air to soften the taste.

     We find this commercial to be bullshit because of the way it portrays smoking, and because of the advertisements less likely to be noticed. For instance, there is only a woman smoking, so the ad focuses more on women than men. The claim that the cigarette will freshen your breath, and that it draws in fresh air. All of the claims and subliminal advertising are bullshit.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86lYG1V2-n4

The BP Oil Spill

Have you been watching the news? Since April 22, an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico belonging to The British Petrolium Company exploded, spilling as much as 60,000 gallons of oil a day. This launched a massive investigation against BP, and the oil rig itself. According to some of the investigations, there was no Fire Boom aboard the rig, which is Government enforced. A Fire Boom provides a barrier to collect and contain floating oil so it can be burned. Some other investgations show that there was oil spilling  before the rig even exploded. BP has come out and attempted to try and stop the spill, but all they have been doing is blaming the US Government, and vice versa. The general public has done all they can, but are limited to the amount of help they can bring. So who is to blame for the spill? BP? The Government? We may never know. What we do know is that to this day, over 200 millions of gallons of oil have been spilled. So watch the news, it could be telling you soon how much it will cost you to fill up your gas tank.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AAa0gd7ClM

A Note on Our Title.

By: J. Spruill

As facilitator of our blog, my hope is that this blog will develop a readership. I am hoping that parents, friends of students and the university, other English classes and so on will read and enjoy our blog and even learn from it. Because I fully expect people to come to it, I think, perhaps, people will want an explanation of our naughty looking title.

For the sake of honesty, yes, the similarity between our blog's title to a certain "bad" word is purposeful.  Here is the history of that choice.  In preparing to start our blog, we watched an interview with Princeton professor Harry Frankfurt, author of a philosophical and uber-academic book called On Bullshit. In his book, he looks at the ways in which pure bologna functions in our society. Dr. Frankfurt believes that its danger lies in its ambivalence toward the truth. The bologna artist doesn't care whether he lies or tells the truth. He cares only about what one feels about him - whether or not we will buy what he is selling.

As a class focused on analysis and rhetoric, we are interested in exposing the way people try to "sell" us things, concepts, ideas, and people. So, in short, we are interested in being bull#$@!% detectors.

Ahoy, from the S.S. Bullship

By: J. Spruill
Welcome to the S.S. Bullship, the blog for Mr. Spruill's 12:30 English Composition class at Oklahoma State. We will be posting blogs, exposing the rhetorical devices used in ads, speeches, and other public texts in fun and enlightening ways. Our project will publish new posts every two weeks. We hope that you will subscribe. Read. Enjoy. Comment. . .

. . .Or we'll make you walk the plank.  And you don't want to swim in this ocean.