More Wasted Time
"Do me a favor & tell your professor that I spoke for at least 45 minutes..."
~Officer Smotcho, campus police
Yesterday & today one of my professors went out of town. Now rather than cancelling class, he had guest speakers come in. I figured that since these are summer classes, these guest speakers would probably be TAs or something to make sure that we got through our entire course load. That was not the case. Yesterday's lecture was from one of MSU's campus police who instructed us on how to stay safe on campus. Yep, that's right. I got to listen to the police's orientation speech all over again. So now I know not to drink & drive and to always walk with a buddy. At the very least, the guy had the courtesy to not take very long. In fact, he only took 10 minutes. I think that he got bored with his speech just as quickly as I did. People were still coming in tardy, after he had finished talking. So, that was lame.
Lamer still was today's speaker. This time they didn't get bored with themselves, in fact I got the idea that this speaker very much enjoyed the sound of their own voice. A woman from the health center came to us & brought an assistant with her in full-on scrubs. At this point I'm wondering if I'm about to be told how the Longest Health Center works, but that was not the case. The assistant leaves, I actually have no idea why she was brought along in the first place and this lady proceeds to rant about advertising for an hour & fifteen minutes. She even brought slides. Now I used to be an advertising major & left it because it's one of the most dishonest industries that you can be involved in. So, in my opinion she had a very easy target. But she NEVER makes a point, ever, ever. She jumps around from talking about women's shelters, to family abuse, to bashing PETA, and just about everything in between. All the while, I get the general feeling that she thinks that advertisers are at fault for all of this, but her proof is sorely lacking. All she showed us were photos of several ads that when taken WAY out of context COULD have a different meaning.
Now the better arguement is that advertisements objectify women & present an unrealistic expectation for young girls to aspire to. That's pretty true, but that's also old hat. I don't think there's anyone that hasn't heard this argument & I'm pretty sure that most people would agree with it to a greater or lesser degree. But this wasn't what this woman presented to us. I got the vague impression that she sees advertising as a kind of mind control that makes us do bad things. Which really is kind of ridiculous. I was irritated at her argument because there is a legitimate point that could be made here, but her using it as a pulpit to express an unfounded and poorly researched opinion makes the audience less receptive to the legitimate opinion.
Wow, that sounds like one of them serious blogs.
~Officer Smotcho, campus police
Yesterday & today one of my professors went out of town. Now rather than cancelling class, he had guest speakers come in. I figured that since these are summer classes, these guest speakers would probably be TAs or something to make sure that we got through our entire course load. That was not the case. Yesterday's lecture was from one of MSU's campus police who instructed us on how to stay safe on campus. Yep, that's right. I got to listen to the police's orientation speech all over again. So now I know not to drink & drive and to always walk with a buddy. At the very least, the guy had the courtesy to not take very long. In fact, he only took 10 minutes. I think that he got bored with his speech just as quickly as I did. People were still coming in tardy, after he had finished talking. So, that was lame.
Lamer still was today's speaker. This time they didn't get bored with themselves, in fact I got the idea that this speaker very much enjoyed the sound of their own voice. A woman from the health center came to us & brought an assistant with her in full-on scrubs. At this point I'm wondering if I'm about to be told how the Longest Health Center works, but that was not the case. The assistant leaves, I actually have no idea why she was brought along in the first place and this lady proceeds to rant about advertising for an hour & fifteen minutes. She even brought slides. Now I used to be an advertising major & left it because it's one of the most dishonest industries that you can be involved in. So, in my opinion she had a very easy target. But she NEVER makes a point, ever, ever. She jumps around from talking about women's shelters, to family abuse, to bashing PETA, and just about everything in between. All the while, I get the general feeling that she thinks that advertisers are at fault for all of this, but her proof is sorely lacking. All she showed us were photos of several ads that when taken WAY out of context COULD have a different meaning.
Now the better arguement is that advertisements objectify women & present an unrealistic expectation for young girls to aspire to. That's pretty true, but that's also old hat. I don't think there's anyone that hasn't heard this argument & I'm pretty sure that most people would agree with it to a greater or lesser degree. But this wasn't what this woman presented to us. I got the vague impression that she sees advertising as a kind of mind control that makes us do bad things. Which really is kind of ridiculous. I was irritated at her argument because there is a legitimate point that could be made here, but her using it as a pulpit to express an unfounded and poorly researched opinion makes the audience less receptive to the legitimate opinion.
Wow, that sounds like one of them serious blogs.
posted by C. Houston Longino at Friday, July 29, 2005
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home