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Joel Salatin- Dancing with Dinner

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This past week, I went to Joel Salatin's January Series with a few friends. Joel Salatin is an American farmer who has raised his voice to the changes in farming today. He has been in several documentaries including Food, Inc. and Fresh. Also, Salatin has written a couple books stating his opinions on the farming industry today. He described himself as a "Christian-libertarian-environmentalist-capitalist-lunatic-Farmer" in The New York Times article "High Priest of the Pasture" in 2005.
I had heard good things about Salatin from a friend who had seen him in the film Food, Inc. And after hearing that we were going to watch it in class, I figured it would be cool to go see what he was all about. After a few minutes of Salatin's speech, I was totally engaged. Not only was he incredibly intelligent, Salatin was absolutely hilarious. He talked about how meals these days have become a grazing action, not sitting down together as a family for a home cooked meal. Also, he brought up how we are not aware of where our food is coming from, we do not ask questions, we just eat. One part of his speech I found very interesting was an experiment done by young elementary school students. The students rolled up white Wonder bread into a ball and placed it into a worm compost along with other candy and snack food. In another worm compost, they put hearty wheat bread, fruits and vegetables. After a couple weeks, the kids pulled out the composts again and looked. The food in the second compost were gone and only a few pieces remained but in the first compost all the food still remained. Salatin then said, "Now why would you eat something the worms won't even it." This was a funny story but it also held so much truth. Our culture today has become less and less focused on the food we consumer and more focused on every other aspect of our lives. He said the kitchen use to be the center of the home but now the bathrooms are bigger than the kitchens. Salatin raised so many excellent points; it really caused me to think more about the food I consume.
The culture we live in today has little focus on the food we consume. Someone once told me that when we look at the ingredients in food, we are not supposed to eat anything we cannot pronounce. And looking at the ingredients, there are many ingredients that I could not come close to saying. Why do we do this to ourselves? Salatin's message and his ministry in farming can be seen as an apocalyptic. He is holding up a mirror toward our eating habits and is showing us how disconnected we have become. The food empire has been manipulated to mass produce no matter the consequences, and we are just following those standards. But, there are ways we can break away from the food empire that has been created. We can buy locally, eat locally, and become aware and active.
1. What factors make the fight against the food empire so difficult?2. How would you address those who say organic food is too expensive?3. How does faith effect our choices in food?

Teen Vogue/Artifact 2

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The second artifact I chose was a teen vogue magazine. It is similar to a Vogue magazine, but specifically made for teenagers(the name of the magazine is pretty self explanatory). The magazine focuses on fashion and celebrities and offers information about the latest entertainment and feature stories on current issues and events. Usually the cover has a photo of a recent celebrity along with make up tips and things about the celebrity.

The stories that Teen Vogue tells about human purpose is that even though we are made in God's image, there are products that make you look more beautiful. In the magazine, there are millions of ads that catch our eye, including name brands and beautiful models. It's hard to go through a magazine like this and not get caught up in the fashion or make up that's in it. Even though this magazine may seem like another way to sell advertisements, they do include serious issues as well, in the issue I read it had an article on smoking and what it can do to your body. However, it was only a couple pages long, while the rest of the magazine still covered make up and fashion.

Teen Vogue reveals about life in the empire is that there are things in the world that we tend to get pulled into and believe that we must have a certain product to make us feel good about ourselves. The magazine shows pictures of different models, and then has several pages with similar clothes that they are wearing, and how much it would cost to buy them. It seems that every day there is some new trend going on, or a new line of clothing or make up has just come out, and we have that urge to immediately go out and buy it because we know everyone else will already have it. It's difficult to fit into society, or the empire, without having the latest thing that's out there because then you feel left out and not on the same page as everyone else.

I personally don't wear make up at all, and the most I'll wear is just a touch of mascara. For me, make up just isn't a big deal. I don't see why I need to change myself when I'm perfectly happy with the way I look.

Discussion Questions:
1. Why do we feel the need to fit in with the rest of the world?
2. Do we ever ask ourselves "Do I really and truly need that?" before we buy something? Or do we automatically buy it because it's what everyone else has?

Paper Heart

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      I have chosen Paper Heart for my second cultural artifact blog post. Although the quirky 2009 film has the look and many intentional implications for being a documentary (visible cameras, etc.), the film is actually a fictional story about the making of a documentary. This film was directed by Nicholas Jasenovec and stars Charlene Yi and Micheal Cera.
     The premise of this film is that Charlene Yi is traveling around the country to either prove or disprove the existence of romantic love, as she does not believe in it. In so doing, she meets Micheal Cera and the two begin to develop a relationship. The film is lighthearted and fun the whole way through.
      This artifact comments on everyday occurrences within the context of relationships--from the first meeting, to the development of friendship. In this case, the relationship is presented in a realistic, down to earth way. This film emphasizes the importance of community and friendship, as well as imagination. When taking a further look into this film, I am left wondering why the word 'love' is only used (with one exception) in the generic and romantic sense. The fact that believing in love, or not, depended on researching and interviews the romantic love shared between two people, and not another ultimate example of love did not leave much room for faith. The one time a different 'type' of love is explored is in one scene that takes place in a biker bar, where the bikers discuss the role of love in friendship. Overall, it was a look at the developing romantic relationship between (as fictional versions of themselves) Micheal and Charlene as well as young and old couples 'interviewed' throughout.
     One way that this romantic comedy broke the cookie-cutter mold of the genre is that there is no personal catastrophe. No one is a damsel in need of being 'saved' by love, and no one had to give up something for the sake of monogamy. Rather, it is a story of two equals spending time together and (slowly) learning to love each other. While I do believe that expressing love without an example of ultimate love through Christ is, ultimately, missing the point, this is a more honest look at human interaction than has been presented in past films of its type.


 1. Why does our society idolize dysfunctional relationships in films?
 2. Why do people treat each other differently when they know they are being watched? Is this a positive thing?

Paper Heart directed by Nicholas Jasenovec (Lakeshore, 2009), DVD

Dancing With Dinner

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       I recently attended one of the lectures of the January Seriesentitled Dancing With Dinner. Thespeaker was Joel Salatin, an alternative farmer who was in the film Food Inc.  In his lectureSalatin talked about how we as Americans have lost our love and respect that weonce had with food and the way that we grow food.  He told us about theearth friendly and natural ways that he grows food on his farm, how he stillhad that intimate relationship with the stuff that he puts on his table everymeal.       Since we watched Food Inc. just yesterday,it is easy to see how this topic ties into our class.  In God's kingdom,humans are stewards of the earth, meaning that they take care, provide, andsustain the resources that are entrusted to them.  In the kingdom of theEmpire, anything goes along as you can make a quick buck off of it.  Thismeans that cows are grown faster, pumped with antibiotics, and crammed togetherin a tight space just so we can get cheaper more convenient beef. The same can be said for chickens, pigs, and any other animal that can beturned into a product. This heinous food cycle has become thedominate way of life in our society today, those who try to oppose it arequickly dealt with by the Empire or deemed to insignificant to be a threat. However, recently there has been increasing movement against this statusquo.  We need to focus on alternative ways to feed ourselves, shop at ourlocal farmer's market, avoid mega-stores, and be more conscious aboutwhat we put into our body.  
What are you doing in your life to combat our corruptfood system?
Do you still have respect for what’s on your dinnertable?

Escape to Web-Print

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The Escapist is an online magazine, which according to their visitor’s page
“is dedicated to providing readers with the highest quality journalism covering interactive media, games, and the culture behind them.”
            Five days a week it froths, covering internet-related news with opinion columns, video editorials, and irreverent reviews & humor.
            Examining their layout, their offerings to the ten-second-website-viewer are: news in their industry (at the time of writing, condemnation for the SOPA act, with some coverage of the major developments in Video games), columns and videos from their employees, and advertisements for their sponsors. With bonus content available for personal information or credit card subscriptions, the joy of commercialism is in the layout, indeed!
            Their perspective is Empiric while also subversive. A sum of parts, individual authors present conformative pieces with others present in apocalyptic style. The editorials tend to take a taciturn tone, such as The Tao of Leveling, a pseudodeep attempt to tie spiritual principles to life pursuits (don’t forget how faithfully reading the Escapist can only help you level up!) The language-tied-to-gaming in the article is vague-as-theology, with no prescribed objective. However, an understanding of the medium presented (specific: the Role-Playing-Game) must be acquired to understand it in full.
            Contrasting, anything Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw does. His take on Role-Playing-Games is more a flaying of them. Someone who sits in the video-game corner of the site and dissects anything served to him, his appeal for content in the face of postmodern game design is phrased
“Surely every game is a "simulation" of something, whether it be flying a World War 2 fighter plane or finely slicing the buttocks of minotaurs.”
            Take that, Nihilism!
            With regards to the Kingdom, The Escapist is a magazine. It exists to create and distribute content with a profit motive. As a community, it may attract individuals beyond the pale of the consumerist fold. It can serve as a sanctuary or an effigy-burning ground. It’s not the best example. I find satire in the system a sign of the roots of Apocalypse. Something could grow.
   1: Churches often demonize publications for not fostering “the Kingdom”. What role can the media-distribution system play in the Christian narrative? What roles does it play already?

2: What is the Apocalyptic aspect to Escapism? Where can we find, ironically, a non-escapist aspect to it?

Workshop Exemplar

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The workshop that helped me be immersed the most was the observation report.  The observation report helped me understand the characteristics of my learners.  I was immersed while I was observing teenagers because I tried to find patterns and understand what made those individuals excited and able to have fun.  I found that students like to do activities in group.  I have seen this in practice in my school districts.  When students work together in groups, some people are upset because they have to fill all the shoes for their teammates.  In other cases, people jump to the option of working together because they can collaborate and delegate the tasks.  I find that teachers need to be flexible when it comes to group work and that if a student will succeed at a high level by themselves that they should be allowed to work by themselves.  I also found out what boredom looks like in a teenager.  This experience also helped me because I now notice boredom in my students.  Right now, I hear many comments about how they do not understand the purpose of the class activities and are very bored.  I am keeping this in mind as I plan my units so that I try to come up with innovative ways to get content standards across.  Lastly, I feel as though my experience doing the observation report helped me understand the demographics of my students. Many of my students come from difficult situations at home.  This has helped me understand that I need to create a safe haven for my students.  


The blog entries that indicate my progress on my observation report are as follows: 

Thursday, August 4, 2011: Moving Forward with the Observation project 

Observation Workshop (Write-up) Who are my learners? Part II