The Dove Campaign for Real Beauty... RIGHT.

When I first heard of the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty, I thought it was a great idea. Why should we let the media control our standards for beauty? Sure, models are great. I have friends who are models. Photoshop is pretty cool. I wish I could use it better.

But these things aren't an accurate representation of real people. Last I checked, there is another approximately 99.99% of people who aren't models. And girls are heavily targeted by this kind of advertising. So Dove decided to use regular women in their marketing. Way to go, Dove, lead the moral way in advertising.

But wait just a second. Look at your bottle of Dove lotion/deodorant/shampoo/anti-cellulite cream or what have you. I'd like you to notice the little Unilever logo on it. Unilever is the company that owns Dove.

Now go find a can of Axe.
What can you find?

That's right. Axe is also owned by Unilever. I'm certain you've seen at least one Axe commercial. You know, the ones where some guy sprays the product liberally and skinny, scantily clad young women flock to him.

These ads are nothing but degrading. Towards both women and men, actually. Women are portrayed as objects, and the men are controlled by their hormones. What happened to Real Beauty? What happened to the noble cause?

Well, sadly, I think the hypocrisy of Unilever was there all along. Even looking solely at Dove; they sell BEAUTY PRODUCTS. As in, things you use to be more beautiful. How is this promoting the idea of being happy with your body?

Add in to all this that Unilever is also responsible for giving the world Slimfast... It's always about the money, isn't it?


For more on the topic, visit this site as a starting point:
http://www.cbc.ca/streetcents/guide/2005/02/s07_01.html

Back to the Beginning: Bill C-484

I had originally meant to do an in-depth, piece-by piece study on Bill C-484, the Unborn Victims of Crime Act. However, in my research of the Bill, I have decided I would much rather let you read the information first-hand. I wouldn't want to inadvertently misinform on the issue.

http://www.kenepp.com/issues/insidepage.asp?ID=92

This is Ken Epp's personal response to a letter he recieved concerning his Bill. I find it addresses all of the issues surrounding it in a complete and methodic manner.

I should warn you, I am about to share my opinion of the Bill. I hope that you will make your own conclusions and seek out true facts regardless of what I think. If there is one thing I have learned through looking into this issue, it is that we must always guard ourselves against misinformation to avoid ignorance.

I think that Bill C-484 is what it says it is: an effort to protect pregnant women. Although I am srongly ProLife, I understand that abortion is not what this Bill is dealing with. It is worded clearly and with careful precision so that there can be no mistaking this.

Personally, I had no idea that there was no sort of legal protection for pregnant women under canadian law. I think this should be repaired, especially considering there have been precedent cases where a law such as that proposed by the Bill could have been applied. This would also perhaps serve to deter potential offenders.

But read up on it for yourself!

Explanation

I would just like to take this opportunity to apologize for my last post. I completely recognize how boring it probably is for the vast majority of people. It was an assignment. We should be back up to normal entries in no time!

Hooking and Keeping Readers

A chapter summary

Intro

• the online age has made it difficult to get noticed among many
• online readers are fickle and have short attention spans

So what?

• the main question to ask when writing a lead
• web readers are quick to abandon any page they find boring
• the lead (first paragraph) amd the nut graph (the second paragraph) must be informative and INTERESTING
• to increase interest, include strange or unusual facts; what would interest the target audience?
• summary leads: who, what, when, where (often in that order) good place to start
• inverted pyramid: presenting facts in order of most to least important
• this is not a rule; there are instances where it is not very effective
• feature lead: unusual or interesting nature of event, then facts
• newsworthy: traditionally, timelines, proximity, prominence or impact made a story newsworthy; today, wierdness qualifies too
• there are entire websites devoted to offbeat stories

Headlines and Link Text

• battle for reader's attention on the internet
• magazines, newspapers must be paged through; hardly anyone flips through every news story on the site
• be aware of space limitations for link text
• techniques for emphasis: coloured headlines, pictures, video links, first paragraph in bold (ex. MSNBC)
• you won't have the final say in headline, that's the editor's job

A Square Lead in a Round Web

• a good lead is one that works online, takes format, aim and audience into consideration
• aquaint yourself with your publication's standards and formats
• write tightly: lots of information in little space
• online audience is reading the news to find out what's going on, not for literature
• goal is to grab readers and inform them long enough to make them want to keep reading

Getting Your Facts Organized

• after a good lead, good writing with flow must follow
• understand the aspects of the information you want to share
• convey in an engaging and logical manner
• inverted pyramid is a good starting point
• quotes can put faces on events: hows and whys
• less important information is traditionally put at end incase it must be cut to fit a news hole; not a problem online
• hard-news stories have facts first
• soft-news stories can begin with descriptions or anecdotes
• features generally use more quotes than hard-news
• placing contrasting emotions in the beginning is a good way to hook readers
• hard-news stories don't require strong endings, but features need wrap-up

Teaching Kids to Read and Write

For three years I was an International Baccalaureate, or IB, student. The students accepted in this program are typically very high achievers, and the program itself imposes very high standards. This year I decided to leave IB, and so have been able to observe the difference between a regular academic setting with that of an IB classroom. Last year in IB English, we studied world literature and focused mainly on analytical skills; it was assumed, and fairly accurately, that the previous two years of the program would have made us into decent readers and writers. This year in academic English, we have already had more lessons regarding common technical errors than we had in total in IB last year. Sadly enough, it appeared that these lessons were necessary.

But it is not only secondary education that is failing to teach basic reading and writing in an effective manner, in fact, this responsibility largely belongs to elementary schools. I babysat two girls this summer, a six year old and a nine year old, and part of my responsibility was to make them practice their writing, one handwritten page each per day. Through them, I witnessed not only extremely substandard writing levels, but also a dislike of writing. They argued with me every day for half an hour before I could get them to write anything. They were also much more interested in watching movies than having me read to them. This leads me to believe that elementary schools instil neither a love of language, nor proper reading and writing skill.

It appears that reading and writing are being taught poorly in public schools. Personally, I find this phenomenon disheartening, especially when we consider that written language is one of the early marks of more advanced civilizations. Are we going backwards?