The Blame Game

http://www.gamespot.com/news/6286915.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0

On the 24th of January, less than a week ago a suicide bomber attacked Moskow's Domodedovo airport.  Most suspect separatists from Chechenya.  Yet in light of these tragic events, instead of trying to find who really did this, the Russian media chooses to blame video games. 


As a gamer, I am no stranger to the bad rep that video games have.  My parents have constantly tried to show me that "studies" prove that video games increase aggression.  And I've also seen the US media try to blame nearly everything wrong with society on games as well by using studies that only prove some little amount of correlation and absolutely no causation. Its just sad to see a tragic event like this twisted by those who are simply trying to make a quick buck.  It's the media at its best; when you can't find a solution, create a problem.

Rhetoric in Calvin and Hobbes

For my blog I shall look into rhetoric in everybody's favourite comic, Calvin and Hobbes.  For my first post, I am going to talk about my all time favourite strip.

The strip begins with Calvin's mom screaming at him about some mess or the other (there always seems to be a mess in his house doesn't there) and Calvin in a most typical attempt to get out of trouble makes up this outlandish excuse that involves Venusians who possessed a "diabolical, high frequency device and pointed it..". Anyway Calvin ends up getting sent to his room, dejected and staring aimlessly at this floor and he then says the most hilariously profound line I have ever heard in my entire life.  He says "Mothers are the necessity of invention".  This is an obvious reference to the line " Necessity is the mother of all invention"But it also refers to the fact that every child, from whatever day, age or country, has lied to his mom to get out of trouble.  While mine were never as outlandish as Venusians with high frequency devices this line reminds of me of the crazy antics I did when I was a child ( not that I'm particularly old) and the even crazier stories I made up to get out of trouble. 

Essentially this strip acts like a portal that takes us back to a time where life was simpler and we did not have to worry about the weight of responsibility that lies on our shoulders today.

The grand opening, or not

Welcome to one and all.  I am Akshay, Penn State freshman and student of the LA101h course which, of course, is why I even created this blog.  I have spent hours thinking about what to blog about ( by hours I mean 5 minutes). I thought about doing a blog about business and economics, and being an economics major I guess that would make a lot of sense.  But now that I think about it, it seems like something that would involve lots of effort and time.  Of course I could blog about some TV series (just started the Sopranos) or I could blog about one of my nerdy-er habits like video games or comics.  A significant life choice indeed.  Uh I guess I'll decide later.