Cultural Extinction

I did not really know what I wanted to write my paper on for a while and it was a real struggle for me to find something to focus on. I felt anything I was chosen would make me sound like racist cause I was not exactly sure what the paper was asking me what to write about. Then I sat down and really thought what the paper was asking for. Once I figured that out I had to find a topic I was interesting and how I wanted to approach it. It was a struggle for a long time for me to find a topic I wanted to focus on until I visited the Museum of Natural History. As I was walking through the museum I found a an exhibit on cultural extinction. I found this real interesting on how other people are destroying people and there cultural completely. The group of people I found to be real interesting where the indigenous people of west Siberia the Khanty - Mansi people. I am going to focus on how oil drilling that started about fifty years ago. These people have died in a short period of time at least two-thirds of people have been killed from the many effects of the oil drilling. I find this to be very shocking that a cultural can be completely lost to benefit other people's consumer needs. I am writing to all people espically students. Students tend to have the loudest and most active voice when comes to protesting and making a change. I also would like to see posted in an internaional news because people all over the world are using this oil and are not paying attention to the people they are killing off. Siberia is not just land where people are sent for imprisonment but actually people live and strive off this land and use it for it's best abilities but at the same time they see everything getting taken away from them.

Odd Beauty That Destroies Our Spirits

"The immense scale of our consumption can appear desolate, macabre, oddly comical and ironic, and even darkly beautiful; for me its consistent feature is a staggering complexity." - Chris Jordan
I like Chris Jordan feel the sight of these industrial ports contain an image that are "even darkly beautiful". You look at these industrial and shipping ports and you think how gross it is how much we just consume and throw to waste. Then you do some thinking and wonder how much of these waste can actually be useful. I love the art and beauty of vintage cars and I see how they cars just crushed and just piled up and it crushes me. Cause I think how you can take those old cars and reuse that metal for so many things or make new cars for people use that can have environmentally safe engines and recycled cars parts from old cars. You can take old beauty and refurbish it into new beauty. The dark part behind it is just sits there and goes to waste but still poses a twisted beauty.

Photo by Chris Jordan from exhibit Intolerable Beauty Portraits of American Mass Consumption 2003- 2005 http://www.chrisjordan.com/



"I fear that in this process we are doing irreparable harm to our planet and to our individual spirits." - Chris Jordan
The thing I would like to focus on is how we are destroy planet at the same time we our destroying our spirits more than anything. I feel in today's world as the future we are slowly loosing how to appreciate the simpler things in life. Like people have become such technology junkies and feel the need to get the newest things out there. Mean while the things that people already own are perfectly fine. For example by the end of this year you will see people start throwing out all there T.V.'s for new digital ones. Which really does not make sense because they could just go out and by a converter box for less money and then there T.V. will be able to work on the new digital network. Which really is the simpler thing in life. I have the same T.V. in my living room from 1984 which works perfectly fine all I'm going to do is buy the converter box. I chose the simpler and more cost efficient approach in these tough economic times to keep my old T.V. and just get a converter box. People these days are quick to through something out that is in good condition and replce it with something else because it is the new it thing, instead of apperciate what they have and turning it into something better. But there are people that decide to take what other people consider junk and turn it into some thing new. The people that do that there spirts are not lost into consumerism but apperciate the simple things that are out there and given to them or what they find.

I give dumpster divers alot of respect because they take old simple things and turn them into new treasures. I have never actually jumped into a dumpster but I have picked up things from the crubside. I have found peices of furniture that have become useful in my home and if not in mine I see if any of my friends can make use of it. I have also found some really cool book and old magazines. I hav read the books and passed them onto my friends to spread the knowledge and I know people that collect old magazines so I have given it to them. I as well have donated things I have found to different shelters or organizations that can make use of them. There are many churches in my area that have afterschool programs and homeless shelters so they are always willing to take things and find use of them. A friend of my mines mom worked in really wealthy areas as a cleaning lady and sometime on her way home she would find really great peices of furniture on the crub waiting for garbuage to come pick it up and toss it in some hole. Alot of these peices of furniture would cost alot of money and people didnt care cuase there menaing of value was something else. So my friends mom would takes these peices of furniture and toss them in her car and bring them home. She would refurbish them and polish them they would look brand new. She would find use of them in her home or give them away to someone else who could use it but she shore hated people seeing things go to waste. My aunt as well is a painter and she likes to paint different wood peices. She was working on a moral in a house and they were going to throw out this beautiful wodden rocken chair she decided to take it home with her. My aunt stripped the wood and painted different peices all over it and gave it to her husband as a birthday gift. So my aunt took something nobody wanted and turned it into a work of art as well as gift to someone. I'm not saying we should all go out and jump into dumpsters cuase it is not something im necessarily comfortable yet to do but, the next time ur walking down the sidewalk dont just look at the stuff on the crub as trash because there can be some useful peices there.

Photo by Unknown, http://www.planebuzz.com/Inspirational---Discover-Dumpster-Diving-Poster-C12085747.jpeg

Unfortunately thoughI feel our spirits have become consumer absorbed instead of appreciating the simple classic things.

My life is busier than I thought

I usually am a huge consumer on the regular I actually take a lot of pleasure in shopping. I love fashion and I love shopping for it. Lately my economic situation has not allowed me to go shopping for much the past two months. But usually I can spend about five to ten hours alone a weekend or during the week for shopping just for clothes, shoes, and accessories to find the right combination of things that work with the stuff I already have and to make new outfits. It is truly one of my passion because at one point I even aspired a career in the fashion world. I love to buy fashion magazines there are three major ones I always buy that is Vogue, Elle, and Nylon. I read those magazines from front to back and absorb it all. That reading takes about ten hours a month of my time. But when it comes to any other shopping for like groceries or basic needs I spend the most is two hours a week.
I do watch TV some weeks I watch more than others but on average the most I’ll watch TV is ten hours. The computer is not my friend but I use it when I need to for very few things and the two major things I use it for is school and to check my e-mail. So my time I spend it varies on how much school work I have to do but I’ll say the most I use the computer total in a week is twenty hours. There is one thing that I use all the time all day long and that is my cell phone, it is insane the amount of hours I spend on it. I can spend anywhere from fifty to a hundred hours on my cell phone. Working out is a big part of my life I spend between eight and ten hours a week.
I love to do photography, draw, and paint but I don’t do it all the time. What I do the most often when I have time is photography. That can take a lot of time if I am not just shooting pictures and decide to develop my own film and spend time in the dark room it can take up twenty four hours in a week. Photography as well is not the most earth friendly thing because sometime I waste few sheets of paper on making the right print as well as the chemicals that are used are extremely toxic to the environment.
I spend whatever time is free between school and work the rest is spent with my man, mom or friends. That is straight relaxing and no work I can not really put a time frame on of the time I spend with them because it varies so much.

Photo;http://www.ximnet.com.my/thelab/images/upload/FF_70_brain1_f.jpg