I looked at the titles of the articles on the Yahoo page, and saw the title "The Biggest Loser of Season 10." Because I didn't have TV in my house, I didn't even know that was the title of a television show broadcast in different countries. In the show, the participants compete against each others to win the biggest loser of their weights. I thought that the show was really interesting and helpful for people especially in America to get out of the fast food-centered life style and live longer with no health problem.
I was completely against the Food Fight because the event encourage people to become fatter and unhealthy, and the Food Fight essentially leads people to shorten their lives, but some people still participate the Food Fight to get money.
How nice to get a lot of money after you lost so much weights! I hope that the TV show will become more famous, so that more people in the world will become healthier 

A Great Deal!

 
Two months ago, I found the Burger King restaurant, which has one dollar Whopper on the menu, near my house in Dallas. i thought that was a great discovery for the poor college student. After I found out, I went there almost every other day. Anytime I went there, I didn't even look at the menu and ordered two or three Whoppers without anything else for dinner.
But after a month, when I started feeling sick of eating Whopper, I looked at other things on the menu. Then, I saw that the price of Double Whopper. The price was $4.59. I was surprised different price between a Whopper for $1 and Double Whopper for $4.59. Even if you order four Whoppers, they are cheaper than a Double Whopper. Assuming that they will charge me an extra patty for one dollar, I ordered a Whopper with an extra patty and they charged me only two dollars, but that exactly same as a Double Whopper.
If you know any Burger King restaurants that have a Whopper for a dollar, you may want to try the order of "a Whopper with an extra patty."

How is the Sushi Restaurant Famous?

I used to work as a server in a Japanese restaurant owned by a Chinese in Chicago for a half year. The restaurant was one of the most famous restaurants in Chicago. I was wondering how the restaurant could become so popular if no Japanese sushi chef nor kitchen chef work in the restaurant. I assumed that the manager had received the training of how to make sushi and other Japanese dishes in Japan for long time, so that he could teach other people.
I asked the manager if he had been to japan before. Then, he said he had visited to japan twice in his entire life and both visits were only for a week. Then, i asked where he learned how to make sushi and other japanese dishes on the menu of his restaurant. He said he never learned from anyone, but he just made japanese food in his original ways.
When i tasted California role, I was so shocked that the rice did not taste anything. When Japanese make sushi, they always flavor rice with vinegar, but he didn't. I also tried Miso soup, but it was way too salty. I thought, how did the restaurant become so popular with the terrible foods?
When I was working, most customer order a lot Sake or other alcohol and little bit of sushi. Then, I realized that the customers did not really come to eat Japanese food in the restaurant but came to drink. One customer told me that "I really like the atmosphere in here." The decorations inside the restaurant was not like typical Japanese restaurants, which simply have wood made tables and chairs and sushi bar with a few other decorations of Japanese traditional ornaments. But the inside of the restaurant was more like a bar, which put glass made tables and steel made chars with playing the U.S. pop music.
The manager said, "People come to my restaurant because they like Sake and the atmosphere." When I heard that, I became sad that he didn't even talk about Japanese foods. I really wanted to say, "If you call your restaurant a Japanese restaurant, you have to think that your restaurant represents Japan and learn about how to make REAL Japanese dishes from Japanese chef!" But I was not brave enough to say that to him and sacrifice the job.

Are Video Games Really Bad?

In the last two lectures of the Literature class, we learned about video games. During the class, one student said, "I think the video games are good for children to be smart." I was agree with his opinion.
I don't know if all kinds of games help children to become smarter, but role playing games require the planning skill and calculation to complete all the chapters of the games.

In role playing games, people have to plan what to save and what to buy to survive on the battle field. In order make a plan, people have to calculate the budget you can use. If they lack either one or both, they won't be able to complete the games; therefore, role playing games train children to improve their planning skills and calculation.

I have a friend, who has played different role playing games, such as Final Fantasy and Starcraft, for his entire life. In college, he majored in Game Programming. When he entered the college, he already had enough knowledge to understand about how the games are made from his experience of playing games. After college, he was hired from Nintendo, the biggest game company in Japan. He said that "because I played every series of Final Fantasy and memorized how the games are organized in each chapter, I could impress the interviewers when they asked me about Final Fantasy."

What Does a Blog Mean Today?

          What is a blog? Most people would say, “It’s an online-journal.” Blogs are also the place, where people can say something that they cannot easily say in front of others. For example, Lindsay Lohan writes about her thoughts about her father in her blog that “he cheated on my mother and that really sucks.” Lohan expresses her feeling toward her father that she cannot easily say in front of audience and mass communications. The example tells that people do not need to worry about others’ reactions of what they say while writing on their blogs because a computer is the only one that is standing in front of them.  

            Then, what is the role of a blog in the today’s media? A blog is no longer just “an online-journal” but a powerful mediated tool to influence the society. Robert W. Bly tells, “I can’t deny the effectiveness of blogging for marketing and self-promotion.” Bly says, “Many writers have either gotten book deals or made their books bestsellers as a result of their blogs.” In the worlds of entertainment, business, and politics, blogs have functioned as a bridge between the media and people.

           

The Evolution of Blogs

            A blog is a mediated tool and not just a reflection of a person. Majority of viewers see that blogs are “online diaries where people share their opinions, ramblings and personal events” (“What”), but they do not even think about the intended meaning or purpose of a person, who writes a blog. According to Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache, staff writers in the website, CNET News,  “In December 1997, [Jorn Barger] created RobotWisdom.com-[the first blog in history]- to feature entirely bloggy collections of links to articles about politics, culture, books and technology that he found interesting.” Since 1997, the original purpose of a blog, which is to share something interesting with others, has been evolved by bloggers and internet users. Lance Strate, the author of the article “Studying Media As Media,” quotes “McLuhan’s (1964) famous maxim, ‘the medium is the message’” (130). A blog can become a powerful mediated tool to deliver messages to people. Some bloggers post their messages to guide viewers and the society to their desirable ways. Without knowing the intentions of bloggers, viewers can possibly be influenced by his/her thoughts and beliefs through reading their blogs. This paper presents the evolution of blogs’ roles and function in the media. -thesis

            As I researched blogs in terms of their function and roles in the media, I have found that the messages on a blog can become more influential to people than the messages through other mediated routes, such as websites and public speech, for two main reasons. 1. Blogs let viewers leave their comments about the contents on its page at their leisure, while websites and speeches do not. 2. Common understanding of a blog as a “diary” makes viewers feel privileged to read the blogger’s personal reflections and feel close to the blogger.  

            People feel more involved when they have a chance to post their comments of what they have read. The website, Daily Blog Tips, explains, “A blog is basically a type of website, like a forum or a social bookmarking site” (“What”).While websites do not let viewers leave their comments or observations of their articles, blogs let “readers have the possibility to leave comments” (“What”). Because viewers know that they can submit their thoughts and impressions about the messages on blogs in comments’ sections, they become more serious about reading the blogs’ contents to leave elaborate and immersed comments, which impress bloggers. As a result, viewers become obsessed with reading blogs and affected and influenced by the messages.       

            According to the website, Daily Blog Tips, many people tend to “think that blogs are online diaries where [they] share their opinions, ramblings and personal events” (“What”). Because most people see a blog as a personal diary, some people are more interested in reading a blogger’s reflections of his/her experience than reading public articles in a website.

Arita Yoshifu, a politician and famous journalist in Japan, is a blogger, who has evolved the functions of a blog and uses it as a mediated tool to brainwash people into believing what he says on his blog. The slogan of the National Rifle Association is, “‘Guns don’t kill people, people do.’” Arita is a good example of the meaning behind this quote; in other words, blogs don’t influence people, but he does.

A blog was originally created for people “to contact with each other in relationships where they can learn, share ideas, make friends with and even do business with people with similar interests from around the world” (Rowse). For example, a blog is a space into where they can post information or experiences about themselves that they think might be interesting to others. This space is meant to be a web coffee shop, where people communicate with their friends through sharing their personal experiences and exchanging each other’s thoughts and ideas.

However, Arita has evolved the original purposes of a blog: His purpose of blogging is not to make friends and interact with friends but to attack a certain group, the UC. Arita writes, “We, Japanese Society, have to fight against cults, Aum Shinrikyo and the Unification Church.” If viewers read the sentence without knowing what he really means, the viewers would misunderstand the statement as if Arita is trying to save the society from the cults; however, his ultimate goal of saying this is to attack the UC by categorizing them with Aum Shinrikyo, a known terrorist organization.  Instead of networking and sharing his personal experiences with others, he manipulates the blog to attack the UC.

            Arita manipulates the blog to make people believe what he says. Arita uses his position as a politician and well-known figure in the media to emphasize that “we, Japanese society” must unite and defend ourselves against cults, as if saying that he is a representation of the entire Japanese population. Assuming that people think he is an honest, trustworthy man, he can write negative things about UC that includes false information with no worry for persecution. Not like websites, which require proof about whatever authors write, a blog has no restrictions or rules. Bloggers, therefore, can make their blogs “whatever [they] want it to be” (“What’s”). Arita uses the blogger’s privilege and writes whatever he wants to mention with no need to worry about being oppressed by the government and society. Another technique Arita uses to coerce people into believing what he says on his blog is that to post readers’ supportive comments of the posts.

            A blog can be a powerful tool to change people’s thoughts. Blogging is more effective way to influence people than speaking in public because the blog is something that a viewer can read whenever or wherever they want to without any interruption. Listening to someone and speaking in front of a crowd cannot easily inspire and influence audience unless he/she is a great speaker like Martin Luther King Jr. or Benjamin Franklin. But people feel personally connected to authors of blogs when they read the blogs in their own room without any interruption of others.

            Arita manipulates the “personal diary,” where people listen to him as a “friend,” invades into their hearts, and brainwashes them into believing that he is the messenger from heaven to save the world. Christine OKelly in the website, Self Made Chick, suggests to “stay true to yourself because you need to be your own biggest fan before anyone else can be.” The sentence tells Arita to stop lying about the UC and be true self. If Arita is his own biggest fan after writing all the false contents on his blog, he is the true evil.

The Fake

            A Blog is a powerful mediated tool, which influences society. Jeung-tai E. Tang and Chi-hui Chiang, National YunLin University of Science and Technology, mention, “In recent years, weblogs (blogs) have become popular forums on the Internet and have changed the nature of human social interaction by allowing people to connect with many other individuals worldwide.” Also, many politicians, journalists, business people, and other professionals take full advantage of blogs to remain competitive in today’s fast-paced society. The blog has narrative elements that influence society. Because owners of blogs are given rights to post about whatever they want to write and accept only the comments of viewers that the owners wish to show on their blogs, people can create a dominant or ideal world that is centered upon their personal desires. Arita Yoshifu, a politician, journalist, and self-proclaimed anti-religious person also uses a blog as a tool for his own benefit, but also to attack particular groups, with which he disagrees, or are obstacles to his goals. The Unification Church, UC, has been his biggest target, about which he has mentioned since the beginning of his blog. In the narrative of the blog, Arita develops himself as a hero by giving his viewers positive images of himself and through his outstanding writing techniques. However, he essentially brainwashes viewers into believing that whatever he writes about the UC in his blog is true.

            As a politician and well-known figure in the media, Arita fulfills the first step of creating a positive image by framing himself as the hero of Japan. According to Jamy Li and Mark Chingnell in the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Toronto, readers “have prior impressions of a blogger’s personality based on offline acquaintance, previously read posts, other online content (e.g., profile information) or the credibility of a referring site.” In other words, the impression of bloggers, which readers have before looking at their actual blogs, is significant because it leads readers to determine whether or not the bloggers’ comments are accurate and believable.

            Arita is well-known as a smart, polite person, who has never raised his voice in TV shows in the Japanese society. Anytime Arita appears on Japanese TV, he is introduced as a graduate of Ritsumeikan University, which is known as one of the top universities in Japan. His academic accomplishment in the top University in Japan gives people an image of a smart and credible man. Also, proper language, straight posture, and a deep, quiet voice lead many TV viewers to have an impression of him as polite, gentle man. He arrives himself like a hero, on whose actions and comments people can rely.  

            After successfully presenting his positive images to the Japanese society, Arita uses his writing techniques, which have been cultivated through his years as a journalist, to make viewers believe that whatever he writes in his blog is correct and credible. So when Arita writes in his blog that “the Unification Church and Aum Shinrikyo are the social issue that I always have to remind people through my blog,” he is telling readers that the UC, which is considered as a cult in Japan, is the same as Aum Shinrikyo. However, Aum Shinrikyo is formally recognized as  a terrorist group worldwide after the Sarin gas attack. Arita uses his heroic persona to lie to the Japanese society. Arita also calls the UC an “anti-social religious group” many times in his blog without explaining why the group is anti-social. His constant stress of the UC as “anti-social” with no explanation or any reason shows that he is confident that most viewers believe that he is a champion of justice and the UC is evil; the only thing he has to do is to remind viewers that the UC is not favorable in the society.

            Arita’s comments in his blog and other mediums like TV interviews and the articles he wrote, which speak negatively of the UC, such as by categorizing them and Aum Shinrikyo in the same group, threaten the families of the UC members and lead their families to hire deprogrammers to kidnap them. According to Douglas Burton on the website (Unification Church News) around 4000 Unificationists “have been abducted and subjected to coercive psychological torture intended to break their faith during the last 30 years.”  Dan Fefferman and Ray Mas, authors of the website (International Coalition for Religious Freedom) says, a UC member “was raped on numerous occasions by her “deprogrammer.”” In worst cases, these extremely violent attacks carried out by deprogrammers “have resulted in suicide”(Fefferman). Arita has never mentioned what really happened to those victims of the kidnapping cases in his blog; however, Arita mentions in his blog, “It was right choice for the families of UC members to rescue them from the anti-social group like Unification Church.” He even criticizes UC that “Unification Church is very wrong that they call the family’s attempts to rescue their family members kidnappings.” Arita is not a real hero, who tries to save the Japanese society from the UC, but he is an evil that indirectly leads deprogrammers to destroy the UC through the media. 

As I mentioned in the culture jamming section, Arita never posted any comments opposing and pointing out the contradictions in his blog.  Even though the things he writes in his blog, such as the kidnapping cases of the UC members, often contradict with the truth, Arita can still exalt his opinions by keeping only supportive comments of his words. By posting only supportive comments about what he writes on his blog, he portrays himself as a hero, whom everyone admires and respects.    

Arita develops himself as a tragic hero, which is under the threat of the UC, in his blog. Before Arita was elected to the House of Councilors, he posted comments on his blog, “The UC members are distributing fliers, slandering and speaking ill of myself, throughout Japan.” He explained that the main purpose for the UC members to distribute the fliers is to prevent him from being elected to the House of Councilors. The UC demonstrated against the thousands of abductions and physical assaults to the UC members carried out by deprogrammers. The members distributed the fliers, saying that “Arita has played the key role to make the tragedy of kidnappings happen by spreading negative and false information about the UC through TV, magazines, internet, and his own books.” The UC members had a fear that if Arita gains more power in the society, such as becoming a politician, what he says about the UC through the media would become more influential, and the persecution toward the members would be escalated; therefore, the members opposed “the axis of evil” to be elected to the House of Councilors. Arita, however, wrote that the UC members distributed “fliers, slandering and speaking ill of myself” without mentioning the member’s feeling of fear toward him. By knowing that Arita became a hero in his blog, he twisted the truth and framed the sentence, as if the UC members were tring to attack the hero with the spread of libelous material.

Arita argues that the UC members’ conduct of distributing the fliers written the opposition for him to run for the election “stifles the freedom of speech.” For more than fifteen years since Arita first appeared in the media, he has created and spread negative images and deceitful information of the UC. Because his work of creating a false image of the UC as an anti-social or terrorist like group, most UC members cannot even say that they are Unificationists to their friends or even to their own family members. Through the media, Arita has oppressed the UC members’ ability to introduce themselves as Unificationists in Japanese society and share their beliefs to others. In spite of the past records of his conduct, Arita can brainwash people into believing that the UC is no more than an anti-social cult, while keeping himself as the tragic hero, whose is freedom of speech is stifled by the UC, in his blog.

Arita uses his blog as a powerful mediated tool. Shih-Ming Pi, Hsiu-Li Liao, and the other two authors in the website, EBSCOhost, report, “According to a report in April 2007 (Sifry, 2007), there are more than 70 million blogs on the world wide web and approximately 120,000 new blogs are posted each day.” We have seen how effective Arita’s blog is, and it’s only one of 70 million blogs. The power of the blog is made evidence through the changes of the UC members’ lives by one alleged hero.

Appropriate Terms For Guys

When you see this image, what impression of the puppy comes first? Yes, "cute."
When I went to my friend's house in Chicago in 2007, I saw a puppy. I said, "The dog is so cute."
My friend said, "Koei, you are weird." I wasn't sure why I was weird to her, so I asked her. Then, she said, "it sounds gay for guys to say cute.'"
Because I was still learning English as an ESL student, I didn't know that the word "cute" was feminine term. But now, I have a concept that "cute" is a feminine term, and guys, who use the term are very feminine or possibly gays. Actually, i often hear that guys say "cute" to people or animals. Do they say the word because they are feminine? If I see a puppy that gives me a "cute" impression, should I say the puppy is "what's up" instead of saying "cute?" Since the "cute" experience in 2007, I have never used the term "cute" even to a baby.
So, am I not supposed to say "cute" in any occasions not to be labeled as a feminine guy?

What Do I Look Like to You?

I posted this image on my Facebook page as my profile picture the last Sunday. The image is the main logo of a Japanese popular brand, APE. I posted the image because I liked the shirts of the brand.

After posting the image, I received an interesting reaction from my friend in their comments. A Christian friend, who knew that I also had a faith in God, simply asked me, "Why?" 

At first, I wasn't sure what he meant, so I asked, "What to you mean why?" 

Then, he replied, "Why did you post this? Did you become an atheist?" 

Oh, I got it! He thought that I showed my belief in evolution through posting this image on my profile picture. I explained that it's a logo of a very famous fashion brand in Japan. I said I never believed that whatever Darwin said was totally untrue. 

The brand is not famous and in America, so many other friends, who believe that humans are all creations of God, would probably be offended with this image. 

The friend's reaction was a good reminder that how I was obsessed by the "brand." I have a few of the shirts with the APE's logo and have worn them when I go outside without worrying about other people's eyes. But after realizing how weird the shirts look like and possibly offended to some people, I stopped wearing the shirts in public. I may wear the shirts only when I am in my house. 

I don't mean that I should always wear a shirt, on which is printed Jesus' face, but I should know that what I wear can cause people to misunderstand me.