What is the American dream we pursue today?

In the play “Death of a salesman” the main character is trying what we call the American dream.

The stereotypical American dream today involves:
-Owning your own house in a nice neighborhood.
-Having 2,5 kids and a station wagon.
-A contemporary lifestyle.

But none of these things are possible without money. Earning a living on less mainstream jobs like art and music is hard. Getting a degree in medicine or any other area that one finds interesting to become one`s own boss requires time and even more money. And when money is what you need to pursue your dream, it is easy to take the easy way out and get a standard job where you can slowly work your way up.

In the modern society it is an essential to make money to be able to live a normal life off the street. For some people in countries with a lower life standard, roof over your head seems to be enough, but this is America, and it is not the case.

Commercial and media keeps telling us what we need, and what we should have, while painting a picture of what is essential to be happy.

What it seems that the American dream is trying to make the citizens of America today, as much as in “The Death of a Salesman”, it is to believe that looking like the perfect reflection of success on the outside, is going to make your life complete. You are as happy as other people think you are. The American dream is not necessarily to be successful and own a big house because you want it, or to get a good position in business because you put your soul into it, it is to make others believe you are happy.

Willy was perhaps the very lecturer of this as he told his son to look his best when he played football. How it delighted him that his son Biff was the champion of his school and everybody looked up to him. The bitter truth here of course is that looking happy far from makes you a fortunate person. Willy might have been the very image of a man who had everything he wanted, until we found out that he had been cheating on his wife. Even if he looked like a man who loved what he was doing, he was just desperately chasing an imaginary dream he created in his head.  It is why he never found himself, and realized that he was not made to be a salesman, he was too busy making money.

If we all just stopped for a moment, stopped thinking about making more, stopped thinking about what other people say about us, and though about what we realy want, would we find ourself? Would making less but feeling more alive make us happier?

American media creating stereotypes of socialism.

Ok, so this is only the rough draft of my op-ed, there are going to be a lot of changes I expect, so be nice if you choose to comment on it.

Since the beginning of the cold war, American media has been packed with propaganda against communism and socialism. Movies, newspapers and republicans have been having the tendency to utter the word “socialism” as if it was a dirty word their mom forbids them to say out loud. This is a problem for future politicians if this keeps getting worse than it already is. If a democrat tips slightly over the edge of being liberal, well, I guess he is a communist. And if there is one thing Americans hate, it`s paying their hard earned money as taxes to the state, so they can`t decide what to spend them on themselves.

I was born and raised in Norway, a country that has been awarded as the best country to live in several times, similar to its neighbors: Denmark, Sweden and Finland; who all score very high on the list of best countries to live in. The income per person is high, the average person is very happy with their life, and is expected to live until 81 years. Furthermore, all of these countries are social democracies.

Imagine presenting your beliefs to another person, and a few moments later, they are criticizing you for being a protestant. They keep going on and on forever about how you are wrong, and you have to stand there taking it from them, when you in fact are a catholic. I am not going to compare religion and politics, which are two very separate things. Yet this is not so far from the reality of confusion between social democracy and socialism. Yes, these ideologies share some of the same traits, but they`re not the same. If this is getting too complicated for you to understand, then imagine someone mixing up Twilight and Vampire diaries. Do you follow me now?

Apparently, calling Obama a socialist is supposed to make him a less wanted leader. “Obama wants to take your hard earned money by increasing the taxes”. That being liberal is what`s giving people poor life conditions. I have heard politicians comparing Obamas followers to Soviet spies. With a falling economy, it must be nice having a scapegoat that does not involve themselves.

Their ignorance might not be their fault though. Chances are that they are affected by the stories their fathers told them, older people who learned about communism by being in war with it, and early 60s propaganda. Or, it might be that they just watch a lot of movies.

Communists have since the 1980s been the major bad guy of American movies; the biggest threat, who might look strong on the outside, but is easy to take down. This is where the media seriously starts making a socialist and communists into what they think it should be, and what they want you to think it is.

If you have seen the “Rocky” movies, about the true American boxer, with the fair game attitude who runs through storms and up mountains to get in shape, then you might have noticed how they portray his opponent from the third film. This is the movie where he has to take down the highly intimidating Ivan Drago. A boxer who is an insane 6-foot, 5 inch and 261-pound. Not only does is he given medications, he is trained with advanced machines; he shows no form of sympathy or personality, so of course he is from The Soviet Union.

This is just one of many, many movies. The joker from the dark night rises was dressed to look like a Russian dictator and a French fascist. I mean, if the Europeans always are the bad boys in the movies, I guess it must be true.

None of these sources actually give any insight or background information on any of these ideologies. It just mixes them all up until we get three words with the very same meaning; failure. I have to admit that I learned about the structure of DNA, and the process of a rotting corpse by watching C.S.I, and many of us probably learned moral from Disney movies. Still, not all we see in movies are facts that can be used in real life. If you dance on the street, every person bumping into you is not going to automatically know the dance moves you do, and medieval peasants did probably have as good teeth condition as it might seem.

When I grow old enough to pay my taxes; I will grin my socialist smile and laugh mockingly in the direction of America. Apparently, their whining can`t get me out from under the iron curtain separating our worlds.

How to write an Op-ed article.

Before writing an Op-ed article, it might be an idea to focus on the outline before getting started. It`s very important to remember that an Op-ed is not like an essay at all. The structure is in fact quite the opposite.
While in an essay you might start of with a topic, and then continuing by discussing and analyzing it. In the last paragraphs, you should have come to a conclusion.

This is not an essay though. An op-ed article is slightly different, and doesn`t allow you to spend so much time pondering and coming up with arguments for every aspect of the topic you are discussing.
Here is a short description of how to write and structure an article, which I will be using for my own op-ed article.

Opening: In the first paragraph of an op-ed article, you state your idea or conclusion. This is not the time to be circuitous or being deep. Be brief and get to the point at once!
An op-ed article is not like an essay. That is why you begin by stating your conclusion, which would usually be the way to end an essay. The explanation is simply because you are going to spend the rest of the article giving proof to support your statement.

Body: Trough out the article, you should stick with three key points, like in an essay. Keep it simple and organized, with short sentences and paragraphs. In addition, an op-ed article should not contain more than 750 words, so there is not exactly unlimited time to come up with arguments.

The people reading this will be the average population, and they require that the language is not filled with jargons, or slow paced and overly philosophic. The man on the street is most likely not familiar with medical terms, or dates of historical events. The language needs to catch their attention. So even if you are writing an article based on information and facts, use a strong voice. Clearly state “I believe that…..” instead of “It could be assumed that……” which makes the article look weak and careful.

Important things to remember:

-Educate your reader. If you know what you write is not common knowledge, apply it.
-Don`t base everything on research. You are allowed to add stories you have heard if they are related to the topic. Readers tend to remember more fun and colorful details. You could also write something we all can relate to.
-If you can relate what you are writing about to something that was recently in the media, then do so!  Timing is important, and these articles draw more attention.
-Avoid clichés or using to much time being philosophic.
-Use humor if the topic allows it. Even though this is an article, you are allowed to be personal and “get dirty”. It can help you make a point.
-Do NOT ramble. Remember the limit of 750 words.
-Express your opinion. And then support it with sources and facts.

Ending: The ending should be the most memorable part of the article. A reader will often skim trough the content of the text and read only the opening and the final paragraph. One very useful technique that is popular among writers is to clearly repeat something they said in the opening. All in all, it should be a summary of the statements and points you made trough out the whole article, and you should re-state your position.

Representation of communism in American film

I am one of those people who enjoy watching movies every weekend with friends or family. It is sort of a hobby among friends to gather, make pizza from scratch, pop popcorn and sit down with a good, popular film.
As most movies that can be purchased all over the world are american ones, the choice is often simple to go with a mainstream one.

After watching the "Rocky" series, about the true American boxer, with the fair game attitude who always wins I noticed something very funny about how they portrayed the opponent of Rocky in the third film. This is the movie where he has to take down highly
 intimidating Ivan Drago. A boxer who is an insane
 6-foot 5 inch and 261-pound. Not only does is he given
 medications, special training with the use of 
machines and many, many doctors observing him at 
all times, show no form of sympathy or personality 
but he is also from The Soviet union.


This is of course not the first time this has been done in American film industry. In fact, it is very normal for them to represent the Eastern Europeans as the "Bad Boys" of american film. Just think about all the Russian and Chinese spies you have seen in "James Bond".

Here is just a short list of a few movies involving Dirty Communists from:  http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DirtyCommunists

• Rambo First Blood Part II and Rambo III gave John Rambo the Reagan-esque patriotism that the previously disenchanted with America character has since become famous for.
  • The image of John Rambo as an uber-patriotic flag waver is a false one. At the end Rambo II he is so disgusted by the government's attempt to cover up the fact that American prisoners of war are still being held in Vietnam that he doesn't return home. In Rambo III he is motivated by his desire to rescue his old friend Colonel Trautman rather than duty to the country he was born in.
• Red Dawn is arguably the quintessential anti-communist movie of the 1980s.
• Red Scorpion shows Russians as inhuman killing machines, except the one who turns against them.
• Rocky IV created Ivan Drago whom remains one of the most recognizable symbols of Communism of the 80s.
  • An episode of The Colbert Report featured a "special update" on the Cold War. The opening montage featured Lenin, Stalin, Kruschev, Drago, and Yakov Smirnoff.
• America's favorite adventuring archaeologist fights some Dirty Communists in his fourth film, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
  • This particular example seems more of a homage to Cold War era pulp fiction, fitting the overall theme of the series pretty well.
  • Dirty Communists were also the villains in LucasArts' game Indiana Jones And The Infernal Machine.
• Much of Chuck Norris' body of work. Especially Invasion USA.
• French comedy La cité de la peur features a hammer-and-sickle-wielding (literally!) serial killer. His motives are not political; however, he's copying a similarly armed killer from the film within the film Red Is Dead, a dirty communist indeed◊, who kills rich people because "profit was unbearable from his proletarian perspective."
• Clint Eastwood's film Firefox.
• Angelina Jolie's Salt is about the Soviet Union having a secret program of sleeper agents out to destroy the United States and restore the Soviet Union. Given they intend to blow up Mecca to frame the United States for it, they are a PROFOUND collection of dicks.

Why would this be necessary? Most of the movies are from the 80`s, where the shunning of Communism was at it`s highest, but the movie Salt with Angelina Jolie, actually show that Hollywood has not put this business behind themselves. 

Is this propaganda? Is this a warning from the state? Is it because it is easy to make up a story from? Or is it simply just childish? I`m not able to give a correct answer, but what I know is that at once I see a movie with this tendency, I think it is automatically stupid.

Dave Barry

David "Dave"Barry(1947) is an American born author and columnist for The Miami Herald. He has recieved the Pulitzer Prize for his humerus articles. Most of his columns are about every day problems, sports and at occasions, global issues.

When reading something by  David, it is most of all for the entertainment of his skilled writing. His texts are funny, at times dripping with sarcasms, and exaggeration. one of his texts I recently read was his article about over hysterical parents, and a guide for parents on Halloween, titled "Your child deserves a Halloween costume by Calvin Klein". 

Halloween is coming, and you parents know what that means! It means it's time for you to make fun and creative costumes for your kids! Otherwise you are not as good as the other parents.
Even as you read these words, competing parents - the kind of people whose homes have candles burning in front of statues of Martha Stewart - are hunched over their workbenches, creating costumes that require more time and effort than you spent planning your wedding. These are the parents you see on the "home and family" segments of morning TV shows just before Halloween:
HOST: Our next parent is Mrs. Shirley Hamperwinkle, who has dressed her daughter, Tiffany, as an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower! What an amazing costume! However did you do it, Shirley?
PARENT: Well, Sue, first I forged 12,000 miniature steel girders in my home blast furnace, using ore I dug out of my garden. I assembled these girders using 2.5 million tiny hand-made rivets with the help of my husband, Ed, before he ran off. Then I attached the tower to Tiffany using 147 surgical screws.
HOST: But how does she take the costume off?
PARENT (becoming agitated): Take it off? Take it OFF?? WHY WOULD SHE TAKE IT OFF???
This is the kind of parent you're up against. So you can't just throw some half-baked costume together at the last minute, the way we did in my childhood, when 80 to 90 percent of us kids stumbled around blindly on Halloween night wearing bed sheets with poorly aligned eye holes. We were supposed to look like ghosts, although this never made a ton of sense to me. I mean, ghosts are the spirits of dead people, right? Why would dead people wear bed sheets? Did they all die in an explosion at a hotel laundry?
I preferred to trick-or-treat as a vampire, which I felt was much scarier. The problem was the plastic vampire teeth. I have a powerful gag reflex, so when people opened their doors, instead of being terrified by the awesome bone-chilling specter of the Prince of Darkness, they'd see this short, caped person, retching. Their only terror was that I might throw up on their shoes.
But getting back to my point: As a modern parent, you need to get to work on your children's costumes RIGHT NOW. Don't worry if you're not the "artsy" type! Because I have a really original and creative costume idea for you. Start by gathering together the following arts-and-crafts materials:
1. Car keys.
2. Money.
OK! Now drive to the mall and buy your child a creative and original costume that was originally created in a factory in Taiwan. You'll have lots of choices! For little boys, you may choose from the following: Superman, Batman, Spiderman, the X-Men, Licensed Character Man, Buzz Lightyear, Darth Maul, Rex Kilometer, Commander Strafe, Buck Gouge, Sergeant Groin, The Violence Squadron, the Legion of Compound Fractures, the Masters of Really Hard Face Punching and Al Gore. For little girls you may choose among the following: Ballerina Barbie, Princess Barbie, Cheerleader Barbie, Presidential Intern Barbie, Bride Barbie, Severe Hangover Barbie, Minority Group Barbie, Joint Chiefs of Staff Barbie, Chest-Cavity-Dwelling Alien Fetus Barbie, The Barbie Formerly Known As Barbie and Al Gore.
Now your kids are all set for some real "trick-or-treat" fun! But before you let them leave the house, the U.S. Department of Consumer Nervousness reminds you to follow these important:
HALLOWEEN SAFETY RULES
* Be aware that many municipalities have established special dates for trick-or-treating. For safety reasons, these dates are never on Halloween. Some of them are closer to Easter.
* Make sure each child is carrying a fire extinguisher and wearing a head-mounted smoke detector.
* Trick-or-treat candy may have been tampered with, so you should take it away from your children, check it carefully, then eat it.
* Never allow your children to trick-or-treat at night, or in dangerous areas such as outdoors.
Remember: The important thing is to have fun in a safe and federal manner. Even you adults can join in the Halloween fun! Why not think of a clever and topical costume? For example, if you're a fat hairy man, you can walk around naked; if the police stop you, simply explain that you're trick-or-treating as the guy who won the million dollars on Survivor. I'm sure the police will applaud your cleverness! Then they'll take you to a place where you can make your one phone call. To Defense Attorney Barbie. 

Link:  http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/30/2469698/your-child-deserves-a-halloween.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/10/30/2469698/your-child-deserves-a-halloween.html#storylink=cpy

Thomas L. Friedman

Thomas Lauren Friedman (1953) is an award winning, American author and columnist. Three times a week he writes about for The New York Time, often about global issues, global-warming and conflicts. 

 One of his articles that caught my attention was titled; "Aren’t We Clever?". An article that discussed how American politics seem to never get started doing something about Climate change, compared to China, who actually managed to earn money on it. This appealed to at once as anything that debates global warming is worth reading. The irony of the title becomes clear as you read, how America fails to see how they can benefit on this, and shows it under the carpet.

What a contrast. In a year that’s on track to be our planet’s hottest on record, America turned “climate change” into a four-letter word that many U.S. politicians won’t even dare utter in public. If this were just some parlor game, it wouldn’t matter. But the totally bogus “discrediting” of climate science has had serious implications. For starters, it helped scuttle Senate passage of the energy-climate bill needed to scale U.S.-made clean technologies, leaving America at a distinct disadvantage in the next great global industry. And that brings me to the contrast: While American Republicans were turning climate change into a wedge issue, the Chinese Communists were turning it into a work issue.
“There is really no debate about climate change in China,” said Peggy Liu, chairwoman of the Joint U.S.-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, a nonprofit group working to accelerate the greening of China. “China’s leaders are mostly engineers and scientists, so they don’t waste time questioning scientific data.” The push for green in China, she added, “is a practical discussion on health and wealth. There is no need to emphasize future consequences when people already see, eat and breathe pollution every day.”
And because runaway pollution in China means wasted lives, air, water, ecosystems and money — and wasted money means fewer jobs and more political instability — China’s leaders would never go a year (like we will) without energy legislation mandating new ways to do more with less. It’s a three-for-one shot for them. By becoming more energy efficient per unit of G.D.P., China saves money, takes the lead in the next great global industry and earns credit with the world for mitigating climate change.
So while America’s Republicans turned “climate change” into a four-letter word — J-O-K-E — China’s Communists also turned it into a four-letter word — J-O-B-S.
“China is changing from the factory of the world to the clean-tech laboratory of the world,” said Liu. “It has the unique ability to pit low-cost capital with large-scale experiments to find models that work.” China has designated and invested in pilot cities for electric vehicles, smart grids, LED lighting, rural biomass and low-carbon communities. “They’re able to quickly throw spaghetti on the wall to see what clean-tech models stick, and then have the political will to scale them quickly across the country,” Liu added. “This allows China to create jobs and learn quickly.”
But China’s capability limitations require that it reach out for partners. This is a great opportunity for U.S. clean-tech firms — if we nurture them. “While the U.S. is known for radical innovation, China is better at tweak-ovation.” said Liu. Chinese companies are good at making a billion widgets at a penny each but not good at complex system integration or customer service.
We (sort of) have those capabilities. At the World Economic Forum meeting here, I met Mike Biddle, founder of MBA Polymers, which has invented processes for separating plastic from piles of junked computers, appliances and cars and then recycling it into pellets to make new plastic using less than 10 percent of the energy required to make virgin plastic from crude oil. Biddle calls it “above-ground mining.” In the last three years, his company has mined 100 million pounds of new plastic from old plastic.
Biddle’s seed money was provided mostly by U.S. taxpayers through federal research grants, yet today only his tiny headquarters are in the U.S. His factories are in Austria, China and Britain. “I employ 25 people in California and 250 overseas,” he says. His dream is to have a factory in America that would repay all those research grants, but that would require a smart U.S. energy bill. Why?
Americans recycle about 25 percent of their plastic bottles. Most of the rest ends up in landfills or gets shipped to China to be recycled here. Getting people to recycle regularly is a hassle. To overcome that, the European Union, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea — and next year, China — have enacted producer-responsibility laws requiring that anything with a cord or battery — from an electric toothbrush to a laptop to a washing machine — has to be collected and recycled at the manufacturers’ cost. That gives Biddle the assured source of raw material he needs at a reasonable price. (Because recyclers now compete in these countries for junk, the cost to the manufacturers for collecting it is steadily falling.)
“I am in the E.U. and China because the above-ground plastic mines are there or are being created there,” said Biddle, who just won The Economist magazine’s 2010 Innovation Award for energy/environment. “I am not in the U.S. because there aren’t sufficient mines.”
Biddle had enough money to hire one lobbyist to try to persuade the U.S. Congress to copy the recycling regulations of Europe, Japan and China in our energy bill, but, in the end, there was no bill. So we educated him, we paid for his tech breakthroughs — and now Chinese and European workers will harvest his fruit. Aren’t we clever? 
 Link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/19/opinion/19friedman.html?_r=1&ref=thomaslfriedman

Three examples of media impact on our life

We are exposed to media every day, it is a fact. From the moment we wake up and read the newspaper, until we check our Facebook status between classes, and as we watch our favorite TV-show before we go to bed. As this is a thing that surrounds us constantly, it is only expected that it will have some kind of effect on us.

1.      Body image

Most people are familiar with this one, not only girls. The media gives us a picture of how we are supposed to look, dress, eat, and act. Seeing super skinny models in the fashion catalogs and on the catwalk has not exactly made the average population happier with how they look.

As an example I have used the Akon, David Guetta music video for the song "sexy chick", where the two artists are portrayed with a group of girls with the "ideal body".

2. Status of people.

As before the year 2010, I can`t say I remember the word "nerd" to have stricken me as something positive. That is, until quite recently. Today, the nerds are our heroes. The movie about Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook was praised by those who watched it. The Tv-show "Big Bang Theory" has shown us that not only are Nerds smart, they are also hilarious. Steve Jobs is like a hero in modern times. 

The nerds are up and going. As explained in this article from usatoday.com

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/story/2012-04-10/techie-geeks-cool/54160750/1

3. How countries shun each others ideologies.

Being born and raised in a social democracy, I always though it was funny to read American newspapers to see how the words "socialist" was almost used as an insult, and if democrats started getting too liberal they would be compared to communists.

I found a picture of Obama, pointing strictly towards the camera lens, with a statement of socialism beneath.