Blog #2

Politics and Popular music, while seemingly polar opposites, are in fact closely related. The most obvious connection between the two is political influence in music.

There have been many cases in which politics appear in music. These appearances range from protest movements to supporting presidential campaigns. In fact, music is very commonly used in politics to sway the public's opinion of a given topic.

Although I do not have an extensive knowledge of music, I can recall many times in which songs included political movements, presidential campaigns, and protests.

U2 is a perfect example of the influence of music on politics. In the early 1980s, the band released the album "War". This album was concentrated with political songs, including "Sunday Bloody Sunday", "New Year's Day" and "Seconds".
"Sunday Bloody Sunday" was a song intended to protest and lament the turmoil that was taking place at the time in Northern Ireland. It was mostly focused on Bloody Sunday, in which innocent Irish protesters were shot and killed by British troops. This song is considered one of the best political songs of all time, and is among the band's most popular songs.
"New Year's Day" was inspired by the Polish Solidarity movement, which was the first non-communist party controlled trade union in the "Warsaw Pact" countries. This led to the downfall of communism in much of Europe, which in turn weakened the Soviet Union as a major power.
"Seconds" illustrated nuclear proliferation, or the influx of nuclear weapons amongst many nations that was occurring at that time. It expressed the fear of nuclear warfare and the apocalyptic aftermath that could occur as a result of the possession of items of mass destruction.

The band's name itself stemmed from political events. The U-2 incident was an event that occurred in the 1960s, when an American U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviet Union. This incident caused extreme tension between the two nations and could have caused a nuclear war.
In 2006, U2 collaborated with fellow punk band Green Day to record the song "The Saints Are Coming". This song expressed both of the groups' extreme distaste at the Bush Administration's lack of help towards the victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Green Day has also produced a number of songs that address political and social issues. In 2004, the band released the album "American Idiot", which expressed their disapproval of the United States government. The titular song "American Idiot" showed the band's views on the state of the nation. The lyrics displayed the United States to be a somewhat Orwellian society, in which the nation was "controlled by the media" and brainwashed by "propaganda". Green Day's other songs show parallel views towards the events that were occurring at the time. Because they lashed out at the Bush Administration, Green Day consequently ended up supporting the Democratic side in the next election. This most certainly gathered a considerable amount of votes for the Democratic party in the election (although this proved to be not enough).

There are countless other musical artists that have contributed their views towards politics and have influenced the state of politics as a result. Many punk rock bands expressed anarchistic views, rock n roll bands played a major role in political statements during hard times (John Lennon's "Imagine" and Bob Dylan's "Times They Are a-Changin"), and folk songs were instrumental in protests and rallies, such as the song "We Shall Overcome" in the Civil Rights Movement, and "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?" by Peter Seger as a protest to the Vietnam War.

Songs have greatly influenced political culture and will continue to do so in the future.

Blog #1

What does it mean to be a reader? That is a question I hope to answer in the next 500 words.

In my family, reading has always been considered as a valuable activity that is both enjoyable and essential to the growth of the mind.

In my younger years, I was an avid reader. I remember finishing my first chapter book and, not long afterwards, finishing several of them in a week. My favorite type of books were fiction, as I loved action adventure novels and other entertaining stories. When reading these books, I was able to let my imagination take hold and get my mind completely engulfed in whatever I was reading. In this way, I was able to enjoy books as well as I enjoyed any other activities, such as watching television or playing my Gameboy.

As I grew older, I began reading more sophisticated fiction, like science and historical fiction, and even dipped into the nonfiction range once in a while. I continued to enjoy reading with the same sort of satisfaction, but I began to read less frequently as my school workload increased, the sports that I played began to take up more time, and my social life grew more diverse.

In my high school years, leading up until now, I have found that my time spent reading has been diminished. This is most likely because of the reasons listed above, but I also presume that it is due to the change in my reading style and the way that I perceive books and reading in general.

As I matured mentally and continue to mature, I have found that I have a stronger tendency to analyze the book to find deeper meanings and understand the story more. Instead of just speeding through books just for the story, I now try to analyze the story for anything extraordinary. So, as a result of spending more time on individual books, I have spent less time reading other books.

In the past couple of years, I have been around many intelligent people. As I go through high school with them, I am realizing a difference between the few that read a lot and those who do not. These people's vocabulary and linguistic skills have grown significantly. These changes are clear when having discussions with them. I have since realized that reading, in general, makes people smarter. Not only does vocabulary increase and writing become more sophisticated, reading allows people's capacity for knowledge to develop.

What does it mean to be a reader, then? Readers are people who want to extend their range of knowledge and improve their intelligence. Readers are people devoted to getting smarter. (That is, if the right material is being read.)

I feel that to become a better reader and thus a more intelligent person, I simply have to read more. I must concede that the books that I read currently are mostly works of fiction with some nonfiction peppered in. In order to become a better analyzer and a more diverse reader, I should read more nonfiction. While fictional books are most certainly entertaining and provide a good deal of analytical material, nonfiction usually relate to life more directly and can be applied to life easier.