as the world turns

County fairs: the single most American-esque event held way too many times more than I’d like. The deep-fried, diabetes-filled elephant ears, the chemically-dyed sugar balls more commonly euphemized as cotton candy, the deceiving smell of the overly buttery popcorn, and the list goes on. We cannot forget about the rides that are on the verge of breaking down any second and the parents screaming at their children to stop running away from them, worrying that they’ll get lost in the crowd. And of course the workers, forced to put on a smile on their face in front of the fair-goers but miserably failing, saying “Step right up!” in the most monotonous and dull voice imaginable. But yet we, as Americans, still go to every single fair, wait in every single line, and wait to try every single food item, somehow tolerating the screams of the sweaty little children. Personally, I have never understood the preferences of society today. The thought of consuming all that food, then then taking wh...

Once upon a time in a dream, I was casually driving down Crooks Rd., on my way to buy some coffee. As I turned in to the Starbucks complex, I saw a massive herd of pink elephants stampeding towards my car. Everyone in the complex was outright startled. I exclaimed, “Jesus Christ, why are they pink?” rather than contesting the fact that they were about to ramage into my car any second.  This absurd anecdote goes to show the exact absurdity Brady attempted to convey in “I Want a Wife.” Brady goes to show how wives attain numerous and impossible responsibilities through her repetition – a form of rhetoric – of “I want a wife....” She talks about wives as objects in order to convey the preposterous duties women are thought to behold: “[keeping] clothes cleaned, ironed, mended, replaced when need be, and [making sure] my personal things are kept in their proper place,” and the list goes on. Even today, this notion is beheld by society. She emphasizes the inequality that is ever-pr...

While it is true that women are often judged due to their appearance, I have to disagree with Tannen’s claim that everything women wear or “common associations” with the female gender are “marked." I believe that girls in school have the option to blend in with the norm, go all out with their accessories, or lay it back with just a pair of sweatpants. Either way, at least in my case, I tend not to judge others’ choices, making their choices ultimately unmarked. However, though others may judge, this still ultimately goes against Tannen’s claim that “every style available to us [is] marked.” Tannen’s main purpose is ultimately to bring awareness to the fact that “there is no unmarked woman” and to bring light to the fact that women should not be judged solely based on appearance. Her piece goes against this purpose in many aspects. By describing each of the women individually, not even mentioning their names, she turns the focus to their appearance rather than their true natu...

Although Brent Staples claims that he has the “ability to alter public in ugly ways” due mainly to the color of his skin, it seems to me that people of color can alter society in ways that aren’t always ugly if their own perception of themselves is not downgraded. I’d like to acknowledge that factors such as Staples’s “beard and billowing hair… [and] both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket” may contribute to people’s perception of him, but I believe it is mainly his own perception of how these qualities influence how others think of him. To explain farther, he gave a few instances of how his appearance made others feel uncomfortable such as the woman at the beginning or just general bypassers. He never once mentions those who don’t give him weird stares and nasty glares; this is most probably because as he walks through the streets of Chicago, he tends to focus only on those who seem to fear him. This behavior, known as confirmation bias, is the tendency to interp...