In "Born to Not Get Bullied", Nicholas Kristoff reports on Lady Gaga's visit to Harvard University on February 28 to formally launch her Born This Way Foundation, when he also interviewed "one of the world’s top pop stars and the person with the most Twitter followers in the world" (2012, ¶ 16). Kristoff tells us that her own experience of bullying in high school motivated her to set up the foundation, which was well received at Harvard not only by academics in the field of education, but by leading US government officials such as the secretaries of the departments of health and human services and of education. As Kristoff notes, these people realise that bullying is both an important issue not only in education, where it affects up to one in five students, leading to lower academic performance for the entire schools, but also a health and human rights issue, too often leading to suicide and drug abuse, especially of alcohol. In his conclusion, Kristoff is hopeful that Lady Gaga will overcome likely cynicism to succeed in her aim "to start a bottom-up movement to try to make it cooler for young people to be nice" (¶ 11) rather than using official power to force change for the better.
The title of the article was what first caught me eye (one reason for writing a good title for your blog posts!), as well as the fact that I usually read Kristoff's articles, for the thoughtful and critical opinions he presents. He is a regular writer in the opinion section of The New York Times. When I saw it was about Lady Gaga, I almost left, but that opening sentence is a good attention getter, and when I spotted the words Harvard University, which has a fairly good academic reputation, I wanted the full story. I'm glad I read the full story.
And after reading it all, I am impressed by the approach that Lady Gaga wants her foundation to take. She doesn't want to rely on the government to do anything. And that seems to me a very good start. Too often, the first response that people have to any problem is: "The government should ... ", and this mistake usually leads to disaster, as Thailand's persistent experience of poor farmers shows only too well. Thai governments have been interfering to "help" the farmers for decades, and the result is obviously a total failure: the farmers are still far too poor and abused by those with power and money. Even clearer is the result of government control of education in Thailand, where the idiotic questions in the recent O-Net tests show the incompetence and dishonesty in the Ministry of Education, and where the result of decades of government "help" is again a total disaster for the Thai people - in case you are upset that I used the adjective idiotic to describe the Ministry of Education, it isn't mine, I got it from the Bangkok Post's Kong Rithdee, who actually used it in the title of his article, "Thailand's idiotic mindset", which is likely a bit more offensive to some people (2012). I hope that some officials and others were offended; they certainly deserve to be. And as the local press, the Bangkok Post, The Nation, and the Thai language dailies constantly remind us, the top-down use of government force to "help" with the problem of drug use and abuse is another disastrous failure for Thai people and Thai society, with the law, police and other officials doing nothing to help and causing a lot of harm to people and society (a later chapter in Quest this term also addresses the issue of the problems of addictive drugs).
I seem to have got a bit off the topic of Lady Gaga, but it's a response writing, and it was fun. To be honest, I've only heard of Lady Gaga and seen a few photos. She certainly makes an impression. I don't think I've ever heard any of her songs, but I guessed that Kristoff's title is also a play on one of her song titles. If Harvard University thinks so highly of her, maybe I should go and listen to a song or two on YouTube.
And what do you think about the grammar "mistake" in Kristoff's title? I thought that was interesting, too, but I'll leave that discussion for another time.
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References
Rithdee, K. (2012, February 25). Thailand's idiotic mindset. Bangkok Post. Retrieved March 2, 2012 from http://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/281473/thailand-idiotic-mindset
Just watched my first Lady Gaga video - "Born this Way" at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV1FrqwZyKw
ReplyDeleteI can see why some people might not approve, but I enjoyed it. I don't think it's great art, but it's certainly very well done and intelligent.
I never listen to pop music, so I don't really have much to base any evaluation on, but I thought it had a catchy, fun beat, and it looks great: sexy and sophisticated. I can understand why she has so many fans.
I think my favourite bit was the opening - the pink triangles, a gay symbol since Hitler's legal slaughter of them along with Jews and negroes, and the Invisible Pink Unicorn (not entirely invisible), the wonderful main god of a recently founded religion.
One difference with blogging The New York Times compared with the BBC News website is that you have to write a longer summary paragraph.
ReplyDeleteI was able to write much shorter summary paragraphs for the four BBC News stories I've responded to this week.
For your first two or three blogs on the news at least, I suggest sticking with BBC News stories.
Your topic catch my eye. Since I read "Artistic Wealth - Political Poverty" last wednesday, I read your blog, it's not the consequence of email alert but your title is so interesting. The title is important for let people interested with our topic. It is your first step of writing preparation on the writing process. I know not much about Lady Gaga's songs and I have a little knowledge about Harvard University. Then, I would like to know how each relate to each other and this is the reason I come to read your blog.
ReplyDeleteAfter I read your blog, I have more intention to read the previous source "Born to Not Get Bullied". It was great a great report, although, it have something mistake such as gramma. Kristoff can catch Lady Gaga's feeling about bullied when she was high school and he give many evidences those support the consequence of bully as you conclude in your second paragraph.
Furthermore, "The Born This Way Foundation" is the wonderful idea of founder who used to get bullied experience. I hope this foundation can help the marginalized, overruled, ignored, sidelined, frozen out peoples of our new generation and allow them to consider optimistic outcomes.
In brief, I really appreciate to read this article because today I know that the great new foundation, the important of title and bad experience of the top hottest singer on this decade.
Lady Gaga coming to Thailand soon!! For her first concert in Thailand. I like her fashion but some of dress, because some dresses are too weird. She is very intelligent and thinks out of the box that why she become to famous really fast. I watch her music video and Concert on Youtube, it's really cool. Her performance is the best. I like when she went to grammy awards, She came with the different way like she came in egg when she promoted her last album; born this way.
ReplyDeleteCould I ask you,Peter? What is (2012, ¶ 16) and how can I use it?
ReplyDeleteMart,
DeleteThat's an excellent question.
It's related to the homework on italics and "quotation marks" that I asked you to do this evening.
It's also high on my list of things to do tomorrow morning, so you will get the answers then.
What do you think it might be?
I think it is a kind of reference way, but I don't know how? I am looking forward to knowing it tomorrow.
DeleteThank you.