Joseph+Victorino

=Joseph Victorino =

 =Rock concert =

A rock concert can look very beautiful to some people to others, it can look like a pit of hell sent children. The smell of beer and illegal drugs fill the air, the taste of blood and sweat can scare people, but to us rockers this encourages us to rock even harder. I love rock concerts, and it’s safe to say that I’ve been to mostly all rock concerts in New Mexico; well the big ones at least. Personally, I do not want to add up the amount of money I’ve spent on just ticket prices alone; it could cover the price of my college text books. Rock concerts can be violent given the alcohol and drug abuse. Their audience dresses in a unique manner, and they display music which can take the audience into another world. What is a rock concert? An encyclopedia might describe it asa performance of rock music, a performance of music by players or singers not involving theatrical staging. To other people “a rock concert is when you go and listen to music with a random bunch of strangers.” To me a rock show can be a way to leave the world you’re in now and enter an entirely new world and be able to release stress and feelings.

Rock concerts are events that have little rules or basic laws and therefore, can be dangerous. The rules for the most part are: no illegal drugs, no one under the age of 21 can purchase alcohol, no cameras or video cameras. Fighting is also an issue at rock concerts: due to heavy drinking, decision skills are poor and this can lead to a broken nose. Another form of violence at rock concerts is “moshing” or a dance in which participants push and/or slam into each other.

At concert a group of people moshing would be called the “pit” because that’s what it looks like, a pit of strangers throwing themselves at each other. Now, I know what you’re thinking “why would anybody do such a thing”. My friend, Chris, helped me try to explain. He said “to me, moshing is a great stress reliever. I heard drugs relieve a person from stress. But unlike drugs, moshing only gives you small bruises, and you can stop the harm whenever you want. You also don't get addicted to them. There are many other "healthy" stress relievers, but nothing beats some physical therapy... your body is rushing with so much adrenaline, you don't feel the hits and once you finish you really feel the difference. It makes you feel so great, so relieved, so invincible, just so much better.” I agree with him one-hundred percent. Personally I have felt the hits, and felt the rush of being in the pit. This is by far the best medicine to all my stress.

 Rock concerts are known for the unique type of dress people wear, as in not the “ordinary” every day type of clothes, I’m talking about steel toe boots all in black, people wearing all black t-shirts, black pants and heavy wearing chains to show expression. The type of dress may change due to the different type of rock concerts, is in you wouldn’t shave half your head and put on a thrash metal shirt for a Rolling Stones concert.

 Rock concerts are a way of relieving stress and anger, and can even act as a drug but also rock concerts can take you to another world. My first major experience was when I went to my first GWAR show, GWAR is a band that dresses up in costumes, and the band's costumes are made of foam latex and hardened rubber. The costumes cover very little, with the rest of their bodies accentuated with makeup. They further their production in concert by spraying their audiences with fluids. Most of the fluids are made of water and powdered food coloring which, for the most part, flakes off or washes out easily. When I went to this show I had no idea what to expect, but when the band first came on stage they had a 15 minute long intro video, this video told the story about how they were aliens from another planet and how they crash landed on earth and got addicted to crack cocaine , I thought this was the most funniest thing I’ve ever seen but when they came on stage, the stage lit up and it was as if the stage was another planet , because there was four huge aliens playing metal music ,the crowed changed and the people who were laughing were now moshing to the fullest it happened so fast that I did not have time to react, I just got trashed by people and not to mention getting sprayed by the fake blood coming from the stage. This experience to me changed the way I look at concerts and to me I have to be at the concert, it’s my addition, even with the brutal violence and the scary dress themes , I still would spend all my money to “go and listen to music with a bunch of random strangers.”



Spanking: A Proper Punishment ?
Every one has seen a child get a little too out of control, a scene like: A four year-old is throwing a tantrum in the middle of the grocery store, all because he or she did not receive the toy that he or she wanted. The mother tries all she can by using threats like “time out” but nothing seems to work, the child still kicks and screams. Now if I was that child, my mother would have taken me to the restroom and spanked me. But after every spanking my mother would tell me why she had to punish me, she would explain to me what I was doing wrong. In today’s society parents have to think twice about disciplining their children due to child abuse laws. With such laws many people question why parents still use this technique to raise their children, many parent argue that physical punishment produces more harms and can lead to serious emotional problems in the future. In the story “Who’s Irish” the narrator thinks of spanking as proper punishment to control her granddaughter, even though the child’s mother has forbidden the narrator from doing so. Are these forms of punishment effective? Does the child actually learn from the abuse? Corporal punishment can be affective if issued under strict situations and the child is under a specific age that he or she can learn from what is happening.

In New Mexico the child abuse law states “Statue prohibits knowingly, intentionally, or negligently causing or permitting physical abuse, neglect , sexual abuse, sexual exploitation, abandonment, or emotional/mental injury. Statute contains exemption for religion.” . this law is very vague and is lacking a specific outline on what a parent can or cannot do. Laws as serious as this should be more outlined and should set certain standards for parents. This law doesn’t even mention how corporal punishment should be used or even to what degree it should be used for.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">media type="youtube" key="iXwZhM7jvi0" height="315" width="420" align="left"

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The most obvious reason for using corporal punishment is to teach children not to do wrong, by physically abusing them and expecting the child to learn from what he or she had done wrong. This raises a lot of questions and concerns, is the child even benefiting from all this? Not only is the child being physically harmed, also he or she is being emotionally traumatized. Cuts and bruises only last for days or weeks, while the emotional trauma can last throughout the child’s whole life. Being emotionally traumatized at a young age can have severe long-term effects on an individual, as Doctor Turner study states “findings indicated that [the] level of corporal punishment is positively related to depressive symptoms” (Tuner) this study shows how depression is directly linked to corporal punishment.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">In the story “Who’s Irish” the narrator is an old women who grew up with a very strict background. To the Grandmother spanking children was very common when necessary, but her daughter thinks differently, she says “Parents not supposed to spank child…it gives them low self esteem [.]”(Jen 6-7). People would agree with the grandmother with the argument that there should be rules says ABC news writer Francine Vida “Spanking seems like a simple proposition, but states that allow it… actually have numerous rules and restrictions on how it's done.”(Vida)

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Corporal punishment can very effective; it just depends on how the parent enforces it. Many people challenge its effectiveness by saying how the child only gets physical harm out of it. The effectiveness can only be measured by what the child got out of it, if a child did not understand what was happening at the time then punishment could be rendered useless. Corporal punishment can only be effective if the parents know the limits, limits are the line between spanking the child, and beating the child. At the age of 2-5 a child can go through a stage that parents will can difficult, at this age parents start to see that “no” is not in the child’s vocabulary. This is the moment when a parent will use spanking as a last resort, only then will the child realize what they where doing was wrong. From there a child will associate what he or she was doing at the time with spanking and next time they will think twice about what they will do next.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Corporal punishment can be effective, by regaining control over a child in a crowded grocery store, or it can go in the opposite direction, by not knowing the laws and limits, and a person can be accused of child abuse. Even with all the evidence leading to depression and long term emotional damage, knowing the laws and limits, can aid in disciplining your child in a healthy way.

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<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Feast Day Rumble
<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">The conflict between feast day vendors has become so much of a problem it began to affect the joy of the celebrating the village feast day. In my culture we have specific days of which we celebrate a certain saint associated to the village church. During these “feasts” many events are taking place, such as traditional dances to honor the saint, people of the village providing food to the patrons of the feast and vendors selling various items which can range anywhere from fine jewelry to a tasty cheeseburger.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Now the space I’m going to discuss can be located in various areas depending on the village layout. Though it can differ, the spaces are generally 10x10 feet and since the feast is located on the main road of the village, the spaces aren’t always uniform and this is where the cage fight begins. The argument is that certain vendors need more space than others when in reality they could use less and the day could run more smoothly. Having experience being a vendor, I understand how much space each vendor needs. Now the items that my family and I sell require the full use of each space, and we make our best effort to secure the ideal space, this helps us to maximize our profits in less time.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Seeing as this is a recurring problem, you would think the mayordomos (the officials of the village who are in charge of the space) would solve this so that they wouldn’t have to deal with it every year but it looks as though it might never change. In a personal interview I recently conducted with a current mayordomo, he stated “we try our best to get everyone situated, but you can’t please everyone, and you just have to be happy with the space provided.” (Tsoi) Hearing this I wanted to find out what the vendors thought of his “solution”. Wanting to get uncensored and truthful answers to my questions I interviewed two vendors, one, a close a personal friend and another with whom I’ve never spoken to. When asked what is your opinion on the spaces provided my friend a Ms. Grace Kayate said “ It can be hard, sometimes you get a great space which is really 10x10 or sometimes you can get a space that’s more of a triangle, and that’s harder to work with seeing as I need two FULL spaces.”(Kayate) in my other interview with a Mr. Salazar a veteran of feasts, he proclaimed “the mayordomos are worthless and don’t even get me started on my neighbors. Sometimes you get good ones who you can talk to or sometimes you get the ones that complain about everything.”(Salazar) When asked what type of complaints he would get he responded with “well if my side mirror of my truck is in there space they wanted it moved immediately, like they need that extra six inches!!” (Salazar) Being in the same type of situation myself I completely understand where Mr. Salazar is coming from.

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">I can see that both the venders and the mayordomos have legitimate arguments. It’s true what the mayordomo stated when he said “you can’t please everyone.” On the flipside the venders also ring true when the say they need the best space for profit because, this may be the only type of income that they have. The future of this space, to me , cannot be resolved due to the fact that there is no formal rules or guidelines. If such guidelines were in place the conflict still wouldn’t be resolved due to that vendors will always have even the slightest disagreements.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Work Cited

 * 1) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> [] N.p., 2011. Web. 2011.
 * 2) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;"> Support for Spanking . Ed. Francine Vida. ABCnews, 2011. Web. 2011.
 * 3) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Jen, Gish.Whos Irish. New York: Conde Nast, 2011. 6-7. Print.
 * 4) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Kayate, Grace. Personal Interview. 15 Oct. 2011
 * 5) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Salazar, Toby. Personal Interview. 15 Oct. 2011
 * 6) <span style="font-family: Verdana,Geneva,sans-serif; font-size: 120%;">Tsoi, Ben. Personal interview. 15 Oct. 2011