I'm Googling Right Now.

             It is crazy how often people use Google, any question any one can ever think of can be answered through using Google. It is even a very now, but it is hard to try and cut down the string, to find what you are looking for faster. This is how you make a sting to find what you are looking for.Its pretty simple, all you have to do is find a good combination of words that are unique to what you are searching for.

                For the first image I searched, I typed in “I have never been a very useful member of the daughters of America”, and the first link things that popped up was Eleanor Roosevelt: Resignation from the Daughters of American Revolution, which did pull up the same letter, but it did not look like the picture I was looking for, so I then went to Google images, and wouldn’t you know it, Stellar Dreamer's was the very first picture to pop up from her blog. So I went back to Google, and tried "Eleanor Roosevelt unedited", but I didn’t really come up with anything with that. So I tried "Eleanor Roosevelt 1939", and there it was at the top of the page Exhibit: Eleanor Roosevelt Letter , this website was definatly the most credible source, no offense to Stellar, but this was a .gov, which means it is a credible source.

         
            For the next image I tried, "Background map", which was a complete failure, both for the regular Google search and also the Google images. Then I tried "America southeast background map arrested jailed and released", that didn’t work either. Then I tried "background map 9 arrested (may 17) and released Birmingham Alabama", that didn’t work either, I started to get frustrated. I finally found it when I typed in " Background map 306 jailed Jackson", the first two links were from Stellar Dreamer's blog, but the third one down was Virginia Memory: Freedom Rides Map. 1961. This page does seem credible, even though it is a .com, because under the “about us” section of the page it explains all about the establishment of the library, and what they have, and what they do.

           For the third image the first string I tried was "Police department of Montgomery j.f. flake", and the first two links that popped up again were Stellar Dreamer’s blog posts. So I went back to the drawing board. Then I tried "j.f. flake 12-1-55 in front of empire theater", and of course that did not work.  So I tried "montgomery police department 12-1-55 in front of empire theater", and that worked, I found Historical Thinking Matters which was the first link on the page. This page seems credible enough because it looks like it is a website for high school student to work with their teachers to understand historical thinking.

       
        For the last image I tried "roll call 88 congress house of representatives civil rights 1964", that did bring me to a Wikipedia page that contained the image I was looking for, but that was not good enough. So I tried  "house feb 1 0 1964", and I ended up finding it,  it was the third link from the top, HR 7152, which is an archived image. I do think this sight is credible because it is a .gov cite.

Well there you go, that is how you find what your looking for using key words to make a string for Google.
-zombiegirl

Snow White V.S. The Princesses

                                                                            V.S.

After watching the new movie Snow White and the Huntsman, I realized that the princess movies have a very conflicting message. This new movie was a completely different story then the Disney version made in 1937. For those who haven’t seen the original, Snow White sings to animals, meets seven dwarves in the forest after she had been chased through, by the huntsman who had to bring her heart to the queen to prove he had killed her. The queen eventually finds her, dressed as an old lady. The old lady gives her an apple that puts Snow White in a coma, and is only woken when Prince Charming kisses her, and they live happily ever after.

           The new version, without giving too much away, portrays Snow White a strong young woman who fights to save her kingdom, and even the evil queen has a back story that highlights her strength. This totally clashes with the original story, and even more widely the other Disney princesses.  And even wider than that, the dolls our little girls play with, Barbie’s, Brats, etc. 

I loved these movies when I was little, to me they were stories of girls who got lost or chased away, and were saved by Prince Charming and they lived happily ever after. Unfortunately I grew up and my views about life have changed, some more than others. But now there is this new, perhaps better, way to inspire young girls.

Now if you have ever taken a sociology class with Jennifer Jacobs, or if you have any super feminist friends,not that there is anything wrong with that, you know as well as I that certain people think that Disney is evil, and gives us a negative perception of what women should look like and how they should act. An article about this very topic is discussed in The New York Times book review, Is Pink Necessary?, the author of the article talks about Peggy Orenstein, the author of Cinderella Ate My Daughter, goes into great detail about the damage the Disney princesses are doing, and the huge profits they gain by doing it. Also saying "...the princess phase, at least in its current hyper-feminine and highly commercial form, is anything but natural..." This article was written in early 2011. Have things really changed that much in such a short amount of time? All of the claims about the princesses seem true, to some extent, but there seems to be a new trend in our movies that might be more positive.

New versions of princesses, like Princess Merida the main character in Disney Pixar’s Brave, are starting to change the "classical" princess persona. In an opinion article from Moviefone, Is Princess Merida of 'Brave' Disney's Best Female Role Model? (OPINION) it talks about this very comparison between Merida and the rest of the princesses Disney pops out. And it seems the new Snow White followed suit, and both are paving the way for more women in movies to kick ass and take names and not rely on men to be extraordinary.  And maybe this new generation of princesses will change the concept of what is beautiful. But for now that remains the same. 

But regardless of that changes that should be made, or if they ever will, this idea of a strong independent princesses, completely clashes with a long history of damsel in distress. But somehow I think it works. I mean it seems to reflect real life more accurately, because there isn’t just one way to be, you can be any of those things that these princesses embody. So yeah, depending on your beliefs and values you were raised with, one of those attributes could be totally wrong and taboo, but for someone else they could fit perfectly. Nothing is either black or white, there are so many variations of grey, and it is important to remember that.                                    -zombiegirl