REMIX Vol. 1., No. 1

Featuring Student-Authored Projects From ENGL 100 - Academic Writing Strategies (Sec. 21)

Spring 2011 at Capilano University

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The Alcohol Industry’s Ugly Neglected Sister… The Truth

Jonathan Contreras-Whitney

My Remix project/Culture-Jam is about the reality of the alcohol industry. Yes we are in university and yes drinking is “the shit” for many people; however, the adverse affect that alcohol has on our society should not be neglected or forgotten. I’m by no means saying don’t drink alcohol, I’m just revealing the fallacy that the alcohol industry portrays in their adds especially in the past and just as frequently in the current. Alcohol is not just cabin, beach or frat parties filled with topless men and women, naive and promiscuous girls, beer pong, kings cup, flip cup or any of the other many things alcohol commercials constantly sell to young people. It also has an entire culture around it which greatly favours men and their dominance over women, especially sexually, and is still the leading factor in the majority of domestic violences in Canada.

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Real Snack for the Holiday

Eric Kan

Holidays is a time when people watch their weight the most because of all the food that comes once a year. But what this image is showing is that these healthy recipes is just an excuse to eat more during the main meals when your mind subconsciously assume that because you ate healthy light snacks that you have the privilege to  eat more during meals.

This is what I see when looking at healthy recipes during the holidays.

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Science: Hope or Risk

Zhenchang Zhu

I am making this remix to show both blessing and curse from science and technologies. All the achievements we have made are at a great cost of environment and other nature sources. Many people blame science and technologies. Personally, I disagree with that opinion. Technologies do not make pollution; we do. However, science and technologies enlighten our future. It brings us more food supply and allows us to explore the universe.

Think that, dinosaurs did not damage the environment, or not as much as we do. Nevertheless, they were still wiped out somehow. Science and technologies are the only weapons we have to protect ourselves when catastrophes fall.

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What Happens Next?

Richard Choi

I chose to remix this topic because of the saying “Two wrongs don’t make a right”. Through endless times, people have been killing people because people HAVE killed people and vengeance is only sweeter right? Gangs especially are a huge factor as what they do aren’t really… well, they suck at keeping the down low on who kills who. But where will this all end up in the future? Would the next generation continue the hate that we, ourselves have started? The answer is yes. This has been happening throughout history. Is there a solution that would be able to solve the hatred of a loved one’s death? I don’t believe there is.

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The Toxicity of Greenwashing

Jessica Cairns

I chose to remix this topic because it is upsetting and disturbing how often consumers are misled.  When buying a product for ourselves or our children labeled as “green” or “all natural” we as the consumers believe that the product is safe, healthy, and made in a ecologically responsible way. Unfortunately this is not at all the reality. Most companies have jumped on the “green” bandwagon and are finding ways to trick conscientious shoppers into buying their products whether they are actually “green” or not.

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Canada’s Polygamy Law Goes on Trial

Sarah Schwartz

This is a “Remix” of an original article published in The Province on Sunday November 21, 2010. The original newspaper headline read: “Canada’s polygamy law goes on trial”.

Throughout history men, women and children have been bought and sold as property. In polygamous marriages the husband may marry multiple women at once and sits at the head of the household.

In the (above) remixed article the words “polygamy”, “marriage”,“wife” and “husband” of the original article were replaced with “slavery”, “slave” and “slave master”.  By redefining polygamy as “slavery” through exaggerated means, the reader is asked to consider the morality and acceptance of polygamy within the breakaway Mormon sect and to question its constitutionality within the law.

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Through the redefining of children as property of slave masters we believe that emotional abuse of children in these families is the norm. We also come to view the children as deprived of an unbiased and holistic education that would allow them to visualize any other option for themselves outside of their close-knit community

The remix method highlights the issues underlying our social norms and the dilemmas faced by the courts. By redefining “wife” as “slave” we see an “archaic wife” who is to perform chores and tasks unquestioningly and to submit to the whims of her husband who is the “master” of the household, and the one with the most power.

By likening the modern-day polygamous community to the slavery that is so repugnant, we can start to unravel this controversial topic and make meaning for ourselves.

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The release of Aung San Suu Kyi

Jane Tan

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I chose to remix an article about Aung San Suu Kyi because, like the Dalai Lama, she has been an exemplary spokesperson for peace and freedom even though she has been held prisoner by the Burmese government for almost 16 years. (I use the words for the names “Burma” and “Rangoon” because the words “Myanmar” and “Yangon” are those chosen by the military regime.) The repressive regime has been accused by the United Nations and Amnesty International of human rights abuses: murder, recruitment of child soldiers, forced relocations, forced labour and political imprisonment.

On November 13th, Aung San Suu Kyi,( known by her thousands of Burmese supporters as THE LADY), was released after being held under house arrest for seven years. She had been placed under house arrest by the military junta which has ruled the country since it took power in 1962. Her father was revered for bringing about Burma’s independence from Britain in 1947, but he was assassinated for his political beliefs when Ms Suu Kyi was only two years old.

“The pro-democracy leader called for freedom of speech in army-ruled Myanmar on Sunday and urged thousands of supporters to stand up for their rights and not lose heart, indicating she might pursue a political role.”

“Aung San Suu Kyi is free to speak her mind, address large crowds and meet with foreign diplomats. But the generals who rule Myanmar are still preventing the democracy icon from doing the one thing she wants to do most: see her family.

In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Ms. Suu Kyi expressed excitement Friday about the desire for change among the young people of Myanmar and said she wanted to meet with junta leader General Than Shwe and “let him speak first” about the country’s political crisis.”

But she also expressed frustration that the junta won’t allow her two sons to visit her. She said she has yet to even see a photograph of her young grandchildren.

“What I missed most were my sons. I would have liked to have seen them,” she said, referring to the seven years she spent under house arrest in Rangoon, a time during which she was allowed to receive just one letter from each of her sons, Alexander and Kim. During her house arrest, Aung San Suu Kyi was not allowed access to telephone, television or internet.

Though the world has celebrated Ms. Suu Kyi’s Nov. 13 release, the junta hasn’t followed that up by granting a visa to Kim, who has been in Bangkok for two weeks now trying to get permission to enter the country better known as Burma and see his mother. “I don’t think they’ve given a thought to answering [his visa application],” Ms. Suu Kyi said, a rare hint of bitterness in her voice.

Now 33, Kim last saw his mother more than a decade ago. The electric guitar he played on his last visit to Rangoon, now badly out of tune, still sits in the front room of the family home on the shore of Inya Lake, where Ms. Suu Kyi has spent most of the past two decades, alone but for the company of two maids.

And while Ms. Suu Kyi has spoken daily with each of her sons since her release, she said Friday that she had not yet been able to see even a photo of her two grandchildren, whom she has never met. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate has been under some form of detention for 14 of the 20 years since she led the National League for Democracy to a sweeping win in a 1990 election that the military has never honoured.”

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The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Christopher Gallardo-Ganaban

I was clicking through The Vancouver Sun’s website to try and find a suitable article to remix for my project, and I came across many interesting ones. The ones that really caught my eye, though, were the articles written about the holiday season. The majority of them were talking about gifts and how to throw the craziest party. By craziest, I mean fun. While reading these articles, I got a Charlie Brown moment. I though to myself: What is the true meaning of the holiday season? I’ve listened to

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Linus explain the meaning of Christmas every December since I can remember, and it seems as if many of us have lost the grasp of what Christmas is all about.

The article that I thought was really interesting talked about how many individuals fall deeper into debt because of the holiday season. This isn’t how the holidays should be! For my remix project, I put the article through Wordle: an online application that takes the words in a piece of writing and shows which words are used more in comparison to other words in the piece. I, then, used the output to create an image that represents how the holidays have become very different from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special that we watch every single year. Click the image below to get a better look.

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Hans Island

Kaitlyn Charles

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I was clicking through The Vancouver Sun’s website to try and find a suitable article to remix for my project, and I came across many interesting ones. The ones that really caught my eye, though, were the articles written about the holiday season. The majority of them were talking about gifts and how to throw the craziest party. By craziest, I mean fun. While reading these articles, I got a Charlie Brown moment. I though to myself: What is the true meaning of the holiday season? I’ve listened to Linus explain the meaning of Christmas every December since I can remember, and it seems as if many of us have lost the grasp of what Christmas is all about.

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North Shore News Weather – You Are the Change

Betsy Agar

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We are at a turning point: What we once understood is failing to inform what we need to understand. Global Warming is a term giving way to Climate Change, not for a failing relevance, but for a prevailing concern: We no longer know what we know. If the prediction of anthropogenic effects on climate come to fruition, then the most important characteristics in humans will be adaptability and survivorship at its most basic level. With drastic shifts in climatic patterns, we can only hope that they will stabilize and once again become somewhat predictable. Ironically, globalization may be our saving grace because it brings with it globally shared knowledge. But knowledge is not the only factor in food security.

Facebook Bitching

Karen Vaughn

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My Remix inspiration is “Company accused of firing an employee over ‘personal attacks’ on Facebook,” from page B28 of the November 10th issue of the Globe and Mail.

This article explores the legalities, according to the National Labor Relations Board, of imposing and enforcing policy within a company that  prohibits employees from posting critical or contemptuous comments when discussing their place of work or co-workers on Facebook.The case in the article is the first one in which the Labour Relations Board has stepped in to support the law that social networking sites are protected activities for employees and that employers are in fact the ones violating these laws through punishing their employees.

The debate itself raises questions of surveillance and censorship. It highlights the impact that technology has had on overseeing and monitoring what was once bitching over the water cooler.

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