Counterintuitive Spring 2023

#1.        http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/04/paper-carbon-dioxide-sequester

It seems counterintuitive that humans continue to use paper even though humans know the damage to our environment it is capable of.

Since the earlier days of mankind, many records have been written on paper. That is how humans were able to record history. If anything happened that was significant to remember, someone would write it down so that down the road it would be recalled upon at a later date. Although it is considered a renewable resource (trees can be planted, cut, and new trees replanted), unlike fossil fuels, which can only be used once, still have a major impact on our environment.

Once paper is made, printed on, distributed to places, it still has the ability to have a carbon credit of 440 lbs of CO2 per ton of paper. This CO2 is put back into the air which is harmful to people and animals.

Most humans under that CO2 in the air is bad, but naturally it is in the air. Plants process the CO2 through photosynthesis in order to turn it into oxygen. Excessive CO2 is being created by this mass paper production and decrease of trees that the remaining plants cannot process it quick enough. So when will the time come to get another source to record events and decrease paper production?

#2.  http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-02-04/vancouver-combats-heroin-giving-its-addicts-best-smack-world

It seems counterintuitive that a drug addict should be given drugs with no attachments and have to face no consequences while using these drugs.

Vancouver is a rather affluent port town, but that’s the problem, it’s a port town. Drugs are easily brought into the town by boats. In 2006 Vancouver created a safe area that handed out small kits to heroin addicts in order to curb and contain the drug abuse problem. The users were under supervision of registered nurses and would not be arrested by police.

Nearly 10 years Later Vancouver has decided to try this program again but with two new heroin alternatives. The two alternatives are Methadone and suboxone. The program will allow users to shoot up in a safe environment and wean them off until they are clean of the drugs and alternatives.

Giving addicts alternatives to heroin in my opinion, will not keep addicts from doing harm in society or to themselves. Addicts are known to do anything to get their fix and if the alternative drugs do not work or not good enough for the addict they will go out and do anything to get their next fix. The program, in my opinion, is a waste of money that could be utilized in different areas, such as education.

#3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofissTmcsDU

It seems counterintuitive that there would be a need for fast food places wile vising famous landmarks, but yet at the Great Pyramids of Giza, there are two within walking distance.

Since Fast food started to rise in the 1950’s with their promises of quick and cheap meals, more and more companies have followed suit. Food chains ranging from tacos to fried chicken started to pop up and infest the United States until there was at least one on every corner.

Following the popularity of fast food in the United States, the companies that owned them decided to invest millions of dollars to build their fast food chains in other countries in order to increase the quarterly revenue.

The Great Pyramids of Giza were built, by hand, in 2560 B.C. These prodigious landmarks are considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. This World Wonder brings in nearly 13 billion dollars annually in tourism alone. This marvelous World Wonder is now a neighbor of a Pizza hut and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

Instead of building restaurants that cater to the palette of people living in Egypt, American companies are force feeding the residents our processed food in order to increase the size of their piggy banks. It seems unjust to open those restaurants and have tourists consume food that they could normally experience at home.

The advertisement begins with guitar music playing in the background and young woman dancing along it. She has blonde hair and is wearing casual clothing. She seems to be in her early 30s. There are people behind her holding cup in dim lit house room, partying with  loud rock music playing in background. This seems to be advertised  bit back according to the music and clothing taste.

(0:00-0:01) In beginning she is dancing and having conversation with someone with her head faced to her left saying “ And what’s that?” The other woman, her friend, is dancing with head shaking downwards.

(0:02-0:03)- She lifts up big black glass bottle similar to alcohol bottle to drink with her right hand. As soon as she drinks it there’s a clogging noise that comes from her mouth.

(0:04-0:6)She pauses looking up with her left hand on her mouth, with very concerned look on her face. She shakes as she tries to be aware of her situation. Her other friend on her left side stops dancing and looks at her smiling. Her friend seems to be too drunk to take anything serious.

(0:08)- She puts her left hand towards her mouth to spit something out and tooth falls out. Her friend shockingly looks at it and holds palm of her hands toward her mouth to hold in the laughter or the shock.

(0:11)- She surprisingly sees tooth fall off in palm of her hand. Her first reaction is she starts laughing while looking at it on palm of her hand. Her other friend falls on side toward her in laughter looking at the tooth she was holding.

(0:14) The woman is still holding tooth on her hand. And tries to complete sentence of what she wants to say while looking at her broken tooth  but is unable to.

(0:15-0:17)- Both of the girls fall down losing balance  on to the couch behind them with loud laugher holding each other.

The advertisement makes statements “ It’s easy to tell if you had way too many”

(0:18)- Now the focus goes towards this other young girl who is sitting next to this young guy on the house staircase in the same previous setting. There are two bottles of alcohol and one red cup next to the staircase where they both are sitting.

(0:19)-The girl holds up her car key in her hand looking at the guy and says “No, I’m not drunk” to the guy who may be concerned.

(0:22)- As she gets up smiling he makes bye gesture with his hand.

(0:23) She gets down on the stairs and makes shush gesture with her finger over her lips. As if it were secret between them that she was drunk

0:25)- She crouches down to pick up her sweater and turns towards door to run out. The guy in the back doesn’t seems to be unhappy and seems concerned with the fact she will be driving drunk. At the end of this advertisement, the video makes a statement “ Buzzed driving is drunk driving”.

0:01 There are two cars on a road, one is stopped at a stop sign while another is approaching farther down the road. There is no stop sign for the car that is approaching however.

0:02 We see a man driving the car with a young boy in the backseat. It is fair to say that the man and boy are the father and his son.

0:03 The father looks to his left before making a turn at the intersection.

0:04 Now we are looking from the car down the road’s perspective, with the stopped car ahead and to the right.

0:05 The mad driving the approaching car appears to be a businessman of some sort, as per the shirt and tie that he is wearing in this shot. The man has a bewildered expression on his face as he drives down the road.

0:06 The businessman’s foot switches from the gas to the brake in this picture, implying that he is trying to stop the car suddenly, even though we know he does not have a stop sign ahead of him.

0:07 We have a shot of the side of the car as it is moving. It is clear to see that the car is moving with quite a lot of pace as it brushes up the leaves on the side of the road as it goes past.

0:08 Both cars are pictures, but the father who had the stop sign is making a left-hand turn with the businessman’s car approaching rapidly. The scene has been slowed down to a complete stop, identified by the bird being motionless.

0:09 The businessman now seems to be looking in front of him at something. Most likely the car ahead of him making the turn.

0:12 The father has his hands off the wheel, which means he no longer has control of the car or what will happen in the situation.

0:14 We see the businessman getting out of his car, confirming the thought that all motion had ceased besides the father and the businessman. The father’s car can be seen in front of the businessman’s car. Could the businessman be trying to talk with the father about what is happening to them?

0:19 The father gets out of his car as well and starts speaking to the businessman, whose silhouette we see on the left of the screen.

0:21 The businessman has his arms spread out in a questioning manner. He is responding to the father and apparently doesn’t agree with what he said.

0:24 The father looks to be pleading to the man, as if asking him for forgiveness for turning without waiting for the businessman to pass.

0:26 The businessman avoids eye contact with the father now. The businessman knows that he cannot do whatever the father is asking him to do.

0:31 Both men now look at the businessman’s car suddenly, as if it is starting to move on its own.

0:32 The camera zooms out to include both cars and both men seem to be looking around nervously. They both look like they want to stop what is about to happen from happening.

0:33 The father looks at the businessman and tries to plead to him again.

0:37 The businessman now looks over the father’s shoulder at his car, probably because the father said something about his son in the car.

0:38 The son is pictured sitting in the car staring off as if he has no idea what is happening.

0:40 The businessman returns his gaze to the father, with a very sorrowful look in his eyes.

0:42 The father has a look of sadness on his face because he realized that there was nothing that could be done.

0:44 The businessman looks away again from the father, seeming to back away as if to end the conversation.

0:46 The camera switches back to the father and we see him with his hands on his head with an extreme look of agony on his face.

0:48 Both men return back to their cars after their conversation ends.

0:49 The businessman enters his car and is looking down at something probably on the car’s dashboard.

0:51 The businessman was speeding down the road at about 110 mph, which tells us that we was going way too fast in order to stop before hitting the father’s turning car.

0:52 The father looks behind himself in the car, most likely at his son, with a face full of despair and regret.

0:53 The boy looks up at his father without any emotion. It is clear to see the boy has no idea what is going on.

0:54 The camera zooms out a little and focuses on the father and we see the businessman’s car start to approach the driver’s side of the car.

0:55 The businessman’s car slams into the car holding the father and son at over 100 mph and we see the father’s body jerk as the glass shatters and the car starts to bend along the businessman’s hood.

0:57 The scene ends with a black screen and white letters the depict the message of the ad. Simply put, the whole situation could have been avoided if the businessman was going slow. Then he would have had enough time to see the father making a mistake by turning to early and he would have been able to stop.

This is the link to the video.

At the beginning of the video is a clip of a beautiful white home.

0:02

You see a mail women dressed in her uniform walking up to the house. In her hand is a stack of envelopes. She then looks up.

0:04

The screen shows what the mail women is staring at. Theres a muscular man with long hair and a sleeve tattoo.

0:07

The man is hopping and dancing with one arm up, as if he is flexing a muscle.

0:10

There is a little girl dancing a long with the man, (presummably his daughter),she has brown eyes and hair, which is braided back. She has one arm up just like her father.

0:17

The father and daughter is tipping to the side on one foot with their arms still flexed to the side, they’re acting as tea pots.

0:19

They fall to the ground smiling.

0:22

The little girl is “pouring tea” in two small little pink cups, one for each of them; they share a cheers and tap each others cup.

0:28

They look to each other and smile, put there pinkies up, and take a sip.

youtube

0:01-0:03

The beginning of the “There’s No Excuse” clip shows the family pictures of a married couple and there toddler son. The pictures are the professional cliche, “just married” type of photo and a pose of their son is a suit. The family appears to be “one big happy family”.

0:05

Behind the pictures of the family, a dark shadow is reflected from another room connected to the main hallway of the downstairs portion of the house. The shadow shows us that there is one person in the other room. Maybe the person is the father that is still awake, since the setting is at night and we are lead to presume that the father just finished his workday. So far, the shadow is up in the air of who is in the other room.

0:10

Skipping forward in the video, there is a young boy of the family that is dressed in pajamas holding a yellow toy truck. The young boy seems to look bored or patiently waiting for one or both of his parents to bring him up to his room to tuck him in bed and receive a kiss goodnight. But, instead left eavesdropping into the room where the shadow is reflected upon the side of the staircase.

0:18-0:20

The boy transitions from patiently waiting for one of the parents, to hearing some sort of loud noise, whether its a bang or yelling, he seems very frightened and scared of whoever caused the noise. A kid never wants to be in a negative environment, especially if the environment is their home. Due to his facial expression of being scared, the father is the shadow from earlier and domestic violence is mid-process just under the boy in the adjacent room.

0:21-0:22

After hearing the loud bang or smack from below, the boy is not heavily breathing to confirm that he is scared. Now he sits there wondering what to do next. Does he run and hide in his room with his blanket pulled up just under his bottom eyelashes staring at the door in fright like an ordinary young child or does the boy wait and force the parents to feel sorry for domestic violence?

0:24

Now confirming our presumption that domestic violence was just under the child. This frame of the video says “Children have to sit by and watch. What’s your excuse?”. As stated before, the boy seemed to have the perfect family image(in a literal sense because of the family portraits in the beginning), but in reality, who knows how often the young boy deals with this tragedy. The tragedy of a young child having to deal with dysfunctional parents when they just want to be loved and given attention that all children should receive from their parents.

00:01- The advertisement begins with a birthday party and you can hear people talking and cheering on the gift. A boy starts to unwrap a gift and it is a bike.

00:03- Next the boy rides his bike with his friends. He rides the bike with a lot of energy and excitement.

00:08- Then the advertisement goes to a different point in the boy’s life where he is delivering newspapers.

00:12- He rode his bike  and dropped it to the curb. He runs to a house with flowers behind his back supposedly to give to a girl.

00:13- The bike is put to the side in the garage where the boy had once received it as a birthday present. In the background a car engine is heard, implying that the boy is grown up and has a car.

00:16- Now in a goodwill store a woman points to direct someone to put the bike somewhere.

00:19- A woman cleans the bike so that it looks like new.

00:22- A boy is excited and pulls his dad towards the bike.

00:24- He points at he bike excitedly to show he wants it. The voiceover says “Your stuff can be more powerful than you think.

Here is the link to the video:

0:01 There is a man doing push-ups on a floor. You notice he is wearing a plain white tee and the walls and floor look very plain. The room looks mostly dark except for a tad of sunlight showing on the floor in the background, most likely from a window.

0:02-0:04 The man is now sitting up on the floor leaning against the wall. He’s throwing playing cards into an old coffee can. He is looking obviously bored and attempting to pass the time. The room and himself are still looking very plain. Although now the light seems to be shining on him as a spotlight and the rest of the room is dark. We have yet to see any type of furniture or anything else in the room. Is he being trapped in an empty room for a reason?

0:05-0:07 The man is now holding two pictures. He looks saddened while looking at the pictures. The pictures are of an attractive women and a nice looking car. He seems to be missing the items in the photos. Possibly because he lost them or because he is trapped in this room.

0:07-0:11 The man continues to take part in boring activities, likely making attempts to pass the time. He plays the harmonica and is stacking matches. He is also shown crossing off the days of a calendar, confirming that he has been there for a while. He hits his head on the calendar in frustration. The camera is zoomed so you still cannot make out any furniture and are unable to tell what kind of room he is in.

0:12-0:16 The man is now throwing a ball against the wall, continuing to pass time. The camera zooms out a little bit and you can see that he is leaning on what looks like to be a bed. He pauses and looks at an upward angle towards what could be the door. Maybe someone standing in the doorway got his attention. Is he finally going to get out of the room?

0:17-0:25 The person at his door was an older women, who seemed to be yelling at him. She was holding a laundry basket. He replies as if he was rolling his eyes. The camera finally zooms out so you are able to see the full room. It looks to be a little kids room, which is weird because the man is grown. Maybe the lady was his mother, which would make sense why she would be yelling at him. But why is he trapped in his room?

0:26-0:30 A graphic pops up saying “Buzzed, Busted, Broke” making you realized that the man must be a busted drunk driver. Now he is living in his old room with his parents and without his girlfriend and car. Conveying a strong message to never drink and drive.