Try this social experiment!
Task: Hopeful Result: Toronto graffiti photographed by melissa fockler 2012
Posts
The McDonaldization of Society
After reading Naomi Klein's latest opinion piece, " Geoengineering: Testing the Waters ", I started thinking about the night I saw the little bandit. It was dark. I was headed towards the campus library. I did not expect to see him: a raccoon, crunched near a garbage-can eating remnants of a left over McDonald's meal. courtesy of clker.com When people saw him, they started snapping pictures. Perhaps, they intended to show the world. Look what I saw! Look what I saw! Even raccoons like Mickey D's! And that was tragic. This wild animal was familiar with our garbage, dependent on it for a meal. The natural diet of a raccoon is berries, acorns, apples, corn, cherries and so on. But these foo ds are not readily available for the "suburban raccoon". Therefore, this creature resorts to foods that we leave behind. This includes high-cholesterol fatty treats. Still, this is not the m...
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself than be crowded on a velvet cushion." - Henry David Thoreau
images created by melissa fockler 2012
Stop It before It Starts: Bullying
T he schoolyard is a site of struggle: a space where "the bully (the powerful) learns to subordinate and exclude "the other" (the powerless). Why has bullying become the norm? I had my first contact with bullying when I was in elementary school. I say, "contact with bullying" because it was common for my classmates to throw garbage at me and push me into bushes that were planted on school grounds. I was tossed about and picked on so often that even my teachers turned a blind-eye. No one spoke up for me and I was taught not to speak-up for myself. Don't rock the boat , so-to-speak. With more and more teen suicides due to bullying , it is time to speak-up against bullying. It is time to undo the silence.
Summer at Nipissing University
Scouring the hallways of Nipissing University, I found these words posted on a whiteboard. So true.
Wake-Up Your Inner Artist: Searching Toronto Streets for Art
Toronto street art Photographed by melissa fockler 2012.
Science, Business and Tobacco: "Addiction Incorporated"
For more information about the film, click here .
Spread the Love, Wear a Sweater on National Sweater Day
Be part of the solution rather than part of the problem! Turn down your thermostat and throw on a sweater! For more information, click here .
Brainwashed: Seven Ways to Reinvent Yourself by Seth Godin
Go ahead. Unlearn everything you know. Click here .