Wait... what's so funny?

Postman makes the distinction between those not knowing why they were laughing or why they had stopped thinking to those who are laughing instead of thinking.  He illustrates to us that "we are in a race between education and disaster." The media of our time is ruining the desire to learn. Which sums up his whole book, Postman isn't against all television or electronics, he is against the negative affects it has on the community. Through the cahnges and improvements, people have lost track of the original purpose. Not just merely using entertainment as a substitute for more important information.

My lips are sealed

Friday's activity of using only "charades" or illustrations to communicate with others was quite difficult.  It's extremely hard to express how you feel about something or to draw something out which takes forever compared to just saying it really fast.  During Spanish class we were told that our assignment was to complete the back side of a worksheet. Miss Schaidt told us that we had the worksheet, and Kendra, Russell, and I were the only ones who realized that we didn't have the worksheet, but we could say anything to get her attention.  So we had to wait for someone else in the class to realize and tell her for us. In the end we didn't get homework. And we made it through the day :D

Just text me.

In both Dr. Postman's interview and in his book Amusing Ourselves to Death, the point is made that we basically talk more to machines (answering machines, voice-mail, of through text) more than people these days. As humans, we become too obsessed with the new ways of communicating, whether it's texting, facebook, myspace, email, etc. We soon may become just as comfortable as talking with "inanimate objects." People need to learn to take a break from this increase and what we consider improvements in society because it is pulling us away from face-to-face human interaction.

Image is another main topic present in both the book and the interview.  Postman uses the fact that cloning is currently becoming more and more advanced.  To the point that animals such as a monkey, a sheep, and a frog have all been cloned and humans are the next step.  This will allow humans the security that if something goes wrong with their body, they can just replace it with the one from the clone. Also Postman writes in his novel about people only being concerned with their looks.  That even newscasters are more concerned about their make-up than their script.  America desires those good looking people to look up to, that most people with jobs at a news station must work behind the camera because their looks don't stand up to another person's. The American society is becoming too selfish and concerned with the little things in life such as looks and not as concerned with the relationships, jobs, and events in life.