So here's a disturbing reality:

I found a lot to muse about in the first article...the second...well...just creeped me out (as I'm sure it did for a lot of the rest of you). But anyhow, onto the main points that struck me in the first article:

- So Males (as in Mike Males, not general male people) spends a really large amount of time bashing media moguls and political personages for not telling the "real" story about teens. I'm not sure if Males is just an idealist here, or has completely disconnected from reality, but I've got a bit of news for him: Media does not exist to give readers/watchers/listeners/fish the news, it exists to sell itself in order to turn a profit in order to make investors happy in order to keep the economy running. It is not there to actually tell us what's going on in the world. If we want to find that out, we actually have to work at it. And most people don't. As he aptly points out, news stories about adults doing bad things make adults unhappy; since adults have all the buying power, and they don't want to buy that image, they won't, hence, the media doesn't sell it. Politicians, by the same token, do not exist to serve the will of the people, the exist to get re-elected in order to continue reaping the benefits of a cushy government job in seats of power. If the agenda of the people happens to coincide with that politician's agenda, so be it, but if it doesn't, the politician will probably change his/her agenda somewhat to fit with what seems popular at the moment in order to get re-elected, and since adults do the re-electing...I don't have to spell this out twice, do I?

-Males also points out that media coverage always blames the teenage girl for her unwanted pregnancy. While I'll admit this happens more often than it should (i.e. pregnancy is usually a decision two people make, outside of the rape scenario), we do have plenty of coverage on those males as well. Generally, we don't call them "the fathers in the situation of unwanted pregnancy with a teenage girlfriend" because that'd really take a long time. I'm pretty sure the common term is "pedophile," and I know the media runs plenty of stories on them, because, well, they sell.

-In yet another segment, Males goes into the ineffectiveness of teen rehabilitation programs, and details how worthless they are given the rather low ratio of teen:adult violent crime. I'd counter that point by saying that the rehabilitation programs exist for teens and not for adults because society as a whole tends to think that teens have the possibility of changing their destructive behaviors , while adults simply need to be locked away forever for the good of society. If we could change our attitudes about adults, maybe they could have rehabilitative programs too, instead of spending time in the rather cyclical system of incarceration.

Alright, I've probably written enough of a novel for anyone by this point (thanks for struggling through it, folks).

Some questions for easy discussion (even though it's 2a.m. and you've probably already discussed by now):

1. Males goes on and on (and on and on) about the lack of positive mentions for teens in the news, as well as the absence of negative adult reporting. But what does he expect the media folks to do? Admit its all a sham and clean up their reporting?

2. Giroux's article talks a lot about children acting like "mini-adults." Is this something of a return to social ideologies of about a century ago, when children were assumed to be mini-adults, or are we all just a bit sick?

Well Jimmy, your body is changing!

I'm not sure I can really speak for most about this, but I don't really recall the physical process of puberty and adolescence all that well. I do remember watching a great deal of really bad films on it, however. And something I remember about that came up in these chapters as well: embarrassment, mostly among males. No matter how many films they watch about testicles dropping and voices changing, most of them would pretty much like to ignore the process entirely and pretend it's not actually happening.

My response: can you blame them?

Society as a whole tends to tell males that to be successful, they need to be big, strong, and not afraid of anything under 17 feet (unless it happens to have tentacles). Having one's voice crack while answering an algebra question isn't exactly conducive to that image, and neither is a round-table discussion amongst peers on who's growing pubic hair and who isn't. Competition is the name of the game amongst adolescent males...and usually it's the ones who end up losing who turn into those "popular psychologists" the text mentions who are always calling on men to share their feelings more. In actuality, from what I remember, I sincerely doubt too many people would be all that interested in my feelings as an adolescent; generally, I'm sure they could be classified under the heading of "sheep syndrome" (i.e. if Larry in row 3 looks a bit more smug than anyone else in class, we should probably all be doing whatever he's doing). Other than that, I probably spent most of my time thinking about girls with a minute or two for wondering what assignments were due the next day.

Summation? Someday, male adolescents might talk about their feelings more; on the whole, we probably won't learn that much from it.

Questions for easy conversation:

1. The second chapter spent a great deal of time talking about how female puberty is generally looked upon as a negative thing; it then went on to say that females generally talk to each other and their mothers more about their pubescent experience...does the natural support network that females seem to have regarding puberty cancel out the negative notions attributed to it?

2. The reading mentioned reports done almost a century apart. It got me to thinking...if each generation feels that the members of the next generation face new and more frightening challenges than ever before...what do you think the generation two generations from now will be facing (my bet is either nuclear holocaust or the re-emergence of Big Band music as a popular art form, with both being pretty much equally horrifying).