Chapter 6 of Lazere talked about how ethnocentrism and culturally conditioned assumptions affect the value of an argument. He talks about how one's ethnic, religious, and regional background affects how they respond to certain things. What he was saying about abitrary customs and traditions that continue for no reason really other than because that's the way its always been. As someone that plans on being involved television, the example of the laugh track to imply something was funny. An example in television I'm more familiar with is the APPLAUSE sign. I went to tapings of Late Night with Conan O'Brien where on several instances the sign would flash, such as going to and coming from a commercial break, during the opening, when guests/performers would come on stage, and at the end of the show. I think theres some reason for that especially in late night comedy shows where you need a good level of energy to stay entertained and perhaps awake since it IS late at night for the viewer at home.

The dress codes, in particular the hair struck me a bit. Before my parents got used to my long hair (before I cut it I should say, since it was much longer a while back) they would always say "how do you expect to get a job with your hair like that?" Also myself being a Yankees fan, am very familiar with the idea of keeping hair neat means success. Last offseason's acquisition of the free-spirited, caveman-looking Johnny Damon, the cutting of the hair and the shaving of his beard to follow owner George Steinbrenner's personal rule of short neat hair and no facial hair with the exception of mustaches.

Damn, couldn't find a pic of him with his mustache that many of his teammates were sporting in August. Anyway, going on with the dress code, where I've worked the last three summers I noticed an interesting thing about dress code. It was a pretty casual atmosphere since it was a place specifically for adolescent youths, so alot of the staff regularly dressed in jeans and t-shirts. People that were more involved with the operations of the instituion such as finance and on some level legal, although many still worked with the youth, often dressed in slacks and collared shirts. And of course everyone participated in Casual Friday.

The hyperboles of parochialism such as "The World Series" and "The Big Game" whereever it is, gave me a chuckle. I look at "The World Series" more in terms of the baseball world, which I can sort of justify by looking at World Series logos from 1974 to 1986, then to emphasize my theory the addition of the baseball diamond from 1987 to 1991, then the globe from 1992 to the logo for the upcoming 2006 World Series. My last point is on American Ethnocentrism, with the fact that when we refer to America (and even the rest of the world) we're only talking about the United State and not including our North American neighbors Canada and Mexico and Central, South and the Caribbean. My own school is guilty of Penn State Ethnocentrism, we call ourselves "State" to emphasize ourselves as the best of the land-grant schools. That also reminds me of my friend that goes to Penn (University of Pennsylvania), they're the only Pennsylvania school (at one point at least, til we came along), so as my friend tells me of her schoolmates that wear "Not Penn State" on their shirts just in case anyone forgot what school they went to.