Picasso for $5?

         I recently read an article in the wall street journal about the appeal of liberal arts colleges and their quirks. For Margaret Ritten, the appeal of Oberlin was that they allow their students to rent famous paintings for $5. Students have these paintings in their dorms or hanging on their walls. Personally, when I think of paintings by artists as famous as Picasso, I would expect them to be hanging in an enclosed frame in a museum. Definitely not in a college student's dorm. While Picasso created around 13,500 paintings, it still surprises me that the Allen Memorial Art Museum trusts these students so much to let them have possession of the works. 
        While not one of these paintings have been destroyed, and all have been returned; I start to question the amount of responsibility that the students are taking on. I think that showing so much trust is really appealing to students and kids applying to colleges and for the most part I think that they are responsible enough. There is always that one kid that messes things up. Whether you're in kindergarten, high school, or college. It may be on accident or not their fault but what happens if one of these works gets ruined? Is the trust for all the student body ruined?
        I also started to wonder to what extent should students be trusted? As students reach college, they near adulthood where they should be taking on more responsibility but what is too much? Is placing these priceless works in the hands of students for $5 placing too much responsibility in their hands?

Disney Star to Pop Star

          I recently came across Miley Cyrus' backyard sessions which caught my attention. She sings "Lilac Wine", "Look What They've Done to My Song" and "Jolene"; all of which are incredible. When I was listening to each of these, they made the disney star grow up in my mind. She becomes much more mature and appealing for not only middle schoolers. Miley recorded all of these sessions back before she cut her hair off and before she seemed to really change. It confuses me as to why she would take this other route of songs about drugs and sex rather than continuing with work similar to the backyards sessions. It seems clear that she has a much broader audience with this then her new hair and album "Bangerz." 
         While reading NY times article, "Get Back, and Just Let Miley Cyrus Grow Up", the writer takes a different stance on Miley. He calls her choices creative, her results great, and her singing striking. In particular, he talks about the transition that she is making from disney star to pop star. Miley disagrees with this as a transition though, she says “This is all thought out in my mind. It’s not a transition. I’m the same human, I’ve got the same heart I did five years ago.” This seems pretty hard to believe from the stark contrast of her now, and her 5 years ago. Although all of it is a part of Miley growing up, she seems to be becoming more immature then she was before. The songs about drugs and sex are reaching a different audience; not the more grown up one she seems to be going for. 
         While she isn't growing up the way that I would have expected, she is leaving her mark and creating her own character. She is surprising everyone and pushing limits in the pop world. In some cases she may have even broke those limits. She is threatening the image of the young female performer while she's making headlines. Miley is grabbing attention world wide and while maybe some of this is negative attention, its more then she would have got staying in line. After reading how she has this all planned out, and it is all strategic, I started really wondering what she's thinking. What's her goal with all of this? Is singing songs about drugs and sex what she wants to be singing or is she doing it for a certain audience? If she really does have the same heart as she did five years ago, then why is she acting so differently?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/06/arts/music/get-back-and-just-let-miley-cyrus-grow-up.html?pagewanted=2&_r=0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOwblaKmyVw

Villains

Thursday afternoon, a women turned her car into a weapon and drove full force through the barriers to the white house on capitol hill. She stopped at nothing, not even with the possibility of killing someone. A police officer got in her way to try and stop her but she just kept going. “After she ran him down, she gunned it, and she just went screaming down Pennsylvania Avenue,” says Mr. Campbell in New York Times article "Car Chase, White House to Capitol, Has Fatal End". This women identified as Miriam Carey was a dental hygienest with a toddler. Simpily looking at her life, she seems like the last person to do such a thing. Honestly, when I first heard about the chase this morning on the radio, I was very surprised that it was a women. When thinking about why I was surprised it was for multiple reasons. One being that when tragedies like this occur, they are most often committed by men. I think of tragedies such as the Boston Marathon bombing, or 9/11. Both were committed by men. I also realized that I was so surprised because she is a mother. Mom's always seem to be nurturing and gentle. Not one to ram their car with their child into the white house barriers. Although this may be a generalization, it was the reasoning for my shock.

While thinking about it more on my drive to school, I started to think about whether women are less likely to commit to such actions compared to men. With so many other qualities being engraved into our minds at such a young age, I thought that this one would go along with it. From all the stories we read and movies we see, the majority of the time the bad guy seems to be a man. As I started to look into it more, I realized that this actually is not true. There are many villains that are women especially in children's stories. For example, Cruella de Vil from 101 Dalmatians, The Wicked Witch of the West in the Wizard of Oz, and The White Witch from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. The ratio of women villains to men I found was pretty even. So that ruined my theory as to why I was so surprised it was a women who drove through the White House barricades and left me wondering where the surprise came from. Are men more likely to commit crime than women? How are different behaviors and values engraved into us as kids?