Museum Exhibit Critique

When looking for an exhibit to critique, I visited the California Science Center. The science center featured an exhibit called "America I Am" which walks viewers through Black history in America. It chronicles the trials and tribulations of slaves all the way to present day and the triumphs and successes of Blacks in modern day. It shows how the culture has grown through struggle and hardship and how oppressed Blacks rose up to accomplish great things. The exhibit was quite informative, but I did not really learn anything new. For me, it kind of reinforced history and events that I have already learned and heard about. I appreciate the fact that the exhibit highlighted the issue though.
On a separate note, I feel that the exhibit should have been located in the African American museum as opposed to in the California Science Center. It just felt a little out of place surrounded by a tight-rope bicycle exhibit etc.

Apology Post 2

With all of the bad press that Toyota has gotten lately, and with the 34 deaths and thousands of injuries sustained because of faulty parts and vehicles, and apology is definitely necessary. Although President Akio Toyoda (grandson of the founder of the auto company) issued several apologies via press conferences and congress appearances, I feel that the apologies have come both too late and too soon--to late in that problems with Toyota products are not new. They are new to us, the general public, but cases of Toyota's malfunctioning have been happening for over a decade. On the other hand, I say that it is too soon for apologies because we as the general American people or even more specifically, the Toyota owners out there need to come to terms with all of this. Toyota owners can choose from three options of coping. First, they can ignore reports of Toyota in the media and continue driving their cars, second, they can do independent research and learn if they drive an affected product, or third, they can stop driving Toyota vehicles altogether.
As an owner (now ex-owner of a Toyota), I felt quite betrayed at first when reports of problems in the product became publicised. I see Toyota commercials almost daily about either the Prius (main car affected) itself or about how safe Toyota is. Up until these reports of deaths and accidents came out did I believe that I was safe and protected. As an individual affected by this, I think that I deserve an apology. I think that this apology should be in the form of a letter and as money to cover the cost of damages sustained when my car malfunctioned. I have only personally talked to a few others who too were affected, but I think that they too as well as everyone else who has been affected would agree with my ideal apology.

Toyota Controversy and Apology by Akio Toyoda

For the past couple of months, Toyota has been bombarded with bad press because of countless recalls and problems with their hybrid vehicle called the Prius. Towards the end of last year extending to the beginning of this year, there have been recalls on the Priuses made in 2008 and 2009. Problems with them included brake failure, problems turning off and turning off and problems with the accelerator. These defects have caused mild to catastrophic loss and damage in some cases. While reports of this came out, Aiko Toyoda, president of the Toyoto corporation ignored warnings about recalls and faulty parts. Why? He, along with many business associates figured that since only a few cases were reported that it would not be cost-effective on their part to remove the defective models from the road and the market as a whole. I have heard of all the cases in the media and felt blessed that my family (owner of Prius) was not affected, but we were. I was in ours with my father. We were backing out of our driveway when the brakes failed and we accelerated and crashed into the curb. We were lucky in that we were not out in the open road and did not sustain any serious injuries. We called Toyota and reported the problem, and corporate said that since there were not any other occurrences that they would delay their visit and inspection of the vehicle. As of now, our car is back at the dealer where we purchased it and my father has been driving a (non-Toyota) rental car ever since. For links on this issue, click here, here and here.






Above are images of ad space that Toyota purchased off of the Pasadena 110 freeway as it approaches the 101. Toyota had their people plant the iconic image of the sun that is synonymous with their third generation Prius. After reports of fatalities and accidents came up as a result of faulty Toyota products, guerilla artists took it into their hands to change the happy ad space into a somber, makeshift memorial honoring the 34 that have died as a result of malfunctioning Priuses.

Critical Thinking in Architecture

When people think of critical thinking, most automatically associate it with when they had to think critically in either an English or a writing class. Although we do think critically in English etc., we also think critically in many other disciplines. We think critically in science (creating hypotheses, analyzing data), in music (breaking down notes and key signature of music to determine tone, considering historical context when thinking about when songs were written etc.) and even in architecture. In architecture, we use critical thinking whenever we tackle a new project. We have to constantly think of the placement of required programmatic elements (spaces for designated activities e.g. living room, family room, restroom, outdoor space etc.) We cannot place these spaces randomly, we have to think about it and determine what ordering and circulation of spaces makes the most sense.

Critical Thinking 1

As the next topic of discussion and exploration, my class is charged with the task of writing about critical thinking, how it pertains to our major, and if our school does a good, bad, or satisfactory job of teaching us how to think critically. In starting this paper, I have to create a definition of what critical thinking is. After some brainstorming, I came up with this tentative definition, "Critical thinking is when an individual analyzes a text or pair of texts to obtain a greater meaning of the work or works as a whole." After some brief self-reflection, I realized that I started thinking critically back in the days of junior high and have done so ever since. Critical thinking is a skill. I am now far more proficient in critical thinking than I was then, but as it is a skill, there is always room for improvement.