Journal 5 Cieria

The first profile that I do not want to forget is Dick Falk, press agent. It was not his main occupation as a press agent that i connected to, but something else about him.  I really enjoyed his side job of dumping the ashes of people out of a plane.  It seems really fun and peaceful to know that you are not only flying an airplane, but also fulfilling the last wishes of the people whose ashes he dumped.  As a business major, i also appreciate the line he draws to not let his job take his soul, but at the same time he is committed enough to want to advertise his business in one of the photos.

The second profile that I wanted to remember was the one about Dick and Barbara, the serpent handlers.  I actually to not relate to them at all. It was very shocking to me that they continued their practice, even after a family member died.  At the end of profile where Dick said that he could not believe that the portion of the Bible that mentions serpents was added later, it kind of scared me.  Some people may think his dedication to his faith is admirable, but I think that it is dangerous.  People who do things just because they have been told to, and cannot be bothered to question their beliefs in the face of facts and evidence are the most dangerous type of people.  Groups of people who think this way are what allows tragedy like the Holocaust, or the long wait that America has had to allow gay marriage.

My favorite picture is the one on page 169 of Dan Barlow, the Mormon.  Honestly, it is my favorite because I think it is extremely creepy.  It seems like what might pop up in a horror movie if you were alone in a dark house, then quickly turned your head to look out the window and see this man waiting for you.  It has the perspective of the camera is this dark room, and then has a nice bright day outside the window.  The fact that the window is closed is probably supposed to symbolize the fact that everyday people know about Mormons, but do not want to interact with them.  This photo also seems like a scene from the video game Fallout 4, which is a game set in the 1950s  in an alternate timeline where nuclear bombs actually go off to destroy the world.  The opening scene in that game has a man who acts very nice and is going door-to-door trying to get people to sign up to be one of the families who can be safe in the fallout shelter if nuclear attack did occur.  Long story short, the man is actually signing you up to be part of a very evil government experiment.  Dan Barlow is obviously not a government agent with a hidden agenda, but this photo of him definitely makes him seem sinister, which is how the majority of the population treated his people in the profile.