Ah, Today.... What Can I Say

So today was very bittersweet. My finals are over and it was bad. My psychology teacher went crazy and decided to tell us we would get most of the questions wrong and it would be scaled. So i did very bad on that one. Biology was better. Then came night time when my mom was closer and closer to getting to school to pick me up. She got there and my heart dropped. I knew as soon as she called it would time for me to say goodbye to my Kelly Bean. It was sad, really, really sad, but I have to remember that it is only goodbye for a while. I am hopefully going to see her in NY over break. But I still miss my Bean Head....

First Post Not Relating to Class

Okay so, here is my first post not related to the class I have been previously enrolled in. It is finals week at good ol' KSC and it is crazy! Not with the tests, but with my friends. A few of my friends are leaving the KSC campus for the rest of their college time. My friend Kelly is moving back to NY to get her education there, and my friend Elizabeth is just leaving our residence hall to live with her fiance in their new house 30 minutes away. Both of them have been amazing, and will be missed a lot!!!! Well, that is all for now, be back soon but now i need sleep and to study!!!! Wish me luck!!!!!

Lindsay

HW 42: Final Podcast

Gabcast! A Blog of One's Own #58

HW 37: Podcast Number 2

Gabcast! A Blog of One's Own #31

HW 36: Podcast Number 1

Gabcast! A Blog of One's Own #9

HW 35: Dear Blog Readers…

So blog readers, the end is coming… well the end of the semester is coming. This is one of my last blog posts for the class and we were asked to write a letter to all of you letting you know what our experiences were using the internet as a means of communication. I have learned over the past 13 weeks that blogs can be a means of empowerment for well, anyone. You can be an anonymous writer and write what you feel instead of everyone knowing who you are. I hope everyone could learn about all the things I have learned about in class from reading my blog. Hopefully everyone who has read my blog has learned something new and could understand where I come from with my opinions. I feel very proud of all my work. I was so nervous about putting my writing on the internet where everyone could see. I usually don't like people reading my work but with this blog it has helped me be more confident with my writing. Once this class is over I think I will keep my blog going. Not with answering reading prompts but maybe with things that I enjoy and hope you would too. I'm not sure how many readers I have out there but I hope there are some, and I would like to say thanks for reading…. And yah, I don't know what else. Ha-ha.

Sincerely,

Lindsay

HW 34: Tea Time in Baghdad

Reading about the custom of tea in Iraq from Baghdad Burning this week was really interesting. I learned that in Baghdad you don't use teabags when you drink tea. "If you serve "teabag tea" to an Iraqi, you risk scorn and disdain—a teabag is an insult to tea connoisseurs. It speaks of a complete lack of appreciation for the valuable beverage." (Riverbend 108) This shows me that they don't mess around with teatime there. They use actual tea leaves boiled in water for their tea. Riverbend speaks very highly of their tea. She talks about the glass cups they drink the tea out of called "istikans" that are shaped like the number 8. She also says that the color of the tea needs to be the perfect deep red-brown color. Another thing she points out is the amount of sugar each person gets. "2 spoons for dad and I, 3 for E. and one for mom." (Riverbend, 109) they talk about lots of things such as hijackings, demonstrations, gas, or empty water pumps. This tea Riverbend and her family talk about the Turkish troops. This is not normal for us to see talking about at the dinner table, but to them it is everyday conversation.

Lindsay

HW 33: Iraqi Podcasts

I recently watched a podcast called "Challenges at a Girls School in Baghdad" from the Alive in Baghdad series. This podcast was published on May 21, 2007. You can view this podcast at http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad/. This podcast is about the trouble they are having at a school in Iraq because of the war going on there. They talk to a director of the school, a teacher, and some students at the school. There is one girl that stuck out to me in this podcast. She is an Iraqi girl that is wearing a white headscarf. She talks about hearing explosions near her home and having to have her whole street and she could not get to school. She says she has lost the day's lesson because she couldn't be there. She also talks about how her family is nervous about sending her to school because it is far from her home and she needs to continue to go to school to keep up with her studies and do well. She also says that her family wants her to quit school but she insists on going. She says she could switch to a school closer to home but she is familiar with the school she is at and the teachers that are there. The opening shot is of a schoolyard. There are trees and other buildings behind it. It is bustling full of girls chatting and being together. As they go inside the building looks very old and worn down. There are some decorations and a poster on the wall. The walls are white or grey. The teachers have a blackboard and chalk to teach with. They share their desks with one other girl. There are some girls that wear head scarves in the school and some that don't. A viewer of this podcast might learn what people have to go through on an everyday basis and that women do go to school and they are not confined to the household. This is not what you see on the news. You don't see children getting an education or anything. The buildings do look similar as in broken because of the war. What is most memorable thing about this podcast is that it opened my eyes to see how many girls are in school and want to be there.

Lindsay

HW 30b: Citizenship Symposium #2 – Guest Scott Ritter – Citizen Soldier and Global Warriors: Challenges of Iraq

The second Citizenship Symposium session I went to was called "Citizen Soldiers and Global Warriors: Challenges of Iraq." Scott Ritter was the presenter of this session. Scott Ritter is an American Patriot. He was a Chief Weapons Inspector and was in the Marine Corps. He is also an author and is from New York. He told us that he would first talk to us and then he would flip it around and let us direct questions to him. "Without debate, dialog, and discussion we have nothing," Scott tells us. He really focused on what it meant to be a citizen, a soldier, a citizen soldier, to be global, a warrior, and a global warrior. Each at their separate times were explained with great detail rhetorical questions and an expressive voice. He emphasized the phrase "We the people" a lot. That phrase is from the preamble. He told us that the constitution was for "We the people" not for anyone else. "I love my country," Scott says near the end of his presentation, and I believe him and he was greatly appreciated for coming to Keene State College.

Lindsay

HW 32: School Supply Time!

The next section that I read from Baghdad Burning by Riverbend was really neat. She talked about many different topics but my favorite was when she talked about shopping for school supplies. She went with her cousin and E. to pick out some school supplies for her cousins two daughters. Her daughters were 7 and 10. "So we packed into the car and headed off for a shopping area in the middle of Baghdad." (Riverbend, 94) They don't have malls like we do here in the United States, they have smaller shops on the sides of streets. Riverbend had a little bit of trouble choosing notebooks for the younger of the two girls. She had to choose between Winnie the Pooh and the Lion King. She eventually chose Winnie the Pooh. Choosing school supplies in Baghdad is just like buying you supplies here. They have notebooks with characters on them that you want when you were their age. She got back to give the notebook to the younger of the girls and she was mortified that she had Winnie the Pooh and she wanted Barbie. We can see the similarities from Baghdad to the US and it is really neat how they compare.

Lindsay

HW 31: Baghdad Burning Terms

One term that I saw in Baghdad Burning was depleted uranium. I really didn't know what that was when I came up to it and how it got people sick so I went to investigate more. Looking at the Wikipedia for depleted uranium http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depleted_uranium#Armor_plate I see that depleted uranium is the uranium after the removal of a certain isotope. They use this depleted uranium in aircrafts, radiation shields in medical radiation therapy machines and containers for them, while the military uses it for defensive armor plates and tanks. It is controversial to use in ammunition because it is very harmful for the environment. It has been known to be highly toxic to mammals, but is not known to cause cancer. It also can increase birth defects in children that are born from people who have been exposed to depleted uranium. This has been used in Iraq before, in 1991. Riverbend thinks it might have been used in this war too. Riverbend tells us "I remember seeing babies born with a single eye, 3 legs, or no face—as a result of DU [depleted uranium] poisoning." (Riverbend, 47) So I see that this is in the book because this happened in Baghdad during the war.

Lindsay

HW 30: Citizenship Symposium #1 - Guest June Cross – Secret Daughter

"Keene State College's 2007 Citizenship Symposium offers unique ways to consider enduring, vital, and necessary questions on voting integrity, how to define a citizen, U.S. Constitutional rights, and citizen responsibilities. The Citizenship Symposium is a four-day opportunity to come together to learn about and discuss contemporary problems involving immigration, race, the environment, campaign politics, and the media's role in informing citizens" (Symposium Pamphlet)

The first Citizenship Symposium session I went to was called Secret Daughter. Secret Daughter is a documentary about a woman named June Cross. June Cross also made the film. June Cross is a professor at Colombia University and won an Emmy for her documentary. June is a reporter, storyteller, journalist, and an editor. She has worked for CBS and PBS. She also wrote a book based on her documentary called Secret Daughter. June Cross's documentary was about her life growing up as black woman with a white mother and a black father. It aired on November 26, 1996.

June's mother was white and when she was born until she was around 5 June lived with her. When she was about 5 or 6 her mother sent her to live with her "Aunt" Peggy, who was a black woman, that lived in New Jersey. She grew up with mostly all black people except when she was with her mom, who told everyone she was adopted, she was with some white people. Her father was a black man named Jimmy. He was an entertainer from the Stump and Stumpy Show. Something I never realized is "Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery" (Jimmy Cross) I now see how this can be. Her granny, June, could not get past her black skin and didn't care for her. "I don't want to be a secret anymore because my race is inconvenient," says June. Everything was fine with her father Jimmy and her mother for a while, until her mother didn't want to do it anymore, and her father's show was not doing as well as before. Jimmy became an alcoholic and abusive. One night June's mother called Jimmy the N-Word and he beat her and yelled at her. June's mother snuck out of a movie theater when her and Jimmy were there and left forever. She reconciled with her mother and her mother was interview throughout her film. Her mother passed away 7 years after the documentary aired. Her father passed away in 1963 from cancer.

Lindsay

Testing 1… 2… 3…

This is me trying to use a blog post feature on Microsoft Word 2007. I'm not sure how this is going to work… but it is worth a shot!

Lindsay

HW 28: An Open Letter to Riverbend

Riverbend:

I really now see myself as a misinformed American. For the first few days in your book I realized all the misconceptions that the news shows us about your country. Here in the United States Iraq is portrayed to us as dirty, has dusty roads, people live in shacks on these dirt roads, people in cultural clothing, and men and women have different things they are allowed to do. Reading your book you tell people that you have computers, jeans, sophisticated bridges and highways, and fast cars. You also said that you had a good job working with computers. I didn’t think that women in Iraq had jobs like that if at all. These things are shown to the US extremely different. I realize many people from the United States act like this. You said “And keep one thing in mind—tanks and guns can break my bones but emails can be deleted,” after seeing the e-mails from others criticizing you. I think you are so brave to be putting your view out on the web and in a book, and some people just can’t handle the truth of other views of the war. It’s ridiculous and I greatly appreciate what you have done by opening my eyes and other peoples by writing what you do and showing another view about the war and Baghdad itself.

Sincerely,
Lindsay

HW 27: What's Going on In Baghdad Burning

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq. New York: The Feminist Press, 2005.

The authors name is Riverbend. We only know her as Riverbend because she is a woman from Iraq that is writing in secret so she won’t get caught by her country. Iraq’s laws are different then the US’s and women aren’t allowed to do many things we do. She is in Baghdad and writes when she can because the war going on keeps making the electricity go out. This book will show me the behind the scenes effects of the war in Iraq. I will also learn a lot about the culture and what the war is doing to the country as a whole. This book seems very informational. It may be hard to process all the different things she says sometimes. Also a lot of the names of people are Arabic and I have a hard time pronouncing them. I am happy to be reading Baghdad Burning and I am up for the challenge.

Lindsay

HW 25: Memories... All Alone in the Moonlight

Yes, we are starting to read a new book, Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq by Riverbend. Reading the foreword and introduction it brought back a few memories of that fateful time of the war. I never believed I would actually have to live through a time when there was a war but I have. These two parts of the book explained two views from Ahdaf Soueif and James Ridgeway about the war. Soueif talks about the book and some of what Riverbend will be talking about while Ridgeway talks about what it looked like from the American view of the Iraq war. Ridgeway also goes into more about the American history with wars, which is a little dry to me. I had no idea the specific day they officially invaded Iraq. The thing I remember most is being in 7th grade in math class with Mr. E on September 11. I remember they would not turn on the television or tell us anything specific about what was going on. I am not a person that is hugely into war but I think this will be a good read and I am very excited to get started.

Lindsay

HW 24: The Progress of Women Today

The last chapters in Virginia Woolf’s book A Room of One’s Own makes me realize how far we’ve come with women and the role they play in society. Back when Woolf was writing things weren’t as fair as they are today. Not saying everything is fair nowadays, but it is a lot better. Let’s see then, a room of my own, this book confused me a lot. I understand that she does not mean literally a room of your own but just somewhere that you can go and write. My room here on campus, specifically my bed, is sort of a getaway from the everyday drama of school and life. I can go lie in my bed and read. I’m not much of a writer, so I don’t write usually unless I have to. We have made a lot of progress since then. Women can go into libraries and most women are educated or can be educated just as well as men can now. Woolf states “Few women even now have been graded at the universities; the great trials of the professions, army and navy, trade, political and diplomacy have hardly tested them.” (Woolf, 85) We see this has changed. You see women in the army all the time and so many females at colleges and universities. Recently we have had women stand up and try to run for president even. Woolf also says “Some collaboration has to take place in the mind between the woman and the man before the act of creation can be accomplished.” (Woolf, 104) This shows no single sex can be in the world and we really need both men and women in this world.

Lindsay

HW 23: Apologies to Virginia Woolf

I apologize to Virginia Woolf because she is a wonderful writer and I was asked to write a spoof:

As I walk down the street I see many cars rushing by, with each one my thoughts jump from one thought to a different thought. As I sit on the grass and open my laptop. I opened the Feministing website and a very short article called Ginsburg Speaks Out on Women’s Rights at http://feministing.com/archives/007968.html. I opened it and my eye was caught by the phrase (Woolf 68) “She noticed if Roe was overturned, middle class women would still be able to obtain abortions, but the decision would have a devastating impact on poor women.” How do they classify “poor” women, I wondered (68)? And I read that Ginsburg did not see the court overturning the case of Roe vs. Wade. Why would they ever think of changing the laws? Why shouldn’t women have the right to choose? Why should the women have the right to choose? We need answers not questions.

Lindsay

HW 22: Patriarchy.... Excuse Me???

When I was reading chapter two of A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf I noticed that she views the world as being run by patriarchy. She mentioned many different things that gave insight to the patriarchy in England. She talks a lot about the professor, which I think she is meaning any male person. When Woolf says “The most transient visitor to this planet, I thought, who picked up this paper could not fail to be aware, even from this scattered testimony, that England is under the rule of a patriarchy,” (Woolf 33) she is talking about by just reading the newspaper anyone that did not live in England could tell that men ran the country. A quote I liked as well is when she says “Possibly when the professor insisted a little too emphatically upon the inferiority of women, he was concerned not with their inferiority, but with his own superiority,” (Woolf 34) I like this because it is kind of showing how by putting others down it can make some people feel better about themselves. That is awful, I know, but still it happens.

I went to the Boston Globe website www.boston.com to look at the newspaper to see if I thought the US was run by a patriarchy. I’m not really sure. With the Red Sox recently winning against The Indians sending them into the World Series (GO SOX!!) there are a lot of articles about the Sox. That doesn’t mean we are a patriarchy, because not just men like the Red Sox. There are also articles about pets, O.J. Simpson, the space shuttle launch, fashion, and weddings. It seems to me that it is pretty even and no sex is more dominant over the other anymore. Well that you can tell from the media anyways.

Lindsay

HW 21: RE: Virginia Woolf is So Confusing!

Dear Josh,

Yeah, I know what you mean. A Room of One’s Own is a hard book to understand. Chapter 1 is about Virginia Woolf thinking about how she would write a speech about women and fiction. She is very good at describing her surroundings. She is visiting many places and contemplating what to write about. She talks a lot about places that she is not allowed to enter like the Oxbridge (male) school and the church. I think she is also talking about women’s rights in the sense of being allowed some places and not in others. It is hard though to interpret everything she says. Your English teacher might think this is important because everything that has gone on with women in the past and how women write. I had a lot of trouble understanding it and I can see why you do too. I hope this kind of helped you and gave you a few ideas for your book report. See you soon!

Lindsay

HW 19: The Tangled Web of Influence

After reading the chapter “Web of Influence” by Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein there was one paragraph that really stood out to me. This paragraph is on pages 87-88 and talks about how you need to have links to your blog on other blogs to get people to read your own. One sentence that I really like was “Thus, in the blogosphere, the rich (measured in the number of links) get richer, while the poor remain poor.” In other words, people who tend to have more links out there, the more viewers and readers they will have. On the other hand people who have vey little to no amount of links out will have the same result in readers. For example, my blog probably doesn’t have very many links because it is for a class while the blog at www.crookedtimber.org has many links. My conclusion, then, is that people should get the word out on their blogs to get more people to read them!

Lindsay

HW 18: Is Anorexia Becoming Sexy?????

Okay so when you think of anorexia do you think about laughing or that anorexia is sexy?? Well some freaks that made the “Sexy Anna Rexia” costume obviously do. On the site Salon: Broadsheet at http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/10/04/anorexia/index.html there is a picture of the costume as well as a description. There are things like a measuring tape choker and a measuring tape that goes around your waist and a heart pin that says Anna Rexia. The dress is a little black dress that has a skeleton pattern on it. Disturbing much? Yeah I think so. This is probably my least favorite post of the in the past week because it is just disturbing. How can you poke fun at an extremely destructive disease that is hurting or maybe even killing so many of the teen and young adult women in our world? That is just as bad as making a costume out of some other harmful disease, say cancer or even malaria. That is just wrong. The woman that wrote this post said “Even as Anna Rexia makes my skin crawl like no other Halloween costume ever has, I’m also not terribly comfortable getting worked up about a costume for a holiday that is all about embodying our fears” Well, I am and I did! This was a horrible thing and I hope I don’t have to read about a costume like that again.

Lindsay

HW 17b: Influential Blogs

After reading the interviews with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga and Ana Marie Cox in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein I went and visited their blogs DailyKos (dailykos.com) and Wonkette (www.wonkette.com). As much information that DailyKos has, Wonkette has gossip. I think Wonkette would have more of an influence on how I vote in coming elections. I find Wonkette more interesting than DailyKos because she blogs with a voice, not just news stories or statistics. She blogs about things that are interesting and it is more of a relaxed feel to her writing. Recently there was a post about how Mitt Romney pretty much ignored a guy in a wheelchair who has muscular dystrophy when he asked “Would you arrest me and my doctors if I got medical marijuana prescribed to me?” Romney pretty much said that he doesn’t think medical marijuana should be legalized and went on shaking hands of other people. Completely ignoring what the guy had asked. This definitely influenced my vote; it kind of shows how ignorant he is about things. He spoke at my school last year and he shifted his answers to controversial questions like gay rights and abortion and he really didn’t answer the questions asked. Ana Marie Cox writes with a real voice. I enjoyed looking at Wonkette and I think I will continue to look at it in the future.

Lindsay

HW 17: Beyonce, Malaysia, and Midriff???

I am watching a blog called Salon: Broadsheet.The post I read about it called “Should Beyonce bow to Malaysia’s dress code?” at this site http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2007/10/02/malaysia/index.html . I acknowledge both views in this story. Beyonce isn’t going to do a show in Malaysia (one of her tour spots) because they don’t agree with the revealing outfits. Malaysia made a dress code that you have to cover up clavicle to knee in order to perform. On the other hand Gwen Stefani added more jackets and leotards to her wardrobe to comply with the dress code so she could do her show. This shows two different views of how to deal with this cultural difference. I agree with the way Gwen Stefani handled it. This is their culture. You are invited to perform in another country and you can’t change the way you are dressed to not cause controversy between cultures. No one forced these performers to come do a show in a country that does not allow women to dress the same as they do here; they chose to go to that country by themselves. On the other hand I don’t agree with the part in the article that says that Akon sang “Smack That” (which has some iffy lyrics) earlier in the year and he was not asked to change it. It just shows how women are portrayed in other cultures and how much pressure there is on them to act and dress appropriately.

Lindsay

HW 16: Five Pillars of Convorsational Software

I read an interview with Robert Scoble called “Blogs: Humanizing the Face of Corporate America” in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein. In this interview he talked about the 5 Pillars of Conversational Software. These are what Scoble thinks are the 5 things that made blogging hot. The first one is the ease of publishing. Anyone can go on the web, take 2 minutes to set up an account with whatever blog site they want to, and start writing about anything that comes to mind. The second one is discoverability. This is relating to how blog authors put tags on their posts to tell people what they are about, people can search for a subject, and certain tagged blogs will come up of that subject. Cross-site conversation is also one of the pillars. This is talking about how sites can link to each other if they blog about the same topics. Permalinking is the fourth pillar. Using permalinking you can put a URL to a certain blog post instead of your homepage and people don’t have to search through all your posts to find a specific one. The last pillar is syndication. Syndication helps you see a large number of sites on your own terms. I was a little confused on this pillar and I wasn’t sure what exactly it meant.

Lindsay

HW 14: Blogging... Copyrighting??

As a result of reading the Joi Ito Interview “Japanese Blogger Champions Internet Democracy” in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein my view of blogging has changed a bit. For example, our last blog post had to be about whether blogs were better for business or communication, I chose business. However, I now see that communication is just as important. As an illustration, Ito says “You can do what you want but you’re in my living room, so be respectful because I have to take care of this place.” (Kline and Burstein 144) After all a blog really is your own space to choose what is said and what to throw out. In addition I liked how Ito talked about copyrighting things that people put on the blogs. Specifically when he said that you would be able to give some of the copyrights away if you wanted. Although it is true copyrighting is something that is still up in the air about blogs and is tough subject to pin on things like blogs. In conclusion I enjoyed Ito’s interview and agree with a lot of what he said and I am thinking of going to look at his blog!

Lindsay

HW 13: Business and the Blogosphere

After reading the chapter called “Blogs Will Change Your Business” by Stephen Baker and Heather Green in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein I realized how important business blogs really are. There are so many business blogs emerging now and people are starting to look at them. Even so, sometimes the blogging world can hurt a business.

“There are some 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day. Some discuss poetry, and others constitutional law. And yes many are plain silly. “Mommy tells me it may rain today. Oh Yucky Dee Doo,” says one April Posting. Let’s assume that 99.9% are equally off point. So what? That leaves some 40 new ones every day that could be talking about your business, engaging your employees, or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush.”

Businesses can make a blog to put the business out there more or even have a discussion board to make their customers happier with products or purchases. In one case GM’s Vice-Chairman Bob Lutz created a blog and car buffs started making suggestions and complaints to him on the blog. These people were car buffs because of the car business. This shows that blogs can attract certain people to joining them or maybe even being a customer at a certain place. On the other hand a Google programmer named Mark Jen had some issues:

“Google is regarded as a secretive company. So in January, when a young programmer named Mark Jen started blogging about his first days in the Googleplex, folks in the ‘sphere instantly linked to him. Jen certainly wasn’t dealing out inside dirt. But he griped that Google’s health plan was less generous than his former employer’s—Microsoft—and he argued, indignantly, that Google’s free food was an enticement for employees to work past dinner.”

Obviously he was fired because he was pretty much bashing his company. That sort of stuff should not be on a business blog… not good for business. At first glance teenagers might say that these blogs are boring and don’t really matter to them. But on closer inspection they do. How can you say that businesses don't matter? They produce the products you the consumer buy! And teenagers buy a lot of things! So, business blogs are good things and should stay.

Lindsay

HW 11: A Wonderful Global Blogger

After reading the interview “Making Global Voices Heard: An Interview with Rebecca MacKinnon” in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein I visited one of the blogs that MacKinnon talked about. I visited the blog called Kenyan Pundit (www.kenyanpundit.com) It looks like a blog… well it has a picture of 3 vans on the side of the road at the top. I don’t really know what it is actually. The author is Ory Okolloh. She writes informally but very strong. There are a few different topics on this blog. They range from talking about jobs in Africa to talking about business to sort of a mommy blog. It isn’t focused on her little girl (who is cute as a button I might say) but she asks for advice on feeding and gives updates on milestones in her child's life, which is neat.

She still does criticize news stories but I don’t think I see it as much in her recent posts. She still is linking to other Kenyan Bloggers, a lot actually there are 39 Kenyan blogs and then lots more African blogs. It still corresponds to the reading though because she is still doing what she used to. I think now I even like it more because she has some of her personal life in there and I think it is good to show some personal touches in your blog.

However, does the evidence I’ve cited prove conclusively that Kenyan Pundit has stayed completely how it was before? No, I’m just saying that in my opinion I see her blog as the same with a few extra posts that are neat as well.

Lindsay

HW 9: To Post or Not To Post? That Is the Question.

This interview I read called “A Weblog Saved My Life Last Night” with Ayelet Waldman in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and media by David Kline and Dan Burstein was really neat. I actually went to her blog (bad-mother.blogspot.com) and read a few of the posts. She really had a lot of trouble in her life. I’m of two minds about what information Ayelet was putting on the internet. On one hand I agree that it is good for people to get their ideas out and even receive support from people on the internet sometimes. On the other hand putting suicidal thoughts or personal information about your family and your sex life is not ok. Some people like me, do not want to hear that. I understand that it helped her in the end to get better, but when I read her blog post that she talked about in the book it was scary. I also agree that there should be a place for women to meet other women that have had or are struggling with the same problems. It is very comforting sometimes to have another person that has something in common with you to talk to. I think that it was a good choice for her to stop blogging because all the stories she told online are the ones she could have wrote a novel about and made lots of money with.

Lindsay

HW 7: Should Parents Read Kids Stuff??

I really enjoyed the chapter “My So-Called Blog” by Emily Nussbaum in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture by David Kline and Dan Burstein. That said, I am kind of on the fence about the question if whether parents should monitor everything that their middle-school children write online or not. I think that parents should talk to their children about what is safe to put out there on the web, but they shouldn’t read the things they write in blogs or social networking service sites. I see a lot of things on Facebook that I wouldn’t want my parents seeing that are on some kids sites. In this chapter Emily Nussbaum writes about teens and how they feel empowered by writing in their blogs. She also talks about how the adolescent experiences are made public by using the internet:

A result of all this self-chronicling is that the private experience of adolescence – a period traditionally marked by seizures of self-consciousness and professional confessions wrapped in layers and hidden in a sock drawer – has been made public. (Kline and Burstein 351)

In other words Nussbaum is saying that in the days before the boom of computers and the internet young people would write in their diaries and hide them from the world. Nowadays things like Livejournal and Blurty are some people’s diaries. I think that is an important quote because you can really saw that happen in the past years, the transition to the digital age!

Lindsay

HW 6: Interest Statement for Semester-Long Project

Topics for my paper huh, lets see... the three social computing technologies I am interested in are blogs because we are writing our own now, instant messaging because I used AIM a lot and enjoy chatting with friends online, and now recently the social computing networking site Facebook and I enjoy being able to connect with friends and relatives on the site.

The empowerment of marginalized groups that seem interesting to me are overcoming sexism because being female there is a part of my mind that is always thinking about this even now in present day as well as what has happened in the past, overcoming ageism because I think people should not be criticized for their age (everyone is that age at one time or another), and issues of disabilities or learning differences because I want to teach someday and I’m sure that children in my class will learn differently than each other.

Two geographical areas that I want to look at are the US because I live here (duh) and Europe because I have had a relative go there for a few years and it seemed really interesting to hear the stories from when she was gone.

Lindsay

HW 5b: Young People Changing the Future?

Ahh, Kline and Burstein again. The chapter “I Blog Therefore I Am” in Blog!: How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture it talks about how the so called “old forms” of television and newspaper media are fading. There wasn’t much in the reading I disagreed with but one thing that jumped out at me is on the first page, page 237, where Kline claims that “the nation’s print and television media are going the way of the dinosaur.” I question this statement because I personally watch the news a lot. I also see a lot of students around campus either sitting around reading a newspaper or carrying one in their hand (which makes me assume that they are going to or already have read it.) Kline also emphasizes that it is young people that are changing those statistics about reading the paper. I sort of agree with this because you don’t see many elderly people searching the web… (well at least I don’t.)

Lindsay

HW 4: Sunkist = Happiness

Don’t get me started about Sunkist. It is my FAVORITE soda ever! That is why I chose this brand for this homework. When I look at the Sunkist logo I think it promises an orange ray of sunshine in an aluminum can. The logo is very simple so it is tough to imply what the company promises. So as I go to the website it starts off with a bright orange screen that opens to the website itself. There is a quote that says “Sunkist soda is more than refreshment. It’s hanging with friends, feeling good vibes and savoring the Sunkist orange moments you create. It’s a positive state of mind, and everyone’s invited.” (www.sunkistsoda.com). This makes me think that Sunkist promises the consumer that they will be happy and hang out with their friends a lot. Sunkist’s slogan is “FEEL ALL ORANGE INSIDE”. On the home page there are pictures of happy people and beautiful celebrities (like Chad Michael Murray) and this also may imply that your friends will be beautiful. I then click on the button that says All About Sunkist Soda. It brings up a second page that talks about different scenarios that they call ‘Sunkist Orange Moments’. Now that I see the website I think that Sunkist’s promise is that when you drink Sunkist that you will have these moments where you can be yourself and that you will feel great whenever you drink it.

I drink Sunkist all the time and it has never made me automatically feel like I can be myself and make my friends more beautiful than they normally are =) I don’t think that Sunkist keeps what I think they promise. Many companies nowadays don’t keep their implied promises. Keeping that in mind, don’t believe all that companies say but try the products yourself and see what effect they have with you.

<3 I also want to post a thought being September 11 and all. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of the victims of the September 11 terrorist attacks. God Bless <3

Lindsay

HW 3: Politics and Blogs: Are They Really Effective?

Many people assume that politicians rely on the television and newspapers only for their two sources of media exposure, but as we “bloggers” know, they are wrong. In the chapter called “Toward a More Participatory Democracy” from David Kline and Dan Burstein’s Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture it talks about how blogs affect politics when bloggers post certain things that may hurt or help a politicians campaign.

When I began reading this chapter I didn’t quite understand how blogs could affect things as big as the Presidential Election of 2004. As I read on I realized that blogs can play a big part in elections, but only if used correctly. The book said that Kerry’s e-mails were mostly about wanting money. This was not an effective thing to do using e-mail, obviously, because he is not our president right now. This chapter has opened my eyes to the effectiveness of blogging and the internet. So in conclusion people should be very conscious about what they are putting on the internet or their blogs for everyone to see.

Lindsay

HW 2: How Blogs are Connecting Countries

In the chapter called "From Cave Painting to Wonkette: A Short History of Blogging" from David Kline and Dan Burstein’s Blog!: How the Newest Media Revolution is Changing Politics, Business, and Culture they mention 12 key ideas about blogs and how they are changing. One of these ideas is that blogging is going global. I really enjoy learning about what is going on around the world. I like to watch the news in the morning so I can see what is happening outside of my state. I have never really read any blogs that are from other places; actually I have never read any blogs at all. This is all a new thing for me. Even so I think that this statement, that blogging is going global, is very true. We can see in other cultures nowadays the American influence. Blogging will and already has left its mark in other countries. We see by the book we are going to be reading Baghdad Burning by Riverbend it can give insight into other nations or cultures that would otherwise be edited by media filters. This book also shows us that blogging can give marginalized groups in different countries, that don’t have the rights that Americans have in the US, a voice. All in all I think that blogging going global is a great opportunity for others to speak as the wish.

Lindsay