Tuesday, October 30, 2007

HW 25 "Introduction to Baghdad Burning"

“Baghdad Burning” was written by a young woman who goes by the name of Riverbend. The story seems to be written in a blog type format as you would read online. She describes her blog as a “Girl Blog from Iraq”. The beginning of the Introduction goes on to explain the type of person Riverbend is. It tells us that she is in her mid twenties living middle class with her family in Baghdad. A lot of her blogs “have become the most important sources of news from Iraq”. Riverbend depicts what has been occurring in her life being in view of the war and of the actual burning of Baghdad as she watches from her rooftop with her brother. In continuation of the introduction to this bog story, it discusses the wars and the full effects of them afterwards. “…and have learned to identify different types of automatic weapons by the sound of their volleys” (Page 1 of Introduction). My impressions of the war in Iraq are somewhat similar to what Riverbend describes in her story throughout the introduction. I can imagine from past experiences of watching programs on television about wars about families being able to view from their houses and witnessing the gruesome effects of battle.

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

HW 24 "Have you got a room of your own?"

Have you got a room of your own? A room of your own in comparison to Virginia Woolf’s story is not a typical room in a modern day lifestyle living as a woman. Women these days are considered just as equal as men and have the same rights in everything. Back at the time period when this book takes place, women have pretty much have no rights compared to males. They seem to be owned by men and are the property of them. Sexism at this time was still occurring and made it seem that men can say and do one thing but for women it’s a completely opposite story. Now that it is 2007, times have changed. I can have a room of my own. My room is full of equality and I am free to do what I want, when I want. “I had come at last, in the course of this rambling, to the shelves which holds books by the living; by women and by men; for there are almost as many books written by women now as by men” ( Pg. 79 Chp. 5 Woolf, Virginia). By this time in the story, this statement and the next one that I quoted from chapter 6 is how my life in my room will be right now. “And the fact that the ordinary sight of two people getting into a cab had the power to communicate something of their own seeming satisfaction (Pg. 96 Chp. 6 Woolf, Virginia).

Monday, October 22, 2007

HW 23 "Singing with the Enemy"

With Apologies to Virginia Woolf

“Singing with the Enemy” is the title of the post from the blog Feministe. Singing with the Enemy is actually the title of a British TV program. It is a reality show about a women’s rock band called Severed Heaven and an all men’s band that call themselves the Lethal Fixx. In this reality show, they both had to compromise and put their music together to construct a song. But as in every reality TV show, there is always a twist. This short passage of a post parallels with the two chapters (three and four) from Virginia Woolf’s- A Room of One’s Own. The rest of the blog post discusses “The twist was Severed Heaven believed strongly in feminist values while Lethal Fixx did not have great things to say about women in rock and just genuinely were all about shagging women. One band member even said that women don’t make good rock music”. Throughout the first few chapters that I have read thus far in the book, Virginia is all about getting equalized women’s rights with men and is always bringing up issues that women have and men don’t. At the college Virginia goes to, women aren’t allowed to walk on the grass and a beadle stops her. Women can’t own their own property. According to the story, “husbands were their property”. If she were to respond to this article, she would most likely compare it to her life right now. Women in this band are being looked down upon because they “aren’t good enough” and women aren’t considered to even be able to have their own life in the book. If Virginia were to base her story on women roles today, I think that she would have a completely different story to tell and have a much better outlook on the equality of women.

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/10/22/singing-with-the-enemy/

Wednesday, October 17, 2007

HW 22 "Chp.2 Response to Virginia Woolf"

“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”. Patriarchy is a society where men hold the most power over women. The quoted statement above parallels with what was said in chapter two about Patriarchy in that they discuss how women are beneath men. She looks through books at the library about women and comes upon a topic and a line that really intrigues her; about the physical inferiority of women. She comes to the conclusion that male scholars don’t care about the inferiority of women rather than defending the male superiority. “Have you any notion how many books are written about women in the course of one year? Have you any notion how many are written by men? Are you aware that you are, perhaps, the most discussed animal in the universe”? (pg. 26) This quote is basically saying that talking about women is done more than men. Even though they talk about it more, it’s usually in a negative way.
The front page of the New York Times newspaper article is titled, “Endorsements for Giuliani, Romney”. If a visitor to our country were to open up this newspaper they could have mixed feelings on patriarchy occurring in the United States. On one side, they could assume that the elections are only men and have no women in them. They could be excluding all females from them. On the other hand, they could also think nothing of it and just presume that women weren’t running this time around. I feel that the use of patriarchy in our country if someone from outside were to come on would have completely mixed feelings about it which is why I take either side of this.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

HW 21 "Chapter One Response to A Room of One's Own"

Cassie-
After reading your last email you sent it seems like your having a bit of trouble with the understanding of the book, Virginia Woolf- “A Room of One’s Own”. I’ve read the first chapter and I can try to help you with my perspective and understanding of the story thus far. I’m not positively sure if I am all that correct on what is going on because it is a difficult book to understand, but I can try.
Chapter one starts off by discussing Virginia Woolf. She was asked to discuss her opinion on Women and Fiction. She had many different ideas-“women and what they are like, women and the fiction that they write, or women and the fiction written about them”. She came to the conclusion "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction." The narrator of the story follows this by having the story take place sitting on the side of the river. She sits and contemplates what Women and Fiction mean to her. The narrator converses about a story she had remembered reading about. When she goes to the library they say, “ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction." Throughout the rest of chapter one, she describes different things that are taking place around her. This includes the church, and meals at the University. She also starts to think about why women are “poor” and don’t seem like they are created equal. She thinks how different things would be if her mother and women in her family before her had money. The chapter ends by her thinking why “Mrs. Seton had no money to leave us” and also on the effects of poverty and wealth have on the mind.
Some people might consider this an important piece of work because the story although it is difficult to read, it makes you think. It makes you understand more and if you don’t understand what they are trying to say you can look deeper into it. As it says on the back of the book, this story has a legit meaning. “Women must have a fixed income and a room of their own in order to have the freedom to create”.
In my opinion, I think this book so far seems pretty complicated. I thought it was difficult to understand and felt that I had to keep going back and re-reading sections because I couldn’t remember what was going on. It is only the first chapter so I think that by reading more of the book I will get adjusted to the style of the writing and be able to comprehend a little easier than I have.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

HW 19 "Web of Influence"

Daniel W. Drezner and Henry Farrell are the writers to the article in the Blog titled, “Web of Influence”. One paragraph that appears to be fascinating to me about the effects of blogging is the second paragraph on page 85. This paragraph provides the full results between the differences of international blogs and media coverage. In this paragraph, it discusses the influences of blogs on the United States politics. It informs us about the millions of people that are drawn to the blogosphere per day. The White House Internet Director Jimmy Orr “characterized the blogosphere (the all encompassing term to describe the universe of weblogs) as instrumental, important, and underestimated in its influence”. I feel that blogging is having a huge impact on the political world today. They are a way for bloggers who are sometimes more informative about world issues than actual media reporters to discuss and give you a better chance to find out the real deal of what is going on. In this article, they give you solid examples of people in politics that have been affected by the blog world. I like how the authors used good back up cases to show its readers the actual outcomes of online blogging. United States Senate Trent Lott resigned in 2002 after he made harsh remarks at another Senator Strom Thurmond’s 100th birthday party. Throughout the media, they made as little fuss possible over the statements he said. Apparently they were big issues that shouldn’t have been taken lightly. My point is that online blogging took this story to a whole other level. For instance, “the incident was the subject of intense online commentary, prodding renewed media attention that converted Lott’s gaffe into a full blown scandal”. In other words, we can thank the blogosphere for making unpopular issues going on in politics today to be ‘Headline News’ in the blogging world.

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

HW 18 "My Least Favorite Blog Post of the Week"

My least favorite blog post of the week that I came across was titled, “Black Women Less Likely to Receive Chemo” falling under the feminist blogs category. Apparently, a recent study showed that “Black women are three times less likely to receive chemotherapy and five times less likely to receive Tamoxifen (a drug used to help treat breast cancer) than their white counterparts”. In my opinion, I disagree with this recent post. Throughout society today, we don’t have close to any problems with racism; at least not around me. I feel that no matter what culture you are or what color you are does not play a role in how you are medically treated. Years ago when we did have problems with racism I could believe this post and see why people might think this. At this day and age, I feel that no one cares about what race you are and everyone is equivalent with one another. “Despite previous studies having found difference in the types of cancer that black women get verse white women, it is clear that it is cultural and racial factors that motivate the difference between why white women get the treatment they need more than black women do. Most experts were not surprised by the results of the study, but stated that figuring out why the differences existed would be difficult”. I 100% disagree with this statement. I feel that weather you are black or a white women doesn’t affect how you are treated with your health. They also didn’t give much back up information making this not a well written post. Because it is a brief statement that has no support to such a controversial issue, I have problems and disagree with this entire post.

http://feministing.com/archives/007877.html

HW 17B "Which Blog would most likely influence the way I would vote in the coming election"

After reading the two blogs, “Blogging the Presidency, An Interview with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga” and “Sex, Lies, and Political Scrapes: An Interview with Ana Marie Cox” I feel that the reading that would most likely influence the way I would vote in a coming election is “Blogging the Presidency”. In this interview with Zuniga, he discusses the reasoning for why he started to blog. His main reason was for blogging after the Afghanistan War. He said that the country was criticizing the president which seemed to be an “unpatriotic act”. He felt that he needed a place where he could “have an outlet to vent”. He felt that by starting a blog which he called the DailyKos, he “could get things off his chest and hopefully not go crazy”. Considering I am now eighteen years old and I am at the legal age to vote, I feel that this interview would have much more of an impact of who I would vote for. Bloggers always seem to be honest and have more of an opinion on issues in the world than the media does. In my opinion, what separates “Blogging the Presidency” and “Sex, Lies, and Political Scrapes” is that this second Blog seems to be more of a gossipy blog rather than a legit blog that discusses the real issues about the presidential election. “She gets to write about whatever she finds funny- everything from the sexual preferences and habits of Bush Administration officials to the sexual preferences and habits of everyone else in Washington”. This type of blog doesn’t seem appealing to me and wouldn’t help influence the way I would vote in the coming election.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

HW 17 "Jack Abramoff: High School Bully"

After browsing through the recent posts in the blogs I am watching, there was one that I read that I found to be very interesting. Under feminist blogs, the post I chose to respond to was titled, “High School Bully” by Jack Abramoff. According to this post, Abramoff starts off by saying, “This is sure to cheer the high school bully victims among you”. In it, he tells the story of a young boy who always brought a cello to class. He was known as the ‘class nerd’. There was a particular bully in his school that would push him around and make fun of him with his friends. Many years later when the nerd had grown up he heard a story about the bully becoming a criminal and his story of what he did all over newspapers across the country. I’ve always believed that what goes around comes around. This specific story in my opinion follows that quote. I believe that even though it’s a sad story about a youth’s negative experience through high school, it’s definitely a good way of getting across the point that if you do something wrong in your life karma does come back to you.

HW 16A "Scobles' rules of engagement"

According to Scobles’ rules of engagement blog, he discusses ideas of things to consider before you start broadcasting about your company on a blog. One of the blogs I am watching about “Feminism and women’s rights” is about issues that many women are being faced with today. Some of Scobles’ 20 principles that they appear to be living up to in the Blogs I am following are that that he says to always tell the truth. When talking about there feministic stands on certain issues, they told the truth about feelings without being afraid to be judged by others who read the blog. They use a human voice as if we were in a one on one conversation which tends to grab our attention more in conversations. There are always blogs updated daily and change frequently. After looking over the feminist blogs, I don’t find anywhere that they are not following Scobles’ principles. In my opinion, I think that the principles of the corporate weblog manifesto are applicable to the blog because it tells you how to achieve the best blog you can. By representing such a good blog about your company you are able to increase your business reputation for the future.

. The Corporate Weblog Manifesto.. 26 Feb. 2003. 2 Oct. 2007
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Tuesday, October 2, 2007

Hw 14 "Take an Obsession, Then Feed It!"

“Take an Obsession, then Feed It”, consisted of an interview with Nick Denton. Accordingly, Denton discusses how “hiring unknown writers for your blog sites rather than writers with track records in the media” is better. In addition, he talks about how people who are extremely talented writers don’t get the recognition they deserve just because they are not well known. Ultimately, I find this to be completely true. In contrast, Denton also says, “Of course, it works the other way too. Writers who are good webloggers often don’t do that well when they try to make the transition to magazine journalism or newspaper journalism”. Consequently, webloggers seem to be more ‘hungrier’ to discuss issues that the media seems to be incorrect on. In addition, webloggers in my opinion have more to offer about controversies in the world today. For instance, Denton responds in his interview, “As the audience grows, so will the advertising potential”. Thus, I feel and agree with Denton that as blogs becomes more popular and technology with it becomes more accepted, weblogging will alter businesses and could quite possibly “unbundle the existing newspaper publishing business”, as Denton stated.