my common place book online

HW#35 Almost last blog post

2007-12-06T07:01:00.000-08:00

Okay so the semester is coming to an end, and this is pretty much the last blog post, but it was not all a waist. I have learned so much about so many things. Mostly how to keep a blog, I have never been very good about keeping up with things, like continuing to post. i can't believe how easy it was, granted I did have to do it for a class, but I always thought it would be hard to do then it was. But I have learned so much more then just how to keep a blog, I have learned about the history and uses of blogs other then the use that this blog is. But of it all my favorite thing that I have learned, is the culture of Iraq, I know I still have so much more to learn, but I have learned so much. I hope by reading my blog other can learn about Iraq's culture. And I hope that I have gotten everything right about their culture. I am sorry if I did mention something that is incorrect.

I do not know if I will continue to post on this blog, not so sure I have much to talk about, seeing as this blog was mainly about what I learned from this class, but I may add a few things once in awhile. Who knows?
I don't even know if anyone who isn't from this class is reading this blog, so why keep it going?

HW# 34 gold in the family

2007-12-06T06:51:00.000-08:00

HW# 34

A lot of the Iraq families have gold, but many of them have lost it because the military doesn't know about the culture of Iraq. I never knew either until I read about it in Baghdad Burning. Riverbend says that almost every family has gold now. They have it from the dowries from when they get married. Also many of the families changed in their life savings into gold when the dollar value went down, that way they didn't loss some of their savings. When the military invade their houses to check for weapons they find the gold and think that the family stole it from someone who is rich enough to have gold. They then take the gold, so the families loss they life savings, all because the military doesn't know about the culture of Iraq. Why did we not teach them before they went over there seeing as we are supposed to be over their to help them rebuild their country, not that they need our help, because they were fine until we went over there and destroyed it.

HW#33 Teens working to help their families

2007-12-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

“Iraqi Teens Work to Help Their Families” 10/15/07
http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/10/15/iraqi-teens-work-to-help-their-families/

Alive in Baghdad

This episode made me so sad, these children are 14 and 15 they shouldn't be working to help support their family. they shouldn't have to, the war has made it so bad that they have to work for their families but they can't even make it to their shop, they now have to do their work at their house. The last things they said made me feel so bad, made me wonder about what they think of our country, they asked the world to stop sending terrorists to their country, are they talking about the military from America, because they don't belong there?? I thought that was what they were talking about when they said that, they think our military are terrorist, but are they not? I mean they don't want them there, and the military are killing people, so how can we not put ourselves in their shoes and think of ourselves as terrorists?

There was a 14 year old who was in sixth grade and he was going to work instead of going to school, just so they could help their families. Him and his Brother work for their family, but instead of going to the shop like they used to they now work in their homes, inside the walls that surround their yard, it looks so dirty because of all the dust from the furniture they are building. The other boy that appears in the video is a university student who can't get work.

HW#32 more Burqas, habibs, and veils

2007-12-06T06:12:00.000-08:00

Hw#32 Burqas, habibs and veils

I have always been interested in cultures that wear head dresses, but I never knew what they were, and why they wore them. After reading about them throughout the book I have found that I didn't know anything about what head dresses are for. Most of the reading was on pages 70-97 in Baghdad burning. Riverbend says that they are a religious choice to wear, or should I say were a choice. Now because of the war most women wear headdresses not because of religious choice but for their safety. If women are not wearing them they often get stooped and harassed. I never knew that the headdresses were a religious choice, and it makes me sad that they no longer are. I wish that they could just go back to living their life like they were before the war. I guess I never really knew anything about their culture.

Homework #42

2007-12-05T11:17:00.001-08:00

Our last podcast.....

http://itw101.blogspot.com/2007/12/blog-of-one-own-57.html

Hope everyone has a great vacation!!

HW# 37 Second podcast..

2007-11-28T11:08:00.000-08:00

To read my second podcast go to the fallowing link,

http://itw101.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-of-one-own-28.html

HW#36 my first podcast

2007-11-19T10:47:00.000-08:00

To listen to my podcast on what I learned about Ramadhan check out http://itw101.blogspot.com/2007/11/blog-of-one-own-14.html

HW# 31 Burqas, Habibs, or Veils which to wear??

2007-11-15T10:58:00.000-08:00

HW#31

While reading this section of Bagdhdad Burning by Riverbend I came across the words Burqas, Hijab, and Veil. I had an idea about what these things were, because I have seen a few people in my school wearing them, and had heard a little about them, but I never really know what they were, then I saw that there were three different types and I got really confused, so I decided to look them up.

I found the deffinition of all three on http://www.wikipedia.com/

"A veil is an article of clothing, worn almost exclusively by women, that is intended to cover some part of the head or face." (wikipedia-veil)

A burqa (also transliterated burkha, burka or burqua) is an enveloping outer garment worn by women in some Islamic traditions for the purpose of cloaking the entire body. It is worn over the usual daily clothing (often a long dress or a shalwar kameez) and removed when the woman returns to the sanctuary of the household (see purdah). (wikipedia-burqa)

Hijab or ħijāb (حجاب) is the Arabic term for "cover" (noun), based on the root حجب meaning "to veil, to cover (verb), to screen, to shelter. (wikipedia-hajib)

All of these terms are important to the book Baghdad Burning because they are part of there everyday lives. If they didn't already wear them everyday they now have to think about wearing them for their own protection. There is a lot that I didn't know about these headscarves. Like that it was an option and they didn't have to wear them, even thought it was part of their religion.

"Hijab, Burqa, veil." wikipedia. 2007. Wikipedia. 15 Nov 2007 http://en.wikipedia.org.

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning. 1. New York: The Feminist Press at the city University of New York, 2005.

HW#30 "I love my country"

2007-11-13T08:37:00.000-08:00

6 o’clock section: Thursday, November 8, 7:00-9:00. Mabel Brown Room, Student Center. "Citizen Soldiers and Global Warriors: Challenges of Iraq." Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter.

12 o’clock section: Tuesday, November 6, 12:00-1:30. Main Theater, Redfern Arts Center. Welcome Address, KSC Provost Emile Netzhammer. Citizenship Day Proclamation, Mayor Michael Blastos. "What Kind of Democracy Do We Want?" Nancy Tobi.

12 o’clock section: Thursday, November 8, 12:00-1:15. Main Theater, Redfern Arts Center. "Citizenship and Responsibility." US representative & Holocaust Survivor Tom Lantos.
I went and saw all three of these citizenship symposiums at the Keene States Fifth Biennial World Affairs Symposium. I have to say that some where more interesting then others but I think I took a little out of each one of these symposiums. They all had a little lesson in them to learn.

The first symposium that I went to was the Tuesday 12 o'clock section with Nancy Tobi, her session was called "What kind of Democracy Do We Want?". Nancy Tobi is a writer for the Black Box voting companies. She talked about elections and how they are counted and how they "should" be counted. Nancy is a big believer in hand counting the ballots because the machines that are used have such a high rate of error. A lot of people believe that this is a hard thing to do because there are not enough people to count the votes, but according to Nancy it doesn't take that many people to count the votes. "You can count 700 ballots with 20 counters in under three hours." Now that isn't a lot of people and they are getting a lot done. She also believes that there is a problem with the machines counting because people can easily mess with the machines and change the votes, she also say that they people who made the machines that count our votes here in New Hampshire can't be trusted because almost all the CEO members have been in Jail for one reason or another. this really surprised me and many of the people around me because after she told us this there began little talks about this fact.

The second symposium session that I attended was Tom Lantos, Tom is the only U.S. representative that is a Holocaust survivor, and will be the only one. Tom's session was called "Citizenship and Responsibility." He talked a lot about how America has gotten a bad reputation in the past few years and that we needed to work on getting our good reputation back. He said that "other countries have only been looking at the bad thing we have been doing, they forget to look at all the good things we have done in the past to aid other countries in need." He then talked about how we went and helped when the countries in the Pacific Ocean were hit by the tsunamis and how much we give to aids research in Africa. I like his speech a lot, I think that the crowd that was there did as well because I don't know how many times they burst into applause.

I also went to the Thursday night session called "Citizen Soldiers and Global Warriors: Challenges of Iraq" The speakers name was Scott Ritter who is the former U.N. chief weapons inspector. He talked about the rights of being an American. He also talked about the difference between being a soldier and being a Citizen soldier and what it really means to be a Citizen. "Citizenship is something that has to be earned everyday." This made me think about me as an American, I questioned myself on weather I have shown that I have the right to be an American Citizen. I think that he actually got a lot of people thinking about how they are as Americans and what it really means to be a Citizen of the United States of America.

Scott Ritter, "I love my country"

HW#28 Open letter to Riverbend

2007-11-13T08:29:00.000-08:00

HW#28
Open letter to Riverbend
Dear Riverbend,

Wow I never knew how much I didn't know, I mean I knew that I didn't know a lot about the war because I don't watch that much news. But as I sit here reading your blog I think about how much the american government is keeping from us. I feel like I didn't know anything, I mean of course I knew that we went over there for a war, so there are a few things that I could have expected like thegun fire, and the tanks being in the roads. But I didn't know that because of our presents in Iraq so much has changed for you. I feel like America knew nothing about your country and that your country didn't need any help in creating a democracy. Yeah democracy is a good thing but that doesn't mean that we should push it on other countries, expecially if they are doing fine running their country all by themsleves.

From the way the American news put it I thought your country was falling apart. I got the impression that the women in your country had no rights, I thought that all women had to wear hibaras, and I had no idea that anyone had jeans, I also had no idea that women had the abilitie to have a job.

Thank you so much for informing me on the thing I did not know about everything that is happening in your ccountry. I now know that I was not an informed person, this makes me want to know so much more about what is really going on in Iraq.

HW#27 Waking up

2007-11-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

Baghdad Burning A Girl Blog from Iraq this is a real blog that a real girl in Iraq known as Riverbend wrote during the war on Iraq. Feminist Press at the City University of New York published it in 2005.

Riverbend, Baghdad Burning. New York: Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005.

It gives us all a view of what was going on in Iraq form a person form Iraq. You get to know the country and how they had to live their lives on the edge of their seats.

"Waking up anywhere in Iraq these days is a trial. It happens in one of
two ways: either slowly, or with a jolt."

I think that this is a really good picture of what life was like to be living in Iraq. They give us information on how the presidential elections were held there in Iraq.

I think that this book is going to be a great read for this class because it is what my generation thinks of a blog being. A diary of a girl from Iraq, but it will also give us some political blogging and issues blogging, so you are getting a little of every type of blog that there is.

HW#25 What would have happened???

2007-10-30T15:21:00.000-07:00

HW#25

We started the book Baghdad Burning: Girl Blog from Iraq by Riverbend, it's about the war that is still going on in Iraq. I was in seventh grade when the war in Iraq began, and I never paid to much attention to what was going on there. I wish I had because I feel like I know nothing that is happening in the world today, because you need to know where something began to really understand where it is today. And I missed what happened in the beginning. But I think that this book will help me learn what really happened there and not just what the American government wants you to think happened.

For today we had to read the introduction and the foreword. These gave me a little background information on the war. They were told by Ahdaf Soueif and James Ridgeway. Ahdaf Soueif told us a little about what was going to happen in the book, so basically she gave an over view of the war from the point of view of someone from in Iraq. How worried they were about their families and lives.

While James Ridgeway told us about the war from the point of view of an American. He gave a lot of facts on the war, like the day it started and how much we spent on the war. He also talks about other wars that America has been apart of in the past.

It was very sad to read what Ahdaf had to say about what was going on in Iraq, so it makes me think that this book is going to be a very sad and emotional story. Especially when I never thought that we should go to war in the first place, I think that the military should be kept here to help protect us from other terrorist attacks not going to another country to go to war with them, but that is just my opinion and I am open to everyone's opinion and know that they can believe what ever they want.

HW#24 A Room Of My Own

2007-10-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

HW#24 A room of My own

"If a woman wrote, she would have to write in the common
sitting-room....People's feelings were impressed on her; personal relations were always before her eyes. Therefore, when the middle-class woman took to writing, she naturraly wrote novels..." (Woolf 66-67)

"For if a woman is to write fiction she must have a room of her own." So if we are to look at the room I call my own we would see that it is not really a room but just a peace of a room. For I share my room with two other woman, so I must only make a peace of it my own. But that's not really the point, the point is that I do have my own room. Does that mean that I am a woman that can write fiction? It seems that is what Virginia Woolf is saying in her book A Room Of One's Own.

My room, it is really just my bed area in which I spend my time, and the few times that I do get into a writing mood this is where you will find me. Sitting comfortably on my bed surrounded by bright colors, giant pillows and pictures of the people and things I love the most. I have made this space my own, this is a place where I can be myself. I can write, read,do my homework or just dream of what is to come. But this is a room of my own. "...The very walls are permeated by their creative force..." (Woolf 87)

"There must be freedom and there must be peace. Not a wheel must grate,
not a light glimmer. The curtains must be close drawn. The writer, I
thought, once his experience is over, must lie back and let his mind celebrate
its nuptials in darkness."(Woolf 104)

A room must be peacefully light and there must not be must sound. My rooms light comes from outside and from the light right by my bed, it is a peaceful light, it seems to cast a soft glow on everything in my room, the sound is only that of the outside, and the music of my life, only occasionally interrupted by the sound of voice and laughter. So you ask do I have a room of my own? I believe the answer is yes, it may not be a whole room but it is a space of my own.

HW#23 "My Apologies to Virginia Woolf"

2007-10-23T05:18:00.000-07:00

HW# 23 With Apologies to Virginia Woolf

The scene, if I may ask you to fallow me, was now changed. The leaves are still falling... (Woolf 25) but this time in Keene, a small college town in New Hampshire. As I sit in the student center watching all the people pass, I read something. What is this thing in front of me? Something called a computer, is there any need for it? Will it help me find the truth? I look at something called a Blog. What is a Blog? Is it the answer to all my questions? Will it help me write my women in fiction paper? The questions keep coming but the answers seem to far to reach. Jezebel, a women of fiction? How is it that a women can be writing this?

With some of the articles; Sister act, Douch-ay: Republican women are hotter then Democratic Women... What? A women is hot? A Republican or a Democrat? Have they the right? Have they found the truth to why women are poorer then men? Seems in plan sight that these women are who lead this country, but is this correct? Looking at this blog it all seems to be about women, or women and their husband. Can this be the truth? What do the men have to say for this? Can they explain how this happened? I was amazed.... I sat on the chair of the student center and stared in amazement, for so long that the next time I looked up All human beings were laid asleep... Nobody seemed stirring....(Woolf 24)

HW#22 Are we a Patriarchy???

2007-10-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

HW#22

If you look at the book A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf you can see many signs of patriarchy. This is because in the years that this book took place women had no rights to do anything other then what their husbands or fathers told them to do. They didn't have the right to go to school or even to own land. Women do not have the right to write about men but men write about women all the time.

"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. Nobody in their senses could fail to detect the dominance of the professor." (Woolf page 33)

She seems to be talking a lot about how there is a difference between the rights of men and women. She talks about how Men are aloud to write about women but women writers are not aloud to write about men.

"Women do not write books about men- a fact... the aloe that flowers once in a hundred years would have flowered twice before I could set pen to paper." (page 27)

If someone came from another country or even another planet and looked at the Washington Post I think that they would think that our country is a some what of a patriarchy. I think this because a lot of the titles on our News papers sound kind of manly. Many of these titles are about things that are about things man like or are interested in.

HW#21 A womens room

2007-10-18T08:30:00.000-07:00

HW#21
What was Virginia Woolf really talking about when she wrote the book A Room Of One's Own? Well that is a really good question, but is there really a good answer? I think only the reader can answer that question, every person can interpret that righting for themselves and it isn't going to be exactly the same as another person who read the same thing. My interpretation of the first chapter in Virginia Woolf's book A Room Of One's Own might not be the same as yours but that doesn't mean that either of them are wrong, it just means that they are different. I believe that when she is talking about being by the river and the fishermen and how if they catch a fish that is to small they put it back, I think she is really talking about thoughts of a fiction righter. If you are thinking of something to wright you come up with a thought and you let it grow you can't just use the first thing that comes into your head, you have to let it grow. You can let it grow by thinking of it often and coming up with new ideas , but you must do it in the right spot. A women fiction righter must have her own money to spend and a room of her own to wright in, she can not be walking around on the turf of Oxford. While walking you think of many things you could be righting about but if you are a women of the that time period you don't have the right to walk where ever you want to, you can't walk on the turf of Oxford you may only walk on the gravel, and you may not enter the library without the presents of a man. How the times have changed. Maybe this is what Virginia is trying to get us to realize, times change.

HW#19 my metacommentary on BLOG!

2007-10-17T16:54:00.000-07:00

HW#19
The paragraph I chose to wright about from the chapter web of influence from the book Blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture, was the paragraph right after the italicised righting. This paragraph talks about how blogging is "changing the landscape for journalists and policymakers alike," and that blogging is about connecting the world. In other words blogging is what connects the world through the "function as personal diaries, political analysis, advice columns on romance, computers, money, or all of the above." I think that this is a really good thought about what blogs are used for. My point is not that we should use blogs just as a connection to the people that we know but that we should us them to connect our self to every thing in the world. Now don't get me wrong. I am not saying that blogs should not be used to connect ourselves to the people we know but that they should also touch on something larger then just the community that we live in. The book states that blogs are "drawing upon the content of the international media and the world wide web, they weave together an elaborate network with agenda setting power on issues ranging from human rights in china to the U.S. occupation of Iraq," and I think that this is what all blogs should do. They should connect their community to the world. So go now and connect your community to the rest of the world. Try visiting some of the blogs mentioned in this section of the reading such as; www.crookedtimber.org , and www.womanswallstreet.com .

HW#17B my vote goes with...

2007-10-09T08:16:00.000-07:00

HW#17b

After reading both interviews with Ana Marie Cox, and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga I went to there blogs; http://www.dailykos.com/ and http://www.wonkette.com/ and read over a few of there posts. I believe that of both these blogs my vote would be more impacted by what is said on wonkette. I believe this because the righting style is much more interesting and the blog is much more eye catching. The blog includes pictures, movies and dialog form various Washington people. The Dailykos is all righting, yes it was interesting to read because he was telling the Truth and was in a humans voice, but there just didn't seem to be any feeling in the blog.
I feel because wonkette is more interesting looking I would be more likely to read thought all of the posts and get a larger view then if I were just to look at Dailykos, I wouldn't read all of the posts on dailykos. So if I were reading wonkette I would get more of a 360 degree view of the candidates, because I would read more of the posts.
I am a young person who isn't really into politics so I like the was Ana the author of wonkette rights about the polititions, its more apealying to me then the way Markos rights the dailykos. Although I think if I read something on wonkette and questioned it I may go look at dailykos to find out if the information was real or if it was just a rumor. Dailykos seems to give off a more truthful vib.
So maybe my vote really wouldn't be influenced by either of the websites more then the other, because I wouldn't read all the posts on dailykos and I would question the reality of wonkettes posts.

HW#18 You don't really want to be a model, do you??

2007-10-09T06:55:00.000-07:00

HW#18
I was looking at all the blogs that I am watching, and there were a few blog entries that disturbed me, but there was one article that really disturbed me. That was the article from Jezebel, http://jezebel.com/gossip/business-models/forbes-models-are-starving-financially-fucked--computer-analyzed-308222.php is the article. It's about the way models really live, they don't make a lot of money, they are told if they look good by a computer, and they can't ever eat anything that they want. "Stop eating. Grow. Be at least five foot nine, weighing 110 to 120 Ibs. This would give you a body-mass index of about 16 to 18. "Models starve themselves, and we tell them to," says Richard Habberley, a top agent with Elite, which reps Victoria's Secret hottie Alessandra Ambrosio and Maybelline face Jessica White." Why would you let someone tell you to stop eating? If they don't think your pretty enough, get a new job. I was completely disturbed that an agent would ever tell their models to stop eating all together, hello you need to eat to live.
I personally don't understand the point of modeling especially if you are "modeling" people who are not the average size of a real person. Seriously there are only a few people out there who really look like that, and chances are if they look like that its because they are a model or are trying to be one.
Seriously if you are hungry, please eat something.

HW# 17 not really a blog I am watching but connected to it

2007-10-04T07:44:00.000-07:00

HW#17

Okay so our assignment was to look at one of the blogs we are watching that we would say made us think, we thought was well written, was informative, or funny. So looking over the three blog that I am watching which are; http://jezebel.com , http://feministing.com/ , http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/index.html?source=rss&aim=broadsheet , I chose out of all the post with in the last seven days one that I liked the most. But here's the thing, as I was looking over the last weeks post one article kept jumping out to me, yeah that's not the weired part, I read the article off of Jezebel but it was an article about an article on http://www.feministe.us which was another blog we could have been watching but I choose not to. Now is that an example of using Robert Scoble's rules or not??? Jezebel needs people to read to her blog, so in order to get more readers she links her blog to other blogs that are like her own. Letting people see her blog and her competitions blog.
The article I chose was an article about how the BMI system is inaccurate. The thing I liked the most was that they incorporated pictures of real woman, you looked at the picture and decide for yourself if they are; overweight, underweight, normal, obese, or ever morbidly obese, then you put the mouse over the picture and it tells you what they are based on the BMI system. By the looks of these pictures I got almost all of them wrong. "The point of the collection is to challenge our ideas of what “overweight” and “obese” look like, and the photo set certainly does that." This article made me think about what I classify as "normal" and "obese", I can tell you that it is definatly not the same as the BMI's classification. But who is right???

The right way to blog HW#16

2007-10-04T06:56:00.001-07:00

HW# 16
"Blogs: Humanizing the Face of Corporate America- an interview with Robert Scoble" ( Klein and Burnstein 124-134) and http://lindsaysblogonthoughts.blogspot.com/ are the resources that I used for this writing.
Is Lindsay's Thoughts in the correct format for a blog according to Robert Scoble "Microsoft's 'Chief Humanizing Officer'?" Robert suggests that the rules to making a successful Corporate blog are some of the fallowing; "tell the truth, post fast, use a human voice, support the latest software, have thick skin, don't ignore slashdot, talk to the grassroots first, if you screw up acknowledge it and fast, under promise and over deliver, if Doc Searls says it or writes it believe it Live it, and know the information gatekeepers, connect to other blogs to get yourself known," But Lindsay's thoughts is not a corporate blog, but I believe a lot of these rules still apply to other blogs, yes some of them don't make any sense to follow if you don't have a product you are trying to promote but a lot of them are good global blogging rules. All Bloggers should; "tell the truth, use a human voice, if you screw up acknowledge it and fast, and that you should connect your blog to other blog by commenting on other blogs to get your blog known out there in the blogosphere. Isn't that what it's all about getting your blog known out there in the blogosphere??
Well if those are the rules for a successful blog then I would say Lindsay's thoughts is a pretty decent blog; She tells the truth in all of her blogs and she tells it in a human voice, she uses the latest software (Blogger,) she knows the information gatekeepers ( being the classes teacher in this case,) and she connects herself to other blogs (using bloglines and having links to other peoples blogs. ( also other people have links to her blog)) But of her blog was a corporate blog then no it wouldn't be successful because she doesn't fallow all the rules... Good thing it's not a corporate blog then!!!

HW#14 ITo

2007-10-02T08:28:00.000-07:00

HW#14
Although I liked the interview with Nick Denton I would have to say I like the interview with Joi Ito better,I thought that it was more interesting to read. To sum up Ito's interview he talked about his view on blogging and what it should be like on all blogs, I agree with almost everything that Ito had to say about blogging and the blogging world. As a result to ITo's interview I went looking at the interviews that he mentioned in his interview; www.joi.ito.com , and www.akma.disseminary.org . Although I did not read all of Joi Ito's blog I did read some of them and I really liked it, his blog talks about real life things, "I write about anything of interest and as a result of having written about it, I will get comments that enhance and deepen my knowledge." Actually I think that this is exactly what I think blogs should be, a place to converse on things in life that interest you, a place to meet other who have the same interests and views on subjects as you, not a place to just talk about what happened in your day and not get feedback. Besides the fact that he talks about how he uses his blog he also talks about what he thinks is going to happen to blogs, and how people will continue to use them, as well as talking about how there will be copyrights on online things now as well. Ultimately there will be copyright that as "there is a spectrum of rights that you have as a copyright owner and, if you feel like it, you should be allowed to give certain ones up." Therefore I can say you may use my word and pictures and what ever I have on my blog and put it on your own with out any of my permission. So here goes, you may use my word and material for your own use with out my permission, just please use it in a good context and give credit to those people I give credit to because we don't have there permission to use it with out giving them that credit. Also If you use my words and you become famous for it, can you at least give me a little credit, like if your going to use it in a commercial let me be in that commercial, Please!!!

HW#13 Will Blogs Change your Business???

2007-09-27T08:38:00.000-07:00

HW# 13
Responding to Blogs will change your business from Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture

“How big are blogs? (223)" People used to think that blogs were going to change the world, that your business would only succeed if you had a successful blog. But recently that view has changed, see “There’s a little problem, though. Many of you don’t visit blogs- or haven’t since blogs became a sensation in last year’s Presidential race. (222)” Well really 2004s presidential race, but that’s not the point. The point is if most of us are not taking the time to even look at blogs, “27% of Internet users in America now bother to read them,” then how will they change our businesses? They won’t, will they?? See these numbers suggest that the world of blogging is changing, again.

If we look at some more numbers we can see that business blogs aren’t all that important as we thought they would become, “There are some 9 million blogs out there, with 40,000 new ones popping up each day. Some discuss poetry, others constitutional laws. And, yes, many are just plain silly. ‘Mommy tells me it may rain today. Oh Yucky Dee Doo,’ reads one April posting. Let’s assume that 99.9% are equally off point. So what? That leaves some 40 new ones everyday that could be talking about your business, engaging your employees, or leaking those merger discussions you thought were hush-hush.” But if we look at this quote that they said before they told us this, “We know, we know: Most of you are sick to death of blogs.” “But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since Internet itself. And they’re going to shake up just about every business- including yours. (223)” Then how many of those business blogs are the ones being looked at?? My guess is as good as yours, but for some reason I believe that most of them are not, I know that when my friends and I go online we aren’t looking at business blogs we are looking at people we knows blogs. So then how can business blogs be so impacting? I personally only ever looked at one and it was for this class.

HW#11 Chinese Blog

2007-09-25T06:45:00.000-07:00

HW#11
After reading the interview with Rebecca MacKinnon in the book Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture I continued my research by looking at many of the blogs mentioned in her interview. The one blog that caught my eye more then the others was RConversation. This blog is by Rebecca MacKinnon herself, the blog looks like any other not so colorful blog, but the blog is about how Chinese bloggers are being affected by the communist leaders and their rules on blogging, so it’s okay that it’s not colorful. The blog mainly contains links to other blogs and articles on Chinese blogging and how china is censoring the things people write on their blogs. Rebecca MacKinnon doesn’t seem to mention that she has her own blog in her interview, so there is not really anything for me to compare the actual blog to from her interview. Why in an interview about blogging would you not mention that you have your own blog on the matter?? Although some readers may object I believe that the Chinese not blogging may be a good thing, I know that if there was a possibility that I may go to jail or even worse for blogging just to get information out that I would stop blogging. I mean blogging is a fast and easy way to get information to many people all over the world but if it means that you are going to get in trouble resort to the old ways of communication. How hard can it be??

HW# 9 "My suicide blog online"

2007-09-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

HW#9
When reading Ayelet Waldman's interview in the book Blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture I was very surprised, I know that a lot of people let their emotions show in their blogs but I never knew that anyone would put that much personal information in something that anyone anywhere in the world could read at any point in time. This lead me to read her blog online. There are many things that Ayelet and her interviewer discuss that are very interesting and opinionated, but how much information is too much to put on your blog?? I'm of two minds about what Ayelet believe is okay to put in your blogs. On the one hand I agree that if you post personal thing such as that you had a miscarriage it gives people an opportunity to talk about what happened with others who have experienced the same thing. On the other hand I'm not sure if I agree that all things are appropriate to be posting on your blog, things like sex, and how you are bipolar and emotionally abusive to her children, I don’t believe is appropriate. I do think that Ayelet's writing on her blog about suicide showed people that she needed help, but I think that information about your sex life and what you do with your husband is your business and no one other than yours. I think there is a limit to what you should be telling the world about your life, I think it is great that there are support group blogs online for things like miscarriage and genetic termination, but should you really be posting about your sex life??
I personal don't think so but Ayelet thinks that it’s okay, well I guess that is where opinion comes into play.

HW#7 Should Parents monitor MY so-called Blog???

2007-09-18T08:23:00.000-07:00

HW#7

Do I think that parents should monitor their middle-school child's writing online???
That is a good question... I do not believe that parents should monitor their child's online writing but that they should be apart of it. They should not read their child's writing or even look at it unless the child is okay with it. But I do believe that ever parent should know to talk to their child about the dangers of posting personal information online, and how dangerous it can be to talk to people you don't know, even online. I think that parents should advise their children to post their blogs as private if they are going to post, I think it is really creepy that people you don't know can read your "online Diary," and the fact that this kid J. allowed Emily to come see him at school and talk to him, he doesn't know this person. I think that online writing is a good way for teenagers to express themselves to their friends and class mates. Emily Nussbaum and the person she interviews in Blog! how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture, puts the way I feel about blogging into really good words J. "called it 'better than therapy,' a way to get out his true feelings- all the emotions he thought might get him in trouble if he expressed them in school or at home." ( Kline and Burnstein 352)
I think that this quote explains why people blog, they can express how they feel and not know that people are judging them unless they post a comment, and if its a bad comment they don't have to read it. So it really is like "group therapy" only better.

HW#6 What I want to do for my Semester-long Project

2007-09-13T06:55:00.001-07:00

HW#6
There are many things that look interesting to me from the list of things we can research for our semester-long project.

For the social computing technologies I am interested in the Blogs because that's what we are learning about in class and I would like to see the other types of blogs that are out there. I am also interested in the Bulletin boards and forums I just though that these look interesting and would like to see more of them and how they work. I am also interested in the Social networking services, I am interested in how these effect different people all over the world because people my age are using all over the world, and I know how it effects me, but would like to see how others are effected by them.

I am interested in how Social computing technologies effect overcoming inequities in access to education and overcoming barriers of rural communities because I would one day like to teach in an smaller less fortunate area. I would also like to research overcoming sexism, because I believe that there is still a problem with sexism.

The areas that I would like to research are South and Central America and the US. I am interested in these areas because they are close to home, I know people who live in these areas. i would like to know how people who live in the same country and people who live in different countries are effected by the same aspects of technology.

HW#5b summary and what I disagree with

2007-09-13T06:48:00.000-07:00

Hw#5b
When reading Kline and Burnstein's book Blog chapter " I blog therefore I am" there wasn't much that I disagreed with, most of the chapter seemed to be about statistics of blogging and where "old" media is going, but there is one point that I did question. Kline and Burnstein claim that the newspaper reading among young people is experiencing a "dramatic drop." They then go on to give us some statistics that show that not many young people read the newspaper the day before.
I question not Kline and burnstein but who they got their information from. I do not deny that this information is correct, but I would like to see these statistics over a long period of time. I do not believe that the numbers have changed all that much from years ago. I believe that not many young people have ever recently read the newspaper. So if this is the case then the only alarming thing is the amount of time young people are spending on the internet.... but some time the time we spend on the internet is for learning... (like the time it took me to make this blog.) It isn't always just playing games and checking up with friends.

HW #4 My apple Ipod

2007-09-10T18:03:00.000-07:00

HW #4

For this blog I looked up a product that was in both my room and in our reading, my Apple Ipod. When I used to think about the Apple Ipod I thought about the style and how COOL I would be because I like almost everyone else in my high school had an Ipod, and the commercials made you think you were cool and could dance if you had an ipod. But since the new ipods have come out I now think of Ipods in a whole new light.... My light is Bright Green...Now when I think about an Apple Ipod I still think of; a cute, small, portable, music and video player. But I also think about how much more it can do, something that will let you listen to music and watch videos no matter where you are, (don't worry it still makes you look cool..... but now you also look smart because your little nano can hold music and movies)

When I looked the Apple Ipods up on the internet I got a lot of feedback, some was good but also some was bad... But most places I looked I got the same idea... *"How much can your pocket hold? That's up to you and your ipod. From movies and TV shows to games and music..." Even Apples website is all about how much you can fit in these pocket sized devices.

So over all the Apple Ipods promise a small, portable device that lets you take anything anywhere.

MY APPLE IPOD

*http://www.apple.com/

HW#3 2004 Blog elections

2007-09-06T07:59:00.000-07:00

HW#3
My response to “Toward a More Participatory Democracy” from Blog how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture
I am using the Standard views template for my introduction.
“It is often said that (they say I say, 22), bloggers have had such a dramatic impact on the American political scene over the past two years… (Blog how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture, 4).” That is what the chapter “Toward a More Participatory Democracy” from A Blog of One’s Own: Women and Authorship in the Digital Revolution is on. How the Blogs effected the elections in the 2004 run for president. They believe that the way Bush used the internet and blogging helped him win because “ three out of four Kerry campaign emails between march and November of 2004 made direct appeals for money, compared with the fewer than one in five Bush emails. In contrast, 78% of Bush campaign emails during the same time period urged people to forward the message to a friend… (Blog how the newest media revolution is changing politics, business, and culture, 20).” So basically they are saying if Kerry had used the internet and Blogs correctly and used them to get his word out and not just try to collect money he could have one the elections. So over all the chapter was on the correct way to use the internet and Blogs to get your message out, because if you don’t use it correctly the word won’t get out as much as it could.
At first I didn’t agree that the internet and Blogging had that much to do with the way the 2004 elections turned out but then I read this paragraph and thought about what it said, and now I know that the internet and the way you use it really does impact the way the word gets out there. Bush just happened to be the one using Blogs along with other media more efficiently.

HW#2 12 Key ideas on Blogging

2007-09-06T07:54:00.000-07:00

HW#2
This is my reading response Burstein’s 12 key ideas in Blog! How the newest media revolution is changing politics, business and culture, this book is by David Kline and Dan Burnstein.
I can connect to a few of Burnstein’s 12 key ideas but there is one in particular that I can relate to more then the others. Burnstein says that “Blogging is going global. It is not just a wild’n crazy, uninhibited, populist Americans who like to rant…” I would have to agree with his key point on this. Many Americans believe that we are the only people out there that are technologically advanced, and use the internet everyday for more then just research, but that is not true. The first person I ever knew that kept a blog on a regular basis and checked other people’s blogs was my best friend, who is from Brazil. He and all of his friends, who were in Brazil, all kept each other informed on what was going on by the use of blogs.
So I agree and can relate to the fact that America is not the only country to blog and infact we weren’t even the first to blog. People from all over the world have been blogging for years and now do it like it was a second language.