A blog

In the reading for today, Woolf says that women have come far in history and that women continue to progress. One example Woolf used was;
“ …that after the year 1880 a married woman was allowed by law to possess her own property; and that in 1919-which is a whole nine years ago, was given a vote”(Woolf 112). This quote shows how women have more rights than they did back then like voting, being educated, getting jobs instead of staying at home. In my opinion, I think that I do have a room of my own. My definition of a room of my own would be a room where I can sit and gather all my thoughts without any distractions. In a room of my own I’m sure I would have a lot to think about and it would help me to clear my thoughts. I believe that Woolf thinks that all women should have a room of their own so they can sit and think. To have a room of your own allows you to express all your thoughts and have no restrictions. For example, Woolf expressed herself with how she felt that women were inferior to men and she wouldn’t have been able to gather all these thoughts if she didn’t have a room of her own to do it in.

“With Apologies to Virginia Woolf”             For this assignment, I used a blog from Feministe called “sex (with a married woman) = green card. This blog discusses how a U.S immigration agent requested sexual favors from a 22 year old Columbian wife of an American citizen for her green card. If I was Virginia Woolf I would find this story appalling. It disgusts me that an agent who should be professional is requesting for sexual favors for her green card. However, I am not surprised that this would happen in today’s society. Back then I’m sure it happened all the time. It sickens me that a U.S agent would try to take advantage of an immigrant when his job is to help her get a green card. The problem in today’s society is men thinking that women are weaker than men and that men can take advantage of women (especially sexually). This traces back to when women were only housewives and caregivers for the children and the men were the ones who got educated and made the money. However, in today’s society women should be seen equally as men.

In chapter two of A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Wolf uses a lot of irony throughout the chapter. I found it very difficult to pick out her irony; however I found a few examples. One example that I found was on page 34, “…might be angry for that reason partly, but partly for one that lies a little less obviously on the surface” (Wolf 34). This is ironic because she’s saying the reason is not that obvious but it must be if it’s on the surface (how much obvious could it get if it’s on the surface). A second example is “Whatever may be their use in civilized societies, mirrors are essential to all violent and heroic action” (Wolf 36). This is ironic because mirrors aren’t essential to violent actions and I think that what she means by this is that men need mirrors in war to look at themselves and see that they are the ones fighting and reassure themselves that women are inferior to men. Another example of irony is “The nursemaid will heave coal. The shopwoman will drive an engine” (Wolf 40). These sentences are ironic because nurses won’t heave coal and shopwomen won’t drive an engine. Wolf is trying to get her point across that someday; woman will have the roles of men. I find it interesting how Wolf words things and uses irony to get her point across. Her irony really makes you think and interpret what she’s saying.

For this blog I decided to choose one paragraph from the “Web of Influence” passage. The paragraph I chose was on the bottom of page 84 in the Blog! book. I found this paragraph interesting because it says that blogs can function as “personal diaries, political analysis, advise columns or romance, computers and money” (Drezner, 85). In other words, you can pretty much write whatever you want in blogs and there is no end to the possibilities of what you can write in the blogosphere. The number of blogs has grown tremendously. For example, research has shown that in 1999 the total number of blogs was about 50, now the estimate ranges from 2.4 million to 4.1 million. What this really means is the number of bloggers has increased because people love the idea of blogging and how you can write about anything. Another good point that was brought up in this paragraph was the media institutions like television networks, newspapers and journalists now have blogs on their web sites. This is a good thing because now fans of the television networks or magazines can comment on their blogs. Overall, blogs are becoming more and more popular and the number of blogs will continue to increase.

The blog that would be more likely to influence the way I vote in an election would be Wonkette. I think that Wonkette is a good blog because it tells the truth about our candidates and tells people about what we need to know about who our next president might be. Ana Marie Cox, who writes blogs on Wonkette, writes about, “everything from the sexual preferences and habits of Bush administration officials, to, well, the sexual preferences and habits of everyone else in Washington.” This quote is from the interview with Cox and I believe that it’s not everyone’s business to know about our candidates and their sexual lives, however, I do believe that if they were to cheat on their wives ( for example) then they don’t deserve to be president. I feel this way because what they do in their own personal life reflects how they would do in political campaigns. Wonkette tells the truth and things that people don’t want to hear-but they need to. For example, if I heard that a presidential candidate lied about his views on gay marriage, then it would be posted on Wonkette and it would make me not want to vote for him.

The blog that I chose to read was in Jezebel and the title of it was “Dr. Phil Counsels MySpace Addict, Discovers He Has a Profile of His Own”. This blog is about how a MySpace addict goes on Dr. Phil’s show because it’s ruining his relationship with his wife, and then Dr. Phil realizes that he has a profile that he didn’t even know about. Some of the Scoble’s 20 principles that the blog appears to be living up to are: Telling the truth, post fast on good news or bad, use a human voice,If Doc says it or writes it, believe it, and Never lie. I think that these appear in this blog because you can tell that this blogger is telling the truth and they support it with a video of the show. This blogger posted this site immediately as the show finished airing and the information she gave was correct. This blogger used a human voice and gave good details about the show. There are some principles that the blog does not follow. For example, the If you screw up acknowledge it principle; the blogger couldn’t really screw up this blog because they had a video to get all their information from. These principles of the Corporate Weblog Manifesto are applicable to the blog, however they could follow different standards as well.

For this blog I decided to comment and write about the interview with Nick Deonton which is called, “Take an Obsession, Then Feed It”. Although the title of this interview is “Take an Obsession, Then Feed It” he says that this title refers to all the content he uses in blogs. In addition he says that his audience is like addicts and the more he writes then the more the audience will enjoy it and continue to reading his blogs. Along the same lines he quotes, “As with addicts, the more you give them the more they want.” In addition Deonton prefers to hire unknown writers for his blog sites because he believes that having a record in print journalism is no advantage in writing a weblog. Also he says that he has had a poor experience with established journalists and they’re not good at blogging. In addition he says blogs should be about what people are passionate about and interested in. For example, he says “politics, sex, gadgets, cars” are what people want to read about. In conclusion, Deonton is looking for younger and fresher talent and people who aren’t necessarily journalists to write on his blog sites.

Both blogging about businesses and blogging on things other than businesses are important. However, if I were to choose which one is more important, I would say that blogging on businesses is more important. Businesses can learn from their mistakes and hear their customer’s opinions through blogs. One quote from “Blogs Will Change Your Business” says that: “But you cannot afford to close your eyes to them, because they’re simply the most explosive outbreak in the information world since the internet itself” (Baker, 222). This quote is talking about how businesses shouldn’t ignore blogs, especially ones from their customers because it can cause your company to suffer. Also, companies need bloggers to say good things about their products, because therefore it can attract other customers and therefore have a more successful business. A quote to support this is, “Potential customers are out there, sniffing around for deals and partners. While you may be putting it off, you can bet that your competitors are exploring ways to harvest new ideas from blogs…” (Baker, 223). This quote is important because blogs help spread the word about businesses and companies want their customers to be satisfied and write good blogs to attract more potential customers.

The post that I found the most interesting was in Jezebel called “Kill Them to Kill Part of Yourself”. Right away the title caught my attention and intrigued me to read it. This post is about a transsexual named, Sanesha Stewart who was murdered by someone she knew and they killed her because of a “homicidal rage”. I find it appalling that someone would kill another person just because they were transsexual. In my opinion, I don’t think the “trans panic” defense is an excuse and it’s sad that someone would murder a person that they knew, just because they found out that they were transsexual. I think that part of this panic defense was that the guy who murdered Sanesha feared that people were going to find out that he was with a transsexual and that’s what led to his rage. I thought this post was interesting because it forms a lot of opinions and debates. What captured my attention was the title because it’s somewhat suspenseful and it fits the post perfectly after reading it.

The blog I chose to view is on the site Rconversation and it’s called “How to ruin your Olympic image: suppress your critics.” This blog is about the Olympics in China and how some of the chinese want it to be over with. This blog has a very detailed picture on it. The picture’s of a “humorous flash file” which is a clock counting down the days until the Olympics are finished. Also the picture has a little person jumping up and down while there are clocks turning and a bunch of Chinese lettering. The coloring in the picture is the clocks are black with a little red on them and the little person has a yellow head and a green shirt. The page is laid out so that the title is at the top, then the picture and then the text. In this particular post, there is a lot of text and another picture before the comments. On both sides of the post, there is a picture of Rebecca MacKinnon holding a book that says “Will Work for World Peace” and there’s a list of other posts as well. Several people responded to Rebecca’s blog, and usually they say that she did a good job and then they give their opinion about the subject. In the post, Mackinnon says in her blog that she wants the Chinese people to succeed and wants them to be rewarded for their success. This corresponds to the reading “ Making Global Voices Heard” because she is trying to voice her opinion and show how different cultures can make a difference.