A Blog

Baghdad Burning is about a girl in her mid twenties who is living in the middle of the Iraqi war.  She tells “her readers” on her blog about how she sees the war, and how it affects her family.  She shows what it’s like for Iraqi women when their rights and freedom are taken away.  In the introduction she gives a brief background on what events Iraq has been through, such as how it changed after the Gulf War and how her life has changed since 2003 when the American troops invaded.  She also calls the American Troops puppets, because she says that the American troops wanna make the Iraqi government like a “pro-American puppet government”(xx).  She also discusses what it was like before the troops get to Iraq.  She states that gangs were starting to form and that kidnapping for ransom became a regular every day thing. 

Virginia Woolf describes her room and womanly and domestic.  I would say that my dorm room is domestic, and i try to make it feel like home as best I can.  But there is a certain line you cant cross in a dorm room to make it “domestic and womanly”.  Although the pictures, colorful bed spreads, and posters make the room look more feminine.  My room at home looks much more domestic it has walls that are painted with warm inviting colors, books and magazines, pictures hung on the walls, and a chair by the window.  When I walk into my room it feels like mine and it’s just so comforting.  Everyone should be able to have thisfeeling with their own room. 

It’s so sad that there is actually a game out there that encourages young teens that the bigger the “Bimbo” you are the more pretty and smart you’ll be.  What has this society come to.  Having games online for teenage girls to make their “Bimbo” the hottest and dumbest and most popular.  As if those are the most important things for a woman.  How degrading.  This is what this new online game “Miss Bimbo” does for woman, it shows them as inferior and weak.  http://jezebel.com/371788/new-game-encourages-young-girls-to-embrace-their-inner-bimbo .  The game even goes as far as to be able to purchase anything to make them hotter, such as breast implants, liposuction, and plastic surgery.  It shows young teens that its okay to do these things and that it’s cool to take diet pills and get breast implants.  It sets them up for failure when they get older. 

Irony is defined as the use of words to convey a meaning that is the opposite of it’s literal meaning.  I had a very hard time finding irony in the second chapter of ” A Room Of One’s Own” because her style of writing is still confusing to me.  Although I am starting to get used to it it is still taking em a while to comprehend things.  Also the way she describes things and relates thing to each other is very confusing to me.  All in all I am starting to connect things with each other and realize how inferior women really were to men. 

I think an important statement made in this reading is that “Blogs are beginning to emerge in countries where there are few other outlets for political expression.”  It also states that blogs are much harder to control than media such as newspapers, television, and magazines because blogging is freedom of expression.  I think this paragraph makes and interesting point that blogs may be using filtering technologies so that blogger cannot gain access to foreign blogs.  I agree with this completely because they may be able to influence foreign media and politics from their homes.  Although the filtering only occurs now in Saudi Arabia and China i think it would be beneficial for more “foreign” countries to get programs like this one. 

After reading “Sex, Lies and Political Scrapes” i have found a new interest in politics.  Before reading this article and looking at Cox’s blog , Wonkette, i didn’t keep up with politics and didn’t find it very interesting.  But this is a side of politics that really grabs my attention.  Wonkette sums up the life of politicians that isn’t plastered all over the news.  These are politicians private lives and scandals that are going on behind the scenes.  After reading some of the blogs I wanna say that i won’t let what i read influence my decision on who to vote for for President because someones personal life shouldn’t reflect on how they run  a country.  There have been many past presidents that have been adulterous, but they have still been GREAT leaders of our country.  But in the end the things i read in Wonkette will secretly influence my decision on who i vote for.  Which in the long run might be a good thing because no matter what kind of leader, whether it be Governor or President, you want some one that doesn’t have too juicy of a past. 

I read Deadspin’s article ” Barry Bond May Be Leaving Our Shores”.  The author Rick follows rule #3 especially well.  He uses ” a human voice” when he incorporates his opinion into the article while at the same time making it easy for the reader to pick out the facts.  He states that Bonds could be leaving the US to play in Japan and then states a little side comment about it and laughs to himself. So the reader really feels like they are reading opinion and fact at the same time.  I think that this blog follows Scoble’s 20 Rules…but obviously it is almost impossible to incorporate every law in one shirt blog.  I feel like the rules are pretty acceptable to follow and are a good outline to base a bog entry off of. 

 Ito clearly states that although it is true that blogging is getting very big at a fast pace, however he doesn’t leave out the fact that journalism is not going anywhere soon.  In addition it will start to turn up everywhere like TV and commercial radio do now.  I agree with Ito when he says that blogging is good for society, after all it is easy to relate too which helps the reader connect more.  As a result this will increase the number of blogger and readers which will move along the development of blogging at a very high pace. 

One of the most interesting blogs i read this week was on from the Huffington Post titledAshton Kutcher’s Birthday Crashed by Hepatitis A. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/02/21/ashton-kutchers-birthday_n_87892.html .  The New York Health Department stated that at the night of Ashton Kutcher’s birthday celebration, one of the bar tenders was diagnosed with Hepatitis A, which is the swelling of the liver.  It is not the worst of the 3 diseases but the Health Department is advising everyone who visited the club the 3 days the bartender was working to get vaccinations.  The bar estimated that around 700 to 800 people had came in contact with it and could contract the disease.  I found this a very interesting article because it makes you realize all the things you open yourself up to when you eat out at a restaurant.  This may not be the first thing that pops into your head but it just goes to show that things like this really can happen. 

I chose to look at english.ohmynews.com The page is set up very organized and everything is really easy to get to.  The title of the page stands out in a bold red.  The format kind of reminds me of a newspaper setting, which is what MacKinnon states in her interview.  The first thing my eyes really go to is the picture of a homeless man in a Santa hat…the caption is “Homeless people have rights too”.  Ordinary people write on this blog but it is edited by a group of editors, such as a newspaper would get edited.  I think that the way MacKinnon described OhMyNews was a perfect description of what it is really like.  I read a few blogs from it and it really is an online newspaper.  I can see how people were influenced to go out and vote. The articles are very professional and persuasive.  I just read an article on the reviews of a new movie and what was said in the blog actually had some say in whether or no to see the new movie or not.