coyyyFish

The Foreward (writen by Ahdaf Soueif) and Introduction (writen by James Ridgeway) to Baghdad Burning are basically giving us a background and an introduction to the book. The Foreward tells us what to expect to read about. “There is, naturally, a fair amount of politics in this book.” (page viii) Soueif seems to feel very strongly about this book. “Baghdad Burning makes painful reading. It also makes enjoyable - even fun - reading. It is certainly necessary reading.” (page ix) The Introduction is more in depth. We learn that the book is writen by a young woman known to us “Riverbend”. She writes a blog that she calls “Baghdad Burning” and describes it as “Girl Blog from Iraq”. The Introduction goes on to give us a sections on the Background, The Gulf War and After, The 2003 War, The Puppet Show, and Liberated Iraq. The Puppet Show is about what Riverbend thinks of the American Government. It is interesting to see what an outsiders thinks of our country. To be completely honest, I have mixed feelings about the war in Iraq. I have followed what is going on with the war, however, not in depth. It was interesting reading about the background, etc. I feel like reading this book is going to be very informative and I look forward to reading more.

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I live with a roommate in one of the Keene State College dorms, therefore, I do not really have “a room of my own”. I really like my room here, but it is not the most productive place. At home, however, I do have my own room. I spend most of my alone time in there, usually just relaxing. “Considering that Mary Carmichael was no genius, but an unknown girl writing her first novel in a bed-sitting-room, without enough of those desirable things, time, money, and idleness, she did not do so badly, I thought.” (Woolf 94) When you are in your “room” the only person you have to answer to is yourself. “So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only hours, nobody can say.” (Woolf 106)

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“With Apologies to Virginia Woolf”

After reading the post titled “Fat Is A Feminist Issue” I had to stop and ask myself..what has gotten into the women of our world today? This post briefly discusses a small study that was conducted..10 faceless women wearing a variety of tight grey clothing were shown to a large group of observers. 129 of these female observers consider themselves to be “feminists”..132 of them did not. These women were asked to identify the thinnest and heaviest woman they found “physically attractive” as well as the most attractive woman overall. The feminists found heavier woman to be more attractive than the non-feminists. All women involved in this study, however, seemed to agree on the most attractive woman overall..a female who was somewhat underweight..

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The paragraph that I chose to write about from Web of Influence talks about the blogosphere influence on global politics. Drezner and Farrell say that “blogs do not appear to be very powerful or visible”. In other words, “the blogosphere has no central organization”. What Drezner and Farrell are really asking is “How can a collection of decentralized, contrarian, and nonprofit Web sites possibly influence world politics?” My point is the blogosphere is continuing to get more popular every day, especially with the upcoming election. By November 2008, how will the political blogosphere change?

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After reading the two blogs (Wonketette and Daily Kos) I was more influenced by Daily Kos. I found this blog to be more appealing visually to start off with. Also, the topics covered were a little more my speed. I am not a major follower of politics and I found these blogs much easier to read and relate to. At this point I am still just getting to know the different candidates and after reading Daily Kos I feel more educated about each of them. Daily Kos seemed to be a little bit more professional than Wonkette.

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After reading both Scoble’s rules of engagement for the blogosphere and an article off of Jezel.com (Women Of All Ages Feel Better When They Wear Things That Fit) I found that the post did in fact follow many of Scoble’s rules. “This is advice that could be used by professional woman of any age, but her book has been packaged to play on women’s fear of aging in a youth-obsessed culture.” This quote both tells the truth and uses a human voice. The author of this post also puts the information out in the open, she is not trying to hide anything. I have seen the author, Jessica, write numerous posts on Jezebel, so I would trust this author.

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