My Thoughts

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=73916&castPage=&autoplay=true

-This is the link to listen to Rob Musto and my third podcast!

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Jenn - Hi, this is Jenn Lillis and Rob Musto back for our final podcast.
Rob - We are students at Keene State College, and we are creating our third podcast for our ITW class, A Blog of One’s Own
Jenn - This is assignment number 45 and we will be discussing the book, ‘Baghdad Burning’ by Riverbend.
Rob - From the book, ‘Baghdad Burning the paragraph that I read that had the biggest impression on me was from page 179 “This year, New Year’s Eve was a virtual family reunion we decided to gather at my aunts house but it could not be too big of a gathering otherwise we would be mistaken for a ‘terrorists cell’ - Women, children dishes of food and all.” The reason I found this paragraph the most intriguing was because, she is talking about New Years Eve which is supposed to be a happy time and is comparing this time with her family to a ‘terrorists cell’. I found this very depressing, the war has affected families all throughout Baghdad.

Jenn- From the book, ‘Baghdad Burning’ the paragraph I read that had the biggest impression on me was from page 202, “Dinner was served at seven. It consisted of rice and lamb, garnished with sultianas, almonds and all sorts of spices, a lebanise salad, chicken soup and two different kinds of bread. For a brief 30 minutes we forgot politics and occupation and sat concentrating on the steaming array of food piled before us. Even the children calmed down enough to enjoy the fest. The local generator was humming in the backround and we sat enjoying the food and light and feeling that it really was Eid. After all we were family and gathered together what could be more Eid like then that?” I enjoyed this paragraph because even with all the caos they found time to be together and he happy with their families. Forget what was happening in ther lives and just enjoy the food and eachother.

Rob - By reading this book, I believe students next semester will learn to erase a lot of stereo types that we may have thought to be true.

Jenn- By reading this book students will gain a new perspective of what life is like in Iraq, and actually feel what they go through while living everyday wondering what will happen next.

Rob- Thanks for listening, hope you enjoyed our last podcast!

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Hi this is Jenn Lillis and Rob Musto, back for our second podcast!

JENN: We are students at Keene State College, doing this podcast for our class
A blog of One’s Own, a thinking and writing course.

ROB: This is assignment number 44 and we will be talking about the book, Baghdad Burning and the Holiday they celebrate called “Eid”

JENN: This past Thanksgiving I got to enjoy it at home with my family, parents, brothers, sister and neices. I got to be home for a week and be away from school.
From Baghdad Burning we learned about the holiday on page 149 “Eid II Futtir, as it is called, Is the three day holiday that comes directly after Ramadhan”- end quote. They visit family and friends as a celebration.

ROB: This past Thanksgiving my family gets together at my aunts house and we make a day out of it, watch football and eat lots of turkey!
Riverbend states on page 149, “Kids must have new pajamas and haircuts” Families begin to prepare for this holiday a week in advance.

JENN: An interesting fact we learned on page, 161 that changed our view of Iraq is, “Iraqi census officials devised a detailed plan to count the countires entire population next summer and prepared a voter role that would open the way to national elections in September.”

ROB: “But American officials say they rejected the idea and the Iraqi governing council members say they never saw the plan” –end quote we found this interesting because were not in there to mess with the Iraqi government we just need more oil and to go after terrorists organizations.

JENN: Okay, thank you, check back with us next week for our final podcast.

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&id=8538

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On my previous post I said the number to call in order to record but, www.gabcast.com is the website in order to listen to the podcast Rob Musto and I recorded which is number 95.

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Hi this is a pod cast by Jennifer Lillis and Rob Musto. We are broadcasting from Keene State College for the class Blog of One’s own. This is part of a group project for our thinking and writing course.This is Homework number 42. We will be discussing the book Baghdad Burning written by a blogger named Riverbend. On page 124 we learned about the holiday Ramadan. WE found that it is the 9^th month in the Islamic year.

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I read pages 70-79 in Baghdad Burning, the answers to the questions couldn’t be found in the reading. I will sum up this reading, Riverbend talks about how scary the nights are there and how hard it is to sleep and get through the night without hearing gunshots. She witnesses a neighbor getting taken away by soldiers along with his grandson. She is frightened and wants to scream at the top of her lungs for them to stop. She doesn’t sleep at all that night on account of the horrible things she saw happening. Ahmad Al-Chalabi talks about the situation happening in Baghdad, but “Nobody listens”-Riverbend. She wonders what will happen with this war and hates the fact that this is happening to her people day after day.

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I began by watching the first podcast, “Iraqi teens work to help their families”, Alive in Baghdad , 10/15/2007 http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/10/15/iraqi-teens-work-to-help-their-families.
This podcast talks about young teens working at the ages of 13 and 14 years old. They work with their families all day long, everyday making furniture and painting. Youngs teens are interviewed about their daily lives working and dealing with the war. A young boy interviewed who I found interesting was born with disabilaties and is unemployed, he had to have many surgeries. He talks about how difficult life is there and what he has done to get him through it. The streets are very pottery ridden and and the buildings are small and white, and dirty looking. A viewer may learn the hardships of what the Iraqi’s are dealing with and how difficult it is so still go to school and learn while being scared away by Americans with guns. This video gave me more of a real feeling of the war, this video went inside of people’s homes and schools. The most memorable thing about this podcast was the young teens being shown outside building furniture on dirt and the fact that they are so young working so hard.
The second podcast I found of interest was called, Challenges at a girls school in Baghdad from 5-21-2007 from alive in Baghdad. http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad. This podcasts covers the girls that are enrolled in this all girls school and how they get to and from school. This podcast interviews girls and some teachers that work there, this podcast is all interviewed at the girls school. In particular one girl talks about how her family doesn’t want her to continue her education. They are too scared for her to be going to school everyday, she faces challenges getting to and from school. She lives far away and it isn’t easy for her to get there. The scenery in this podcast is the small white buildings with many people inside of it. The girls look cramped inside of this small building. A viewer might learn how difficult it is for these girls to actually go to school and get there safely. I have never seen a video of kids going to school in Iraq, i found this very intriguing. what I found memorable was the girls being interviewed and their personal opinions on life there.

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Dear Riverbend,
I read some of your posts and realized all the difficutly you are going through with your family just to survive there. I hate the fact that a man needs to be with a woman at all times for them to go anywhere at any time, that must be extremely hard for you to deal with. I would not be able to handle that, I would feel trapped. I had mixed feelings about when you and your brother were sitting on the roof and you were able to tell the shoots of different guns, and whether it was an american gun or an Iraq gun. When I saw that I was scared for you, how awful that is what you have to endure. As Americans we don’t have to go through that or be afraid to go to sleep at night. I love the fact that you have sympathy towards the American troops through your blogs. You are a very strong person and for surviving all this insanity going on over there. I really have enjoyed reading your blogs and I have learned quite a lot. 
Sincerely, Burton

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After reading Baghdad Burning, I found many things interesting but what I wanted to research more of was Ahmad Al-Chalabi, he is the interim oil minister of Iraq. He did not get elected back in December 2005 and the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May of 2006 and he was not awarded a post. The reason for this is because he was considered untrustworthy and is now under investigation by the US government. He is wanted for embezzling almost $300 million through a bank he created in Jordan. He was also part of a three man executive council for the Umbrella Iraqi opposition group, also known as the Iraqi National Congress created in 1992. This was created to overthrow Saddam Hussein. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi)

On page 44 of Baghdad Burning, Chalabi is mentioned as becoming the new president on September 1,2003. He then has an interview with political candidates in Iraq and around the world. Riverbend says she is happy this has happened and that she has been waiting for this day to come. I found Chalabi interesting to research because of Riverbend’s enthusiasm towards him when he finally got elected. She looked forward to watching him be interviewed on television the day he was put into office. Riverbend feels very strongly about politics and about him in office.

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Riverbend is a young woman from the city of Baghdad, who has dealth with a lot of rough times in her life. Baghdad Burning, from what I have read in the foreward and introduction is about what Riverbend’s opinions on the war in Iraq is. She also gives her backround in Baghdad and what her life is all about there.
Ridgeway gives a lot of details about the war in Iraq since 2003, such as some backround information which I was pretty familiar about. He also talks about the Gulf war and after which I found interesting and informative, the 2003 war a situation our country is still involved in is what Ridgeway sums up while talking about Riverbend. Ridgeway’s views and thoughts about the war I agree with and he also says on page, xxi what Riverbend and other women in Iraq’s rights were. “Where women once enjoyed something approaching equal rights, they are now being barred from the scarce supply of jobs. She has lost her job along with many other women and without men to protect them. My impressions of this text give me a good feeling about this book and I feel I will learn a lot about the war in Iraq.

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