HW 32: A Different Perspective

Monday March 31, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

After reading through the foreword and introduction, I can tell that this book is going to be very emotional. “Baghdad Burning is far from being a rant; it is an articulate, sensitive, often witty, always brave narrative of what it is like to be an Iraqi living in Iraq today (Riverbend 1).  The foreword talks about the invasion of the troops and why President Bush deemed it necessary to do so.  In the introduction, it talks more about the story of Riverbend and her perspective of the war.  The war in Iraq is something that I keep a close eye on.  From an Americans perspective, I think its allows our people who are suffering, but really, there are innocent people in other countries suffering from this battle also.  Riverbend mentioned, “There was a time when people here felt sorry for the troops. No matter what one’s attitude was to the occupation, there were moments of pity towards the troops, regardless of their nationality. We would see them suffering under the Iraqi sun, obviously wishing they were somewhere else and somehow that vulnerability made them seem less monstrous and more human (Riverbend VIII).” Knowing that people from other countries feel bad for our troops as we do for them makes me feel as if war is pointless.  I’m very anxious to continue my readings throughout this book.



HW 30: The End of Virginia

Wednesday March 26, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

I’m almost positive that I don’t have “A room of my own,” but maybe that’s because I live in a dorm room with another roommate.  Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of other places I could go to have my own privacy, but I don’t see a need in that. As a man, I can’t really relate but I can understand what Virginia is trying to say. She thinks that every woman needs their space to be able to do things such as think, and just not be bothered.  And I’m pretty sure this is true because you hear how relationships are broken off because the women need their space.  You don’t see this as much in men as you do in women but maybe men need their space also.  I am just better off being around people and being social. That’s what gets me through the day.

 

As I read through chapters five and six I came across a few quotes by Virginia that are more of a pastime. In chapter five she says, “It was strange to think that all the great women of fiction were, until Jane Austen’s day, not only seen by the other sex, but seen only in relation to the other sex” (Woolf, 82). I don’t believe in this quote at all. I’d say that nowadays women cover most magazines and television shows then men do. I think they play a big role in popularity. Another quote that I found was in chapter six where she says, “It is fatal for a woman to lay the least stress on any grievance; to plead even with justice any cause; in any way to speak consciously as a woman. And fatal is no figure of speech; for anything written with that conscious bias is doomed to death” (Woolf, 104).  In this quote, it talks about how woman are not allowed to speak out, but in the world today anyone has the right too.  Woman can say what they want just as much as men can and this was realized even more once woman were allowed to run for president.  All I’m saying is that many of Virginia Woolf’s views are just a little different than mine and the rest of the worlds. 



HW 28: Virginia Woolf Passes The Torch

Monday March 24, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

– With Apologies to Virginia Woolf

After reviewing the list of blogs that I’m watching, I found an interesting post that had to do with the 84- day journey of the Olympic Torch.  There was a ceremony in Greece when a protestor ran out onto the field and ruined the ceremony, with what they said looked like a pirate flag.  Previous to this incident, they already had riots in Tibet where people were shot at and homes were burnt. 

My opinion on this is that ridiculous rioters are creating stupid acts of crime.  What is the point of disturbing a beautiful ceremony? Is that the cool thing to do now a day? I’ve always believed that the passing and lighting of the torch was gorgeous and an act of freedom.  That doesn’t mean express your right to create a scene and disturb the peace. I think people just need to take a breath and think about what they are doing before they do it, especially when dealing with such a praised event such as the Olympics.  The Olympics is something you enjoy, not destroy.

http://deadspin.com/371340/um-maybe-we-should-just-skip-the-olympic-torch-this-time

 

 



HW 26: Isn’t It Ironic?

Wednesday March 12, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

After reading chapter two of A Room of One’s Own, I have found many uses of irony in Virginia Woolf’s writing.  One example was on page 27 when it says “Women do not write books about men-a fact that I could not help welcoming with relief, for if I had first to read all that men have written about women, then all that women have written about men, the aloe that flowers once in a hundred years would flower twice before I could set pen to paper.”  Woolf’s use of sarcasm is very strong in the quote.  She talks about how she would never write about men, which is fine, but not when all of chapter two is based on the subject of men.  It’s kind of ironic.

Another form of irony that I came across in chapter two is found on page 32.  Virginia says “Whatever the reason, all these books, I thought, surveying the pile on the desk, are worthless for my purposes. They were worthless scientifically, that is to say, though humanly they were full of instruction, interest, boredom, and very queer facts about the habits of the Fiji Islanders.”  In this quote, she says that all the books were worthless, but then goes on to mention how humanly they were useful.  It seems as if she contradicted herself. 

My last form of irony that I came across while reading was on page 40. It says, ” The nursemaid will heave coal. The shop-woman will drive an engine.” If you just swapped the parts where is says nursemaid and shop-woman with men, then the sentence would be fine, but by putting the women in charge of a so called men’s job, it makes it seem ironic.  After reading all of chapter two, I still found it to be pretty difficult to read.  Her words are clear but are put in a form of text that is very hard to comprehend. I also found it difficult to pick out forms of irony and sarcasm but that could also be my fault.  Anyways, I enjoy reading this book and cant wait to continue my reading of it.



HW 22: My Paragraph Pick

Wednesday March 5, 2008 • Leave a Comment 

After reading “Web of Influence” by Daniel Drezner, I chose to respond to the paragraph on page 90 cited below:

As the museum looting controversy reveals, blogs are now a “fifth estate” that keeps watch over the mainstream media. The speed of real-time blogger reactions often compels the media to correct errors in their own reporting before they mushroom. For example, in June 2003, the Guardian trumpeted a story in its online edition that misquoted Deputy U.S. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as saying that the United States invaded Iraq in order to safe-quard its oil supply. The quote began to wend its way through other media outlets worldwide, including Germany’s Die Welt.  In the ensuing hours, numerous bloggers led by Greg Djerejian’s “Belgravia Dispatch” linked to the story and highlighted the error, prompting the Guardian to retract the story and apologize to its readers before publishing the story in its print version.

This portion of the reading talks about how blogging can be a helpful tool. For example, catching a mistake is what happened in this situation. Somebody caught an error in a quote and reported the mistake in which the story was fixed and the write apologized to its readers.  Even more important, the writer saved himself by fixing the mistake before it hit the press.  This paragraph really interested me because it showed how much of an affect blogging could have on the media itself without actually getting involved.  My conclusion, then, is that blogging is a tool used for many different circumstances and that many people might oversee its use. 



HW 20: Wonkette vs Dailykos

Sunday March 2, 2008 • 1 Comment 

After reading all of the assigned readings from Graff and David Kline, I came to a conclusion of which one would more likely influence the way I would vote in the coming election.  The interviews I found interesting and then I browsed through the websites of Dailykos and Wonkette.  Both sites were informative but each of them had different techniques to pull in their readers.

Once I scrolled through Wonkette, the appearance seemed very creative, but at the same time childish.  I didn’t feel as if anything was really divided and I felt lost when I saw reviewing the site.   It just seemed as if Wonkette is a place where I could go to find political humor in the world today.

After I first looked at Dailykos, my first impression of it was that it was very colorful.  The layout was something that caught my attention. I thought it was very easy to scroll through and tell what was what.  The topics and the variety of information drew my in and made it appealing.  I also thought this site was more professional and that’s what made me decide that this site would be the one blog that would influence me the most in the coming election.