HW 25 Pro American Puppet Goverment?

Today was the first time I picked up the novel Baghdad Burning by Riverbend. After reading the foreword and introduction I am extremely excited and eager to start reading. The first thing that really caught my attention was the foreword written by Ahdeif Soueif. A quote from the foreword made me realize how real this novel is and how this is written by a woman on the other side of the war. “There was a time when people here felt sorry for the troops. No matter what ones 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. That time has passed” (Riverbend viii). Although, this comment is made by Riverbend, Soueif expresses how important this part is and it really attracted me as a reader. Moving on to the introduction it began with a synopsis of the history of Iraq over the past two decades. Ridgeway then goes on to talk about how Riverbend believes that the United States wants Iraq to be a pro American puppet government. This was one of the more interesting parts of the introduction because I sympathize and agree with Riverbend. A part of Ridgeway’s introduction that got to me was when he states “Once you are into Riverbend her war becomes your war. You begin to see things through her eyes and those of her family. You read in the news about a raid on a section of Baghdad and immediately you want to check her blog. (Ridgeway Xii). This really excited me about reading the novel and made me want to read more. This book seems to be like a lot of the blog’s I’m watching
Once you start reading you often want to check them to see what is new.

Hw 23- Return of the Bridezilla

With apologies to Virginia Woolf
“Cleopatra must have had a way with her, Lady Macbeth one would suppose had a will of her own Rosalind one might conclude was an attractive girl. Professor Trevelyan is speaking no more than the truth when he remarks that Shakespeare’s women do not seem wanting in personality and character” (42-43 Woolf). This to me also relates to the article I read on the blog entitled Jezebel. The article “Hells Bells Return of the British Bridezilla’s” portrays women in a very demoralizing way. We should be thankful all women do not act like this. Although I fear of women being put down in writing I am pleasantly happy to see women being able to choose their own husband. Arranged marriage is a thing of yesteryear. These women however are les then satisfying to my taste. I feel as though freedom is taken for granted now. In the article these women are being made fun of for being able to choose what they want to do. I pray that women do not take freedom for granted. It has been so hard to gain for me. The concept in this article seems a bit foolish although. Putting on your wedding gown to raise money for charity, it’s ludicrous to me. I do not understand how these concepts relate but I am left with a feeling of content because of the freedom these women exuberate.

Hw 17 repost

The blog that I enjoyed most this week I found at Jezebel. This blog has proved to be my favorite so far just because it’s so fun and interesting. The blog I read was entitled “Gossip Girls say: If it’s true its gossip”. You can get to this page by clicking http://jezebel.com/gossip/tweenage-wasteland/gossip-girls-say-if-its-true-its-not-gossip-306550.php It was all about the new series Gossip girls that is based on a series of books. I was attracted to this article because I read these books prior to the television show coming out. The article was about how interviewers went into Manhattan to a publicity event for the new book and asked some teens and young women if they gossiped. I absolutely loved how women responded. The title of this article is what one woman said and others responded in the same manor. Some stated that it’s not gossip just informing people of what’s going on. Even I know and can admit that I gossip. My favorite response came from a sixteen year old girl “Yeah, I only talk about people behind their backs. But I don't make up lies. And I only do it sometimes." This shocked me completely. It scary to think that young girls actually think this is acceptable. Although I found these book to be completely addicting I hope they are not teaching young girls to gossip.

Hw 22- The evolution of the Patriarchy

The definition of Patriarchy is a society in which fathers are powerful responsible heads of their families and households, and by extension, a society in which men hold a disproportionately large share of power. Chapter two in “A room of ones own” proves this statement very well. The paper proved that England is a patriarchy because it demoralized women. It was all about how women were in divorce court and how a female actress was being lowered from a peak. Virginia Woolf says it best when she states “Nobody in their senses could fail to detect the dominance of the professor. His was the power and the money and the influence(Woolf 33). She goes on to state more about the professors power but her point is that the paper shows that men hold everything and women have nothing. They are only something to write about but hold no actual status. After reading this chapter I visited the New York Times online. I believe that a foreign visitor to our country would not think this is a patriarchy. The times looked at many issues like the election, world issues, and pollution but did not demean women. However if you were to take a look at a magazine like US weekly I believe you would have a different perspective. To me the United States holds some factors of a patriarchy but overall is not. We have come so far since the times of this book. Women no longer have to be escorted by a man everywhere they are slowly gaining there independence and freedom. Sadly, today in some situations women and men are still unequal but I believe that in the future this will all change. In short, there will be a day where patriarchy’s do not exist.

Hw 21- Reading Woolf

Dear Brother,
I know that the novel “A room of One’s own” by Virginia Woolf might come off as confusing but it is a very valuable piece of literature. Woolf discusses the relationship between women and fiction very well throughout the book. She first discusses her thesis statement which is “"a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."(woolf). The narrator then goes on to discuss the university and her surroundings. I know this part can seem confusing but it shows many crucial ideas. A woman can not enter the library without a man at the university which just goes to show how women were treated back then. This novel is so important because it talks about how life was in the past and how women were treated. Women today have gained so much freedom and you can tell that just from the first chapter in this book. I know it might sound confusing but if you take your time to read it, it really is astonishing. It was so hard to believe this was actually how people were treated just because of there gender. Good luck with the reading and if you take your time i know you will enjoy it!
Noreen

HW 19- Blogging Globally

Reading the article “Web of Influence” was some what challenging for me. I choose a passage on page 85 about how blogging can affect global policies. The paragraph states that although blogs can have an affect on political issues, it cannot influence global policies. Although this paragraph presents facts and statistics, I believe that this will soon change over the next twenty years. According to Drenzer “only four percent of online Americans refer to blogs for information and opinions. The blogoshpere has no central organization and its participants have little ideological consensus. Indeed an October 2003 survey of the blogosphere conducted by Perseus concluded that the typical blog is written by a teenage girl who uses it twice a month to update her friends and classmates on happenings in her life”(Drenzer 85). This really shocked me because after researching the blogging world I’ve found its so much more then teenager’s blogging there opinions. After reading the novel Blog! I’ve found and researched many blogs on global problems, social problems and gossip. To put it another way, the blog world is growing rapidly and I think the world needs to realize sooner or later that global politics will become a part of the blogosphere. If a blog is big enough it is able to catch on and spread. Once it is spread all over the world the possibilities are endless. Essentially I am arguing that, so many people have opinions on global politics that I think they should be heard. My point is blogging never hurt anyone, it just made people’s opinions be heard.

Hw 18-Destroying Women

The blog written on October 7th 2007 entitled Destroying Women really affected me. Posted on the Feministe blog by Jill it was mainly about rape in Congo. I didn’t dislike this post because it was poorly written or did not display information well but more because it was so sad It can be found at http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2007/10/07/destroying-women/. Alexandra Bilak comments “It’s gone beyond the conflict,” said Alexandra Bilak, who has studied various armed groups around Bukavu, on the shores of Lake Kivu. She said that the number of women abused and even killed by their husbands seemed to be going up and that brutality toward women had become “almost normal.” Malteser International, a European aid organization that runs health clinics in eastern Congo, estimates that it will treat 8,000 sexual violence cases this year, compared with 6,338 last year. The organization said that in one town, Shabunda, 70 percent of the women reported being sexually brutalized”. This part was the most shocking to me. I feel like the United States has worked so hard to not demoralize women and we did not even realize that it was happening all over the world. This article saddened me because it opened my eyes to the fact that so many other parts of the world are in need of help and guidance. If this help and guidance is not received then how are they expected to get better.

Hw 17B- Daily Kos

After reading both interviews and viewing both blogs I decided I liked Markos Moulitsas Zuniga’s blog better entitled Daily Kos. Furthermore, Daily Kos would influence the way I voted in this election more because it was based on the facts. After viewing Wonkette, I found that it was composed primarily of gossip. It had embarrassing videos of candidates and gossip about there lives. The Daily Kos blog focused more on the facts and about the upcoming election. In addition, I liked how Zuniga had a first hand insight on the Iraq War. Since he was a soldier in the war he could express his feelings better then a regular blogger could. His blog was very liberal and anti war. Since I share the same feelings on the topic I leaned towards his. In short, Zuniga’s blog was more relatable and would be more likely to influence the way I voted.

Hw 16B Discovering Discoverability

Ease of Publishing
Discoverability
Cross-site conversations
Perma-linking
Syndication

At first glance these five terms come off as a bunch of confusing words. But at a second glance and after I read “Humanizing the face of Corporate America” An interview with Robert Scoble they started to make sense. Scoble refers to these five terms as the “Five Pillars of Controversial Software” and in his mind these are the five ideas that made blogging so hot. The first of the five pillars was the ease of publishing. This suggests that blogging is simple and easy. It is not like creating a book or writing an essay. You simply can write whatever you want and feel and with a click of a button it is published. Discoverability, to me, is being able to discover new websites and different things through tags and sites on blogs. Cross-site conversations is basically just linking your blog to others that are alike. This is great because if someone is looking for a certain topic they can find it all related together. Fourthly, there is perma linking which I was unsure of. It suggests that it has something to do with isolating a URL. In other words picking out a certain link that will take you directly to something your looking for. Lastly, there is syndication where a weblogger can subscribe to others blogs and follow them. This is just like bloglines that we use in our class. In short, there five pillars shape blogging and its popularity.

Nick Denton Interview hw 14

“Take and obsession, then feed it” was an interesting interview to read. Despite the fact that Nick Denton the interviewee is not actually a blogger it was very compelling. Actually, Nick is in charge of popular blogs like Gawker and Wonkette. Furthermore, I found what Nick say’s about unknown writers to be very true. Likewise, I like how he makes the comparison that you can’t turn a journalist into a screenwriter. He says there are mediocre people who end up getting amazing jobs and there are talented people who don’t. Blogs give these amazing writers jobs. Nonetheless, a blogger can not always be a journalist, it goes both ways. In addition, I found it shocking that Nick’s site are growing at about 20 percent a month. In other words, in the next five years blogs will have a larger impact on our society. As a result, more people will be looking at web blogs, creating them, and going on them. In short, everything about blogging is growing. Hence, the business that Nick Denton is running today.