Wednesday, October 31, 2007

HW 27: Annotated bibliography

Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005.



The book Baghdad Burning, is a book written in blogs by an Iraqi girl names Riverbend. The purpose of it was a way that she was able to express her feelings and the differnet things that she went through while her time during the war. Readers are able to use her blogs as a source to find out information and updates on her life and things going on around her. This book of Riverbend's blogs fit into our current course because in our course we discuss the huge impact that blogs have on people and the fact that they are literally in with people around the world. Because people used her blogs as a source, it just really shows how intact people are with blogs that they are watching and how much they inform people. This book shows us things from someone's point of veiw and the things they expressed, it allows you to put yourself in someone elses's shoes. I think it will be a very interesting read because I am going to be ale to continuously look at something through someone else's eyes and see the world the way that they viewed it.

Monday, October 29, 2007

HW 25: Baghdad Burning

When reading the Forward and Introduction of Baghdad Burning, I found that much of it opened up my eyes even with just reading the brief descriptions that were said. The Forward, was a short but informative description of the Blog by Riverbend, it is described as being “right inside the heart and mind of a young Baghdadi woman as she lives through the war”(Soueif, vii). Ahdaf Soueif quotes riverbend on many of the things she said while her time spent during the war. The forward also talks about how the book should shame those who looked down on Iraqi’s. The Introduction of Baghdad Burning goes into further detail about Riverbend, her experience, and her family. The intro proceeds to go into the detail about the war in Iraq. James Ridgeway talks about the affect that it had on people. Although I was not personally affected by this I still feel for anyone that was, so I think that it is going to be interesting to read the blog of Riverbend and look at things coming from her perspective and get more involved with her story.

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

HW 24: A room of my own

Many women have a room of their own. A room where they keep their belongings and where even many secrets are kept. It’s what makes them who they are. My room here at school is very different from my room at home, “The rooms differ so completely; they are calm or thunderous; open on to the sea, or, on the contrary, give on to a prison yard; are hung with washing; or alive with opals and silks; are hard as a horsehair or soft as feathers- one has only to go into any room in any street for the whole of that extremely complex force of femininity to fly in one’s face.” (Woolf,87). My room at home differs from my room here at school, things seem so much quieter and calmer at home whereas here at school, things in my room are constantly getting lost because of the mess and what not, which then just gets my frustrated. “If we have what habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think; if we escape a little from the common sitting rooms and see human beings not always in their relation to each other but in relation to reality” (Woolf,113) Virginia Woolf wants people to see the reality of things rather than judging someone on what sex they are or if they have a “room”. You need to reach outside your room, because if it is boring like she describes hers, then you need to find a way to succeed.

Monday, October 22, 2007

HW 23: What would Virginia Woolf think?

As it may be rather obvious, much of what I talk about is the inequality issues that involve men and women. Many of the things I’ve encountered have had to do with just how much women really are below men. The blog that I’ve been watching is Jezebel. The blog that I enjoyed reading the most was "What would you do if you were ditched for a younger woman?" (http://jezebel.com/?refId=313665). What I enjoyed most about this post if the fact that its telling women not to let it get to them, focus on other things, forget about that guy, which is exactly why I enjoy watching jezebel so much, the woman empowerment is encourages. "I perfectly agree with you that no woman has no business to meddle with that or any other serious business, farther than giving her opinion (if she is ask'd)" (Woolf, 55). Jezebel is a way women for women to write freely about things they enjoy writing and reading about. Blogging in general is a great way for women to express their opinions freely and openly.

Thursday, October 18, 2007

HW 22: Ch. 2, Patriarchy

In the assigned reading response Patriarchy is defined as “a society in which fathers are the powerful responsible heads of their families and households and by extension, a society in which men hold a disproportionately larger share of power”. In Virginia Woolf’s chapter two reading, much of what she talks about is how men really do have more power, and when comparing them to women, there really is no comparison. On page 25, in the beginning of chapter two, Woolf begins asking questions like “why did men drink wine and women water? Why was one sex so prosperous and the other so poor?” But instead of asking so many questions she left and went to the British Museum. When she goes there she checks out things about women and rules, and when moving over the M section she find nothing on males. There are no books written about men by women, but there are plenty found about Women, written by men. Clearly, men hold a majority of the power and control what goes on. In the reading found in the library it was a book of rules, but when she went to look for men, there were no rules. When going to the New York Times website, I found that this website would not “give a transient visitor to our planet the impression that the United States is a Patriarchy”, because on this website it does not talk about equal rights, what’s right and what’s wrong. All the issues discussed on not just only the New York Times but others are equally applied to both sexes, discussing many different issues, which is much different from the reading where in England it seems as if one sex is favored.

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

HW 21: Virginia Woolfe's Chapter One

Dear Kiley,

In Chapter One of Virginia Woolf’s, A room of one’s own, the chapter discusses ‘Women and Fiction’; her main point is “A woman must have money and a room of her won if she is to write fiction” (pg. 4). Woolf says that he will do her best she can to write about as to how she came to this opinion. Woolf then goes on to create a fictional story; Any name is fine, as she sits on the banks of a river at oxford. She begins to talk about fishing, but gets interrupted by at first what she calls a “man’s figure”, but later says “He was a beadle; I was a woman” (pg 6), he reminds her that woman are not allowed to walk on the grass, so she heads back to the path. She begins thinking about her surroundings and it makes her think about an essay about revisiting Oxbridge by Charles Lamb, so when she goes to the library to find it, a man quietly said to her “ladies are only admitted to the library if accompanied by a Fellow of the College or furnished with a letter of introduction” (pg.8), making her leave in anger. She gets distracted by music playing off in the distance, when everyone form the university goes inside she decides to stay out, because she doesn’t feel right. She goes on to talk about Oxbridge and its history, she goes on to talk about the lunch served (pg. 10-11), but later gets distracted when she sees “a cat without a tail” (pg 11). Later she talks about another meal that she had, comparing it to the luncheon that was earlier on, except she speaks in a more negative way about this one, with having less privileges. The narrator goes on to talk to Mary Seton, wondering what their mothers were doing in the past that they could not leave any money behind for them. When summarizing chapter one a lot of it talks about men Vs. women, in my opinion.
This reading could be considered important because it shows how women can be looked down on, and have more rules that apply to them, where as men don’t. As my reaction to this reading, I think that it’s a little bit harder to understand the reading, because it really makes you think. Not everything it literal, so you have to read things over more than once, which to me makes it a harder reading, but once understood, it can be interesting.

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

HW 19: Web of Influence

After reading “Web of Influence” the Foreign Policy article by Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell, the paragraph that I decided to respond to was the first paragraph on page 86. I Chose to write about this paragraph because I found it interesting with how influential blogs keep becoming. In this paragraph the theory about "what exists, what happens, and what matters" is discussed. But what’s most important is "what matters", for example if something has no importance, then people aren't going to care about it or bother to read/write about it, but when something has significance, then its grabs people attention and makes them curious about what is said. What I found most interesting about the paragraph was the last sentence: "A few elite blogs have emerged as aggregators of information and analysis, enabling media commentators to extract meaningful analysis and rely on blogs to help them interpret and predict political developments", in other words, small time blogs that didn't mean that much were being used as a source for showing future political developments going on. In conclusion, I believe that people expressing how they feel throughout their blogs really is important because in the long run, it is going to affect a lot more than they think.

Monday, October 8, 2007

HW 18: Whats More "Important" on Your Body?

I chose to write about the blog from Jezebel called "What's More 'Important'? Your Face Or Your Ass?" by DODAI. This post was saying that you basically have to choose weather you want to maintain a young looking face or an in shape body. DODAI says that " the "theory" assumes that as a woman gets older, she can either maintain her face or her body, but not both", the reason I chose to write about this post is because I disagree with it. I don't think woman have to choose between which they want to maintain. I have seen plenty of in shape women with "youthful" faces. I think the fact that there saying you can only maintain one or the other is a little ridiculous. Even if it was true, there are plenty of women out there who aren't necessarily slimmed down, but are still just as beautiful. In the they decided to use Teri Hatcher as someone who has chose "backside over beauty", but the only problem with this is that I don't see it. I find Teri Hatcher to be very pretty. The post calls women like Oprah "sitting beauties". I don’t think that this "theory" applies to all women, and that’s another issue I have with this post. It is making it seem as if this applies to all women, which almost seems impossible. When reading the comments on this post, many of the women choose face over body to begin with. Many women are just as happy with being "pleasantly plump" and having a young face, rather than having your back faced to someone why a young guy approaches you until you turn around and then he realizes how much of a mistake tapping you on the shoulder was.

HW 17b:"Blogging the Presidency" (A political influence)

After reading both interviews, one with Markos Moulitsas Zuniga about Daily Kos and then with Ana Marie Cox about Wonkette, I would definitely use the Daily Kos instead of Wonkette. Wonkette seemed to be lighter. "I don't want to ruin anyone's life. But I don't mind ruining their day", says Cox. Things were made fun of and not taken seriously with Wonkette, where as Daily Kos seems to follow and more serious path and would guide you with better information. As the question being which blogs and bloggers would I find most influential politically, I found that Wonkette was more based on sex and political gossip, whereas Daily Kos will take all issues very seriously. They use their information in upcoming elections, which will influence people and their views. I don't see Wonkette giving out information about what’s going on in the war. Zuniga said that "blogs proved to be powerful fund-raising and organizing tools", and on the other hand Cox says "Wonkette is me after too many margaritas". Wonkette is a good place for gossip about sex, who's screwing around, and laughs, because that’s her goal, humor. I believe that Daily Kos is the sit that is going to provide you with good information and help you later down the road.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

HW 17: My favorite blog post

When browsing through the different posts within the last week by Jezebel, one that caught my eye was a blog post called "Things I Could Do Without: Screaming During Fights Could Save Your Life. But is It Worth the Effort?"(http://jezebel.com/gossip/things-i-could-do-without/screaming-during-fights-could-save-your-life-but-is-it-worth-the-effort-306342.php). I think the reason this first caught my eye was because it's a picture from a show that I often watch, so it caught my attention leading me to be interested and then read about it. When reading about what this post says, "in fights, some women tend to scream and cry and carry on. We always thought this was obnoxious and unseemly and a sign they needed drugs. But it turns out it could be saving their lives!” I felt that a lot of the time girls really do get very upset over fights and get emotional over them. I have to agree with the fact that maybe it could save your life. With men, I don't think they care as much when arguing, but women get very worked up over things, and you don't let out how you feel then it can cause a lot of stress, which over time can build up. Personally if I let out how I feel then I feel much better afterwards, I don't think that screaming is always the answer but a lot of them times people don't want to listen and its a way to get your point across. When looking at the comments, one woman replied "Nothing feels better in a moment of complete and smothering frustration then letting out a scream." and I have to say I agree with that at times, it really does feel good to just let it all out. The reason I like this post so much is because I can relate to it, and relate to what Jezebel is trying to say.

HW 16-A: Scoble's rules of engagement

When reading "The Corporate Weblog Manifesto" I felt that many of the rules applied to Jezebel. Rule number 2 of Scoble's rules is "Post fast on good news or bad". That is something that Jezebel definitely does. Much of what Jezebel has to say isn't always what people want to read about themselves, and other times its good things that’s just going to make them look better. She seems quick to update her blogs so readers can catch up on the latest. Another rule that Jezebel follows is number 3, "Use a human voice", she writes in her own words and writes about what she thinks. Rule number 11, "Know the information gatekeepers", Jezebel knows what she’s writing about, how could you start your own blog website without knowing what your talking about. It is hard to tell where these rules might NOT apply to Jezebel because you don't really known if she does mess up, is she going to acknowledge it? It’s hard to ever really know if she’s hiding information, because she’s the one people go to for information. The corporate weblogs are rules that Scoble wrote for people to follow in order to write a successful blog and be satisfied. I agree with much if what he says, and he knows what he’s talking about since he's been doing this for years now. His rules are saying to basically let people know the truth, don't lie about anything, don't hide anything, and admit to when your wrong. No one wants to have false information.

Monday, October 1, 2007

HW 14: Ito/ Denton Transitionrama

When reading the “Japanese Blogger Champions Internet Democracy” Joi Ito interview (Kline and Burstein 143-150), I found myself agreeing to many of the things that Ito had to say. For example, when Ito says "Once you enable people to have a voice, most people are more interested in talking to each other than they are blindly consuming something that is created by a machine, I think in all its form creativity is ging to become much more driven by the people" (Kline, 145), I agree what Ito says with the fact that once someone is able to openly speak about things, then it pulls in other people who also become interested with talking to people and not having to worry about who they are or what they think. Along the same lines, one of the things that I even remember discussing in class is that blogging is something you do on your own, not something you get paid to do, as Ito discusses on page 145. In addittion, as to the change that Ito talks about on pg. 145, he goes into talking about how it seems as if people follow each other and everyone likes the same things, eventually people branch out and move onto bigger and better things. In conclusion, blogging is a way that people express themselves and become moreindependant, "its allows people to find each other, find niches, and find communtitieis" (Kline, 145), I agree with the things that Ito has to say and find much of it very interesting to read about from someone elses perspective.