Hw 25: Riverbend

After reading the forward and introduction to Baghdad Burning, I learned a lot about what is going on in the war in Iraq and what to further expect when I continue reading the book. In the forward to Baghdad Burning Soueif reports to us about Riverbend and her blog “Baghdad Burning”. Soueif informs us what we can expect when reading the book, he states, “ Baghdad Burning makes painful reading. It also makes enjoyable - even fun- reading. It is certainly necessary reading.”(Soueif, page ix) Riverbend's blog tells how she feels about the war, what her and her family experience and the effects that the war is having in her country that affect her life daily. In the introduction to the book Ridgeway gives us more facts about what is happening in the war and how Iraq has progressed over history. Ridgeway talks about the background of Riverbend's culture, he also informs us about what Iraq was going through with the Gulf War until the war that is currently going on in Iraq. Ridgeway reports to us about the troubles that post-war Iraq is facing, mostly because of religious issues and since the post-war Ridgeway states, “ Postwar Iraq has seen the formation of gangs inspired by Islamic fundamentalism, that have made a habit of kidnapping women who in their eyes flaunted Islamic law in clothing and behavior.”(Ridgeway, page xxii) What I thought I knew about the war in Iraq has drastically changed after reading all that is going on in Iraq and how it is affecting the everyday life of the people who live in Iraq. It makes you think about how the circumstances would be drastically different if the war we were fighting was in our country rather than in Iraq. I did not know a lot of the information about Iraq and the religious groups that reside there. After reading the introduction, I learned a lot more about Iraq and can better understand what the people have been and are still going through.

HW 24: A Room of One's Own

According to the research of Virginia Woolf, in order for a woman to write fiction or any type of writing, they must be educated, have money, and most importantly a room of their own. Women have come extremely long ways from the days when women were not thought suited enough to write anything or have any purpose besides tend to the house. Woolf strongly stresses over and over again that women need money and a room of their own to be successful with writing. When talking about Mary Carmichael and her first book, Life’s Adventure, she states “ give her a room of her own and five hundred a year, let her speak her mind and leave out half that she now puts in, and she will write a better book one of these days.”(Woolf, page 94). Indeed it is important to have a room of one’s own when one is trying to think and write a marvelous book. I currently do not have a room of my own. I share a room with two other girls and there are usually more than three people in my room. I do agree that it is hard to think with lots of other things in your way distracting you from trying to create your own ideas in your mind. Often I find myself in the library to escape the noise and laughter, so I can have a quiet place to think and analyze my thoughts to produce a better paper. Being educated and being given the opportunities that most women did not get the chance to take advantage of also helps when writing. Woolf states that even though money and privacy are important, there is one other key factor when writing, “five hundred a year stands for the power to contemplate, that a lock on the door means the power to think for oneself, still you may say that the mind should rise above such things.”(Woolf, page 106). Indeed the most important factor I believe is having such a strong mind that will be able pick up the slack if you are not given money or a room of your own.

HW 23: Feminism 101

With Apologies to Virginia Woolf,
I went to the site Jezebel to look for intriguing articles about women; I came across an article that caught my eye. The article was titled Feminism 101. Immediately I was interested to see what the article had to say about women. This article in fact had to do with women in writing; it was short but non-the less interesting. It so briefly stated that Doris Lessing was the eleventh woman to win the Nobel Prize for Literature with her book, The Golden Notebook. This is quite a fascinating piece of information to find, that a woman, actually the eleventh, had won a Nobel Prize for writing. It seems to me that I will have to take back my statement that I made prior to reading this which stated, “ it is a perennial puzzle why no women wrote a word of extraordinary literature when every other man, it seemed, was capable of a strong song or sonnet.”(Woolf, page 41). I am quite pleased to find out that women are actually making progress in literature and being recognized for the genius that they have always possessed. If you would like to view this remarkable post it can be found on the Jezebel website (http://jezebel.com/gossip/feminism-101/-309664.php).

HW 22:Patriarchy is dead

In chapter two of A Room of One’s Own, Virginia Woolf believes that anyone who reads the paper would know that England was under the rule of patriarchy. Woolf believes that everyone would know this because it is evident in the paper that the males make up the headlines and write the papers. It is clear to understand that when it comes to what is important in the world, women are not; they are not talked about in the news and their writing does not go in the newspaper. When talking about the professor she states, “ he it is who will acquit or convict the murderer, and hang him, or let him go free. With the exception of the fog he seemed to control everything.” (Woolf, page 34). This topic plays an important role throughout the chapter; it is made clear that women are thought of as inferior to most men. Woolf provides a theory on why men feel the need to think of women as the inferior sex, she states, “the enormous importance to a patriarch who has to conquer, who has to rule, of the feeling that great numbers of people, half the human race indeed, are by nature inferior to himself. It must indeed be one of the chief sources of his power.”(Woolf, page 35). In today’s society in the United States it is well known that women are not the inferior race but rather equal to men. One of the prime examples while browsing through the newspaper is the headline, “Hilary leads in donor refunds”. Having a woman run for president shows how the roles that women once played have drastically changed, and it also shows that the United States is far from a patriarchy.

HW 21: Dear Freddy

Dear Freddy,
In the first chapter of the Virginia Woolf book A Room of One’s Own, Woolf is trying to address women and fiction. She comes to the conclusion that in order for women to write fiction, they need money and a room of their own. Throughout the chapter Woolf describes the disadvantages that women have had over the course of history that has delayed the great writing styles of many women today. Some of the disadvantages that she addresses include: education, money, and how society treated women. Through many fictional stories that Woolf tells, it explains all of these disadvantages that women have faced over the decades. Education was something that was very rare for women to receive. When women’s colleges finally came about, they were nothing in comparison to colleges made for men. Woolf addresses this by explaining the different luncheons that occurred at both fictional colleges. Money was something that a woman rarely had and perhaps was one of the many reasons that women were not as educated. Women were never thought of as worthy or useful enough to have the type of jobs that men had. Often if a woman did have a job, all of the wages would not be hers but her husband's. Finally Woolf addresses how society treated women. She explains that when on the break of some idea that might be brilliant, she is thrown off her idea by some silly rule that women were made to follow. She uses the example that women were not allowed to walk on the grass, but rather on the gravel. English teachers would consider this book important, even though it can be at times a little overwhelming and confusing because it shows the growth of women over time especially in writing and education and the roles that women play and their importance in society. After I finished reading chapter one, I found myself a little in the dark. I had to think about what Woolf was trying to say in her reading, because she uses a variety of different examples to explain and prove the points that she is trying to get across.
-Lindsay

HW 19: Web of Influence

After reading “Web of Influence”, I found out a lot of important information that helped me to understand more about what the blogosphere represents and does to help the mainstream media. The blogosphere is one way for the mainstream media to keep an eye out to see if there are any stories that should be covered to a greater extent. Although some readers may object to this and say that the blogosphere is such a wide range of topics it would be almost impossible to find out what is important and what’s not, I simply state that the more a subject is talked about in the blogosphere the more noticeable it becomes to the mainstream media. In “Web of Influence” it uses the example of Annie Jacobsen who wrote a blog about unusual activity at the airport involving eight Middle Eastern men. This story demonstrates that although it may seem unreasonable to be suspicious about foreign passengers, you can never be too safe when you are dealing with people’s lives. So in other words the blogosphere, although it is wide and ranges many different topics, does attract the mainstream media to important issues that are not necessarily being covered as well as they should be. They almost work together in helping each other grow and feeding off each other for stories and topics.

HW 18 Least Favorite Blog

After reading through my “Blogs I’m Watching”, I came across an extremely sad and horrible blog. The blog was called “Iran: Thousands of hungry workers go on strike.”( http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2007/10/07/iran-thousands-of-hungry-workers-go-on-strike/). I found the blog in Global Voices. The blog talked about how thousands of sugar cane workers in Iran were going on strike because they were not getting paid and were going hungry. The reason I did not like the blog was because it is upsetting to think about thousands of workers who are not being treated fairly, getting enough money to pay for food or support their families, and even when striking not being recognized. The blog talks about how the workers went on strike previously, and the government made them promises but failed to keep them. The blog explains that, “after two days of striking, Iranian intelligence agents started to put pressure on workers and threaten them with severe punishment”. After reading how poorly the employees were being treated, this blog suddenly became my least favorite. One worker was even arrested at his house and put in jail. When he needed to seek medical attention, they had a video of him handcuffed to the hospital bed. This blog is a reality shock of how horrible some places in this world really are.

HW 17 B Cox and Zuniga

After reading and looking at the blogs Wonkette and Daily Kos, I realized that the blog that would be the most influential in the upcoming election would have to be Daily Kos. Wonkette is a very interesting blog and would be more enjoyable to read, but I would not start basing my opinion on who should be president based on their sex life or scandals. Daily Kos is a more serious blog bringing up issues that could have some value when looking at the candidates for president. It is a trusted blog that has gone very far from the start and seems to have many fans. Their fan status was booming especially around the times of elections, which would make me assume that a lot of people think that Daily Kos is the site to go to when you want valid information to help you make your decision. Wonkette writes more in an informal way, not bringing up important topics that would normally be considered in choosing a president. The blog Wonkette is made to be humorous, as Ana Marie Cox is quoted saying, "I can write stuff that I think is funny"(Kline & Burstein page 59). So when it comes to reading for fun I would visit Wonkette, getting the inside scoop on who is doing who in office, but for helping me decide who should run our country I would visit Daily Kos.

HW 17: Favorite Blog Post

As I was browsing through Jezebels posts, I found one that struck my interest titled “Panic-Stricken Kim Basinger’s Maybe Not-So-Healthy Heart” (http://jezebel.com/gossip/broadsides/panic+stricken-kim-basingers-maybe-not+so+healthy-heart-306680.php) . The blog was set up in bullet form, with each bullet telling a different fact or interesting piece of information, which I thought was more attention grabbing than just a paragraph about one topic. Most of the bullets were facts about women, which ranged from anxiety and panic attacks to how romantic partners’ copy each other’s health habits. Some of the bullets were quite outrageous and something that would seem almost impossible; Babble was quoted in telling us about Mother Nature. Babble warns us, “A woman gave birth to two babies on the same day, but they aren't twins. Seems that she got pregnant twice over the course of two weeks. Mother Nature, you fucking creep us out.” (always a good thing to know if you are a woman). Jezebel is an excellent website to look at if you are interested in knowing what’s going on in the world, or just random fun facts.

HW 16 A: Scoble's Rules

After reading Scoble’s rules of engagement, I went to Jezebel’s website at www.jezebel.com to find out if they followed the same twenty rules as Scoble suggests for all blogs to be a success. Jezebel is a website that definitely follows the number sixteen rule “Never hide information..” (page 134). Since Jezebel is a site based on the gossip and truth of the main stream celebrities and what kind of trouble they are getting into, the site makes sure that it gets all the angles and sides of the stories. When reading a blog about Britney Spears, “Is Britney Being Judged More Harshly Than Her Baby-Daddy?” Jezebel makes sure to address the two different views of the story. Jezebel also incorporates rule number three, which states, “Use a human voice.”(page 133). Jezebel really lives up to this rule when posting their blogs; they state their opinion and they don’t edit what they have to say about the issue at hand. One rule that Jezebel may need not to address is, “Underpromise and over deliver.”(page 133). This does not apply to Jezebel necessarily because they are not offering a product on their blog, they are just feeding peoples interests on the media. I do not know how to determine if Jezebel follows the rule that tells weblogs not to ignore Slashdot. I think that Jezebel is a pretty successful website. They find out what interests a group of people and then they supply lots of pictures and information about it, which in turn keeps people hooked.

HW 14: Response to Denton

As I was reading through Nick Denton's interview, I realized that I agreed with him on a lot of his key points. For instance, Denton explains that everyone seems to think that weblogs are a completely breathtaking invention to technology, when really it's just an extension on what has always been happening online. After all, weblogs have been around for a while before becoming socially noticed. Nevertheless, weblogs will most likely explode and adopt a much larger audience and come up with new uses. Along the same lines, Denton talks about how weblogs are important in the news and will soon have numerous ways for you to receive what you want to know faster; he explains, " Just as TiVo allows television watchers to make their own channel, so will weblogs allow individual users to make their own "newspaper"". Even though newspapers will never be replaced by weblogs, I believe that the two will have a big part in news for a long time. To put it bluntly Denton states, " while I don't think blogs are going to change the structure of original reporting, they are going to supplant in some ways the editorial layer of the news". In conclusion, I think that Denton has some great points in his interview that most people do not touch on when talking about weblogs.