Final Post

1. Describe the importance of blogging to modern day journalism.

Blogging isn't going away. Journalists, whether professional or amatuer will need to learn to utilize it effectively. Good journalism is in decline because new mediums such as blogging have debased the fundamentals of it. When a synthesis between good old fashioned journalism and new technology is found, then we will really have discovered something important. The problem is nobody has figured out how to do that yet.

2. Am I going to continue to blog?

More than half of my posts have less than 5 views, and due to my overuse of the word "fuck" most of those views are actually people stumbling upon my blog while searching for porn... Nancy Grace porn....  I think it is probably a good idea to end my blog. Also, burn everything that ever touched it.

3. How would I improve my blog?

It could have been more focused, it could have been more regular and it should have been written better. Alas, all I really haveto say about my blog is: coulda, woulda, shoulda. Goodbye bloggers, it's been...

Question

What were we suppossed to do?

So... I noticed something strange about Dr. Clark's last post...




Click here to embiggen

 

Suckerpunch Rage

So, I saw Suckerpunch this weekend... I was expecting it to be sexy. It was not. I was expecting it to be violent. It was not. I was expecting it to be imaginative and original. It was not. I was expecting it to be the kind of movie you are still thinking about hours after you leave the theatre. It was not. Fortunatly my accomplice had a backup plan. All in all it was a pretty great night.

Nancy Grace, Please Shut the Fuck Up

Below are two very different styles of journalism, provided by two very different types of people. I have placed them side by side for comparative purposes.

This is how to press the                             This is useful information.

panic button, misinform

the public and look like a

meshugina banshee whore

harpy battle-ax.       

 Ms. Grace, Ms. Maddow, thank you for this lesson.



The Revolution Will Not Be Televised... Or Will It?



STEVE HOLT!

 I posted once before on the subject of revolution. Then, it was Egypt. Now, it is Libya. Before Egypt it was Tunisia and even now Bahrain and Syria continue to fight for the right of self-determination.

Little attention was paid to Tunisia, more to Egypt, much less to Bahrain and Syria. Now that The UK, The United States and France have begun bombing Libya in support of the rebels the story is finally starting to get the attention it deserves.

Your mom may be cool but she will never be this cool.

These brave men and women who are so valiantly struggling against the forces of oppression for their own freedom are heroes. They deserve our attention and they deserve our respect. Yes, there is a lot going on in the world right now. Japan is having technical difficulties with their oceans and we should not forget about them.

That said, I feel that the media's long standing practice of passing over the plight of the people in favor of pacifying the populace with soundbites of  plutocrats and propaganda is unforgivable.

We are all a part of the collective soul of mankind and we should never give up on these people. We should not only care about them as brothers and sisters in humanity but as leaders towards a new freedom. They are an example for the rest of the world, ourselves included. Especially ourselves included.



More of this please.

 Look at the people of Wisconsin rallying to stop Gov. Scott Walker from stripping their rights to collective bargaining. Some people called them communists and worse.  The press, the politicians, the angry mobs of Fox News-ers have all taken jabs at these brave people. But, the people of Wisconsin didn't let anyone tell them what to do except their own conscience. They marched right into the State Capitol building and planted themselves like trees beside the river of truth.  Now progress towards stopping an unjust and evil breach of citizens rights has been made and the people have seen Scott Walker for what he really is; a corporate stooge and a traitor to the people.

The people of Wisconsin have stood up to big government and corporate interests and stand a good chance of winning this fight.

Our country was founded on the principle that we are REQUIRED to stand up for what we believe in, regardless of the consequences and regardless of the odds against us. There is a better world for us if we just stand up.

You know you want to.

Don't fight it.

My St. Patrick's day was a lot like this, except more Irish-y

Back to Libya. These people had their rights taken away so long ago that most of them will be experiencing freedom for the first time in their lives.

Can we even imagine a life like that? It is hard, but it will be easier when we get there.

Think about it like this. If the police raided our homes this morning, how many of us would be in jail by this evening? I know that I would. I know that almost everyone I know and have ever met would be too.



Muammar Gadaffi. Does this count as a photobomb?

 Don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Did you ever pirate a song? Hack your neighbor's wi-fi password? Do you indulge in the joys of controlled substances?

Do you consider yourself a criminal? No? You probably are.

Because most of us mean no harm, we simply forget that we are constantly breaking the law. We forget that these "crimes" we are committing have landed other less fortunate people behind bars doing long stretches. 

We are all good people, we mean no harm to anyone. We enjoy our lives and we abhor being controlled. That makes us criminals. For that we will be punished. Someday the authorities will know all the secret things we do. It is much, much later than we think my friends. The day is coming. Yet it is within our power to halt it. We stand up now. We do like the Egyptians, the Tunisians, the Libyans. We do like our American forefathers. We stand now or we kneel later. Who then shall be saved?



Remember these wise words?




 

Cruelty, Thy Name is Woman... or is it?

Girls today are so bad even Motley Crüe wouldn't approve of them. I'm not sure what has happened but I fail to summon the same amount of enthusiam for their species as my motley forebears. I have alot of friends of the girlular variety and I swear it never ends with these.... people.

Take for example my friend; let’s call her Herpita Derpington.

 My dear Herpita is a busy woman. Day and night she works; she attends class, she even blogs a little bit. So when she finally got a day off from work she was determined to make the most of her rare leisure time. But before I tell you about that I must first tell you about le blazer.

Herpita has just bought a new blazer of some kind. But this is no ordinary blazer. To hear her tell it:

 "It has a gold zipper and this other material under the arms that is kinda silk and kinda stretchy that when you pull it up it stays up and it has these flaps on the inside that lay really pretty and you can wear it zipped up or zipped down. It also has a basket, a bell that rings and things to make it look good."

So, on her day off my Derpy amiga gathered together a party consisting of four companions. Herpy Derpy girl herself, dressed in her cute new blazer, her roommate Havana and their two male attendants; let’s call them Manny and Scarface. The quartet set off for the most herppening joint in all OKC the SkyKKKlub.

The 4 friends arrived at their destination but problems soon arose. The KKKlub wouldn’t let Manny in. Manny is too ethnic for their cracker clientele. Ms. Herpita Derpington was conflicted. Normally she would have flipped out called the ACLU and gone to a different club. Tonight was different. You see, she had a new blazer and was determined to flaunt it at the swanky, upscale halls of the KKKlub, she was also determined to take advantage of the $3 shots. She promised Manny she wouldn't be longer than a few minutes.

Scarface wasn't going to leave his boi Manny all alone so he agreed to wait outside with his friend while Herpita and Havana graced the racists with their prescence and purses. Once inside Herpita and Havana met some guys, had some drinks, shook their things, etc.

Meanwhile Manny and Scarface were "blowing up" the ladies' phones asking them how much longer they were going to be. 10 minutes passed, then 20, then 50 and the Manny/Scarface half of the group decided to call it a night. They went home feeling dejected and betrayed. What was Herpita thinking keeping the boys waiting like that? Well, by her own confession she was thinking "Manny has probably treated girls badly before. Why should I care about his feelings."

Now, obviously this was a dick move on the part of little miss Derps-a-lot. But does that change the person she is? Of course not, everyone is guilty of selfish acts every now and then. Although this was a particularly heinous one I for one still believe that my herpy derpy friend is a compassionate and caring individual. She isn't likely to repeat this mistake again and the very fact that she feels so much guilt about it indicates a penitant  heart. Does anyone else have any thoughts about this? Seriously, other bloggers, tell me, is that unforgivable? Or does Herpita need to forgive herself and move on?

Hochenauer for an hour

Kurt Hochenauer spoke to our class Tuesday. He, being the author of a blog of his own had some great insights. He also had some great optimism... for some reason. He said this was a very exciting time for journalism and to be a journalism major. This kinda confused me as everyone including ALL my proferssors have been telling me the exact opposite for the last few years. However, Hochenauer explained that he realized of course that things were changing and that journalism was going to be very different in the future.

Anyway, Hochenauer had alot more to say about subjects outside of blogging and journalism. He told us he was against bringing guns on campus and thought that Brad Henry would make a good University President. We had some good discussion about these subjects and fortunatly Hochenauer too laments the fact that academics are no longer University Presidents. He also repeatedly did an impression of an old man which got progressively funnier even though he did it exactly the same way every time.

About halfway through the class I started thinking about airports and found it difficult to pay attention to the rest of what he was saying.

My Valentine's Day Experience (In Comic Form)

Nobody is blogging about their V-Day experience?? Whether you love it, hate it, or really hate it, we all go through it together. So in the interest of empathy for all my blogging brothers and sisters I present to you my Valentine's Day. I don't think words can sufficiently explain my Valentine's Day so I opted to make a rage comic instead. Enjoy.

Huffington Post and Guest Speaker

Yvette Walker came to talk to our blogging class. I mean, it was ages ago but her words have stayed with me, especially the quote from Mark Ambinder about journalism, blogging, and ego. I hope that her optimism about blogging in conjunction with regular news isn't misplaced. Professional news people keeping blogs apart from the actual news product could be a good thing, it could also be a disaster. Surely, time will tell us if a balance can be found.

Ms. Walker also talked briefly about AOL's acquisition of The Huffington Post. This is a big story mostly due to the exorbitant sum AOL paid. It makes me wonder about what the news media is coming to. As if I wasn't already. Maybe blogging is the new wave. It is certainly a viable occupation for those who can do it well enough. The question is whether or not this is good for us.

While We Weren't Paying Attention

If my blog had a head capable of shaking itself in a disapproving fashion thats what would be happening now.

And now for something completely different. Last semester during Vlad the Professor's Media Law class I remember Ms. Rathgeber mentioning that the Chernobyl area and Pripyat were opening up for tourism soon. I happened across this today. Looks amazing. Players of COD4 will recognize a suprising number of these locations. Just thought i would share this.

A Different Story

I wanted to blog about the uprisings in Egypt. You know the uprisings, right? That's what I wanted to write about; the internet blackout, the looting, the burning, the riots, the destruction of priceless antiquities, the military response. It is all very interesting, especially the parts about anon sending aid to Egypt by providing dial-up internet and faxing wikileak-ed documents detailing their president's corrupt and inhumane regime.  

We aren't getting enough of this on the US news channels. Al Jazeera on the other hand has been publishing wikileak-ed documents about Egypt and Israel that were completely ignored by the US news agencies. By the way Al Jazeera's webtraffic has increased by 2500% in the last 24 hours; 60% of that is from the US (source). Meanwhile in The United States Snooki's book is a NYT bestseller  and news agencies continue to lay employees off by the scores.

That is what I wanted to blog about but then It dawned on me that this topic completely clashes with my theme. So instead of a thoughtful examination of a revolution in progress I have instead opted to leave you with this. Good for a couple of yuks.

More NYT links

Mr. Cavanagh didn't do anything wrong by posting these photos. He has the right to do so and frankly when kids are acting like insolent little shits a person has a responsibility to call them out on it. This guy should totally get more respect than he does. This is obviously a risk that you take when blogging, especially in a small community or a small class of people that you have to see twice a week.

Also more bad news for the newspaper industry. This time the LA Times is losing respect and readership. I see reports like this all the time and I'm starting to think that there simply is no solution to this. Maybe newspapers are like VHS and the internet is like DVDs. We should all stop crying about the poor long suffering newspapers and just move on. They should too.

Dr. Clark's links

A celebrity gossip blog without snark? Whats the point of that?  It's the American tradition to cut people down to size because they've brought so much joy into our lives. Yet this Jared Eng character works long hours reporting on the most piddling activities of the most piddling celebrities. I usually try to ignore stories like this but being forced to read this and confront the reality of human shallowness is just wrecking my brain. I completely understand why Dr. Clark would want us to see this. I get it. But this is not for me. Moving on.

I have never really been into social networks. I don't use any of them. The available information about me is (I hope) very limited. The only times my true name appears online is when schlubs donate to charities in my name as a Christmas gift, when I get mentioned in a newspaper or when distant relatives fill out family trees on geneology.com or other such sites. So the idea of specialized social networks still doesn't quite appeal to me but it is getting closer.

So Dubus is a great writer. These two pages are so well written that after having just finished reading them I can't determine whether the all the little feelings that the story stirred inside me are from my own memories of childhood or just the work of a writer who knows exactly what he is doing.

What I learned about blogging thus far

As most of you know I missed the first two classes. Now I'm here but by the grace of Roz and after only one class I can say I'm very glad to have made it. As far as blogging is concerned I think this is going to be slightly more difficult than I had thought. This isn't because blogging is difficult. It is because we are our own harshest critics. Finding a thought that I think is worthy of being shared in a post will take time. Translating the thought into decent, articulate english will take more time. For me blogging won't come as naturally as it does to some people, I'm afraid. I've never had a facebook page before and sharing the daily minutia of life isn't really my thing if I am going to blog I want to actually say something. This may end up being a great strength or a great weakness. We shall see.

What's all this then?

Ladies and gentlemen (since I have to call you something) this blog is all about me and the boring and confusing things that happen to me. I hope it will be funny, I hope that it will be educational and  I am really hoping that it will be coherent enough to be enjoyed at least by my classmates.