HW 42

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&b=play&id=8538&cast=51218&autoplay=true

# 45

HW 37 response to Baghdad Burning

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=51117&castPage=&autoplay=true

My first podcast- HW 36

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&b=play&id=8538&cast=49979&autoplay=true

HW 34 Respond to Riverbend

Although tea is very common in many of Americans life’s today, it is much more common in an Iraqi’s life. Americans mostly drink tea with their breakfast or to try and heal a sick throat. Whereas an Iraqi has tea with breakfast, lunch, and dinner (Riverbend, 100). Also tea is made completely different, in Iraq there is no such things as tea bags and they find them as a disgrace. They use tea leaves along with boiled water. But like Americans they discuss their day and what is going on the world over a glass of tea. The palm trees, besides being lovely, are highly useful to Iraqi’s (Riverbend pg. 103). To many families they see their palm trees as part of their families and when they die or troops cut them down it is tragic. Families use their trees to produce fruits and mostly every part of the tree can but sold for some amount of money. For example, the ponds and leaves are dried up and used to make furniture or other supplies, the date pits are used to feed the animals or to make beads ( Riverbend pg.104). So as you can see the Iraqi’s cherish their tea and palm trees in different ways than Americans do.

HW 35 Letter to your blog Readers

Over the 13 weeks of class I have learned many things from maintaining my blog and completing all the homework assignments. For example, I learned how to become a better writer and how to respond and reflect on certain readings. It also allowed me to see how the internet could be used for people all over the world to see peoples responds to all different types of work. After people read my blog I hope they are able to learn how I feel about the respond that I give and why that I may feel that way. Once this class is over I believe that I will still blog just not as often. I also believe that I will blog on a things that may affect my everyday life and that I have interests in such as sports or different articles. Also I think that everyone at one point in there live should blog. It not only allows someone to see your opinion but it also teaches you a lot not only about what’s going on in the United States but also the surrounding countries.

HW 33 Respond to a Podcast

“Iraqi Teens Work to Help Their Families” 10/15/07
http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/10/15/iraqi-teens-work-to-help-their-families
The general topic that this pod cast is about is children that are working at young ages to try and help support themselves and their families. There are three different kids in this pod cast , two of them work with their fathers and cousins and the other one goes to college and was born with a birth defect. Mustafa Malek Fathullah Ali he is fourteen years old and is in sixth grade. He works with is father in carpentry making tables and bedrooms. But he now works at his uncles’ house because of the dangers there are with traveling. The scenery in the background does not look very good to be living in. To me it looks like they are in their backyards, which has a cement walk as a fence and there is no grass its all just dirt. A viewer may learn the terrible conditions that not only these children have to live in but also their families and how unsafe they really are. Although I have not seen many videos on Iraq, this one looks similar to the few that I have seen. What I find most memorable about this pod cast is the child who is suffering because he was born with a birth defect which was caused by the war. The child had not done anything and does not deserve to have to suffer the rest of his life in pain.

HW 32 Responding to Riverbend

After reading from September 19 to October 5, 2003 in “Baghdad Burning” I found shopping for school supplies quite interesting. Riverbend talks about how shopping for school supplies at a young is a one of the many highlights of going to school. But this year her cousins two kids can’t go along with their parents to pick out their own supplies because of the dangers the war has brought. It is not even safe to bring children out on the streets because you never know if someone will try and abduct them or they may even be shot at. Because of this, Riverbend her cousin his husband and E had to go pick out the supplies while the children stayed home with Riverbends mother and father. When they had returned home from shopping the ten year old had loved the Barbie notebooks that Riverbend had picked out for but the seven year old was not a big fan of Winnie the pooh and had claimed she had out grown it. Also school had started late because of the war and so the children were happy to finally be able to get out of the house and see all of their friends. Usually each year children wake up early and walk themselves to school but because of the danger children must be escorted by several adults along with the school. The parents had meetings about how they would guard the school so that they knew the children and teachers would be safe. They also had a meeting about who was going to bring what because the school was in such need of supplies. For example, each week a new kid had to bring in two new pieces of chalk so the teachers would have something to write with on the chalk board.

HW 30 You're the Citizen Journalist

Tuesday Bob Steele “ The Media Mosh Pit: Journalists, Bloggers, and Citizens in the Dialogue vs. Diatribe Dance”
This citizenship symposium was about election and the election in Keene State. Bob Steele had talked about the different voting methods which were Plurality, Borda Count, P-W-E, and Pairwise comparisons. He had also talked about the fairness conditions, majority, Condorcet, and II A. Some of the important points he had stated about these voting and fairness methods where that different methods produce different results and methods exhibits’ characteristics associated with fairness and unfairness.
The room was very warm, there weren’t to many people they were scattered everywhere, a lot of people had gotten up in the middle and left and he had used many examples in his slideshow to explain his reasoning’s.
Thursday “Animation as Political and Social Constructions” Jiwon Ahn, Sander Lee, Mark Timney
This citizenship symposium was about politics and citizens. One speaker used a cartoon with Donald duck dressed up being controlled by the Nazis and Germans. He stated that he thought it was odd that they used Donald duck who is known as an angry character, and made him calm and obedient in the cartoon. He says Hale Hitler 33 and a half times in a eight minute cartoon. Another speaker had explained how south park shows how a model citizen should be. In there episodes they have vulgarity, attack religions, and use sexual content. Also 55 percent of the episodes have moral lessons and many of the lessons are from a huge variety. From a lesson about race to a lesson about helping others.
Today there was a lot more people than Tuesday, and there was a table this time with a white table clothe over it. Also there was three speakers today not just one. I had class so I was late and only got to see two of them

HW 31 Responding to Riverbend

After reading from August 31 to September 16, 2003 in “Baghdad Burning” bye Riverbend many new people and places were mention. But there was one that I thought I would like to learn more about, Al-Hakim. I wanted to learn more about him because they talked about how he had been assassinated and how he was important, but had not given much detail as to how or who assassinated him. He was killed at the age of sixty three in Najaf , where he spend most of his time trying to rebuild the regime of Saddam Hussein. It was after his sermon which was about the need for Iraqi unity and as he was leaving the gold-domed shrine of Iman Ali, he along with about seventy five other people were hit by a massive car-bomb explosion. Many believe that Al-Hakim should have known he was at risk because he represented radicalized urban Shiites who had dwelled in Sadr City (Saddam City) in Baghdad.


Lawrence Joffe, Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Hakim
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1032018,00.html

HW 28 "An open letter to Riverbend"

After reading the first 50 pages of “Baghdad Burning” by Riverbend it gave me a better understanding of what is going on in Iraq today. I’m not going to lie I’m one of those Americans who is safe behind there computers and was completely oblivious to what these people where going through. I watch the news and only see what they chose to show, but I realized that they don’t show what truly is going on there. They don’t let us know that American soldiers are raiding houses, that many Iraqi’s are living most of their life without electricity and many of them are losing their jobs. For example, they are in the process of “rebuilding” Iraq and there are many Iraqi’s that are capable of rebuilding the damaged buildings and bridges. But instead they Americans completing these jobs for and on top of that they are overpricing everything. I also found ridiculous how E had to go out with a pistol at night when someone was calling his name because he didn’t know what could happen to him. They is wrong when someone has to take a pistol with them just to see who’s in there backyard, no one should have to live in these conditions. After reading the beginning of these book it gave me a better understanding of what is happening and how these Iraqis are suffering. I give them a lot of credit for what they have to put up with and I wish them all the best of luck with each new day.

HW 27 Baghdad Burning

After prereading and skimming the book “Baghdad Burning” by Riverbend it allowed me to get an idea of what the book may be about and what I may learn from the book. I think that I will learn a lot about the war going on in Iraq. But not just the about the stuff we hear in the everyday news, like the number of causalities or what part of Iraq is being rated next but what its like to be living in these conditions. For example, when skimming the book I found information on how females are not allowed to leave there house alone, they must have two larger males escort them to where ever they may go (Riverbend, pg 16). In the news we don’t hear about the terrible living conditions not only the females have to live in but everyone in Iraq. I also think this book fits into our course because it is about a young women who is blogging. She is using blogging to be able to communicate and show others the difficulties she has to live with that no one from America or any other country can witness.

HW 25 Baghdad Burning

After reading the foreword and introduction to “Baghdad Burning” by Riverbend it allowed me to get a better understanding of what Iraq and the its people are going through with the war. The foreword talks a lot about what is going to happen in the book and what its main points are going to be. It describes Riverbend and her family and how she posts blog not about the causalities or the American soldiers but what its like to be a normal Iraqi living through these terrible times. While the introduction talks about all the events leading up to the war in Iraq today. For example, the introduction talks about how all the following wars such as the Gulf war have effected the war that is going on today. Many say that Iraq had never fully recovered from the Gulf War and that is one of the main problems why Iraq is without electricity, food, and jobs today. Without electricity doctors are not able to perform the proper surgeries and don’t have enough medicines to cure everyone. Without enough food many children are dying because they are not malnourished and without jobs people are not getting enough money to support themselves and their families.

HW24 A Room's of Ones Own

After reading the final chapters in “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf I have considered what Woolf says about where we have come in history and I believe she thinks that things are changing and women are beginning to have the same rights as men. For example, she states “Also, I continued, looking down at the page again, it is becoming evident that women, like men, have other interests besides the perennial interest of domesticity.” (Woolf Virginia, pg 83). This shows that women are now able to publish books but have different ideas than men do. Also she always says "Intellectual freedom depends upon material things. Poetry depends upon intellectual freedom. And women have always been poor, not for two hundred years merely, but from the beginning of time. . . . Women, then, have not had a dog's chance of writing poetry. That is why I have laid so much stress on money and a room of one's own." (Woolf, Virginia pg 108 ) This is why she believes that women were so unfortunate because they didn’t have the money that men did so it left them with less opportunities.

HW 23 Responding to Virginia Woolf

“With Apologies to Virginia Woolf”
After reading “A Room of One’s Own” by Virginia Woolf I have gotten the impression that Woolf is a very outspoken and opinionated writer. For example, after she was rejected from the library because she wasn’t a male or wasn’t escorted by a professor she became very angry and said she would never step foot in the library again. And after I looked at this weeks blog on jezebel I found one that I thought Woolf would appreciate. The name of the blog was “A Lifesaver Called Plumpynut" and had talked about how the malnutrition of poor children and women have been killing million of people each year. I think after Woolf read this post she would think that it was unfair that only the children and women where suffering and the husbands and fathers were doing nothing about to help them. I would also think that she would she would criticize the fact that a male has found this new product that is saving millions of lives. She would joke, saying oh of course a male found it, women aren’t smart enough and don’t have enough talent to every make something of this power.

HW 22 Responding to Virgina Woolf

After reading chapter two of A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf I see why she thinks that England is patriarchy. I think that Woolf said the paper proved that England is a patriarchy because it talks about how men always have the power. For example, she talks about how Professor von X has the power to control everything. “ Nobody in their senses could fail to detect the dominance of the professor” (pg 33) this quote proofs that many people had believed that the professor was very powerful and they would listen to anything he said. After looking at the New York Times I don’t believe that the United States is patriarchy. When looking at all the articles on the front page there was a huge diversity, from articles about true love to what’s going on in Pakistan. This shows that both women and men have the same say in the United States and there is a freedom of speech.

HW 21 Responding to Virginia Woolf

Hi John,
After reading A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf I understand that it is a little difficult to follow but I will try to give you my interruption of what happens in chapter one. Virginia has been asked to talk about the topic Women and fiction. She goes on to state “a women must have money and a room of her own if she wants to write fiction”. I believe when she says this she means that a women needs her independence and needs to escape from everyone to be able to explore. Also in the first chapter Woolf is not able to go into the library without a male or a letter giving her permission. After being rejected she becomes angry and says she will never go back to the library. She later goes on to go to lunch where she feels it is different and not as same as the lunches before the war. This gets her thinking about how women aren’t very wealthy and don’t have many possessions. For example, when they get money they give it to there husbands which leaves them with nothing. I think English teachers might consider this important work because the way Woolf goes into detail is very important. She describes everything so elaborately it gives the reader the feeling that they are there in the story with her. And because of this it is difficult at times to understand what exactly she is trying to get at.

HW 19 Applying Graff chapter 10 to Drenzer and Farrells "Web of Influence"

After reading “Web of Influence” the Foreign Policy article by Daniel Drezner and Henry Farrell (Kline and Burstein 83-97) I found the paragraph that had talked about how blogs affect politics in regimes where there is no thriving independent media sector to be very interesting and important. For example, it had talked about how in many countries there were few ways to express your feelings on politics but blogs had become a popular way to do so because they were harder to control than television and newspaper. Although blogs aren’t as easy to control the governments are still finding ways to block blogs by restricting internet or by using the punishment of others as examples. In other words in the next couple of years blogs in other countries are going to be just as easy to control as television and newspapers. I believe that this is importance because politics play a huge role in how your country is ran and I think that everyone should have a say in what they believe in. In conclusion I think that its is important that people are using blogs as a way to express there feelings and I don’t think that should be taken away from them.

HW18 Your least Favorite Blog of the Week

After looking online at www.globalvoicesonline.com I found many of the blogs to be very significant and helpful to the average person. But one blog caught my eye, Sumo Wrestling Takes a Beating by Jens Wilkinson. This post talked about sumo wrestling and how ““Japan’s traditional sport” was being harmed by the influx of “foreign wrestlers” and “Japan’s traditional sport.” It had also talked about a former sumo wrestler,
Asashoryu who had faked having a mental disorder do to criticism but had preceded to go back to his home town and play soccer. I found this blog to have little significance. This Blog I believe had little effect on people and did not help anyone. I also believe that blog was poorly written. It was very short and did not have much detail to it. That is why I believe that the blog Sumo Wrestling Takes a Beating by Jen Wilkinson was my least favorite blog of the week.

HW 17B Applying Graff to chapter 9 to Cox or Zuniga

After reading “Blogging the Presidency” and “ Sex, Lies, and Political Scrapes” (Kline and Burstein) and looking at both Wonkette and Daily Kos I think that “Blogging the Presidency” along with Daily Kos would influence they way I vote in the upcoming election. This is because Markos Moulitsas Zuniga blogging seems to more serious and contains more usual information than Ana Marie Cox’s blogs. I don’t believe that Cox’s blogs are useless but to me they seem like they are directed at a more personal level rather than political. For example,she had linked to Jessica Culters link that had descriptions of sexual scenes in her office where as Zuniga is blogging about how the democrats are more greedy than the republicans. When I got to vote I’m not going to go look into the persons personal live I’m going to look at what they have done to effect the communities around us and what they are doing to help the world. That is why “Blogging the Presidency” by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga would influence my decision when voting in the next election.

HW 17 Your favorite blog post of the week!

After looking at the three “Blogs I’m Watching” I found that http://www.globalvoicesonline.org had had the most interesting posts. This post was named Hondura’s: Hurricanes Felix Creates a Blogstorm (http://wwwglobalvoicesonline.org/2007/09/04/Honduras-hurricane-felix-creates-a-blogstorm). Honduras: Hurricane Felix Creates a Blogstorm was a blog that had talked about the recent hurricane that is approaching the Nicaragua shore and dangers it may bring to the community. For example, because Felix is moving inland across the mountains of Honduras the Honduran government evacuated tourists and over 2000 people from both Honduran island of Roatan and the other low-lying coastal areas (Honduras: Hurricane Felix Creates a Blogstorm). Also on this post Aaron Ortiz talks about some of the most major hurricanes that have effected the islands in the past. For example, he talked about hurricane Mitch that hit down in 1998. Mitch was a category five storm, lasted for three days, and had killed only ten people. I thought this post was interesting because it would have never occurred to me that there where post about weather and other natural disasters. It also had a lot of helpful information about when the hurricane was suppose to touch down and the strength of the storm. I also found this post was helpful because it was like a support system for the people who where dealing with this terrifying issues.

HW 16 Response to Batelle

After reading “Blogs: Humanizing the Face of Corporate American- An Interview with Robert Scoble” (Klein & Burstein 124-134) it allowed me to have a better understanding of what the five things that had made blogging hot (a.k.a five pillars) mean. One- “Ease of publishing” this means that the publishing of a blog is a lot easier and more open for editing than books. Two- “discoverability” means that its a lot easier for other people to discover your blog or product a lot faster because it is posted on the internet for free and is easier to locate. Three- “cross-site conversations” is when you are able to see who has been tracking your link and what they have to say about it. Four- “perm linking” is when you are able to isolate a link that can take you right to a specific post. Five- “syndication” is something that allows you to watch several sites at once which makes it easier for you when you have more than a hand full of links to keep track of. I got the following information from the interview with Robert Scoble.

HW 14 Ito/Denton Transitionarama

After reading “Japanese Blogger Champions Internet Democracy” Joi Ito interview (Kline and Burstein 143-150) I had found very interesting and had agreed with many of the statements that Ito had made. For example, I think his idea of hiring unknown writers for his blog sites is very interesting. For instance there are not to many other people who would look for people that are not professional writers to represent there blog. Also I think that it is interesting that many of the people who are blogging or have blogs are not getting paid. After all almost everything in the world these days you have to pay for and I think that it is nice to be able to express your own feelings along with seeing how other people feel for free. In addition to being able to express your feelings for free you, you are able to find blogs about anything. For instance, Ito had made a comment about God and how he didn’t understand the whole concept and he later go on to receive a response from a reverend who had answered Ito’s questions about God. As a result this shows that you can pretty much blog about anything and expect to get an answer. In conclusion, I thought that Ito’s interview was very interesting and I had agreed with several of his points.

hw 13 "BLogs will change your business"

After reading “Blogs Will Change Your Business” by Stephen Baker and Heather Green (Kline and Burstein 221-233) I believe that the impact of blogging on a business is more important than the impact of blogging on communication that is not business- or profit-related. A business can learn so much from a blog. For example, it is able to see what others think about how the product works and what they can do to improve the product. By being able to see what the customers would like to see it would help improve the sales of the company which in the long run would help the future of the company. Aslo by having blogs for your business you can see what the employs may have to say about their jobs and what they think should change. For example, Mark Jens had blogged about his googleplex and how google’s health plan was less generous than his former employee-Yahoo (“Blogs Will Change Your Business” pg 225). Jen had later go on to be fired because he did not use his “common sense”. But I believe that if google had had a place for Jen to blog they wouldn’t have had to fire him and would be able to see what other problems their employees had with their jobs. So in the long run I believe that the impact of blogging on a business is more important because it may help with the customers and the employees of your business.

HW 11 Applying Graff Ch 6 to "Making Global Voices Heard"

The blog I choose was Global Voices, the world is talking are you listening? On this blog anyone is able to blog. The most commonly blogged topics have to do with the large numbers of the world’s citizen. Global Voices is trying to redress some of the inequities in media attention by changing the power of citizens’ media. By using a wide variety of technologies such as weblogs, podcasts, photos, video, wikis, tags, aggregators and online chats. After reading “Making Global Voices Heard” and MacKinnon’s statements about global voices I believe that her statements still correspond to what is being said on the blogs today. I believe that it corresponds to my understanding of what I read because MacKinnons stated that the main reason for this blog was to allow people to be able to post the most important and most interesting information about all the different places in the world (Blog! Pg 332 Kline & Burstein). And after visiting the website and reading several of the blogs I thought that many had covered a variety of different topics about many different places. For example, one blog had talked about China and traffic cops getting machine guns and had different opinions about if this was right or wrong. Of course, many will probably disagree with the assertion that MacKinnon’s and the global voices don’t truly correspond because the different topics they both talk about I believe that they both have the same general idea.

After reading “A Weblog Saved My Life Last Night” by Ayelet Waldman (Kline and Bustein 343-348) I realized that I had agreed with most of what she was saying. But while Ayelet Waldman is probably wrong when she had posted her suicidal note on the internet I understand that she was doing it to reach out for help. Suicide is a serious issue and no one should have to deal with it. But the way that Waldmam had reached out for help I think was the wrong way to deal with the problem. She should have seeked help from someone local instead of broadcasting her willing to kill herself on the internet. Although I disagreed with the way Waldman reached out for help with her suicide note I fully agree with the way she used the infertility weblogs. I believe that pregnancy is a hard time to go through especially by yourself. I understand that you have your husband and family there to support but there’s no one better to talk to about it then someone that is going through the same thing. Even though she is a mother of four children and is still visiting the website I believe is great! She is able to help others with there problems and give to support to those who are having difficulties and second thoughts.

HW 7 "My So-Called Blog"

After reading “My So-Called Blog”(Kline 349-361) I think that it is important for middle-school children to be able to write online without having their parents monitoring their every next move. By allowing their children to express their feelings online it is helping the child to become more independent and to be able to express their inner feelings that they may not feel comfortable sharing with their parents or friends. For example, “J. had had his Blurty journal for about a year. He called it “better than therapy,” a way to get out his true feelings-all emotions he thought might get him in trouble if he expressed them in school or at home (Kline and Burstein 352). Also “Next he reads his friends’ journals, contributing his distinctive brand of wry,supportive commentary to their observations (Kline and Burstein 350) by expressing their feelings online they make receive help and support from others who are either going through the same thing or have gone through the same thing. I understand that sometimes parents are worried about what is being said online and what their children are able to get access to but children are human and will learn from there miskates. But we must always remember kids will be kids.

HW 5b Applying Graff Ch2 to "I Blog, Therefore I am"

After reading David Kline’s “I Blog, Therefore I am” David admits that he believes that blogging may have a large impact on the death of the Big Media. Newspapers circulation has dropped over the past couple of years to 11 percent since the 1990’s and is continuing to drop at a steady rate of 1-3 percent annually (pgs 239, Blog!) which causes me to acknowledge David’s belief. But I have to argue his beliefs in some ways. Knowing that the percentage of people to read the newspaper has dropped the percentage of people to use the internet has increased. Seventy-five percent of Americans use the internet regularly and with the new technology advancements we have today we are able to post the daily news and other media aspects onto the internet. So the reason why the number of people that read the newspaper has dropped so significantly is because of the new ways to communicate using technology. I understand why David Kline believes that blogging may impact the death of the Big Media but I believe it will have a very small impact compared to some of the other factors.

HW 6 Internet Statement for Semester Long Project

Out of all of the social computing technologies that are listed I have basically picked three that have to do with communicating over the internet. This interested me because I believe that the internet has a huge impact not only on my everyday life but the whole world’s everyday life. And it would interest me to see how often and what the average American uses the computer for. Out of the three kinds of empowerment of marginalized groups I picked overcoming sexism and racism along with issues of disabilities or learning differences. These three interest me the most because they are also very common in the average Americans life. People are forced to deal with others being sexiest along with racist causing them to lose certain opportunities that may impact there live. I also choose issues of disabilities or learning differences because they too affect many peoples daily lifestyle and I think it would be interesting to see how it may affect them. Lastly I picked the Middle East and the United States as my geographical areas because I feel that the internet is used most in the United States and is beginning to just come out in the Middle East and I would like to see how the internet has affected the United States and also the absence of the internet has affected the Middle East.

HW 4 Option 2

After reading “The Voice of the Customer” I realized that many brands are trying to attract there customers by making promises about there products. One brand that really caught my eye was Dell computer. After checking out dells website and there promises they make to there customers I began to think what they really meant by all of this. As soon as the website opens the first thing you see is “Dell solutions for the home, yours is right here”, once I read this I got the impression that dell was trying to state that if your having any problems at home dell will solve everything. After using a dell computer I believe that dell is keeping but also breaking there promise. This is because the statement that dell makes is very broad. For example, a dell computer cannot solve the problem of who’s going to cook dinner but may help supply the recipe for dinner. But in my experience with dell when it comes to computer related issues dell has kept there promise by solving my solutions. So in conclusion I believe dell is keeping there promise when it comes to solving computer related issues.

HW 2

After reading David Kline’s essay “Toward a More Participatory Democracy” it has allowed me to see how blogging has affected politics over the years. Many people may assume that the only way politicians campaign is by televising and broadcasting, but blogging is becoming one of the most efficient ways to campaign. In the 2004 election blogging had had a large impact on the election and political blogs are continuing to attract the attention of many readers today. Bush had used blogging to ask for ideas in how to raise money for his campaign and what the readers would like to see done. Blogs are also becoming a more reliable source than our major newpapers and news stations. For example, 45 percent of Americans said they believe little or nothing of what they read in their daily newspaper (Blogs, Kline, Burstein pg 7). Also blogging is also a way for people to express there feelings about religion. Many Americans today believe religion plays a large role in there everyday lives but feel that is it missing in our newspapers and other types of media. I had no clue that blogs would have any effect on the election the way they did in 2004 seeing how I have never heard of blogging until this year. I wonder how it may affect the upcoming election and if it will have the same affect if not greater. In conclusion, then, as I suggested earlier, blogging has become a large aspect of politics and I’m sure will continues to affect the future elections.

HW 1

After reading number six of Burstein's twelve key ideas in "From Cave Painting to Wonkette" (Kline and Burstein xxi-xxvi) I realized that blogging is going global. Not only in the past few years has blogging began to become more popular in the Unites States but also in the surrounding countries. By allowing us to be able to comminucate with the surroundings countries it has caused many to realize the different cultures and different views of politics. Blogging is allowing us to share our ideas with others to help improve and to fix occuring problems. For example, a month after a chinese friend posted a blog that predicted blogs would have more impact on revolutionizing China and bringing it fully into the modern world than any other influence, it had come true (Kline and Bursteins introduction xxiii). This shows that there is a positive outcome when others are able to share there ideas. I've never heard of blogging until I began to read this book and I did not think that it would have such an impact on our eveyday lives. It has made me realize that there are many ways for me to recieve help from others along with giving help, one way being blogging.