Alternative Protesting Methods

Well, some are cool, like art... Posters sure do get allot of attention... the spoof ad campaigns, those were neat, but launching a virus? That makes perfect sense. That can't be legal, that actually seems like an act of terrorism to me. To sabotage a military network just seems like a great way to stir up a hornets nest. Instead of promoting your anti-war ideals, you become a target. Also, when it comes time to say that you did it, you'd end up in Guantanamo Bay wouldn't you? You'd be an enemy combatant, no longer protected by the United States Constitution... Doesn't seem like too bright of an idea to me.

Starting To Think Enough is Enough *RANT WARNING*

Well, I got sick around Easter. Missed a week of school, and thought I got better... The following month was riddled with sore throats and I just thought they were nothing. I was wrong. Saturday, fearing it would get worse again and that I would miss finals week, I went to Doctors on Duty. The news (drum roll please) not so hot! "Um you have mono, well we aren't positive, but you've nailed all the symptoms." She gives me a blood test, the MA screws up the first needle stick and ends up having to stick me twice, but who cares... I've been stuck several times now, and have seen people get stuck more times, 2 aint too bad.
So I ask the Dr. before I leave, can I go to class, and she hands me a sick note. "Nope, not for at least a week she says." I told her finals were coming up, well, paper season really, but that I needed to be in class. "Just get incompletes, they don't affect your transcript once you do whatever it is your missing, my husband went to CSUMB, so I know how it works..." Before I stepped out, I told her that for the last few days i had had the worst stomachs ever, like a burning, gnawing, pain that moves across the top two quadrants and up the esophagus. She didn't seem to pay much attention to it, and said "go get some rest, here are some steroids to make your glands stop swelling and give you some energy."
Well as much as the steroids helped my glands, the following night I couldn't sleep
every time I got comfortable my stomach would hurt. So I had made a doctors appointment on campus on Friday too, but they told me to come in on Monday. I did. About 10 minutes after I get there, they open the doors and I see the Dr. this lady seemed really detached, i mean she was almost not there. I told her what the last Dr. said and told her why I was there and she says "We're gonna take more blood" You have an ulcer, if it's not an ulcer its something worse. (WAY TO GO DOC! THATS EXACTLY WHAT I WANT TO HEAR) Well, she was a no BS lady which was kinda cool, i just wasn't expecting it. She asks "Are you under any stress right now?" The inner me is screaming at her "NO, ITS FINALS SEASON AND I CAN'T GO TO CLASS, WTF DO YOU THINK?" I proceeded to tell her that yes, I was stressed out. Yes this was not a good time for me, and yes, I want to throw my hands up and just go home and give up for now. (I can't drive too far right now though, because I'll fall asleep....) So I'm stuck here, and just about done with my classes for the semester.
Then she says... You know mono can lead to Hepatitis right... (THATS A NEW ONE TO ME LADIES AND GENTS). Anyways, I get stuck again, they take my blood and she gives me a prescription to this miracle pill called protonix, I slept, so she hit that nail on the head. Now we wait until Friday to get the lab results back from both Dr.'s on Duty.
Are you ready for the icing on the cake? Yesterday I started a paper at 9:00 am ish, takes me all day to write a page, because I fell asleep a few times and the freaking AIM thing, people bugging me and stuff. About 1:00am i am on the 4th page and ready to go to bed. I saved it, and turned off the computer, but before it turned off it asked if I wanted to save, so I said sure, not realizing it was saving the old version of the paper. So i freak out, yell some obscenities and the computer genius I am remembered that Win XP has a feature which can restore it back in time, so I try that, I go back in time to 20 minutes before I turned the computer off... (I missed reading the prompt that talked about how everything that was saved, would not be altered). So it restarts back to like 12:40 or whatever and it didn't work. It saved over the last save and I had to stay up in order to get back to where i had left off...Man, that really sucked. But I finished it finally... Again, let me just reiterate how bad it sucked... IT REALLY SUCKED. There's nothing like kicking someone when they're already down is there?

More Intolerance in the Land of Intolerance & a Dash of Sarcasm

Tariq Ramadan: International man of Islamic Mystery? Who is he? Apparently his grandfather started the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, so his family holds some clout in the Islamic community. But who is he? According to Daniel Pipes of FrontPageMag.com, Ramadan may have some sinister plot to crush America and the heart of every infidel on earth... but wait, look at all the links banners around this website we see "Jihad Watch," "Bomb Iran," "Red County, Freeing Hollywood from the liberal left, one film at a time," "The First Nuclear Terrorist Power," "Conservative T-Shirts" and so on... So I get the feeling that this e-zine is just trying to start fires and the stuff it writes of is as "unfair and biased" I mean Fair and Balanced as Fox News. Now, Pipes article says that Ramadan has all sorts of connections to Al-Qaeda, so he must be a real terrible person right. Even if he was preaching non-violence to Al-Qaeda... but who knows what he was doing there... Maybe he was the mastermind behind 9-11 right? Apparently since he said that he didnt think Bin Laden did it, this writer thinks maybe he did it?
We listen to Tariq and it seems that hes a down to earth guy, but some of those crazy callers thinks that this man is going to bring a Jihad with him everywhere he goes. Then he continues on and tries to explain himself and some one else calls and talks about Muslims in NY... So the interview was interesting in the end... Nothing too extraordinary,take-away message here... "The Kora's messages have been twisted by zealots, Muslims aren't supposed to kill people, Muslims have a beautiful religion that advocates tolerance... and some other things." Now, Ramadan also talks about the US as a secular nation, I don't think he's looked at our President lately who likes to throw G-d into the equation quite often, or maybe we've all neglected the Pledge of Allegiance, which throws out there "One Nation Under G-d"... anyways... blah blah blah, who is he?
Malcom X's "The Ballot or the Bullet?" Pretty strong speech no, "The white man made a chump out of you." Strong words, in 1964 it will be the ballot or the bullet. A call to arms maybe? Pretty interesting.
Battle Pope:
Now isn't there supposed to be some diplomacy coming out of the mouth of the man who basically control Catholicism, to quote "Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached". Does not seem super diplomatic at all. I remember this speech incited allot of protest and a bunch of pissed of Muslims world wide... was there any backlash? I don't remember?
Islam v. The Pope
Apparently there was plenty of backlash, what 50+ Islamic nations asking for an apology... that seems like quite a bit of backlash actually. Who would have thought that the Prophet Muhammad was the "Muhammad is revered in Islam as the final prophet of God and the model of Muslim life?"
In the end, very interesting readings and recordings from this seminar.

Friday Morning Blues

Apparently drinking hard one night and having class the following morning at 8:00am is great idea. I feel like dying right now.

Adnormal Post

In my essay I commented on people's random posts about how their day was and so on, so now it's my turn. Yesterday, well, last night really, I purchased Guitar Hero II for the 360. Having never played the game before, yet having watched others play the game on the PS2, i thought to myself "look at these idiots." Now, I can hardly use the fingers on my left hand. I should have probably posted this post twice so you could all see how much trouble I am having typing.

The game is fantasmagorical. By far the most fun game I have purchased since Burnout 3, yet, its even more fun than that. I mean seriously, I get to play Freebird by Lynard Skinard, yet I don't know how to play the guitar at all. Also, there are plenty of songs that I haven't heard of before, but now I want to hear more songs from those artists.

Get this game if you have a PS2 or a 360... It is awesome. Thats the bottom line. My brothers and all the other people who made this game unobtainable for me... I HATE YOU ALL. But, now I know why the game was sold out the day after it was first released, as well as why I had to wait a month to buy it. (even the company that produces the game was sold out, unless a a customer wanted to pay 150 for 2 controllers and a game... which is not a bad deal, since I am considering buying another controller.)

I am awe stricken.

So Now We're Looking at the MEDIA?!?!?!

I don't mean to burst anyone's bubble, but I think we're already on the same page. NO ONE TRUSTS THE MEDIA. The kings of spin, the sultans of misinformation, versus the apathetic entertainment hungry public, who wins? Let's think real hard on this one, the closest thing to news we get on our local news stations is weather, and the forecasts are wrong half the time, then again, how do you swing the weather, from "it's gonna be damn cold", to "it's going to be a tid-bit nippy?" I just don't see how we as Americans have let the media get so lazy... in the past there was fact checking and investigative reporting... now our correspondents to the white house are spoon fed information and are too lazy to actually ask real questions. Prof. brought up a really good point, journalism is the only constitutionally protected profession, however, the crap that they shove in our faces is pure CRAP.

Must be Karma

So the last post was about how being sick and over medicating is bad... so now I cant sleep even when taking nyquil, oh, yea I'm sick now too. I don't have dayquil, but nyquil does the trick during the day, only because I'm sleeping either way.

I hate being sick, why couldn't this wait till IDK some other time?

So Overmedicating can lead to super resistant strains?

Over the entire course of my life I've heard the statement "If you don't need the drugs don't take them." Or Bleach and Alcohol only kill 99.9% of bacteria... Well what happens to that .01% of germs and bacteria that don't die? I'll tell ya, they become antibiotic resistant and/or resistant to germicides (bleach and alcohol). Anyways, this has been the case with penicillin and has lead to the creation of other antibiotics... Now, we are finding new strains of the flu, which are resistant to the next gen. antibiotics. So Dr. instead of selling the drugs that you make more money off of, or the pills that they show on tv, why not prescribe something that works? Or next time little Timmy gets a cold, tell him to drink allot of fluids and have some Jewish Penicillin (Chicken Noodle Soup)???
Anyways Tamiflu and Relenza, the two most popular flu medicines are starting to find their own resistances because so many people have been using them for so long. Apparently all this research being done by the Japanese simply proves empirically what we've been telling each other for years.

15 sailors in Iran

What the hell are they thinking? The whole world is looking at them, and they hold 15 sailors captive? That makes plenty of sense... Are t hey trying to start WWIII??? I mean seriously, that has to be the worst idea Irann has had since teh nuclear powerplant incident earlier this year, I just cant grasp it. WTH???

The FBI obtained information illegally? NO WAY?!?!

The PATRIOT Act was signed shortly after this nation fell victim to terrorist attacks on Sept. 11 2001, 6 years later reports of illegal information gathering have been piling up, however, I find it interesting that only the FBI is releasing a report about misconduct.
The Act itself gave allot of power to the government's intelligence agencies and marginalized our civil liberties, and even Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor commented on the loss of our civil liberties "We're likely to experience more restrictions on our personal freedoms now than has ever been the case in our country."
The article "FBI obtained records 'illegally' "in the BBC news states that "22% of the cases it investigated contained one or more possible unreported or unidentified violations." It also mentions that there were 47,000 requests of national security letters, which means that if they investigated 47,000 different cases, about 10,000 mistakes happened. Thats a bit scary no?
Then to save face (I think) the Attorney General, condemned the FBI's director. Every day I am finding more and more reasons why I don't trust our government. This is saddening and getting really old now.

"Politically Correctness Means Always Having to Say "You're Sorry""

I can't really grasp why people are so hurt by others being not politically correct. In fact, I really dislike the whole idea of rephrasing things because certain words have negative connotations or what have you. Moreover, the fact of the matter is, we are supposed to be saying what we mean, and meaning what we say, but when this whole political correctness idea came about, we essentially chose to censor ourselves. Being politically correct means always having to say your sorry, I'M NOT FUCKING SORRY!!! I don't want to be sorry either. Why should I feel guilty about expressing my opinion. It's not a thing about tact, or being polite, it is not fair to speakers, where is the equality?
In our discussion today, (which was centered around public education and teaching about homosexuality) we brought up terms like "Fag" or "Dyke" or phrases like "that's so gay" and so on. I believe it should be understood by everyone that these terms, need to be looked at in terms of context. If no one is gay in your proximity, and you say "that's so gay" generally speaking they are saying it is "dumb" but WHO CARES? (it was brought up that making this stament belittles gay people by saying they are dumb or insignificant, not the case at all). I'll tell you who cares. The Gay community, wait, that term is no longer PC, are they the "Homosexual Community?" What do we call them, wait I can't say "them" because that implies they are different, or not part of the rest... BUT THEY ARE DIFFERENT! That's the point of establishing the community isn't it, seperating yourself from people who are different from you and identifying yourself with people of like minds? Aren't "they" trying to fight back and protect themselves (wait, themselves, I can't use that term either can I ?), against all the bad things that have happened to LBGT people.
Let me take this time to say that I really don't care who you choose to be with, if you are gay, or whatever, I JUST DON'T CARE. There are some great gay people out there and there are some terrible gay people too, I bet. The question of whether or not gay people are second class citizens or not, I don't think they aren't, however thats my opinion. This community needs to assert themselves. Isn't that the whole free speech and responsibility idea? PROTEST, pass out pamphlets, educate people, don't let yourself be oppressed. FIGHT BACK.
Back to the PC idea, how and when did it come about? Wikipedia defines it as "Political correctness (often abbreviated to PC) is a term used to describe language or behavior which is intended, or said to be intended, to provide a minimum of offense, particularly to racial, cultural, or other identity groups. A text that conforms to the alleged ideals of political correctness is said to be politically correct." The history they give states that this movement started about "in the 1990s, the term became part of a conservative challenge to curriculum and teaching methods on college campuses in the United States (D'Souza 1991; Berman 1992; Schultz 1993; Messer Davidow 1993, 1994; Scatamburlo 1998). In a commencement address at the University of Michigan in 1991, President George H. W. Bush spoke out against administrators and academics who would "declare certain topics off-limits, certain expressions off-limits, even certain gestures off-limits" (Glassner 1999)." However they state that it can be traced back to 1793 in a US Supreme Court case of Chisholm v. Georgia."
(Wikipedia reminds me of Starship Troopers, remember how the Propaganda Commercials always said "Do You Want to Know More?" Then in another window it goes on in more detail and gives back story... Wikipedia is the same way, I mean look at all the hyperlinks in the paragraph I copied.)
Back from that tangent, in the end, we as a people need to stop letting people with thier own agendas tell us how we are supposed to express ourselves, no one should be able to decide what is and is not ok to talk about. NOTHING OUGHT TO BE OFFLIMITS! (Well thats where freespeech and responsibility comes in again.) I don't want to contradict myself, and I fear this statement will do just that, however, I would like to say it anyways, somethings shouldn't be said at certain times, so the Supreme Court's time/place/manner limitations on free speech makes sense.

Michael McConnell is Captain Obvious.

THANKYOU CAPTAIN OBVIOUS!
The head of the United States Intelligence Agency says that Al-Queda, Hezbollah, North Korea and Iran pose major threats to the US. Really??? NO WAY? I never knew or thought that these nations and organizations were dangerous, let alone posed a threat to our country.
Then he moves on and says "Iraq is moving in a negative direction" wait, what did he say? Iraq of all places, its not doing so well and it's in fact moving in a "negative direction"? Well what does that mean? Have we run into some problems over there?
He even says that N. Korea and Iran possibly have WMD's or have the abilities to make them. OH MY GOD! That's inconceivable, impossible, incomprehensible.
"We assess that Iran seeks to develop nuclear weapons and has shown greater interest in drawing out the negotiations rather than reaching an acceptable diplomatic solution," he said.
Wow, this man is in charge of our intelligence community and he sounds like a broken record. We already know this stuff. Not one thing he said was news, or noteworthy, why because he is pointing out the obvious. Was he left in the dark, did he think we were left in the dark? Why is he reporting things that everyone already knows?
I don't understand how this man, Michael McConnell, is the head of the intelligence community and makes such an unintelligent statement.
It was brought to my attention that it may be in the interest of National Security for them not to tell us anything new, but why tell us anything if we have already heard it at all. If it serves National Security, maybe we should just not hear anything at all about it, wait, isn't that kinda like what ostriches do when something bad happens, stick their heads underground. Is that any different?

Treasonus or Not?

DID THIS MAN COMMIT TREASON TOO?

Mr. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is in the final stages of his courtroom battle over whether or not he lied... if the lie was a lie and who the lie effected. He was charged with one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements, and two counts of perjury. He was Dick Chenney's Chief of Staff from 2001 until October 2006, but we can throw loyalties out the window at this point. Cheney was going to be the first VP ever to sit on the stand, but that didnt happen. Apparently they felt it would not work well for the defendant when the cross examination of the Vp was to take place. Also, each one of the counts takes a $250,000 price tag, so the bottom line is... (drumb roll please) 1.25 million Dollars.
A little background before the case:
Scooter Libby composed a report with Neoconservative Wolf Blitzer, this report outlined global US military supremecy, "The draft DPG called for massive increases in defense spending, the assertion of lone superpower status, the prevention of the emergence of any regional competitors, the use of preventive—or preemptive—force, and the idea of forsaking multilateralism if it didn't suit U.S. interests (http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/1271).
It was not until mid-2005, however, that Libby found himself subject to widespread media attention, when his name increasingly appeared in news stories about the leak of Plame's identity (U.S. News and World Report, October 31, 2005).
Where does Treason fit in?
A spy's name, an American spy, was released to the public. But, this act of treason is going un punished, then again, she is suing the government for the premature end of her career. Maybe, because now other people who she dealt with in the past may want to kill her?
What do you think?

Skeptical View of Current Events, Gun Boat Diplomacy Again!

I was reading the Economist the other day, and the cover had a picture of a B-2 bomber with the caption "Next Stop, Iran?" I'm curious as to what the point of sending a bomber to Iran would be. The US government has stated that they do not want to enter a conflict with Iran, however, it seems to be ominous (if thats the right word)... Moreover, they, (the government) have stated that the nuclear facility in Iran ought to be shut down, but how do they plan on getting that done? We can't blow it up, that would be wrong, we can ask them diplomaticly, but no one will listen, all we can do is threaten them and that does not seem like too bright of an idea.
We are in the process of bribing North Korea with fuel oil in order for thier surrender of their Nuclear capabilities, we invaded Iraq because we thought they had WMD's, but Iran? Iran has the capabilities and most likely has the bomb, but can we afford a conflict? "WE ARE not planning for a war with Iran." So said Robert Gates, America's new defence secretary, on February 2nd.
This nation is in debt, we are running out of supplies (there is a 3 year backup on vehicle repairs out of Iraq, and we simply do not have the work force in this country to fix them). In the Gulf, we have aircraft carriers, and I can only imagine that G-Dub, thinks he is the reincarnation of Teddy Roosevelt. he might just be thinking "If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does not do what I want, I will blow him off the face of the earth?" Doesn't that seem a bit ridiculous? Or am I just reading things wrong? Did I miss something?
I have no idea what the hell he is thinking, put simply, we are already spread too thin, we have soldiers all over the place and unless we reinstate the draft, we will never have enough people enlisted in our armed forces.
Is it just some sort of anti Iran propaganda in order to insite anger and hostility? I don't know, but I fear the results could be disasterous.

Update
Jflog-
I don't think reinstating the draft is a good thing, but several other countries have mandatory military service :

• 2.1 Austria
• 2.2 Belarus
• 2.3 Bermuda
• 2.4 Brazil
• 2.5 Bulgaria
• 2.6 Chile
• 2.7 China (PRC)
• 2.8 Croatia
• 2.9 Cyprus
• 2.10 Denmark
• 2.11 Egypt
• 2.12 Eritrea
• 2.13 Finland
• 2.14 Germany
• 2.15 Greece
• 2.16 Iran
• 2.17 Israel
• 2.18 Korea, South
• 2.19 Lebanon
• 2.20 Malaysia
• 2.21 Mexico
• 2.22 Norway
• 2.23 Poland
• 2.24 Russia
• 2.25 Serbia
• 2.26 Singapore
• 2.27 Sweden
• 2.28 Switzerland
• 2.29 Taiwan (ROC)
• 2.30 Turkey
• 2.31 Ukraine
• (I am not sure how true this list is (courtesy of wikipedia)).

No one has the right answer, at least no one I know of. At the same time, who gets to decide what the right answer is? Again. This conversation will lead to more questions, that are arbitrary because they cannot be answered. This is the conundrum that our government is facing right now. It's a catch-22 any way they go about it, but I guess thats the role this country has assumed.

2 Million Dollars...

Recockulous!!!

Cartoon Network owned by Turner Broadcasting Network settled with the city of Boston for 2 million dollars. Why? Apparently having a "lightbrite" outside of your child's bedroom is an act of terrorism.
The Culprit was a character from the show "Aqua Teen Hunger Force" made up of light emitting diodes in the shape of one of the characters.
Then we find out that the same light up signs were in several other locations and states (there were more then 30 of them) and that no one else thought they were bombs, uh...WTF? (pardon my terminology there) but for lack of better words, I think the aforementioned WTF is acceptable under the circumstances). Also, the head of Cartoon Network resigned. Why? He felt responsible and wanted the network to move forward. "It's my hope that my decision allows us to put this chapter behind us." I just don't get it, some one freaked out and called in the bomb squad because they were scared by a sign. I hope the person who reported the sign never goes to Atlantic City or Las Vegas, if that were to happen, the bomb squads would have their hands full dealing with all those "Bombs" that tell you the names of hotels, casinos and so on.

Why?

When do we approach our professors and tell them they are not doing their jobs? When do we tell them that their class time is a blatant waste of time? I m currently enrolled in a Chicano Culture course that in 3 weeks has gone over roughly 4 chapters of a book, a few essays from another book and an introduction of a third book. One book "Drink Cultura" should get a new tittle in my opinion, it should be "Enema de Cultura" the book is terribly disjointed and there is nothing fulfilling about reading it. In one sense, the tittle of an essay in this compilation of essays might be called "Dear Mr. Consulate" and it is literally a bunch of letters chopped up and inserted in some random order that leaves the reader wondering whats the point?" Seriously, the letters were so terribly written and they were just bad, but the part that was even worse, worse then the horribly written letters, was the lack of cohesion. Nothing kept them together.

Another book that we are reading is called Harvest of Empires, or something to that effect, this book explores the Chicano culture as well as the roots of the Latin Americans and their histories. This book also lacks in the cohesiveness department. This book jumps more (pardon the pun) then a Mexican jumping bean. The kicker is... it is written poorly too.

Finally we have a book called "Latinos" I read a chapter, well most of a chapter, that was 6 pages long, the thing is, 5 pages in I was wondering to myself whether or not any of it made sense. I also had not gained anything out of those 5 pages so I looked ahead to see where the chapter ended... it was the next page. I slammed the book on the table in class and looked at my peers in disgust.

In recent news:
(see that, without any cohesion, the audience thinks "wow, you need a little help there don't you, you cant just jump from one topic to the next without some intermediary, something in the middle to mesh the two topics together)
Anna Nicole Smith dies at 39. Suicide? Overdose? Or was she really just ill???
Thats what the media is focusing on, not the 6 US helicopters shot down in Iraq over the last two weeks. I know CNN looked at this issue last week, but more have been shot down since then?
Also, the US has lost 12 Billion Dollars, that B-i-l-l-i-o-n dollars in cash in Iraq. How do you do that? The report from the oversight committee said it was like 36 tons of money. HOW DO YOU DO THAT? Why wasnt this money wired?

Clear Proof That My Skepticism is Founded

Rupert Murdoch Admits to Manipulating the Media
As the author of this article says "surprise surprise," and I get to say Karl Marx was right. Another article also states in that Fox News admits to spreading propaganda about the Iraq War. Karl Marx was absolutely right when he stated "What resources are available and who controls them influences (almost deterministically) the nature of the superstructure, which is made up of all the non-economic articles of society, such as legal, religious and educational systems."
To clearly express what I am trying to say, Rupert Murdoch has the money, therefore he able to control what his "news outlet" releases to the public. The other thing is, and I am not sure if I even need to write it, but who watches Fox news? People who already subscribe to his political views and the aspirations of the Republican party.
I am not a liberal, let me make that clear, I am also not a Republican. The fact of the matter is, we all ought to understand the difference between news and Fox News. We also must never believe everything we hear... or do we express our truthiness at face value? Because I believe something to be true, do I get to say it is so? DO I NEED TO RESEARCH EVERYTHING FROM MULTIPLE SOURCES? In most cases I would say it is much safer to gain multiple perspectives, however, where do we draw the line? When do we get to strip the name news off of something and call it what it is (PROPAGANDA)? If he admits to it, why not call the channel the Fox Propaganda Channel? Sure it may make the information less credible by altering the name to what it really is, but at least this way people who don't know the truth, won't get confused. Is it ethical to release something as news that really isn't news? If they are being deceptive on a regular basis, should they loose their tittle as a news outlet?
What are we to do?

Reflection

Seminars:

• The idea behind it is that we are to meet with groups of our peers in order to discuss topics based on their relevancy to the readings and class?

• Seminars are to take place for one hour on Thursday and after the seminar, a report of the topics brought out are to be given to the entire class.

What does that mean?

The class gets to talk for an hour and then reconvene for the remaining 50 minutes? It's a novel idea, but what happens when no one does their reading, or no one feels like talking about the reading? Are we really going to govern ourselves? Has the professor really entrusted us with this big of a responsibility? What happens when one person decides to talk their head off and not allow others to participate because they are to enamored with their own voice?

For a freedom of speech and responsibility course, the idea is good, but I don't know if it will hold up, for instance today, we were totally off kilter, but then again, we didn't really have a topic, so I guess it is understandable.

Sharing Skepticism about the Blogging Community

Classes are moving into the wonderful world of the web log. I hate the term "blog," it just seems a bit stupid to me. Maddox states:
"The word "blog" is literally short hand for "boring;" a vulgar overused word that strikes your ear with the dull thud of a cudgle to the soft spot of a child. It's an abbreviation used by journalism drop outs to give legitimacy to their shallow opinions and amateur photography that seems to be permanently stuck in first draft hell" (Maddox, If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide).
There is just some disconnect in my mind about the validity of the blogs from the "Blogging Community," I understand the idea behind blogs, at least I think I do. But as a news source, I dont know... Paraphrasing Karl Marx, "those with money control education, information and religion," for the most part, blogs are free of that corporate control i.e. censorship, agenda and profit motive. But the corporations have the money to go places, where bloggers are much more limited in their access to raw data and for the most part only have access to the information that has already gone through corporate filters and has been spun to fulfill the agenda of the given news outlet.