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reaction to censorship packet

2005-05-17T11:25:00.000-07:00

After reading through the packet one article really stood out. The article was titled "Censorship Reaches Rediculous Extremes." The article dealt with extreme over censorship of internet materials for child use. The article made good points that by simply censoring searches containing cuss words they were censoring much much more. An example of this was humpback whales, simply because "hump" was involved in the search it was eliminated. So now they have censored the child's ability to learn. That seems a like a huge price to pay so kids can't happen upon sexual explicit material. Another point is that this censorship and extreme guardedness around sexuality is causing ignorance. Its one thing to try and keep young kids from finding hardcore porno, and another to have them completely ignorant of sexuality. The article cited a situation where students thought that oral sex could lead to pregnancy. Obviously children shouldn't learn sex ed from the internet, but they need to learn it somewhere, and these schools that teach abstinence only aren't getting the job done. We cant have a generation of sheltered ignorant kids. They need to learn, and experience things. Its one thing to protect the youth and another to hide them from the world.

What is the solution as far as internet censorship is concerned? I dont know. If I were a father I wouldn't like the idea of my son/daughter finding hardcore sex acts. At the same time, I don't want to limit their possibilities to learn. Right now it seems like an all or nothing situation, and until they devise a better way to filter out innappropriate sites we have to take the good with the bad.

Federal Packet Reaction

2005-05-10T12:04:00.000-07:00

The packet contained a series of brief articles discussing how the government is making a lot of once public information private. This is related to the ongoing debate of whether information should be made available to all, or only to cetain people. One topic mentioned is that of e-mail privacy. Some said emails were documents and should be allowed to be made public. Another said that emails were like telephone calls and we dont tap every phone line. Its a pretty sticky situation. On the one hand it seems that information shouldn't be limited because how is right for some to decide who can see what? However, if sensitive information falls into the wrong hands terrible things could happen.

Reaction to... Are We Doomed Yet?

2005-04-26T10:52:00.000-07:00

The author of this article makes an interesting point, but perhaps slightly exaggerated. Technology is double edged sword as well as a slippery slope. Technology can make many things much better and more convenient than ever before, however there will always be malicious people who use technology for wrong doing. The slippery slope idea is once some technology is brought forth to us it is hard to take it back, we slide down the slope and its hard to get back to where we were. So if some new technology came out that had far more costs to society than benefits it would be hard to eliminate. An example of this would be napster, although the measurement of costs vs. benefits is relative to the individual. It came out and many people (including myself) loved it, but then the record labels "lost" money, and bands protested it, and it was "shut down." However, now that the technology had been introduced it had been cloned and there were many many file sharing programs similar to napster. They keep finding ways to eliminate them, but there will always be ways around it. I have found a program that is better than napster in just about everyway. If it gets shut down I am sure I will find another. The author suggests that maybe very malicious and sensitve information will be released and readily available on the internet, and just as file sharing still exists despite the shutting down of napster, so will this information find ways to thrive. This threat doesn't seem likely to me, but I do agree that once something sees the light of day, it will almost certainly be able to exist in one form or another.

Response to Iraqi War Blog

2005-04-19T19:03:00.000-07:00

I looked through a few different blogs from the Blogs Of War Reading and found one that caught my attention. The link is http://bootsonground.blogspot.com/

This blog is posted by a US soldier in Iraq. It has archives dating back to October of 2003, and was updated as recently as yesterday. The posting is simply the way things are through one man's eyes. He talks about things like the heat in Iraq, the lack of sleep, girls in the service, his family back home, and a variety of other things. One thing that caught my attention was that a car bomb caused mass casualities and a bomb killed some innocent bystanders, and he mentions his surprised that it did not receive media attention. I can only wonder what else is neglected by the media.

His blog is a more personal look at what soldiers are going through over in Iraq as opposed to the media which is more all encompassing. I would say that the information is believeable seeing as most of his posts concern the way he is living his life, not just straight forward war information. I like his writing style. It reminds me of my own, so I guess I can relate to it. It is littered with curse words and some sentences that don't flow real well. I guess his writing seems very real to me. One other thing worth mentioning is he seems to be protecting his family in his writing, trying not to mention to many hardships. Its as if he doesn't want to get his family too worried. He even mentions that he leaves things out of his letters home so as to not give his mom a heart attack.

Reaction to Blogs of War

2005-04-12T11:48:00.000-07:00

The Blogs of War reading goes over several different Iraq war related blogs. Blogs are described from soldiers in Iraq, people living in Iraq, journalists in Iraq, people that fought in Iraq but are now home, and more. I have looked over some of the links that blogs of war listed, and it is pretty interesting. The information presented in the blogs is unfiltered and not tainted by traditional media sensationalism. It is just one person's thoughts, nothing else. The posts are raw. I think the provide an interesting point of view, but nothing that should be taken too seriously. These posts are solely the thoughts and perceptions of one person, and their view might not be an accurate portrayal. It is interesting to see such contrast from traditional media sources.

Media Literacy Read (pgs 85-107)

2005-04-05T18:05:00.000-07:00

This particular reading contained mostly information that I already knew, however it was backed by a lot of statistical data (that will not be repeated here for a variety of reasons). News and the tabloids and celebrity entertainment shows are converging, the ratings matter more than the truth, stories receive airtime and newspaper pages based on how sensational they are, stories are biased toward corporate owners and major advertisers. These are a few examples of the travesty on display each and every day. Our public servants have turned into whores.

The saddest thing is that I don't believe that many of the journalists wanted it this way. One of my roomates is a journalism major and has sincere dreams of becoming an ethical journalist bringing pertinent news to that masses. He knows the shape of the current news media, and he wants to do things his way (which I would consider to be a lot better than the current trend), but that is likely out of reach. With an incredibly competitive job market, is he really going to be able to land a job and be heard when there are probably 50 others who can take his place and play by the rules? It would be optimistic to say "probably not." Its a vicious cycle, not likely to be broken anytime soon.

America (the book) reading

2005-03-31T18:22:00.000-08:00

Above all, I found the reading to be rather hillarious. I don't see much of John Stuart's comedy, but from what I have seen, or in this case read, I find him to be comical all while making interesting points. I agree with a lot of the points he made about how sensationalized "news" has become. He exaggerates a bit to make his point, but I don't believe he was out of line. My favorite part of the John Stuart chapter was the mock schedule of a 24 hour day for a news station. Sure, it was exaggerated, but it made the point.

I stopped watching the news years ago, because I started to understand how meaningless most of this so-called news was. When I was around 12 years old, me and some of my friends were interviewed by a news crew just because we were sledding in my driveway on a snow day. Who cares what I think about snow? Thats not news. Kids sledding on a snow day is not news. Everyone knows that it snowed, they don't need to see some punkass kids sledding to believe it.

This is only a test

2005-03-31T09:56:00.000-08:00

hopefully it works