To sum up Friday’s debate I may use words like, “predictable” or, “boring”. Now that’s not to say I did not find the debate entertaining, it just really didn’t move me. It was exactly as I had expected, with each candidate talking themselves up, a lot of, “remember when I voted for this great thing?” ensued. Interesting points were brought up, for me in particular, the fiscal crisis, however the answers were all ones that I expected, cut extraneous spending etc. I think a portion of answers given just “placated” the lead questions. So when I was asked who I thought won the debate I didn’t even think that could be a question. It may seem stupid but I didn’t think one could “win” this type of debate simply because there are so many different viewpoints and people to discredit any given opinion.
So there’s no set winner right? There can’t be, in my opinion. Maybe not until one of them wins the actual position of president. However if forced to choose who I believe won, I would go with Obama. The blog I am following, Wonkette, like me, does not outright say they believe Obama won, however it’s obvious they think so if you read their live blogging of the debate. First off, issues aside, Barack’s demeanor was much calmer and confident than McCain’s. Obama came across as someone who is intelligent and sensible, as well as earnest to try and solve this country’s problems. McCain kind of came off as an old fart, and was certainly more aggressive, which is pretty off-putting. He seemed to speak more freely without thinking and brought up a lot really cliché things like, “I love the veterans so much” and the thing about the soldier’s bracelet, I bet he didn’t expect Barrack to have one too though. Oh and he couldn’t forget to talk about his experiences in Vietnam a thousand times. I just wondered if any of that was necessary, Obama got by without any of that sort of thing. He also picked on Obama a lot, there was quite a bit of talking over each other. Wonkette brings up the part of the debate when McCain accused Obama of being wrong about the surge. Barrack publicly admitted that the surge had succeeded beyond his “wildest dreams”, as Fox news reports. So there McCain.
Admittedly throughout this presidential race I haven’t really been into either candidate. I have been leaning to the side of Obama however, ever since the running mate selection. I know his slogan about change is kind of cliché too, and I don’t expect much from it if he becomes president but one thing during the debate made me more eager to see him run the war rather than McCain. Obama talked about Afghanistan , and how we need to refocus there. I believe this to be a valid move that should have been done already, after all, that is kind of where all this started. McCain didn’t really have anything of interest to say on the topic though. I foresee McCain running the war the same as Bush has been.
So what has the press been saying? There are a lot of mixed reviews, which isn’t surprising in the least. However there does seem to be a bit of an Obama lead in the headlines. A lot of online polls are saying Obama won. Of course liberal bias news outlets say it went to Obama, conservative bias news outlets say it went to McCain. Again, predictable, however it is funny to note though, that the somewhat conservative Washington Post Political blog “The Fix”, that doesn’t say that McCain won but alludes to the fact, admits that McCain seemed somewhat, “frantic”. I would agree. I would also once again, if forced, have to give this one to Obama. He at least more composed than McCain and had a couple more valid points as well. What do you think?
Newell. "Live Blogging part IV." Wonkette. 29 Sept. 2008 http://wonkette.com/
America's Election HQ. "Obama: Surge Succeeded Beyond 'Wildest Dreams.'" Fox
News. 1 Oct. 2008 http://foxnews.com/.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Blog #2
Technology has been an ever changing aspect of human society. It is developed to make life easier, and as time goes on things are improved upon and made obsolete. One such invention is paper. Paper made stone writing obsolete. It is the perfect example of one technology replacing another as to conform to the needs of Egyptian society and subsequently every society that followed.
To illustrate just how obsolete paper has made its precursor, stone, all one has to do is think of how often they see anything written in stone. It is perfectly natural too. Why would one carve out words in such a hard medium when one could simply write with ink on light weight paper? To add, why would one carry around stone slabs when one could simply pick up a book? The fear however, with a new technology, is that some things will be lost in the transition from old to new. In this case the artistry of writing may have been sacrificed, and there may have been some apprehensions about that. The pros of writing on paper far outweigh the cons however. Since its invention it has changed societies dramatically. It has allowed messages to be transported and read straight from the writer, whereas stone would be too cumbersome to transport and take too long to write on. In fact, the aspect of transportation is one of the biggest benefits of writing on paper. We certainly would not have books or newspapers if they had to be written in stone. Information would be a lot more difficult to spread if it weren’t for paper. My argument is basically that paper is one of the most useful inventions of all time because of its information sharing qualities, it has made stone completely obsolete.
As widely used as paper is today, will it ever become obsolete like stone did? In Howard Gardner’s essay, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading”, He discusses how some people predict that because of modern technologies we may stop reading altogether. As far as never reading again as a society, I think not, however, the medium could very well change. He also mentions that people’s vast libraries could disappear because of new devices like the kindle, over time this could certainly happen. Having a vast library, like artistic writing in stone, could be gone in time due to new technologies. Now, also, with the new green fad, it’s not cool anymore to use paper, you have to save trees and prevent waste. In addition, the biggest advantage to paper, its easy transportability, is now being made obsolete with computers and Internet. A perfect example is email versus regular mail, deemed snail mail. Nobody sits down to write letters to people anymore, you can even pay your bills online.
With all this new technology will paper actually become obsolete like its heavy predecessor? Probably not. People need the ability to write whenever and wherever. Technology may be able to afford us that type of thing; however, can we afford it? A good deal of society is also obsessed with keeping written records because they just don’t trust new technology to keep it safe, a computer can crash, a post-it note can’t. So in the end, paper stands up to the test of time. It just has too many uses to be going anywhere, soon anyway.
Gardner, Howard. "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading." Washington Post 17
Feb. 2008: B01. 17 Sept. 2008
content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html>.
Innis, Howard "Media in the Ancient Empires" Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th ed.
Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 23-29.
To illustrate just how obsolete paper has made its precursor, stone, all one has to do is think of how often they see anything written in stone. It is perfectly natural too. Why would one carve out words in such a hard medium when one could simply write with ink on light weight paper? To add, why would one carry around stone slabs when one could simply pick up a book? The fear however, with a new technology, is that some things will be lost in the transition from old to new. In this case the artistry of writing may have been sacrificed, and there may have been some apprehensions about that. The pros of writing on paper far outweigh the cons however. Since its invention it has changed societies dramatically. It has allowed messages to be transported and read straight from the writer, whereas stone would be too cumbersome to transport and take too long to write on. In fact, the aspect of transportation is one of the biggest benefits of writing on paper. We certainly would not have books or newspapers if they had to be written in stone. Information would be a lot more difficult to spread if it weren’t for paper. My argument is basically that paper is one of the most useful inventions of all time because of its information sharing qualities, it has made stone completely obsolete.
As widely used as paper is today, will it ever become obsolete like stone did? In Howard Gardner’s essay, “The End of Literacy? Don’t Stop Reading”, He discusses how some people predict that because of modern technologies we may stop reading altogether. As far as never reading again as a society, I think not, however, the medium could very well change. He also mentions that people’s vast libraries could disappear because of new devices like the kindle, over time this could certainly happen. Having a vast library, like artistic writing in stone, could be gone in time due to new technologies. Now, also, with the new green fad, it’s not cool anymore to use paper, you have to save trees and prevent waste. In addition, the biggest advantage to paper, its easy transportability, is now being made obsolete with computers and Internet. A perfect example is email versus regular mail, deemed snail mail. Nobody sits down to write letters to people anymore, you can even pay your bills online.
With all this new technology will paper actually become obsolete like its heavy predecessor? Probably not. People need the ability to write whenever and wherever. Technology may be able to afford us that type of thing; however, can we afford it? A good deal of society is also obsessed with keeping written records because they just don’t trust new technology to keep it safe, a computer can crash, a post-it note can’t. So in the end, paper stands up to the test of time. It just has too many uses to be going anywhere, soon anyway.
Gardner, Howard. "The End of Literacy? Don't Stop Reading." Washington Post 17
Feb. 2008: B01. 17 Sept. 2008
content/article/2008/02/15/AR2008021502898.html>.
Innis, Howard "Media in the Ancient Empires" Communication in History. Ed. David Crowley and Paul Heyer. 5th ed.
Boston: Pearson Education, 2007. 23-29.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Sarah Palin Scandals
For my first political blog I have chosen to write about the republican candidate for vice president, Sarah Palin. I chose to write about her because there is quite a lot of controversy that seems to follow her, "lipstick on a pig", her teenage daughter’s pregnancy and so on. It would have seemed to be a wise choice for McCain to choose a woman as his running mate, after Hilary lost for the democratic candidacy and such. McCain did choose a woman, many people however, argue that Sarah Palin is completely wrong for the job. She seems to be surrounded by controversy and scandal. In fact very shortly after she was announced to be McCain's running mate a controversy there were several reports of a scandal involving the Alaskan public safety department.
Wonkette, the blog I am currently following, sums up the affair . Basically Palin and her husband pressured the head of the public safety department to fire a state trooper named Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother in law. Wooten has been involved in a custody battle with Palin’s sister for some time. When the head of the department refused they fired him and replaced him with someone who quit two months later. Wonkette seems to be no fan of Palin though. Just about every entry about her is cast in a not-so-flattering light. What the blog does not tell us is what Mike Wooten may have done, Palin must have had some semi valid reason for trying to get him fired right? There seems to be a bunch of odd things he is being accused of. He confesses to first to killing a moose illegally then to tasering his 11 year old. Apparently though, the taser was on the lowest setting and the child asked to be tasered, so It was more of Wooten being an idiot rather than Wooten being abusive. The moose, well, it's Alaska after all... An allegation he denies however, is that of a drinking while driving charge. So are these things enough for Palin to want to fire him so badly? Maybe so in a perfect world but in reality, if he had no connection to the Palin family there probably would have been no problem. In that case then, it becomes fairly obvious that Palin was completely abusing her power as governor.
This affair, put into the grand scheme of things, just adds to so many people’s apprehensions towards Palin. It’s not as though no other politician abuses their power, but Palin is very much under a microscope right now and so much else seems to be surrounding her. I have yet to read anything in real support of Palin, coincidentally I also have yet to read anything in republican support. To me Palin just seems to be a joke. Everything I read about her makes her look like a twit, not exactly the woman vice president women in America were looking for. In fact it seems a lot of women hate her. Mcain may have gained some support from lost Hilary voters, he certainly hasn't gained mine. It's dissapointing that Palin could be the first female vice president, almost embarrassing. Too bad McCain couldn't have chosen someone with some intellect.
Wonkette blog entry link - http://wonkette.com/402360/did-john-mccain-know-that-sarah-palin-is-in-the-middle-of-a-scandal#more-402360
Griffin, Drew, and Scott Bronstein. "Trooper in Palin probe tells his side." CNN Politics. 13 Sept. 2008
*for some reason I can't get the website for CNN to come up in my citation.
Wonkette, the blog I am currently following, sums up the affair . Basically Palin and her husband pressured the head of the public safety department to fire a state trooper named Mike Wooten, Palin’s former brother in law. Wooten has been involved in a custody battle with Palin’s sister for some time. When the head of the department refused they fired him and replaced him with someone who quit two months later. Wonkette seems to be no fan of Palin though. Just about every entry about her is cast in a not-so-flattering light. What the blog does not tell us is what Mike Wooten may have done, Palin must have had some semi valid reason for trying to get him fired right? There seems to be a bunch of odd things he is being accused of. He confesses to first to killing a moose illegally then to tasering his 11 year old. Apparently though, the taser was on the lowest setting and the child asked to be tasered, so It was more of Wooten being an idiot rather than Wooten being abusive. The moose, well, it's Alaska after all... An allegation he denies however, is that of a drinking while driving charge. So are these things enough for Palin to want to fire him so badly? Maybe so in a perfect world but in reality, if he had no connection to the Palin family there probably would have been no problem. In that case then, it becomes fairly obvious that Palin was completely abusing her power as governor.
This affair, put into the grand scheme of things, just adds to so many people’s apprehensions towards Palin. It’s not as though no other politician abuses their power, but Palin is very much under a microscope right now and so much else seems to be surrounding her. I have yet to read anything in real support of Palin, coincidentally I also have yet to read anything in republican support. To me Palin just seems to be a joke. Everything I read about her makes her look like a twit, not exactly the woman vice president women in America were looking for. In fact it seems a lot of women hate her. Mcain may have gained some support from lost Hilary voters, he certainly hasn't gained mine. It's dissapointing that Palin could be the first female vice president, almost embarrassing. Too bad McCain couldn't have chosen someone with some intellect.
Wonkette blog entry link - http://wonkette.com/402360/did-john-mccain-know-that-sarah-palin-is-in-the-middle-of-a-scandal#more-402360
Griffin, Drew, and Scott Bronstein. "Trooper in Palin probe tells his side." CNN Politics. 13 Sept. 2008
*for some reason I can't get the website for CNN to come up in my citation.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
First Blog Assignment
Hi, my name is Amanda Moskowitz. This is the first blog for my media and communications studies class. I am currently a sophmore and I really like cats and a band called mucc. When I think of the media I think basically of entertainment. I get informetion from the media but all of it with a grain of salt. My favorite blog is Perez Hilton's. I wish I could use that because I go there everyday,however, for this class I'll be following Wonkette. Since I am now to take information and different points of views from blogs for this class rather than trashy celebrity gossip. I think I'll like Wonkette though considering this is the first story I have seen from them, "EXCLUSIVE: North Hollywood Middle School Teacher Wonders Why McCain Campaign Is Dumb". Sounds interesting. http://wonkette.com/
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