A few months ago I began taking a class that was focused on blogging, in this class we made our own blog and made a post every week. Each week would find a topic and learn how to write a well written post to place on our very own blog. Blogging is the new form of media and growing at an extremely rapid rate because of how personal a blog can be. I feel that blogging could actually lead media on a downward slope.
For those people who do not understand fully on what a blog is it is a web log. People create their personal blog or companies create blog because they are very simple ways for information to get onto the internet. The problem I see with blog is that it has become too easy for people to put things on the internet and now stupid ideas can circulate even easier. Yes sure some people can weed out information that they are educated on if they read someone’s poor posted blog. An average person may have trouble deciphering information that is false. Such as if some one wrote about the chemical decomposition of apples leading to the rise of swine flu in America, as long as it sounded very convincing I would believe it, even if it was completely false. In the early days of media for an article to be published it had to pass through a reliable company, but with the creation of blogs now everything can be published and come up on a Google search. Another problem with blogs is that since more and more of the media is focusing on blogs they are going away from the traditional form of media.
Yes blogging does have its perks and I do not feel like they are going to disappear anytime soon. The reason why people have begun using blogs so much is because they can be so personal. People can use a blog to tell everyone on the internet how they feel on a topic. This is an amazing thing for some people because they can get their word out and try to get people to support their cause or begin thinking like they do, but there needs to be some sort of regulation or form of editing for a blog. I feel like there should be advisors put into place to read blogs and get rid of the ones that are completely ridiculous. Now I know that this would take incredible man power so in order to reduce the hours of work the blogs with the most hits would be the only ones regulated because those ones have the strongest effects. If people don’t understand blogging they should learn how to because it is a very valuable resource but needs to be regulated so media doesn’t take a turn for the worse.
blog on blogging
problem in arizona
An interesting protest has recently been going on in Arizona and has now become a national debate. The problem that is occurring is that there is a law trying to be passed that allows policemen to ask for identification when something illegal occurs or even sometimes for suspicion, by doing so Arizona is trying to deal with the illegal immigration problem. I feel that there is no problem with this as long as it does not get out of control with racial profiling.
People in Arizona and nationally feel that this is unnecessary profiling and that is why the debate is so heated, so there have been strikes and rallies to try to get rid of this legislation. In Arizona though there is a major problem with illegal immigrants and crime, so it has come to the point where this legislation is necessary for the state. The crime that occurs in Arizona has been completely intwined with the lack of border control. Many drugs such as cocaine and crystal meth have been highly sold across the border and many times it is brought by an illegal immagrant. The state legislation has found it necessary for the police to profile in order to make their state safer. Here is a video that explains the entire situation.
This is a very interesting topic to look at because it is a small scale sample of the entire national issue of illegal immigration. There needs to be progress made on this problem because the debate will just got more heated as the days go by. The problem is most people are uneducated on the topic and do not understand what is meant by profiling in this case. What the state legislation is saying that when one is acting strange or has been arrested one may be asked to present there identification. They feel this will help the illegal immigration situation occurring. The word acting strange is a tough one though because cops may take advantage of the gray area in the bill. I feel though that if the bill is carried through correctly then it could work well for the state. This is a very sticky situation that has to be treated with care, but I do support the bill because what it is trying to accomplish.
The other day in my English class the topic of media and reporting came up. With media becoming less local and more national it has become harder for people to share their opinions. The example I shared with the class was Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh. These two men are very opinionated but with media changing it has become hard for these men to spread there ideologies.
When local media was big people talking politics had an easier time getting their point across and have people supporting their thoughts. Well with national media it is hard for opinionated people to get the attention of people, thus making what they are saying less affective. What Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh have to do to be heard is make themselves egomaniacs. They have to crave attention all the time to be heard. This has its pros and cons though because they get to be heard but they may seem less intelligent because the way they have to get their point across. What I mean by this is that people will get stirred up by a comment made by one of these men because it is uncouth; but on the other hand people talk about them so they can get their names out on mainstream. A major problem I have with this is that these two men represent my political party and I feel that people see these men as ignorant egomaniacs because of some of their comment; as a result they stereotype the entire party as ignorant egomaniacs. Right now though there is no other way to be heard in the media unless you are radical and stand out.This puts media in and interesting limbo because the only way to stand out is to be strange, and since people stereotype people with the strange media they become more polar on others beliefs. This is a major problem with news at the national and global level because it not able represents everyone, and with local news dying out people do not feel represented in the media. With local news everything is more personal and relevant making people less polar in thought. I feel as a country we should stay away from all news becoming national because it just hurts people trying to make a point.
Over the years the month of March has been tagged with the phrase “March Madness” because of the NCAA basketball tournament. The NCAA basketball tournament is truly one of the greatest spectacles in all of sports. All the teams in the tournament worked extremely hard all season in order for the opportunity to participate. As a college basketball fanatic I love watching these games and cheering for the underdog. Recently the NCAA has come out and said that field of 65 will expand to 96 and I feel that this will take away from the prestige of the tournament. The 65-field tournament seemed to be perfect; it had the right amount Cinderella’s and powerhouse teams. Truly the only reason for this change is money, and that is not a good reason for the NCAA venue to change.
CBS have the rights to air the tournament until 2013; but the NCAA can opt out of the contract and it looks like ESPN might take over the rights. The NCAA will expand the size of the venue so ESPN or CBS has to pay more for the rights to air all the games. The NCAA is in charge of a majority of college sports; they come up with rules and regulations so things run smoothly. I do not feel that a company like this should change something that works extremely well just for their personal gain. Not only does this make the NCAA look like money grabbing capitalist, but it also changes the whole attitude of the tournament.
In years past every game mattered for teams trying to make the tournament because there was such limited space to get in. Now it will not be as cutthroat to enter the tournament and this is one of the best parts of the venue. Why is expanding a tournament that works extremely well the best thing for the NCAA to do? The NCAA should be focusing on making the game more competitive, not making each game less meaningful for teams trying to get into the tournament.
Now don’t get me wrong supporting college sports is one of my favorite things, so I am not opposed to college athletes getting treated like gods. I also realize that many companies and people make a ton of money from these college sports. I am completely fine with people making money from these games as long as they do not change the integrity of the game. The NCAA’s main focus is to keep sports as true as possible but they are changing the tournament for personal gain and by doing so they are taking away from the tournament. Taking away from “March Madness” is where I draw the line.
Last week in class I brought up the fact that I wanted a Dunkin Donuts coffee, and this struck a conversation which talked about supporting huge corporations or small business owners. There is a Dunkin Donuts and small coffee shop right near each other at my school. So should I go support the Dunkin Donuts or the small store? Well one has to think of both situations when choosing.
If I go to the small business I will be supporting a local entrepreneur who has poured their heart and soul into there business. There are also other good things with going to the small store. First off local businesses are often very friendly and are nice to go to. Also when going to these stores you are not supporting corporate America, which has some major flaws in the way things are run.
Though corporate America has some major flaws the one thing it does really well is employ a lot of people. In the economy the corporate part makes up a really large part so they are able to create a lot of jobs for people. If you think about all the people who get money from these huge businesses it is amazing. There are the average servers and local managers, the advertisement agencies, the lawyers, and the investors. That is a lot of people who are getting income from these massive businesses. These businesses don’t really care about the steady customer, but if all Americans do not support them they will go under. If these businesses go under many will be unemployed, but there will be more opportunity in the entrepreneur business.
So should one go to a mainstream corporation or a small business to get the morning cup of coffee? There is actually no answer and that makes the choice hard, so I believe that one should go to the place they prefer. If I like Dunkin Donuts coffee better I will go there. In the end your choice will probably balance out between small stores and big ones, so go were you enjoy more. The important thing is to just go out and support a business, that is how the economy gets stronger.
As a country we have a false sense of security with the economy, but I feel this might actually be a good thing. Though I am completely skeptical of the methods taken by our government to fix our economy, I believe telling Americans that we are pretty much out of the troth of the recession can stimulate the economy. With people more comfortable with the idea of buying things again without the market crashing this may actually stimulate the market.
The problem with a recession is that people fear buying things because they are scared that the market will crash again. This can make coming out of a recession very difficult because the market is not stimulated. Well in the past couple of months the members of the presidential administration have made a point to keep on saying things in the economy are getting better, even if they really aren’t. By making buyers more confident I feel that we could actually get out of this recession. As Americans we have to make a point to go out and buy more commodities in order to make things better. Basically I feel that it is actually in our hands to fix the economy because we are the ones that can stimulate the economy completely. Though the government has tried to fix the economy by using their money to create cash flow, we cannot rely on the government to do everything. I feel that right now in our country to many Americans look to the government to fix everything. This is a major problem in America because no one wants to take responsibility anymore for mistakes made. Well if the American people take the responsibility of the recession we can fix it because we will be able to completely take to economy out of the troth. America prides itself on being capitalist but right now we are on a path away from capitalism because w look to the government too much. We as Americans can not look to the government anymore to solve everything but we must unify and try and fix the economy ourselves.
Yesterday the House of Representatives passed the universal healthcare bill, which means it will go into affect unless there is an appeal. Though this system of healthcare will provide millions of Americans a system of healthcare but this not what the American people want. In recent polls 51% of Americans were against healthcare, where as only 40% was for it. One has to ask themselves is an American healthcare plan or a Democrat healthcare bill?
In the voting all republicans voted against health care, also over forty democrats voted against the bill. The difference between the bill being passed was seven votes, which is to close for a bill to pass that is not supported by a majority of Americans. Yet the Democrats on Capitol Hill pushed the bill to be passed without listening to Americans. More and more the Obama administration seems to be leading to a socialist regime. With his government helping out many banks and businesses he now makes the leap into healthcare, which is scary in a country that was established as a capitalist society. There are two things that I wish were done. First I wish this bill was shown to the general public more than two days before being passed. The bill can now be seen but it is over two thousand pages long and was released about two days before being passed. I also wish that the congress waited until after next November before passing it. That is when the new elections for the senate are and this would give good representation for how Americans feel rather than how they felt a couple of years ago when the senators were last elected.
I feel as an American citizen that the democrats pushed this bill on Capital Hill before the American population was to really think about what they wanted. Personally I am against universal healthcare but I understand why it is appealing to many people. All I wanted was the bill to be looked well but instead I feel as if I were cheated.
Tickets were said to be going for over seven hundred dollars on the street right before the Syracuse vs. Villanova basketball game. This game had hype leading up to it for months because of the reputation that both teams had. This got me thinking about the difference between college sports and professional sports. When the game began there was so much electricity in the building and everyone was so excited to see these young men play. I thought back to a Celtics game I had been to where the Garden was pretty much quiet unless something huge happened. The way the players carried themselves the entire game was with such passion and such enjoyment that it got everyone else passionate. We do not see this when professional athletes step on to the playing field. Where did the passion go for these players?
Some student athletes spend their whole career in college to get ready for the pro and why? The answer to that is money, but when you see some professional athletes playing looks like more of a duty than love. At the dome these players were being worshipped by over thirty four thousand people yet some NCAA athletes leave that college atmosphere just to get money. Not only do they let down their teammates but also the thousands of college fans who love them. Is it really worth leaving college and not getting a degree to go play professionally? People who play at a major division one school should stay all four years because it can only help them. When people stay in college it affects them for a number of reasons. The students get a degree and are all set just in case they get injured later on in their professional career. These players also mature a ton while spending time in college. Whether it is their skill that coaches help them develop or their actual maturity. Carmelo Anthony was a great basketball player in college that left after one year of college. He struggled his first year in the NBA emotionally and that was because he wasn’t mature enough to play professionally. These players also get to play in front of a packed house for four years and are worshipped on campus. Is that really that bad?
Though people leaving early to go play professionally only happens to the truly exceptional athlete, it is important for the dignity of the NCAA. I say that the NCAA should encourage more student athletes to stay.
The Toyota car company has recently been struggling with a massive recall on numerous models of their cars. The main problem with their cars is that the gas petal may get stuck under the floor mat and the brake does not override the gas. There is also another problem that occurs with the new Toyotas that involves faulty steering. People have actually died because of these problems on Toyota vehicles. It is important to pay attention to this recall because it may someday affect what car you may one day buy. Over the past couple of months the car industry has been interesting especially with American made cars. Since Asian made cars have recently started to run the U.S. market GM and other American car companies have struggled to the point were they have had to rely on government assistance. This recall comes at important time for the car industry because as the American car market tries get back on their feet than can exploit this recall. The recall makes Toyota cars look bad, and is that a bad thing? If done right the GM car companies can steal customers that may have been loyal to Toyota and begin selling more cars. This would be great for the U.S. economy because there would be more cash flow on an American made product. Also there would be more job opportunities for people to work in GM factories. Though Toyota sells a lot of cars in the United States they really don’t help our economy because few are made here in America, and when shipped they do not use American shippers. In my opinion Toyota has really taken advantage of the U.S. market for a number of reasons. The first reason is that that the labor used to make their cars is one step up from slave labor because the people who work at their factories get paid less than fifty cents a day. Where as people who work a GM manufacturing line get more than thirty dollars an hour. That is why historically Toyota cars are so cheap, because the manufacturing cost is much less. Also Japan limits the amount of GM cars sent to Japan and they bring as many Toyota cars to America as they want. A solution that comes to my mind is putting a tariff on foreign cars that is relative to manufacturing cost; because this promotes well paid labor and it would stimulate the U.S. car market due to rising cost of foreign cars. That is why I see this recall of Toyota cars as a good thing because it may straighten out the car market in America.
Today President Obama showed the plans, in which he wants to get the United States out of the 1.2 trillion dollar deficit the U.S is in. His plan starts with his 3.8 trillion dollar budget, the government has this year. When the government got us in this deficit the president believed that government bail out money would make the United States leave this recession and start becoming more economically stable. With a more economic stable society he would have many things happen that will allow him to make up for this deficit. He would have more money to tax; also more people would have jobs, so he could collect more income tax. With this he hopes to work out of the deficit. So with his economic budget he will spend a lot on jobs, which is very important because of the extremely high unemployment. Jobs are a great way to create a cash flow and keep people financially stable. There are many flaws in President Obama’s approach though. The first that comes to my mind is inflation. By the government spending so much on a bail out plan one has to wonder were that money came from, because our GDP did not have enough to put over a trillion dollars into the market. This means the government had to have created a little bit of inflation. Simple Economic Theory says that during a time of inflation lenders get hurt, in our case the Government, and depending on the spender the consumer market is also hurt. That is the first flaw that comes to mind. The second major flaw is whom does President Obama plan on taxing? He will not tax the people trying to get back on their feet as much as high corporations. The problem I see in taxing corporations more is that corporations will be less willing to hire, because they will worry about being taxed so much that they will not hire as many people. This will go all the way down to small businesses as well, because the people who own small businesses look like they have more income than they actually do. As a result they will be taxed very high and not be willing to hire many people. This means Obama will have to hire people as government workers, so he will not make enough money from the income taxes to get out of the deficit. The fact that Obama must hire government workers has everything to do with his problem, because the government cannot always crutch the societies economy. The whole plan for government spending is too much for one blog; but I believe with the macro view that with the New Years budget that we will not get out of this deficit based on Obama’s economic approach.
My Audience