follow us in feedly

Saturday, November 30, 2013

The Moment of Truth

It's deadline day for the President's healthcare website, which CNN called "problem-plagued." 

The website launched on October 1, and has certainly had its share of problems; user have experienced crashes, errors, and delay messages, only adding to the national frustration and confusion surrounding Obamacare, or the Affordable Healthcare Act. 

While many people are still rallying against changing healthcare in the U.S.--accusing Obamacare of being a threat to liberalism or predetermining it as a failure-- Pres. Obama said that expanding healthcare to millions is "going to be a legacy I am extraordinarily proud of."



Sunday, November 17, 2013

Making a Difference

What does it mean to be an online journalist making a difference these days, in the age of cat gifs and a plethora of 'Kimye' standing in for news on the world wide web? As a journalism student, I am usually told on a weekly basis that journalism is a "tough business" and it's "going to be hard to find a job out there." Yet, it seems to me that they are missing the very core of journalism: that as much as I would like to find a job from it, more than that I hope to make a difference. 

DailyNk, a defector website (which I first learned of here) run from North Korea, prides itself on being the kind of news outlet that is necessary, brave, and revolutionary; they merely call it "Brightening the future of North Korea." It is one of several defector run websites that get out news about one of the most protective of its information, not to mention oppressive, countries in the world. From articles about life in North Korea to the international affairs concerning the country, DailyNk is an example of why the importance of journalism rises beyond the level of available jobs. And at any rate, journalism and journalism jobs will never become extinct, as long as their is corruption, indifference, ignorance, and most importantly, bravery.








Sunday, November 10, 2013

"The First Pontifical Selfie"

CNN half-reports, half-gossips that newly-elected Pope Francis is "a different kind of pope"--one who is compassionate to all, even a disfigured man and juvenile delinquents, and takes selfies.

He's even changing atheists into believers, as seen on Twitter. 

Saturday, November 2, 2013

In Accordance With My Feminism Views

This is my Saturday night pregame jam.

Whoredom Boredom

I found a surprisingly insightful article on Gawker today entitled Bored of Whoredom. What now? Freelance writer Tawni Nadini Islam beautifully weaves together a memorable piece of prose encompassing the fears and desires of being a woman. The story opens as she and her boyfriend are going to bed; she is unable to sleep, wracked by thoughts of "past traumas, religious mores that never fit, old lovers I conjure up despite knowing better." She admits to "having those days when being a woman makes you feel like you’re the 'mule of the world.'" Her contemplative thought that follows suggests that sexual liberation is key to breaking free of being the world's mule, but yet contends that being a whore is 'boring.'

Being a whore is boring; but only because the word 'whore' conjures up images of girls whose clothing is minimal and lipstick is smeared as they attempt to pride themselves on being able to attract men into their beds. In my opinion, a whore has nothing to do with her sexual activity, but rather her own view of herself. Women who are happy, confident, and otherwise generally sane should not have to forgo mental health and peace, not to mention sexual desire, for the sake of letting men dictate their behaviors based on ancient patriarchal ideas that serve no one, not even the men who name us whores, deeming us meaningless somewhere between up and down, between the start and end of what was only supposed to be an enjoyable, judgement-free, equal ride. 


Sunday, October 27, 2013

Legendary New York City Punk Dies

The New York Times reported that the front man of the Velvet Underground, legendary punk Lou Reed died Sunday. The Velvet Underground experienced commercial failure in the 1960s, but later grew a substantial cult following. Lou also had a successful solo career, and was known for his thoughtful and often melodic rock. His death is thought to be due to a liver transplant he received earlier this year. He was 71.

We'll miss you and your wild side, Lou. Hopefully the afterlife is only the beginning of a great adventure.


Monday, October 21, 2013

Peace for U

On Oct. 15, a few weeks after an attempted rape on Plattekill Ave., this anonymous message appeared at a construction site near where the attack occurred. 


Today, on my usual walk up to campus, I noticed there had been a change. 


Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Pot for Potholes

Did you guys know that pot (well, medical marijuana) is now legal in 21 states in the U.S.? Pretty cool. However, some conservatives are already thinking of ways to take as much fun as possible out of the exciting acceptance of weed sweeping across the nation. 

A Michigan news website quoted Rep. Mike Callton last month: "You can tax the heck out of marijuana,” Callton says, “put it into a separate fund for Michigan roads - because it doesn’t seem like that money is going to come from anywhere else at this point in time - and it’s a cute name, 'pot for potholes.'"

On his show Wednesday night, Stephen Colbert warned that this was a dangerous idea because "you know what they'll be legalizing next to fix every crack."

Monday, October 14, 2013

Democrats and Republicans Are 'Optimistic'

The New York Times provided America with some good news today, reporting that "Democratic and Republican leaders in the Senate were close late Monday to an agreement that would increase the nation’s borrowing authority and provide enough money to operate the government until the end of the year." The Times reports that a vote on a new plan, which is highly unlikely to include "any provision to delay or repeal a tax on medical devices"  but does offer the Republicans certain compromises, could occur as early as Wednesday, which would end the shutdown and avoid a debt crisis- at least temporarily. 

Not everyone was happy. 
"What goes around comes around," said Senator John McCain. "If they try to humiliate Republicans, things change in American politics."

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Day 13

So, today marks the 13th day the federal government has been shut down, the 13th day Republicans and Democrats couldn't come together for the good of the American people, the 13th day Pres. Obama had little to nothing to say about it. And by the looks of it, with the debt crisis looming over Congress, things are not about to get better. CNN has the scoop.

Passion v. Fear

One teacher discusses her teaching strategy in the swampland that is the classroom in an article that is particularly poignant for those of us who are currently somewhat apathetic college students. 

Grief



Last March a photographer's walk through Arlington National Cemetery's Section 60, the burial ground for soldiers who fought in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, culminated in the discovery that many of the graves had been desecrated. The mementos that loved ones had put on the graves were gone. It was discovered that the cemetery was enforcing a new policy. Nonetheless, it made for a shocking photo essay that captured not only the still real grief of family members who have lost people to war, but how you could rid anything of its humanity, even a graveyard. 

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Rise of the Phoenix

I usually don't care about celebrity culture, but the other night I watched I'm Still Here and I'm still blown away.
In 2008 and 2009, most people in Hollywood thought the highly acclaimed, Oscar-nominated actor, Joaquin Phoenix, had lost it. He said he was quitting acting to pursue a rap career, a hilarious notion, especially considering his complete lack of musical talent. He started sporting this look:

He initially claimed that a documentary crew had approached him and he had agreed to let them film his "transformation." There is a scene where Ben Stiller approaches him about playing a part in his move Greenberg and Phoenix just completely blows him off. There are scenes where he is freaking out about not having pot, and doing cocaine with hookers. He followed P. Diddy all around the country in an attempt to get him to release his (terrible) rap CD. During the height of the media madness, as the entire country asked, "What's happened to Joaquin Phoenix?", he went on David Letterman and solidified the fact that he had gone absolutely bonkers. 

Then he released I'm Still Here, the supposedly real footage of his Phoenix's-gone-loony breakdown. But guess what? I'm Still Here isn't real. 

Joaquin put on a real live show for the entire world, and he fooled us all. Just for a movie! I'm so impressed, I want to watch every Joaquin Phoenix movie out there there is. 

It just really makes you think about what the words "dedication" and "commitment" really mean.

Well played, Joaquin. 

Going Off The Grid Part II



On random and unnecessary Facebook statuses: 
"You know what I'm talking about. I just had a bowl of cereal. Mmmm sugar puffs. What is that?"

Going Off The Grid

This summer, my shitty HP laptop contracted a virus around the same time I deleted my Facebook account and I essentially went off the (virtual) grid. Writer Patrick Ross is taking a break from the never-ending distractions of the digital world, too. His "One Week Social Media Withdrawal" is outlined in a blog post, ironically, but he hopes that the time away will allow him to finally get his three-year-long project completed. 

My laptop works again (though it's been a long road), but I'm still anti-social media, abstaining from Tumblr, Twitter, and especially Facebook. Don't get me wrong; social media has a lot of practical uses and can be a fun and social tool as well. But for me, the endless updates of what people were doing with their lives were too much. It was information overload of the worst kind. I knew too much about who broke up with their boyfriend every two weeks, who had a 3.67 GPA, and who was way too into drunk selfies. I almost felt bad for some of them, with the show they had going on. I almost felt bad for me, too, with how obsessed I could get with some of their pages, and my own. 

So I'm off the grid, and it's great. Sure, I don't get to always see the pics from the party the night before, or participate in the occasional Facebook debate, but I have a real life, and real friends who, if need be, can tell me what's going on the virtual land of social media. Usually, we talk about other things. 

Friday, October 4, 2013

More Thoughts About the Shutdown

The question most on my, and a lot of people's, mind lately about this whole Congressional mess is: why are Republicans so against the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare)? A New York Times article entitled "A Population Betrayed" discusses the issue of Republicans leaving their own supporters without health insurance, some among the poorest in the country (obviously this excludes Rupert Murdoch, and the like). If the Republicans don't find it a worthwhile endeavor to ensure the people who put them in office, never mind Democrats, independents, and politically apathetic individuals, the basic right of healthcare, what exactly do they intend to accomplish in Washington? Stop people who love each other from getting married? Insist on trying to maintain America's Puritan image of centuries past? It's been too long since the government was able to put its differences aside and make an important stride for a country running out of steam. 

Thursday, October 3, 2013

Partisan Politics Make Me Mad

Many articles published in the wake of the government shutdown have proposed that the Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-Ohio) [pictured below], has the ability to end the shutdown but will not due to the conflicts of partisan politics. Boehner will not pass a bill to fund federal agencies and national parks for the next six weeks because it lacks Republican support. The Washington Post reported: "The speaker’s closest allies say he cannot afford to defy those on his right flank by ending the shutdown with largely Democratic votes." With 800,000 federal workers at home and economists predicting that if the shutdown continues it will cost the economy billions of dollars, Republicans still insist it is worth the attempt to derail Obamacare--or worse yet, to not piss off your buddies. The speaker's problems are far from over, with the impending debt crisis looming over his, and America's, horizon. 

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Apple Replaces Coke As Top Global Brand

Coca-Cola has fallen to number three in the ranking of the most successful global brands after holding the number one spot for the last 13 years, as described in the Interbrand's Best Global Brands 2013 report. The new number one and number two? Apple and Google. The top 10 includes five technology companies, indicating even more how the world is changing. But Coke shouldn't worry too much; another beverages brand doesn't even crack the top 20, with Pepsi coming in at number 22.


I'd like a new iPhone, and maybe a Coke, too.

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Death of a Journalist


                                                        (Taken from jimromanesko.com)

Journalist Marina Shifrin quit her Next Media Animation job because she felt that "for the past six years I've been a writer trapped in a journalist's body." She writes on her blog about how she got fed up with the profession: "Journalism is the worst! I mean if you're not reporting about which Kardashian is pregnant, then you're reporting about a baby that was shot in the head."

Read her whole rant on her blog.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Now, Lend Me Your Ears

Mr. Vonnegut on how to write a great short-story:


Not bad advice for us journalists, either, especially: Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To hell with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they could finish the story themselves, should cockroaches eat the last few pages.

Meditation/Calculation

"Man today is in flight from thinking," said philosopher Martin Heidegger in 1959. Thoughtlessness, he said, had penetrated human existence in a frightful way; all around him he felt that he had begun to see less and less of a certain kind of thinking--meditative thinking. Meditative thinking, as opposed to calculative thinking, is a product of the spiritual nature of man, and he rightfully questioned just where we would be without it. Calculative thinking also has its place and humanity owes a lot of its success to it, but Heidegger asked his audience to please consider what our age reflects, not just what it can churn out by way of machines.

His call for thought remains essential. What does our age, and our news, reflect? It reflects a time of change in many places, including at home. If man is in flight from thinking, as Heidegger says, where is he going? Where will we be without the comfort of our own minds taking us places we never knew existed? Where will we go when there is no television, no Facebook, nothing to distract us from ourselves?

We might never have to go there, but we should. Calculative thinking is central to journalism and to proving a point. But journalism it is also about keeping us thoughtful and connected to ourselves and the world, in flight from nothing.

Saturday, September 28, 2013

World Safer Than Ever Despite Terror Attacks And Mass Shootings

Experts say, in the Huffington Post today. According to the article, "mass killings peaked in 1929 and have dropped in the 2000s" and "'since 9/11,  you are far more likely to drown in your bathtub than be killed by terrorists in the United States.'"

Most of the statistics presented article reflect violence patterns in the United States, despite the headline reading "World Safer Than Ever."

Thursday, September 26, 2013

Six-Handed Journalism


The Age of the Cronut

A CNN article cites 10 things the U.S. does better than anyone else, and doesn't include anything too serious.

Here's the list:
1. Effusive greetings (can I get a wassssup?!)
2. Road trips
3. Derbies
4. Beer
5. Diversity (yeah, immigration! oh wait...)
6. Canyons
7. National parks
8. Eating (marked by this year's "gastronomic breakthrough" which is the cronut, a croissant-donut hybrid introduced in New York City)
9. Sports
10. Moving pictures

At this rate, we should be boasting about our ability to fill the streets with SUVs and pickpockets in no time. 

All hail the cronut.


Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Equality Wanted

A New York Times article published today addressed the unfair gender gap in the workplace--yes, it still exists. It's 2013, 93 years after women were granted the right to vote and 40 years after abortion became legal, and "over the last decade or so the typical wage of a woman in her prime has hovered around 80 percent of the typical wage for a man." 




Monday, September 23, 2013

We Are Livin' In A Digital World, And I'm Just A Digital Girl

Breaking news: online journalism can't survive without a wealthy benefactor or cat gifs (and Madonna puns, apparently).
And why should it?
In an age where we're actually deeming cell phones smart and naming our global positioning systems, "tweeting" our thoughts constantly (in 140 characters or less) and making books out of our faces, could we really expect journalism's transition into the digital world to go more smoothly than the rest of them? It's a whole new landscape, a whole new world out there filled with a site for every strange interest and a place for anyone to say anything. While I'm all for free speech, the plethora of it makes it hard to sort through the good and the bad. It's a world for everyone, and no one. Where do you go if you're not in the mood for its many options, when you're overwhelmed by the decision?

 

a plausible finish

there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
or you’re tired of getting drunk
and the grass doesn’t work anymore,
and I don’t mean go on
to hash or cocaine,
I mean a place to go besides
a death that’s waiting
and a love that doesn’t work
anymore.
there ought to be a place to go
when you can’t sleep
besides a tv set or a movie
or a newspaper
or a novel about a woman
whit her clit in her throat.
it’s not having that place to go
that creates the people in madhouses
and the suicides.
I suppose what most people do
when there isn’t any place to go
is to go to someplace or something
that hardly satisfies them,
and this ritual tends to sandpaper them
into a dullness where they can relax
without hope.
those faces you see everyday on the streets
were not created
entirely without
hope: be kind to them:
like you
they have not
escaped. 

-Charles Bukowski


Thursday, September 19, 2013

Inciting Change

I'm in the library waiting for 4:30 p.m. to come around so I can go shoot a lecture on campus for Photojournalism I, when I come across this saddening, albeit not completely shocking article. A 22-year-old photojournalist raped by four men and a "juvenile" (delinquent doesn't even begin to cover it) in Mumbai, India on Aug. 22 died "from massive internal injuries from being penetrated by a metal rod" two weeks after the attack. The headline aims to report the good news, if there can even be good news at this point, that the police have filed charges against the men. In a country where incidents of rape have gone up by 873% in the past 60 years and where rape culture is obviously pervasive, we can only hope this young woman's death will not be in vain, that it might be more enlightening than her photos and reporting could have been. 


Journalists often have to face dangerous situations. She made the choice to travel to India on assignment, and tragically was a victim of the country's confusion over its values. But that doesn't change the fact that rape is is horrifically violent and sometimes fatal, as it was in this case. It is a major societal problem in India and in so many places in the world, where the treatment of women is still cause for concern. I sit here, a woman with journalistic aspirations, and wonder- what will I face? As responsible journalists, we cannot stop sending reporters to India, and other dangerous places. If we do that, we give up, and we lose sight of every journalist's ultimate goal: to shine a light on issues otherwise left unilluminated. India has a long way to go before it becomes remotely safe for its women citizens and visitors, and journalism can be an important agent for change. India's attitude towards rape will not change on its own. How many women have to suffer gang rape? How many have to die? How many stories have to be written? There is no number, only a mission. Let's change things. 

Beginnings

A few days ago, a friend and I were leaving philosophy class when we began to discuss an idea the professor had brought up in passing, on his way to talking about the event of existence and the synthesis that is the human self. He had commented on the lack of females in the classroom. "Women don't seem to be as interested in philosophy as men," he said, before moving on, silently adding an oh well. It seemed true; with the exception of my Introduction to Philosophy class, the courses I had taken in the department tended to be male-heavy, including the teachers. As my friend and I talked about it, we couldn't come up with an answer. Why shouldn't women be as interested in philosophical matters, the unanswerable questions of the world, the impossible, the infinite? Were women incapable of deep thought?

Then I discovered that The New York Times opinion pages had been thinking about this question as well. In this article published on Sept.  2, by a woman, the author contemplates the lack of professional women philosophers, which, it turns out, is statistically backed up. She cites "alienation, loneliness, implicit bias, stereotype threat, microaggression, and outright discrimination" as the discouraging factors. But many people have had to face similar obstacles in order to get where they wanted to be. Where would we be if Bob Dylan had abandoned rock n' roll when his fans were in uproar over "Like A Rolling Stone"'s electric sound in 1965? If Albert Einstein had said, "ah, screw it," after making some major mistakes in the field of physics (check out a list of them here)? 

Life is never without obstacles, and never without questions. Deep Thought tackles both and brings life into the focus--the good, the bad, and the simply absurd.