hw 37 my second pod fast

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=50906&castPage=

this is my second pod cast, it is number 27 on the gab cast page for 11/27/07 on the groups account! enjoy!

hw 36 my first pod cast

http://http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=50060&castPage=

My podcast is episode 23 on the group gabcast account! enjoy!

HW 35: Farewell Blogger.com

I am sorry to say this is my last blog I will be posting on blogger.com, in the beginning I was skeptical of blogging however; I have found it being most rewarding especially by using it to post homework assignments. I have learned that it is most important to have good time management in order to keep up to date with my assignments. A timestamp occurs on every blog posted with the date and time of its posting down to the second. Not only can my professor use that to determine how to grade my assignment and its timeliness’ but also that I am up to date with my assignments. With the rare occurrence that I am not, she can determine when I did my back work for her to grade accordingly. I have had to do many assignments and I am required to produce all of them printed in a portfolio at the end of the semester and having them readily available on blogger.com it will make this task easy to complete. For others, I hope that my blogs on the readings I have done in this class will help other people understand the authors when they read the books I blogged on. Not only will they help better understand the authors but an opinion on them as well maybe to help them gain their own. I am most proud of my blogs when we were reading Virginia Woolf, not only am I a big fan of her but I feel that I stood very strong with writing about how to perceive her works. I feel like it was a tribute in a way to her and what she has written and her interests as a woman of her time. To be honest, I am not 100% positive if I will continue to blog because I am no longer required to do so. However, I feel as though I will take advantage of blogger to blog and do the same analyses of books I have yet to read, to keep up the contribution of opinions and summaries for others. I will not delete or cancel my account or any of the posts already posted on it, I feel like that sort of thing is good to look back at to see the growth in my writing and such. Thank all of you have read my blog thus far!

HW 34: Evening Tea

When reading Riverbend’s Baghdad Burning October 9th through 29th I read about the tea tradition in Iraq. The tea is served to the entire family at once while sitting in the living room together, the making of the tea is something that differs however, who the tea is served to and the serving time is not. Tea is served in many ways depending on the family but there is a basic 3-step process that tea is made in Iraq. The water is boiled then tealeaves are added and lastly it is all put in to a different kettle and heated until the leaves rise to the surface of the kettle and allowed to settle again (Riverbend 108-109). Tea is never served by a tea bag, in fact that is considered an insult to Iraqi’s due to their expertise of tea and the way it is served. The drinking of tea together is their family’s way to have conversation and enjoy each other’s company. The conversations they have range from the current political situation of Iraq to what each of their days consisted of, they do this voluntarily and often look forward to their evening tea as a family. This is a custom I am envious of, I feel that it is a time some families may take advantage of and use it for other things where most if not all would benefit from a time such as evening tea to be together and catch up on their lives and events in their area. “Unlike the typical family conversation around the world ‘How was your day dear?’ doesn’t get at typical answer in Iraq. Depending on who is being asked, the answer varies from stories of abductions to hijackings, to demonstrations, to empty gas cylinders and burned out water pumps” (Riverbend 109). This is something needed both information wise and bonding, the time spent making sure they know what is going on and how they feel about it is so vital to their relationship as a family.

Schooling in Baghdad HW 33

I watched "Challenges at a Girl's School in Baghdad" from the Life From Iraqi's to You series from Alive in Baghdad that was shot on 5/21/2007, to watch this yourself go tohttp://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad/. This clip was shot in Al-Safina an all girls middle school in Adhamiya, a place that due to the violence in Iraq is often difficult to get to and attend throughout the year. The school itself is a run down concrete building with chipped paint and is very small compared to the number of students and staff within its gated walls. The girls wear uniforms and their traditional head peices at school and at the beginning of the year there was around 300 students and today their numbers have decreased to about a little over 200 students. The decrease in students is due to the displacement occurring in their areas which forces the students to either not go to school at all or go to a different school, this decreasing the number of girls attending Al-Safina despite how much the girls wish to be there instead. I believe that the point of this video was to drive home the fact that education in Iraq is something that needs improvement. The girls as well as faculty are scared to attend school, scared to travel there and are in fear once they get there due to searches, explosions, shootings and other day-to-day violence they witness. This school is doing the best they can under their current situation and believe that despite the range in experienced teachers they are working with the girls are continuing to improve their grades and their spirits with help of the administrator who spoke in the video. She was very hopeful for the girls in her school as well as her teaching staff; she believes that the “clever” girls will make a difference for their generation. I think that the most memorable part was that when one girl was interviewed she said she was determined and insisted on attending school as much as she possibly could, despite all that is going on around her she is determined to finish school. This shows that there is still a hope for this country, its people and that they are not completely discouraged and are not giving up, this generation of girls interviewed will make a difference in their country. The lesson learned is that despite where you are, what conditions you are under life still goes on and essentials of life such as education still need to happen and there needs to be more action put forth to better the education Iraqi children are receiving.

HW 32: Aqila Al-Hashimi

On Saturday September 27 Aqila Al-Hashimi was buried in the south of Iraq after being murdered by an unknown attacker though there are suspicions as to who was behind it, nothing is official. One of the accused is Al-Chalabi, who was also accused of having apart in the attack on the Jordanian Embassy, however Al-Chalabi rerouted his accusation to Saddam, which Riverbend believes is sort of a cop out. Al-Hashimi was said to be made an ambassadress to the Un for Iraq, which makes things peculiar now after her death the UN is pulling out its staff to do “security reasons” (Riverbend pages 84-85). Riverbend believes that everytime the UN pulls out its staff something bad is about to happen “…the UN is pulling out…we’re getting bombed” (Riverbend page 85) This is how she generally gauges the political situations in Iraq, if the UN is in its going good, if their out its going badly.

HW 30: Citizen Journalist II

I attended Jiwan Ahn, Sander Lee and Mark Timney’s “Animations as Political and Social Constructions” a lecture from the Citizenship Symposium done by Keene State College. All three presenters are faculty here at Keene State College and their presentations were to educate us as their audience about the actual role in animations in our society. Ahn portrayed the art of Anime and the ways of seeing it, Anime has many admirers from the elite to simple fans she states that the “fanatical art work industry is huge” and that the admirers not only collect but also do Anime art work. The purpose of the flat style they use in Anime is so that the female body that they so often use is not portrayed in the wrong sexual manner. They wish to keep the body more as a symbol and less as an arousing sexual object, they use the body accompanied with violence, nature and in provocative clothing if at all clothed. This style “may be seen as being exploitative toward young girls” because they are so exposed in most of the artwork. However, this fan-boy style is how they use their artwork to get people to see new types of gender representation and a new way of thinking about gender representations to the media and society as well. Lee used WWII cartoons to show how animation has been used in our society for political and informative ways. Showing Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck in areas of Nazi Germany working for or being chased by Hitler and his cohorts in the war. In both cartoons, they show that Hitler could be conquered by another highly powered state as the US and the Soviet Union. This was their way of showing what was going on during the times of the war as well as what could transpire from the war. Lee states, “I feel that Bugs identity is an interesting one in terms of the situation. I maintain Bugs has an ethnic identity, an American accent or an image of Brooklyn which is street smart, tough and ethic and his accent and the way he operates identifies him as a representative for the American Melting Pot to the German government.” This is was intentional, not ironic. Timney uses South Park to identify animation with our society, claiming that it not only is exploitive of our country, religions, is vulgar and has blatant sexual content but it also is “satire at its finest.” This show has the ability to cultivate behavior among its viewers as well as ask its viewers to compromise for greater good, to be active citizens and think critically, check facts, have an open mind and refine generalizations. All these things are built in to a show that degrades and mocks our country and its aspects yet at the same time “teaches” its viewers to be good citizens, that was our presenters point however not something I agree with.

HW 31 : Depleted Uranium

As I was reading the assigned section of Baghdad Burning, her blog from September 3 had information had never heard of before the bombing of in 1991 and more importantly the aftermath with depleted uranium (Riverbend, 47). Riverbend describes that the first bomb went straight through allowing the second one to blow up inside it, killing more then four-hundred people in the Al-Amriyah shelter on February 13, 1991. The bombs contained uranium, not only enhancing the explosion but also causing such a devastating repercussion that the affects are still being felt today. People contracted cancer and diseases that medicine could have helped if it was not “forbidden” due to sanctions placed on the country after the bombing that permitted the availability of medications, health care, books, clean water, and every day necessities. Birth defects were so high after the bombing due to the depleted uranium in their systems, babies were born with extra or less extremities and features coupled with mental and health concerns and disabilities (Riverbend 46-8). I had never heard of depleted uranium or the bombing that occurred in 1991, this is something that bothers me about our society, I was never taught about either of these and many other occurrences in our world similar to this tragedy. Therefore, this is what I chose to research to understand from the assigned reading. Depleted uranium a waste product of enriched uranium, and is radioactive. The use of this in weapons is even more detrimental due to its affects once released in to the air. It is not documented however; there have been cases where it appears that depleted uranium was a contributing factor to cancer in patients who had been exposed to the devastating airborne health threat (Wikipedia Foundation updated by unknown user on November 8, 2007). I regret not knowing about the tragedy in 1991 however, I am becoming more and more aware of situations as I continue to read this book, I am very great full to its author.

HW 30: Citizen Journalist

I attended a lecture through the Keene State College Citizenship Symposium in which the lecture was an unexpected topic however, it was an interesting topic, it was on the voting systems in the world. Dr. Vincent Ferleni gave us our lecture on voting this Tuesday in the Redfern Art Center, his lecture was called Get the Vote Out and proceeded to inform all of us in his audience of the history, basics and details of voting. Dr. Ferleni got his Bachelors degree from Notre Dame in mathematics as well as his Masters degree in mathematics from the University of Oregon; he currently is a professor here at Keene State College. His talk began with a short history about voting, it began in Greece around 509 BEC where the voters would vote for who they liked the least. Once that vote was tallied the person like the least was put in to exile for ten or more years, the voters broken pot was called ostraca which is the root word for ostracize which we use today. The next piece of history of voting is the how the simple voting method works, which is that there are only two candidates and in the end one winner, however in the event of a tie there is a coin toss. In the U.S, this has occurred in Groveland, Florida during the city council elections and the winner was determined through the simple shout out of heads or tails, this is the most interesting aspect of voting that I gathered from this lecture. He then described the four different voting systems, the first being the plurality method where the winner is determined by the most number one voted candidate wins. The next originated by Jean Charles de Borda called the Borda method in which the highest number determines the candidate winner received after tallying votes. The third voting method is the Plurality with elimination method where majority chooses the winner. This is when our lecturer said, “We tend to like majority rules.” The last method is called the Pair wise comparison method, the winner is determined through the highest number of wins in elections. The last thing he discussed was fairness conditions in which there are three. The first being the majority criterion, the second is the Condorcet condition named after its founder and lastly the independence of irrelevant alternatives criterion. This lecture was severely informative and lengthy in detail of the mathematics behind it, which was originated by Kenneth Arrow in 1921.

HW 28: An Open Letter to Riverbend

To be honest, I am not well informed on the happenings in Iraq and or the war. Reading what you have gone through and what you see on a daily basis and your thoughts on the war is completely new to me, I know what I see on CNN or hear from other people but that is where it ends. In fact, most people are not aware of any thing you go through or see, what you have written is not readily available information here in the states. I think it takes a lot of courage and ambition to write what you have written especially in the situation you currently live in. I am naïve to the situation as a whole, I do not know the current events in Iraq, and I do not know which countries are in occupation in your country nor their business there. I do not know how long, where, what the purposes of their occupancy is or anything other then that my cousins and loved ones are doing it and it is a risk of their lives to do so. Your book and blogs, however, have enlightened me about the situation you are in as an Iraqi citizen and what the impacts are on your life especially the impact it has on being a woman. Being a woman is something to embrace and be proud of, here in the US, women burned their bras to enhance their rights and lives yet for you, you are covered from head to toe and cannot show your pride of being a woman. Part of being a woman is embracing what you can do and your strengths and you cannot do that either, you cannot work and show your skills you cannot show off your body as a woman and feel the thrill it feels to know you can do something and do it well, that saddens me. The things you see and feel should not be shame and guilt for being a woman it should be accepted not punished by abductions and destruction of who you are. You should be free to walk the streets and go to the market just as I am, I do not understand the differences in our countries, I do not understand why I am free and you are not, I think it is preposterous. I am sorry I am so naïve and I am trying more and more to better understand and relate myself with your situation, country and the war. Thank you for what you are sharing with me, with everyone, thank you for being a woman not afraid to speak, thank you for who you are and I hope you stay this way wherever you are.

HW 25: I support the Troops

The foreword for Baghdad Burning by Ahdaf Soueif tells of Riverbend and why she wrote her book. What pushed her to do so was she needed to vent, and get it all off her chest about her opinions of the war and how it broke up her entire life. Blogging just was not enough for Riverbend, she needed an outlet to tell what exactly is going on in Iraq, granted it was not as geographically extensive as some would have liked it to be but it was an Iraqi’s view of the war. It affected every aspect of their lives, home, work, relationships, travel, life as a whole was disrupted and influenced by the soldier’s presence in their country. The introduction to Riverbend’s story written by James Ridgeway explains how extensive this book is, no professional could ever have or give the information she does in Baghdad Burning ergo her blog. She has the inside look no other Iraqi dared to speak about and no media could uncover, it is the unscathed truth of Iraq, the war and every impact and movement within the 2. Ridgeway tells of Riverbend’s background and history as well as her cultures history between the US and other relations and the history as a whole. He highlights the Gulf War and the statistics between the 2 wars as well as the 2003 War and its detailed news and impact. Giving Riverbend’s view on the “puppet show” put on by the US and its lovely president and government and her countries interactions. In addition, he bullets the new Iraq so to speak since 2003 and the new beginning it was given so to speak and the invasions impact and role within the society as it is today. To me these two insights are nothing like how I have seen the War in Iraq, I am in American tried and true, I am proud and support our troops, I love our freedoms despite the arguments and disputes within our country and amongst others. I know what I can about the war and my loved ones in it, I do not know exact dates, I do not care to. I was in math class on my way to comp. tech when disaster and tragedy struck our country, I was in the living room of my aunts house when I watched my cousin leave for Iraq, I was in a field at graduation when friends were announced soldiers heading to war, and I am here in the library loving what they are doing and who they are. That’s what matters to me, not the statistics not the politics, they matter so the accounts I just read and this book is all fine and good and solid but it is nothing to what I feel about the war.