I red something interesting in the book "The new rules of marketing" by David Meerman Scott. THere's maybe ten pages in there about blogging that I thought that I should red. I did and I agree with him about what he says about blogging.

Fear not journalists, blogging is not here to steal your jobs... The book is from 2007 and in the new media world that is almost old, and journalists in the regular media doesn't seem to have a problem with blogging anymore.

He still say something I didn't think about before and that makes a lot of sense.

"Thinking of the web as a city, rather than a newspaper, and bloggers as individual citizens voices probides implications for all net-citizens."

Tuesday was dedicated to the national TV-program C-CPAN. “If women rule, there would be no war”, said a caller who called to C-SPAN. This is one of two things; either really stupid or really smart. I will explain the latter. Within feminist movement there are two main branches. One belief is that woman and men have different minds but equal value, and the other belief is that women and men have the same mind and therefore are equal in every aspect. In the latter one there would not be a difference in men or women ruling. In the first belief, on the other hand, where the minds of men and women work different, there would be a difference in governance depending on who has the power. This is where the challenge comes. The spoken quote does not state how that change would take place, which is impossible. So; the statement is dumb as hell. The art of political power is so set in its ways so the outcome would be the same regardless of which theory apply to us. 

There is no way we can erase history and everything that has happened has shaped how we look at thing and how we run out societies, which are our culture. Because of that both feminist branches struggles with determine what is a result of our gender and what is a result of our culture. Is the ability to prepare food something women are good at because of our genes or is it because women has been the ones raised to cook food all through history? I am not making any statement whether women are good at cooking or not, I just want to give an example of what I mean. 

When it comes to politics it has always been men but even though women are starting to get into politics they have to do politics in the way that it has always been done. If that way is a masculine way or not I leave up to the scientist to figure out. My point is that it would be impossible to see if there would be no war if women ruled. Because that history has already decided how politics work and gender can no longer do anything about it. In theory most people would probably say they belong to the first one of the beliefs about men and women, but by saying the quote is dumb they join the second belief. Most people are not feminist and do not consider these kind of things when statements are made but I get curious of what exactly the caller meant. The guest on C- span spoke mostly about that Obama have a big challenge ahead of him and I don’t know if he can live up to the expectations. As a foreign exchange student I see the election from another perspective and from a position where I am not affected of his politics in a direct way. I have to say that the expectations on Obama are very high and that people seem to believe that he will solve all problems in a heartbeat. This might be the attitude before every president’s inauguration, correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe there are some people who are going to be disappointed when they realize that he is not going be able to solve everything in a heartbeat. I am not making judgment on however Obama will solve the crisis and problem U.S seem to be in, I am just saying that even if he do solve them it is going take time for him and effort from everyone else. I noticed that many of the questions from the audience to the C-SPAN guest concerned education and that makes me happy. I believe that education is a problem solver. Educate people and the will get a better understanding for everything.

I have had this blog for three months now and the time has passed fast. I have tried to keep it up and to keep it interesting. I know that I have failed from time to time with both of them but it has given me further knowledge. I haven't quite yet figured out my theme, I guees I don't really find my life interesting enough to actually write about or I just find it to personal to be posted online. I do however like to post my thoughts and opinions online and i believe that the more people discuss their thoughts and opinions, the better. This is a way for me to leave my thoughts and opinions out there for anyone to discuss.

It might sounds sleezy but I do like blogging and I hope that I will create and maintain many more blogs in the future. This is an article I made in magazine article writing class as a result of my blogging. 

Never the less, I am thinking about other things than those I should and then it came to me. Like an epifani (which, by the way is a real hard word to figure out how to spell) and I realized a solution to my image problem.

If I don't have my own pictures I can always use ClipArt.

I know, not the prettiest pictures, ten years ago. Things actually do change. I looked through the ones in Office and then there's tons of them at the Microsoft website. All free to use (I didn't read the license agreement but they are there and it doesn't seem to be a problem at all to download)

In conclusion, if I don't have my own pictures, I can always play around with Microsoft's ones... 

Perfect!

I'm really trying to create entries where I can post images and phots or other creative things that would draw attention. But I figured out that every entry takes about ten times as long to write. 

When I first began with blogging, I just wrote the entries and that was it. I don't know if the content was very good, I didn't pay much attention to it and there was always a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes. But as my blogging continued I started to enjoy it and I wanted to do something real, I didn't really have anything interesting or fun to write about but I started atleast to spell and grammar check whatever I wrote. 

When I got to the U.S I actually had something to write about and I wanted to develop even more. And I believe I have. Now, I think about what to write, I try to find a picture to go with it and if I can't I try to create something in photoshop. I try to attach useful links and I try to write about something interesting and something that I actually put some thouhgts into.

The picture thing is the thing that has suprised me the most. I don't think I will ever figure out the sizes of pictures. A picture is one size in one program and a completely different in another. Which forces me to upload and reload and remake the pictures for my blog a number of times. I do, however, think that pictures is an important element to a blog and I guess that I will get used to it as time progress.

I red a blog the other day from a somewhat established Swedish journalist. She seemed to use her blog to post personal feelings when she is angry or upset with something or somebody. I don't want to use my blog like that. I want to post entries about stuff that concerns and angers me but I hope that I am able to think things through before I post them on my blog.

A blog is though a fast medium and the biggest enemy is writers block. To maintain a blog, such a thing can't exist. There is one thing you can do to avoid this and that is to have entires stored for those moments when writers block appears. Because even the best get the block from time to time and there's no escape, but preparation.

 (Shell gas station on State of Franklin in Johnson City, Tn)

Americans are fed up with taxes.

Or, maybe it is just the people of Kingsport, Tennessee.

Atleast according to Johnson City press; that reports about a protest in Kingsport, Tennesse against raised taxes and somehow it has something to do with the "Boston tea party".

This is not really what caught my attention. I like to read about when people are protesting, even though I do not always agree I think it is a good sign of a healthy society when it's citizens protest against what they feel is wrong in it. Considering the economical position U.S is in and the very historical change in office that just happened it is good to hear that American people are taking a stand for what they believe in. Wether taxes are a good thing or not is of course depending on what they pay for but it is also not of my concern what kind of attitude Americans have against taxes and so forth. I just like to know about the differences.

I have, actually, spot some main differences in culture between Sweden and U.S since I got here. Some are bad, some are good and some are actually not differences. Religion is one topic, which I believe that I have already discussed. Politics another.

I soon discovered that "communism" is a swear word here. It is used in the same way I use fascist. To be a "commi" is something really bad and I find that funny. Maybe because I did a paper on the McCharty- era and found the whole witch hunt kind of rediciolus and a little 1700 century over it or maybe I don't understand the danger with communism.

So, how is this related to Americans protesting against taxes.

I don't know.

But the protestors had signs that said "Stop socialism", so I guess they think it has something to do with eachother.
Sweden is a socialist country (as far as I know) and I find the fear of socialism somewhat wierd. I have come to the understanding that socialism works in Skandinavian countries because our populations are small. Which may be true. But I actually often ask myself if the individual freedom that one has in U.S really is worth it?

In Magazine article class we are supposed to do a lot of reading, I really try to keep it up but in the nearest past I have failed that task. I did however read the war reporting articles.

"Dying in Darfur" by Samantha Power (published The New Yorker)
"Torture at Abu Ghraib" by Seymour M. Hersh (published The New Yorker)
"The killer elite" by Evan Wright (published Rolling Stone)

I chose one of these to analyse for my second analysis but before I start with that project I want to post a learner's journal about how it was to read these articles. It was hard to think about the way they are writing and how they tell information because the articles were very informative and interesting so I got caught up in the story and forgot about the analyse of it. I guess that how you write it is not depending on whether you write the truth or fiction but it is easier to to see how it is written when it is fiction becuase when it is about the truth you (atleast I) tend to be caught up in analysing if it is true or not rather then the style of the writing.

"Dying in Darfur" did the classical thing with starting with a single person's story, to make the article feel personal. I did however feel that the effect of making the story personal by giving example of a single person's story lost it's effect when the person never got directly quoted. The person is Amina Abaker Mohammed who lost her son to the janjaweed but the story need her voice to get personal and not only Power retelling what she said. Power uses Amina's story as a memory point in her article. She goes back to it two times in order for the reader to keep track of where you are in the article. This article was 15 pages long and it was really hard for me to focus on the writing rather than the content. In the article

"Torture at Abu Ghraib" I had even more trouble staying focused on the writing rather than the content. This article is a lot shorter, 6 pages, but I remember this event from the news and the pictures that went around the globe. It is about soldiers who tortured prisoners and took pictures of it. Hersh way of writing this story makes the officers victims for someone else's orders. He mentions that they have no training and talks about other officers that thought the behaviour was wrong. Hersh gives the officers personality by mentioning personal information about them, for example that General Karpinski wanted to be an officer since she was five. He ends the article with repetingly qouting people who says that this is was orders from someone else and that the officers are just a brick in a game.

I really enjoyed reading "The killer elite" and this is also the article I'm going to do my analysis on. Wright has a fun way of writing and he uses things I like to use myself. He doesn't judge in his text, he just writes it as he hears it and sees it. He is very distant from the subjects and the places he describes in the article until he gets to the shooting in Al Gharraf, then he mention "I" and how he felt when all that was going on. I like how he takes everything down to a personal level and let the ones who are actual in it describe what it is. He as a journalist is not in it until the shooting and that occur on page 10 of 16. It is fun to read even though it is about an awful thing.

That is my feeling of Miami, sand in my high heels. It is not that clever to walk in high heels on the beach, which I soon discovered and kind of knew from the start, but I just wanted to wear high heels.

I have a lot of high heels but I rarely use them. Mostly because I feel to tall and I can't keep up with my friends. In Miami I felt the opposite. I felt widely under dressed without high heels and even though that really doesn't bother me I just wanted to grab the opportunity to wear high heels. So I did.

Spring Break in Miami was great. I brought a book with me but I didn't read too many pages in it, just lying in the sun was enough for me. I could easily have done that for another couple of weeks. The only thing that kind of annoyed me was that we had to take the car everywhere. It wasn't like we had a choice either, the distances were too far for walking.

Even though I didn't plan to do very much other than lying at the beach we still got some things done. We went to down town Miami, we ate at a Cuban resturant, we saw flamingos and alligators and other animals, we spent a day in the car without getting anywhere, we went to a reaggie bar that served drinks with more vodka than soda, we turned in the door of Mansion, we saw the Venecian pool that actually was nothing, we went to a club called Bed and I will let the name speak for itself and we drank lots of lots of margeritas.

In the middle of all this the Bahamas travelers stopped by to say hi, which was nice. We rented an apartment with the beach right in front of it and a tiny kitchen. In the end it was two king sized beds, two matrasses and a sofa with 7 people and a ton of clothes that was everywhere. The difference from New York tis hat even if things would screw up I didn't care cus it was warm and sunny and a blue sky.

I love Miami as much as I love New York and the main reason is that they are both cities far away from forest and nature. I don't mind nature, as long as it is something I can visit and then go back to people and houses and asfalt. I know I grew up basically in the forest and I know that it is a sin to not love Sweden for it's beautiful nature and I am really sorry but I prefer the city from the country.

On the second day of the seminar there was a secret service agent, a museum director and two journalists that made my morning interesting. The secret service agent’s hardest question for the day concerned the shoe throwing incident in Iraq December 14, 2008. This question however had a lot of thought behind it. The girl who asked wouldn’t settle for the answer that the secret service could not do much because it was just shoes and nothing else; she wanted to discuss the principle, the principle of allowing people to throw a shoe at the president. My guess is that she wanted to discuss that it wasn’t really about the shoes, it was about respect. If the secret service allows someone to throw a shoe at the president they show the world that they don’t really have to respect the president of U.S. She finally gave up and I don’t think she was too overwhelmed with the answer. I can understand her. But I can understand him as well. A shoe is just a shoe and while in Rome you do as Romans do as long as you possibly can and especially if it is about such sensitive things as politics. The world would have gone crazy if Bush’s secret service agents had jumped out and beat the journalist up and that would not have done any good for anyone, because in the end, it was just shoes.

Theory and practice are two different things, which became very clear with the student who had put a lot of thoughts in theories and principles and the secret service agent who lives in that reality. In reality theories and principles does not matter, every situation speak for itself. Other than that particular question his lecture concerned what he do on his job. Even though this matter interests me, it was the authors of the book "Common grounds" that made time fly.

They were witty, funny and had a good idea to pursue. It was obvious from the start who was conservative and who was liberal and I am sure they do it on purpose; they are both media personalities and know how to work a crowd. Never-the less, their message is one of the smartest things I ever heard and is exactly what I am trying to live by. It is not about who’s right; it’s about going forward and solving problems and bickering is not a good way of doing that. Cal Thomas and Bob Beckel gave a well rehearsed performance about why people with different opinions should discuss. They stressed that it is important to discuss the goal, because the goal is mostly the same; everyone wants to achieve something good and make the society and life better; the difference lies in how to get there. To be able to criticize oneself as well as the other person is a key factor in making the discussion work. Even though Thomas and Beckel were very humorous about it, it is not that certain that a discussion between people who do not know each other would be as fun but they make a good point that you should keep yourself distanced from the matter discussed. This idea, however is not new. In ancient Athens, Greece, discussion was the central thing in their society and the starting point for democracy. I grew up learning that no matter what, discussion is always a god thing. No matter with whom or about what, you can always learn something new and you will always teach someone else something new by discussing with people you meet.

Steve Bell, Professor and faculty director, Dana Bash, Senior Congressional Correspondent CNN, and Michael A. Genovese, Ph. D. and author of “A memo to the President” was the speakers of the first day. Steve Bell began with his first lecture about politics and the media. Dana Bash came second and told us all about her career and what she has experienced. Michael A. Genovese was the last speaker with his lecture “The peaceful transition of power”.

Two things struck me during Bell and Genovese’s lectures and those things concern Hillary Clinton and the difference between New Yorkers and DCers. When Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama ran against each other I knew immediately that the world and U.S is not ready for the largest economic power in the world to have a female president. I never once doubted the fact that the democrats would win, there was no other option, and my guess lay with Obama. Friends and others around me doubted my intuition and argued that Clinton would win due to the fact that she is white and race goes before gender. But allow me to remind everyone of certain dates. In 1870 the former slaves got the right to vote, which extended to right to vote to all male citizens, it took until 1920 until the right to vote was extended to include women as well. These dates (among other facts) make it obvious to me that all revolutions precede the women’s revolution. For example, the language is always under control for condescending words and they slowly disappear from the language as people evolve and more and more minorities win respect. Words such as Negro is not used to the same extent anymore and the word Jew is fighting for its right to mean nothing more than a person connected to the Jewish religion. We watch our language of what we say and what we mean by that. Words that are demeaning to women are however still common and people get almost defensive when it comes to using them, it is only a joke or it is only a saying and nothing more.

Thus, the world’s largest economic power will see any, if not all, minorities as a president before there will be a women as a president. This was my conclusion and when Clinton announced that she would no longer continue as a candidate I was even more certain that Obama would go all the way to the top.

This brings me to the first thing that struck me. Bell stated that Clinton was portrayed in a sexist way and that sexism definitely played a part in the fact that she lost the candidate post. I don’t like to be right about these things because that means the world is not as developed as I wish it were but really as slow as I suspect it is.

The second thing that struck me is also an evidence of that the world is as slow as I suspect it is. One of the speakers told us that the question asked each evening in New York is “How much did you earned today?” and in Washington DC the question is “Whom did you help today?” and that this sums up the differences between the two cities. I get disappointed when I hear these kinds of statements, even if they are meant in a fun and friendly way, because they lay the groundwork to biases and how people in the end treat each other. I’ve been to New York, I loved it and I am counting on that I am going to fall in love with Washington to.

The main event for today was Dana Bash. During my past semester I have studied beat reporting, my main education has always evolved around news journalism and I expected beat reporting to be the same thing. It is not. As a news journalist all the news is your working field and you write about them as they came along. As a beat reporter you find the stories. A beat reporter’s main source is contacts, without contacts there would not be any stories. A beat reporter must therefore protect her contacts to be able to get her stories. Bash is a beat reporter and as such, she can’t give her sources away and she has to keep them on her good side.

I found her lecture lacking the real inside scoop story until she told us she was a beat reporter. Bash told us only about her career and how much she loves her job and Washington because she can’t really tell us anything else because that would jeopardize her relationship with her contacts. Her career story however, gave inspiration to who of us that want to be a journalist. I might be damaged from actually being in the industry but a reporter is a journalist that is on front of a camera. All people dealing with some form of media text is a journalist. A media text is not only word on a paper but sound and video as well.