Thursday, February 26, 2009

Immersion Internship

1. What are you most excited about in regards to your immersion experience? Why do you feel this way?
I'm really excited about finishing my video during immersion and learning more about the place I'm interning at. I'm excited about presenting to the officials during the Tijuana River Valley presentation. I'm also really excited about experiencing what a real job feels like, going everyday and knowing what it feels like to go to work and go home, and be tired. I want to see what people at my internship are like everyday and see how they get used to us being around all the time. I'm also really excited to see what kinds of places we're going to travel to, such as going to the Tijuana River Valley to get footage and going to Tijuana to get footage of some people answering questions.

2. What are you most concerned about (what causes the most stress) regarding immersion? Why do you feel this way?
I'm concerned about getting to internship on time and how long it's going to get there everyday. I also am concerned about what we're going to be doing everyday because we can't make phone calls to important people and we can't do very important things because it relates to the government, other than that I'm not really concerned.

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Progressive Era

How progressive was the Progressive Era in American history?

Things to consider (choose some, not all!):
* Constitutional Amendments?
* Workers & Working Conditions?
* Imperialism?
* Civil Liberties?
* Conservation?
* Democracy?
* Freedom?

Make sure that you take a stand and establish a judgement, comparison in relation to a specific standard.


Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Bloggie Woggies

What blogs are out there with outstanding examples of:

1. Economic advice to Barack Obama?
2. Literary Analysis?
3. Historical Writing?
4. Anything else that makes blogs great?

Quote examples for each and explain why you picked them! Show us and tell us what makes them great!

I found a couple of really good entries while reading Evan's blog. He gave a lot of advice to Obama, and he really made an honest effort to try to think of something new to offer Obama. He did a good job of trying to use what we have now to better the suffering economy. His evidence was clearly thought out and he made a lot of good background research. He put out the current unemployment rate and how that's affecting everyone. He gave several options that the president could use, he asked president Obama to stop the war in Iraq because that is costing us trillions of dollars. I think that Evan's blog is really good at giving advice to President Obama and giving him reasonable ideas that he could feasibly use.

"I have quite a few suggestions for you Mr. Obama. The first piece of advice would be to pull out of the Iraq war as soon as possible. The cost the war as of March 2008 was in the trillions! That is money that we could have been using to strengthen our economy and keep it stable. This war as earned itself a spot on the list of most costly wars, just behind Vietnam, WWII, and Korea. With all of that money, we could have prevented our current economic crisis."

For the Literary Analysis I chose is Amanda's blog. She read the Jungle and she really knew what she was writing about, she gave a clear understanding of how literary devices were used.
"The author uses character, conflict, and foreshadowing to develop the theme that a capitalist society is an extremely difficult place to live in if you are part of the lower class."

For Historical Writing, I used Esther's blog, she talked about the 1896 election. Esther used good quotes and made it flow into her writing.


"The election of 1896 between McKinley and Bryan was impacted by the economic depression that started in the year 1893, which lasted until 1897. The depression of 1893 according to the book Nation of Nations was "the deepest the nation had yet experienced." A lot of companies and banks were failing at this time, this was a hard time for people all over for the companies, and the people who worked in those companies. When people saw that the economy was crashing they all panicked and they started taking out all of their money from the banks, which was one of the things that caused the bank failures."

Friday, February 6, 2009

Obama and I

If I had a chance to talk to Obama, I would ask him a couple of questions, like an interview.
My Questions would be the following:

What's different about the this stimulus and the Bush administration's stimulus plan?
What kind of regulations are in this stimulus plan?
What do companies have to do to get a bailout?
After getting the answers to the questions, I would like to ask Obama what kind of businesses he would like to bail out?
What are the companies that are priority?
After the stimulus what does he think will happen to the economy, how much will the stimulus plan help the economy?
After all of the questions, I would like to talk to him about the economy will worsen and what can the average person do?
What's going to happen to the average American? how are they going to get help?
How is the real estate business going to better and what kind of limitations are going to be put as to where the money goes, so that another John Thain doesn't happen?
What kind of regulations will businesses have so that bonuses, vacations, and refurbishing will no longer happen?

Overall I think that the questions would go really well and I'd get a lot of answers to my questions. I think that I would then talk to him about the future of the countries economy and how he thinks that's going to improve or worsen. I would like to talk to him about the difficulty of trying to pass the stimulus plan and why he thinks it took so long for it to pass. I would ask him why he believes a lot of senators were a bit skeptical about passing the bill. I would talk to President Obama about any future stimulus plans, any past stimulus and anything about the current stimulus plan.

My hour would probably be over way before all my questions and topics could get covered, but it would be a lot of fun being able to talk to President Obama about all of this and I think that it would be really informational.

After my questions, I would talk to Obama how he has to make sure that he makes good decisions on what's coming, like Frank Rich said, "it’s not clear that he fully understands the huge forces that hit his young administration last week." He needs to make sure that he understands the full force of the financial crisis that is coming. He needs to make sure that he stops cutting money where it's needed. He needs to make sure that he puts the money where he wants to put it and where it's needed. They took away money from the education and from health care. Things that were in the original stimulus plan are now going to be taken out because some people want the money to be taken out, so that the stimulus plan will decrease and will no longer be $800 billion. When George W. Bush asked for a stimulus plan, he asked for $145 billion from tax payers for, “a shot in the arm to keep a fundamentally strong economy healthy”. According to the New York Times, "The president said the package “must be big enough to make a difference” in an economy as large as that of the United States, meaning it should be worth about 1 percent of the gross domestic product, putting it at $140 billion to $150 billion," George Bush took 1% of the gross domestic product thinking that the economy would become a better one, seeing as how that didn't work, I want to know how Obama's going to make that change and make it work this time without wasting the tax-payers money. Obama needs to make the appropriate cuts and make sure that he spends the money wisely because the economy depends on him.
Sources:
For the CNN article, CLICK HERE!
For the NYTimes article, CLICK HERE!

My Mentor Interview Is:
On Tuesday in the conference room and it will be recorded on a camera.

http://obamarama.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/obama-wants-you-to-sign-up-for-obamarama.jpg
Sources:
HULSE, CARL. "Senators Reach Deal on Stimulus Plan as Jobs Vanish - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/07/us/politics/07stimulus.html?_r=2&scp=1&sq=Stimulus%20plan%202009&st=cse (accessed February 13, 2009).

"Debate on stimulus package to resume Monday - CNN.com." CNN.com - Breaking News, U.S., World, Weather, Entertainment & Video News. http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/02/07/stimulus/index.html?iref=newssearch (accessed February 13, 2009).

RICH, FRANK. "Op-Ed Columnist - Slumdogs Unite! - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/08/opinion/08rich.html (accessed February 13, 2009).

KRUGMAN, PAUL. "Op-Ed Columnist - The Destructive Center - NYTimes.com." The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/09/opinion/09krugman.html?_r=1 (accessed February 13, 2009).

Specter, Arlen. "Arlen Specter - Why I Support the Economic Stimulus - washingtonpost.com." washingtonpost.com - nation, world, technology and Washington area news and headlines. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/08/AR2009020801710.html?hpid=opinionsbox1 (accessed February 13, 2009).

Thursday, February 5, 2009

The Color Purple

When reading the Color Purple by Alice Walker, I realized that there was a lot of abuse, both mentally and physically to the main character, named Celie. The abuse becomes worse as she gets older and believes that she is not capable of defending herself. Celie tells her story and tries to become her own person by doing several things for herself. In the Color Purple many literary devices are used, some include; situational irony, symbolism and many metaphors.
Situational irony is a big part of the Color Purple, while reading I noticed a lot of it used. When Mr. and Celie go visit Shug, they both seemingly fall in love with her, even though she's initally Mr.'s lover. She teaches Celie to love herself and she teaches her how to become a proud seductive woman. Celie learns these rules of confidence from a woman that is lovers with her husband. Another part of situational irony I found was the fact that Nettie, Celie's sister, was kicked out of her house and ended up going to live in Africa and finding Celie's kids, who she's been looking for since they were born. Another part of situational irony I found was the fact that Shug's father was a pastor while Shug made her life being a seductive singer, singing in clubs and had no sense of right and wrong. She later makes a good relationship with her father and he forgives her.

The book also uses symbolism in the fact that Shug represents Celie becoming an independent woman. Shug really teaches Celie to love herself. In the whole book, Shug teaches Celie how to become a woman because all her life she is a treated like a dog who has a certain owner and she does whatever she is told. When Shug comes into Celie's life, she realizes what it means to be a strong independent woman. When Celie was young, she was sexually abused by the man she thought was her father, he bared two of her children and she grew up with a certain hatred for him because he took away both children. When he dies, he leaves Celie his house where she lives and waits for her family to be together for once. Mr.'s oldest son, Harpo marries a woman named Sofia and she is the exact opposite of Celie, Sofia always stands up for herself and won't take things from anyone. Celie and Mr's relationship is the exact opposite of the relationship of Harpo and Sofia. Celie is treated like an obedient dog, while Mr is the boss, and Harpo is the obedient one in the relationship and Sofa is more of the boss.

The book involves metaphors, such as the metaphor of Shug making Celie a woman because she is not the woman who is seen in the end of the book. Another metaphor used in the book is the letters that are sent back in forth in the book. There are constant letters sent to Celie from Nettie, her sister who was kicked out of her house by Mr, and moved to Africa where she found Celie's two kids. Things that are sewn are also big metaphors in the books, because it shows how thngs are being put together and in the end, it's a big thing that can be put together and goes well together, in the end everyone gets what they deserved. Celie ends up with both of her kids and her sister.

The overall theme of the book is that Celie overcame both physical and mental abuse. Whether Celie having to go through sexual abuse with her father or physical abuse with Mr. She overcomes everything when she realize's what she can accomplish on her own.

Monday, February 2, 2009

What makes a great interview?

Design Principles:

1.)Making a description/add a little biography about the person that's being interviewed.
Example from CBS: Couric Palin Interview
(CBS) When CBS News anchor Katie Couric sat down for an exclusive interview with vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, she focused on the economy - but also addressed reports that the lobbying firm of Sen. John McCain's campaign manager received payments from the controversial mortgage giant Freddie Mac until last month. Couric asked for the Alaska governor's reaction to that.

Esther and I's part of the answer:
I think that one interview design principle that all interviewers always have to have is flexibility. They need to be able to make up more questions on the spot. If people do that they cannot get a lot of information that they were not planning on getting. Also sometimes people feel like they only have a certain amount of questions but once they get started and the interviewee starts answering them they get more ideas on follow up questions. I think it a very good skill that an interview could have and that would make the interview good.If they ask the right questions.her is an example
At this early stage, would you say that you were happily married?
a: Very much so. But, the pressure on us both as a couple with the media was phenomenal, and misunderstood by a great many people.
We'd be going round Australia, for instance, and all you could hear was, oh, she's on the other side. Now, if you're a man, like my husband a proud man, you mind about that if you hear it every day for four weeks. And you feel low about it, instead of feeling happy and sharing it.

q: When you say ´she's on the other side', what do you mean?

a: Well, they weren't on the right side to wave at me or to touch me.

q: So they were expressing a preference even then for you rather than your husband?

a: Yes - which I felt very uncomfortable with, and I felt it was unfair, because I wanted to share.

q: But were you flattered by the media attention particularly?

a: No, not particularly, because with the media attention came a lot of jealousy, a great deal of complicated situations arose because of that.
Princess and the Press
Another design principle that makes an interview great would have to be when an interviewer asks some hard questions, because these are things that the audience would want to know. Also sometime when interviewers ask several questions at one time this is kind of a good way of interviewing, sometime it can seem like the interviewee is being interrogated instead if interviewed, but they may sometimes get good responses from the person. This i think means that the interviewer really wants to know the roots of the situation, and how the interviewee feels about it.
example:
HARWOOD: How did it feel to be there with the former presidents today and what can you learn from them, especially the current President Bush whom you criticized so strongly in the campaign?
another one is
HARWOOD: ...why stop at $775 billion? Why not go to the $1.2 trillion that some economists have recommended? Is that because you think that the political figure of a trillion dollars is too politically charged to get over? Is it because you think more spending would be pork rather than stimulus? Or do you think you've figured out exactly the right amount of stimulus that's needed?