Political Blogs

I hate talking about politics, especially during campaign season because all the canidates are trying to win us over, telling us exactly what they think we want to hear. I would venture to say that in this day and age there is no politcian who's acts solely on his beliefs, or whose actions are backed completely by his beliefs. It's like a game.
Here are a few good sites. I don't have much to say about them. http://hnn.us/articles/47143.html
http://www.talkleft.com/story/2008/2/11/0166/36492

:)

OC post

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003645914_unschooled01m.html

The ClearWater school sounds alot like heaven. When a child is given the freedom to learn on their own, without any restrictions on how they spend their time, I believe alot of children could really learn some things that would be almost impossible to learn in a conventional school. This style of education solves the problems that arrise when all students are forced to learn all of the same subjects, such as someone who is really brilliant with math, falling behind in school simply because they can't handle their basic english class. At the same time in today's society, there would be the kids that never did a single assignment, or made any effort to learn something.

Target Tells a Blogger to Go Away

The picture of the girl on the target add didn't seem suggestive to me at all. just another lame advertising campaign from target. I thought it was a well written artical but I deffinatly dissagreed at points. I certainly do not consider Target a "chic, ever-hip, contemporary retailer" They just sell ideas that are mass produced to mimic the new treands of high fashion for a society more attracted to what's cheap, easy, gratifying, and shallow, than the things that are about beauty, ideas, making some change, about leaving your make on the world. Like High Fashion, which is about making an outfit that is new and expresses something, making art.
but as far the article is concerned, the lady's concern is rediculous.

sometimes people say I am unmotivated, but they can't see the vastness of the weight on my chest or the vice that clenches my brain.

Should I care that Heath Ledger is dead? Why is it news that Kanye's mom died?

I think not. Although the passing of Heath Ledger is a tragedy, so is the loss of any life so young. Thousands upon thousands of young men died this past week and I didn't hear much about any of them, or their tragic ends. What is so special about this Heath Ledger, or any of these celebrities. What have any of them ever really done for mankind? Honestly, I don't see much in any of them.

Response to the hand washing article.

Although it did shock me to read that hospital staffs only wash their hand half of the time it is required, I can't help but think that there are so many things in life that are so completely demented. Worrying about my doctor infecting me while dressing a wound seems pretty ridiculous to me.

chapter one- tipping point

After I read the introduction, honestly i wasn't looking foward to reading this book. But I stuck it out and read the first chapter. And suprisingly enough I really liked it. I love the examples he gives, most of them are really interesting. i can tell he really put alot of work into this book, did alot of research. I'm excited to see whats left to come.

Linking

http://cardiffrespect.blogspot.com/

This site is run by a man with a mission. RESPECT is a radical, internationalist coalition of grassroots activists against war, racism, sexism, privatisation, poverty & destruction of the environment. The veiws experssed and issues addressed really are interesting to me. What I've read, I've found to be strongly idealistic, but I'm quite the idealist myself. The author of this blog seems like a very interesting person with alot of convictions and motivation.

Linking

http://letsrevolutionize.blogspot.com/



This is a personal page where Jenna displays some of her creative writing. She writes some poems and some pieces, that I would call surreal stream of conscience. She seems to know alot of words but i have a hard time deriving any meaning from her work. She sometimes uses words that just arn't right.

her work contains alot of emotion and a great deal of sorrow. Her writing is okay. And some of the pictures on her page are really beautiful. She doesn't make any money from her site.
I can't see myself reading this daily but it's the first blog that i've run into that even remotly interests me.

The Tipping point- Introduction

The auther, Malcom Gladwell, begins by telling the stories of the hush puppie revival and the dramatic crime drop in New York City in the 1990's. He calls these epedemics. He's hypothesis is that sometimes big changes follow small events, not all change is gradual. He speeks of these sudden changes as epidemics. The three charicteristics of epidemics are contagiousness, the fact that little causes can have big effects, and that change happens not gradually but in one dramatic moment, called the tipping point. This interests me to a point but at the same time some of the things he says don't seem so suprising to me. Trends are somthing that aren't very dificult to spot, but so far I have found it satisfying that the auther looks at trends from a birds eye view. It would be interesting to know how popular things first became popular.
The idea that we as humans are so mallable, that simply hearing a word triggers some sort of emotion, makes me wonder how real the things we feel and think are. It's really quite strange to think about.