My Favorite Fellow Blogger

I am moving into my world of Parole officer soon and found what I think to be my best friend. She doesn't know it yet, but she is so down to earth. I have read many other people's blogs and they seem to have the I am okay with everything stance. She seems to have everything in a real world sense. Her name is Holly. Here is her link. http://hollys-hystrionics.blogspot.com/2006/09/being-parole-officer.html. She talks about how some parolees can be so crazy. In the post I read it talks about how one parolee didn't want to be turned in for what he was doing wrong, so he chose to go to the office and burn it down. Little did he know that he left his fingerprints everywhere. It was just a pain in the hiney for everyone, the workers, to have to smell the files after they had been recovered. I can only imagine how I will have to put up with crazy things like this happening when I am a parole officer. I am very excited to get into the field though. I think that classes like this one have allowed me to open my mnd into a world where I can catch these little boogers should they choose to post something in a blogging world. I now know how to find a blog and search for them. So let them try nd get something past me. With each class I take I am becoming like a little bug that they will be unable to flick off of their backs. Look out evil doers. I am fixing to be set free to keep you in a straight line. Thanks everyone for a great class!

Calling all Books!

I was recently watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” and the host made a reference to books about kids not knowing what they were anymore. He did however make a funny note reference of it though, he said that it was interactive because the pages could be turned and that information could be downloaded by running your finger near the letters and reading the words. This is a funny remark because many adults believe this to be completely true. Books have almost become obsolete. We have library’s that are full of books and they are soon becoming almost useless. My grandfather used to gather the kids around and tell stories about his childhood and most of the kids would try so hard to avoid it. We thought it was punishment from the holidays. With the introduction of the new Kindles and other plastic books, the new fangled computers that hold up to 3000 books in the form of text on a small computer you can hold in your hand and take anywhere, books are fast becoming cumbersome and obsolete. The stories told by word of mouth are just seen as punishment as the books are seen as heavy and useless. But can’t we change the minds of people? I can remember going into my local library and scanning the books and thinking about how a book must be a good read because the cover was tattered and gray from all of the hands that had passed it. Most of the generation is almost disgusted with the germs that are lurking on those pages. It is interesting to see the changes we are making, but we must also consider the books that haven’t made the “move” over to these new forms of information transfers. I know that I will miss the pretty covers and the books that had me intrigued just because I could hear their story calling me from the shelf. Long live the library and it’s long winding shelves of living memories!

Blogging!

It is fascinating to figure out that blogging can raise so many questions. I guess I never considered that my blogging could affect someone so deeply. We must consider that our words are being placed “out there” for everyone to see. While we often feel compelled to complain about coworkers or work conditions to our spouses, we can get in serious trouble for using the internet to do some steam blowing. The workplace can see this as a threat to the workplace running smoothly. “They fire the employee for the disparaging comments he made on the blog.” (Hudson, 40) They have the right to do this because most jobs are “At will” Which means they have the right to fire you at any time. While we feel that we have the right to speak our minds we might have to realize that it is our job and we might just need to keep some things off-line. It is also important to consider how blogging can be considered a problem for students in school as well. Cyber-bullying and putting information that might be harmful to the world needs to be thought about before we allow it to become main stream. Students should have to be held to a certain standard. I know that hurtful statements are usually found and even word of mouth can get the blog seen by so many viewers. It is absolutely important to protect our First Amendment Rights but to what extent should we protect those rights? When those words become offensive to the person they are being written about, we should have the right to stop it as well. We can argue that we should protect our First Amendment rights to free speech, but when that free speech begins to infringe on your right to freedom and the right to pursue happiness don’t you feel that something has to be done to protect that as well? If your child is being attacked daily through hurtful words on a blog, don’t you want to have a way to stop it? I know that we must consider where the blog was written, at school/home, but there has to be a way to stop harmful material from being published no matter where it is produced. “Legislators have responded in several states by passing laws against cyber-bullying, which criminalize online harassing and intimidation.” (Hudson, 71) This might make an impact that will stop some forms of harassment through the school systems. We can only hope that blogging will eventually only be for the purpose of spreading important information instead of using it for evil!

References

Hudson, David L. (Dec. 2007) “Blogging.” Chelsea House. Online Journalism. (Pp 40 – 71) Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://site.ebrary.com/lib/sooner/docDetail.action?docID=10284452

Orwell's Fixing Our "Language"

As readers we can sometimes be confused by how words are placed in front of us. Orwell makes a very valid point when he says that some people are using words that will make a person make a judgement about the statement before the actual meaning of the statement can be understood. It is important to consider that our choice of words can force a person to hate our position even when we are just trying to help them understand our point more clearly. There is a social site that offers a wonderful example that proves this point very clearly. That site, Topix, can have people arguing over even spelling in just a few minutes. This site offers everyone the right to look at topics that are local to their area and lets them discuss things that are controversial in a public forum with anonymous names. Many times people will use even names that are even confusing in the English language. I know that if I see a poster trying to put language in those posts that are trying to force the reader to follow their beliefs, I will often feel that I need to post just to make a statement that they need to understand that we are not forced to follow anyone’s certain rule. The site does seem to have people that think they are mediators, but there are no mediators assigned by the site. The people are not required to cite information either. I think that Orwell is making a very important statement that we should have an important change in the evolution of language. This site that I am referring to might make an important pull for this case. Some people use the English language to try and make them look intelligent, but this just doesn’t work for them. If you don’t know the language that well, please don’t use it out of context. Many times people feel confused and spend so much time correcting each other on the site that the actual topic at hand loses track and the whole thing becomes an argument over intelligence. Orwell’s argument is very persuasive and provides information about how important it is to use language that the reader can understand and helps to prove that we should not bias the reader as we write. We need to make our points clear without making the reader quit reading because we have antagonized their religious or personal beliefs with one single sentence. We can use our writing to bring the reader on a journey to show them information instead of trying to force them into a bout of anger or depression simply for our own amusement.