Blogging final!

1. Describe the importance of blogging to modern day journalism.

Blogging has been a part of the evolution of journalism, blending factual reporting with eyewitness citizen journalists and personal editorials. For us as journalists, blogging gives the opportunity to connect with our audiences in a heretofore impossible way - and even to interact with our readers. With that immense potential, of course, also comes the responsibility to preserve the lines between objectivity and subjectivity. But regardless of the dangers of media like blogs, journalists simply can't afford not to utilize them. Why? Because blogs look like a stepping stone to the news outlets of the future, and if we can't keep up, journalism truly will begin to die.

2. If you are going to continue to blog, why? or why not?

Yes! First, I'll keep blogging because it's fun. Second, now that I have some experience, I can use it to create a blog someone will actually read (haha). Do I think blogs have jumped the shark? Yes, maybe a little bit; I don't know how much longer I actually will maintain a blog. Nonetheless, they still are a key medium and proficiency with blogging will help in my career and in mastering future technological developments.

3. If you were going to keep blogging, how will you change your blog in the future?

In the future, if I want to have a successful blog, I'll definitely have to blog more and to blog about more things. I'll also need to promote my blog more on social networks and work to have more of an online presence in general. I also would have to actually comment on other people's blogs and begin to follow a greater number of people to establish myself as a genuine entity. In short, I'll need to spend more time on it - which will be a lot easier now that I'm graduating.

It's been a great class! Thanks, Dr. Clark and all the people. Good times. Have a great summer and stuff!

A question for le test

What is a multiuser blog?

The rich get richer, and the poor get children.

A few useful facts from Dr. Sridhar Krishnaswami, a journalism professor from India who spoke to our blogging class Thursday about journalism here and in India:

• Krishnaswami: "I don't blog. I don't do facebook. I don't 'tweet.' I'm a boring guy."  I disagree with this one. My name is Rachel Williams, and I am here to tell you that an electronic presence has the potential to be like a monolithic event of boredom. You and I both know this.

• In Krishnaswami's Indian newspaper, The Hindu - equivalent to the New York Times - stories begin and end on the same page to keep interest. That's smart, because I probably follow a story through the jump 1.7% of the time while reading the paper. Am I ashamed of this? Sort of. Is it likely to change? No, not really.

• Krishnaswami said terrorism is less of a big deal in India, where 30 people die every day in the line of control between India and Pakistan.

We are the future?

• The biggest hindrance to India's international economic and technological presence is population growth, according to Krishnaswami. People just keep having kids.

• Dr. Krishnaswami doesn't like embedded journalists. Sorry, Mike Boettcher.

I'm an embedded journalist. Check out my Macbook Pro.

I disagree with everything you stand for. Get out of Afghanistan and off your Facebook.

Oops.
Anyway, they're both super cool guys. Krishnaswami does, however, glowingly endorse foreign correspondents, as he was a foreign correspondent to America for years.
I kept wanting to ask if Slumdog Millionaire provides an accurate picture of the economic disparity within India, but that might be a stupid question.

Death by powerpoint, and how not to be that grisly executor.

We've all been that guy. Let's try to help each other not to be...ever again.
This is for the good of the American public.

Any questions?

Ellen Page is not affiliated with this post.

I know that some high school yearbooks include a baby ad page, where seniors can place pictures of their childhood to commemorate their accomplishments, or something. It's cute and kitschy. That's normal, right?

In the Anadarko yearbook, however, the baby ads actually display the infants birthed by students at Anadarko High School.  It's like dozens of Junos, but more Native American, and without the snappy dialogue.

Is this normal?

Is it May yet?

Some mornings, when I'm half awake, listening to Mumford & Sons over and over for two hours without realizing it because I'm zoned out trying to study for that linguistics quiz while driving from Anadarko to Edmond, I wonder why I'm doing this. In case you didn't catch the implication, that happened today, Tuesday, which I like to affectionately refer to as "gross."

I think I feel like this because after nearly two semesters, it seems like senior year will never end and this weird nomadic existence will be my life until the end of time - which is a lot longer than I want to spend at UCO or in Edmond, a place I love to hate.

Then, of course, I remember all the people at Oakridge whom I love dearly, and the work I'm blessed with the opportunity to do for Jesus, and the girls from our youth group who have given me the chance to invest in their lives and also to experience public high school vicariously through them. Ha.

And if I didn't have anything else to be thankful for, at least I didn't have a root canal yesterday, like Michelle behind me. Sad day, Michelle. Sad day.

Carrying the cross.

What would you do if, while driving down the highway, you saw a man dragging a full-size one-wheeled cross behind him on the shoulder of the road?

I pulled over. Well, the seven of us from Oakridge Camp who were headed to the medieval fair yesterday pulled over. The cross-carrying man, Joseph Vasquez, told us that he often takes his custom-built cross out and walks lengthy stretches of highway anywhere within 100 miles of the metro - from Sayer to Pink to Comanche to Verden, where we saw him a few miles outside the town itself.

Why?

"It's a witness for Jesus," Vasquez said. He gave each of us a chance to heft the cross, which boasted a sturdy weight. He does it simply to remind passers-by to consider their spirituality.

I've had numerous theological conversations over the past few years, and I've shared my faith, I think. But this little encounter really forces me to stop and wonder - do I display my own convictions, whether perceived by others as right or wrong, with the same visceral impact that Vasquez gets from something as elementary as lugging a cross down a highway?

Do you?



Vasquez, third from left, invites roadside conversations with his
conspicuous conversation piece.



What we learned last week.

Watching The Social Network, a clever movie dramatizing the creation of Facebook, mainly confirmed what all of us already knew.

Social networking as a whole has a lot to do with drama, compromising statements/photos, dumb posts and also social awkwardness. For example, Mark Zuckerberg's defense for his and Facebook's coolness and influence?

"I created poking!"

Oh, yes, and by the way, Justin Timberlake was instrumental in Facebook's popularity.

Small-town Oklahoma.

the sparrow perched on the pale green truck

twitches, alone,

sings

freedom

but will never range

outside of these horizons.

“they all want out,”

she says,

“but it’s like

a magnet, and

they always

come

back.”

Anadarko.

Hopelessness tastes

like red dirt

and it

smells like

cigarettes

and asphalt

on Fridays

in empty parking

lots with empty

nights and empty

pockets and empty

minds.

Helplessness looks

like a mirror

and it

tastes like

silence.

Young art in the land of the red man.

Have you ever wondered what the word would be like if buffalo had become the dominant species?
This question has also burned in my mind.
Thankfully for us, the Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition has resolved to answer that question for us in Momentum, an art exhibition Saturday, March 5 at the OKC Farmers' Market. For $10 online and $15 at the door, it's worth a peek at that buffalo dominance.

Starts at 8, features a couple of bands that sound maybe decent (from Myspace). I'll be there, seeking emotional fulfillment through alternative buffalo history and garlic skins in pouches.

Don't get it? You must not appreciate art.

Just for funsies.

Favorite biblical misquotes, both here in Anadarko and there in Edmond:

Sexual immortality.
(sexual immorality)

Reconciliation for antiquity.
(reconciliation for iniquity)

Year of Jewbilee.
(year of Jubilee)

"And Jonah got really upset and said, 'I thought you said you were gonna knock this taco stand down.' And God was like, they're repenting. And there's a lot of cattle down there I have to think about."
(the story of Jonah)

UCO Prop 1.

Proposition 1: raising student fees by $10.75/credit hour, more than doubling the current rate. Also known as Proposition: "We need a better football team."

It's not that I'm against funding athletics. I just don't actually, you know, have the money to fund athletics. And if the other 17,000 students at UCO find themselves in the same boat, then a few extra hundred dollars a semester probably matters.

Maybe if the money were going to the library, or to improving seats in that awkward stadium-seating room in the Mass Comm building, or to building more parking lots - maybe then I'd think a little differently. But "athletics" sounds so vague, and so unlikely to benefit my interests.

I voted no. But then, I'm graduating.

I do wish the question weren't so difficult to find on the uconnect. One student senator in my linguistics class told us last week that the link to vote would replace the picture of the week for a day, but I guess image space was just too precious to forfeit to Proposition 1. Good form, UCO?

Blue in a world of red.

"I want this to be informal," he said with jarring volume, sound waves rolling across the Macs and accompanying blue-lit faces. Green stripes, bright enough to hint at a mischievous streak, zipped across his black tie. Kurt Hochenauer, author of the blog Okie Funk, spoke to our blogging class today, partly because he writes a successful blog, and partly because Dr. Clark went to India.

Seeming to me the height of academic journalism, he explained how, after a ten-year journalism stint, he got his doctorate in English. "I felt it was really shallow," he said of journalism. Hochenauer started Okie Funk in 2004 to represent political diversity in Oklahoma.

"I just realized....that Oklahoma needed more liberal voices. I really wanted to do a counter to the Oklahoma's editorial page," he said with striking honesty. He wanted "to frame news in a liberal and progressive way." As an opinionated Democrat in a Republican state, Hochenauer has taken his share of criticism for his views.

"I've had personal attacks....I had physical threats," he said. But blogging provides both an outlet for his political voice and a motivation for regular writing. One downside of Okie Funk, however, lies in the lack of new political movements in Oklahoma.

"I've been writing about the same things for a long, long time," Hochenauer said ruefully. "I do it just trying to change things here."

He pointed out a recent post. "I was actually just sitting in my recliner with my laptop. It keeps my mind going," he said, slurring his words in mockery of old age,"and that's what's important. And the medicine."


I took this picture surreptitiously, like a creeper.

As far as the issues extend, Hochenauer supports free parking as a benefit for faculty, Brad Henry for UCO president and designated smoking areas (all the important issues). Oh, and the guns on campus issue: "Guns on campus - I'm against it," he said simply enough. I'm not planning on packing heat anytime soon, so as a May graduate, my opinion feels fluid at best.

Hochenauer said times look tough for "people who are tied to the newspaper in romantic ways - 'I just love the feel of newspapers in my hands.' I think it's an exciting time in journalism."

When I asked what advice for blogging he would give, he said, in this post, "I would write about the decline of newspaper, the continuing domination of internet-related journalism." I found myself more interested in writing about Hochenauer than reflecting on the overtalked topic of the death of journalism as we know it.  I think he enjoyed the class, and we certainly did.

"He said you were a talkative bunch - and you are."

Embarrassingly awesome, and also true.

On Saturday night, for the first time in my life I experienced the existential awkwardness of a high school dance - at the age of 21.

Although homeschool groups in OKC often gather together to have formal events (usually dances if you're nondenominational, banquets if you're Baptist), I preferred to wear skinny jeans, listen to Death Cab for Cutie and be alone in high school.

I mean, I still wear skinny jeans and listen to Death Cab, but I'm less alone now?

I don't regret avoiding these events in high school, but as a white Anglo-Saxon formerly homeschooled college senior, I think I enjoyed watching Anadarko High School's Winter Ball more than most of the students enjoyed attending it. Very few of them actually danced, apart from the Cha Cha Slide and Thriller.
At one point, a huge crowd migrated from their vestigial positions along the walls to populate the dance floor, gathering around one central attraction.

"What's going on?" I asked one of my high school friends, who had invited Jaime and me to prove the existence of her super cool college buddies (ha).

"Oh, they're all watching the black girls dance," she said. C'est la vie.

One sophomore sidled up to us, introduced himself, and asked our age. When Jaime and I told him, he exclaimed, "Oh! I don't have a shot, then?"

Glittery Toms with tea-length purple dresses dominated the clothing scene, inspiring in my heart gladness that all my Toms have worn out and for once, maybe I actually rode the fad before it jumped the shark.

Notorious for teen pregnancies, Anadarko High nevertheless boldly charged ahead with sexualized songs to which one "can only dance like a slut," as one high school boy casually told me. Brave New World, and all of that, I guess.

Altogether, I feel privileged to have experienced and observed the social awkwardness that is a high school dance, and doubly privileged to have experienced it in Anadarko.

Outside The Wire

 
Outside The Wire

In honor of my War Generations class (also taught by the inimitable Dr. Terry Clark), and also my own tangential experience with military culture (growing up next to Tinker Air Force Base and now close enough to Ft. Sill to make military friends), I'm following the "Outside the Wire" blog published by Army Times.

This post centers on Charles D. Whittington, Jr., a combat veteran suspended from his community college after writing a Hurt Locker-esque essay on the addictive nature of killing. "Killing is a drug to me," his essay boldly states.

And honestly, if someone read that essay aloud in my English class, I'd probably feel a little uncomfortable, too. But even more disturbing comes the realization that Whittington clearly attributes this addiction to his time spent in war and says he kept silent for three years about his problems. How many other veterans struggle with urges and emotions like these, remaining quiet out of fear of repercussions like those Whittington faces?

Winter Song.

A few things about snow weeks in rural Oklahoma:

Take late-night ATV rides in the snow at every opportunity.
Make snow ice cream.
Paint in the Lower East Lodge every day.
Don't panic when Walmart runs out of eggs and mostly everything else.
Snicker a little bit when Anadarko High School forgets to drip hot water through the pipes, remaining closed for repairs the whole week despite improving roads.
Do a little dance every time UCO texts you to tell you campus will be closed tomorrow.
Drink much green tea with honey.

Lastly, leave on Saturday to go skiing in New Mexico, thus missing class on Tuesday for a total of a week and half out of school. Sorry, Dr. Clark. My heart will miss all of you bloggers, and stuff.

Popular.

The Anadarko High School Warriors played the Chickasha Fighting Chicks (haha) in basketball Friday night. Anadarko won, and the people rejoiced. But who are we kidding? The real reason for watching the game was this guy, who apparently joins the cheerleaders at every game to lead Anadarko team spirit.

My roommate Jaime says Charlie's been cheering Anadarko on for at least ten years, as long as she's lived here.

"Happiness at the misfortune of others."

The New York Times reports, with just a hint of subtle schadenfreude, that the Los Angeles Times has ceased to be a considerable journalistic force in their own region.

My favorite parts of this article lie in the sources.

"'We need a paper that’s more, and this is less,' said Ms. Frère, 66. 'I think it’s just not a world-class paper, no matter how you cut it. It used to be a world-class paper.'"

Who is Ms. Frère, and what are her qualifications? Well, she's a stationery store owner. Her biting journalistic commentary often draws more crowds than Colbert, yes?

"'When I came here back in ’74, it would take me all day to read the paper. Now it takes me 10 minutes — tops,' said Quintin Cheeseborough, 57, who is self-employed and comes to the Los Angeles Central Library occasionally to read The Times. On a recent morning, he was reading The Financial Times and The Wall Street Journal, but not The Los Angeles Times."

Cheeseborough claims self-employment and reads The Times at the Los Angeles Central Library. Sounds like a homeless man to me - at least, that's the company I often find reading the periodicals at the downtown library in OKC.
Holding one's own sign next to the intersection qualifies as self-employment.

"'We don’t even have a football team. So what does that tell you?' said Mr. Cheeseborough, a note of resignation in his voice."

Touché, Mr. Cheeseborough. Touché.

Is there no justice?

It's really unfortunate that sometimes when you commit acts of rampant vandalism, you get publicly humiliated for it later...especially if you're only a 12-year-old, chucking objects at elderly people and women with strollers.

It kills me, how inappropriately broadcast our public acts can be. Someone silence that blogger, quick! He has no right to be spreading images of anyone in public to the world wide web. Heaven knows, he's no journalist.

To read more about this quasi-journalistic blogging vigilante, visit the New York Times online and  read about Daniel Cavanaugh, a neighborhood blogger in New York who faces the threat of retribution for blogging about his neighbors.

Where does the good go?

"I WAS 9, my brother, Jeb, was 8, and maybe if we’d been born in a city we would not have started building treehouses and forts, igloos and tepees, even digging a hole in the ground that we covered with thick branches of pine, oak and maple. Or maybe if our mother and father did not fight most every night, their yelling rising up the stairwell like some poisonous vapor to us and our two sisters, Jeb and I would not have gone looking for the scrap lumber we found under the closed summer camps near our rented house in southern New Hampshire — two-by-fours and two-by-sixes, warped plywood and long planks of rough spruce."

If that doesn't hook you, I don't know what will. This article by Andre Dubus III, a description of his growing-up times, points to a memoir I'll gladly read. Give it a read, and see it in your mind.

I would like to call it beauty.

Um, of course the masses eat up stuff like this, an article about a celebrity blogger whose blog mainly claims attention for being positive and obsessive about famous people, thus yielding him invites to parties with said famous people.

The article says, "Blogging, even about celebrities, is not glamorous. Mr. Eng posts about 65 items per day, seven days a week, from the moment he wakes up — sometimes at 5 a.m. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep."

It's people like us who make guys like Jared Eng successful.

The piece goes on to say his blog will easily earn seven figures this year, but I don't envy his lifestyle enough to envy his paycheck.

This is the thing.

The New York Times explores new social media in this article on several different new social media outlets:  Instagram and Path for pictures and video, Ping for sharing in musical taste and Diaspora for building a virtual stockade fence around your online profile. New social mediums are scrabbling desperately to find a niche within huge networks like Facebook and Twitter - not a new movement, but a hole to fill.

Sometimes innovation just means a new take on someone else's idea.

Learning to breathe...er, blog.

Like any obedient child raised in a conservative Christian home, I love parameters, guidelines, rules and instructions (anything that tells you what to do, really).  I enjoy a good syllabus.

And if I've learned one thing about blogging this week, it's that blogs have virtually no spoken rules, and sparse unspoken.

"Don't complain all the time," Dr. Clark says. I learned a long time ago that most people really only care about your problems in relation to their own lives.

When I break unspoken rules, I hope for grace. At the very least, I won't be blogging about how trashy the girl next to me is...first, because Chynna's not trashy at all, and second because it's bad blogging form.

Rocks and water.

Drive straight down the barren terrain of I-44 West, until the first Chickasha exit draws you away with its ever-present Festival of Lights sign to an unassuming Highway 62. Go five over in Chickasha, but make up for it by hitting five under when you pass through Verden ten minutes later (it's a speed trap). Ignore the sheep in the Verden Elementary parking lot; they wander freely.

You may start to feel soon after Verden that you've reached the end of Oklahoma civilization, and - well - you may be right.

About five minutes after that, you'll see the muted lights of Anadarko.
Indian City will welcome you with all the contradictions of locked arms and grasping fists.
"In a dark hole," the natives call it, but you'll notice how most of them never seem to leave for good.

A couple of miles down 62, outside the town itself, a sign declares "Oakridge Camp." At the westward edge of this camp rests a newly painted brown house, and outside it the red-dirtiest car that ever parks on campus at UCO.

That's where you'd find me.