Hw#37 My Second Podcast

Hope u enjoyed my first podcast here is a second one, Mine is Episode 29
http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=51002&castPage=&autoplay=true

HW#36 Podcast on Baghdad Burning

http://www.gabcast.com/index.php?a=episodes&query=&b=play&id=8538&cast=49823&castPage=

This is the link to my podcast. I hope you enjoy it

HW# 35 The End of the Blog as we Know it!!

Dear Readers,
I have learned a lot from maintaining my own personal blog for the last 13 weeks of class. Mostly I have learned how easy it is to blog in the first place. I thought it was going to be a hard process which would take a long time but I found it very fun and interesting. Many of the homework assignment have allowed me to expand my knowledge on the world around me and how greatly everyone is affected by everyone else. I hope people will be able to learn a lot from my posts and my blog. I hope that they will take into their own account and look up and discover some of the topics that I have written about in my blog. I feel the best work that I posted on my blog had to be the letter we had to write to Riverbend, the author of Baghdad Burning. I really enjoyed this assignment because I was also able to voice my strong opinion as well as use the information I read in the book. I think I will keep my blog, when the class is finished but I’m not quiet sure what exactly I will write in it. I find it very fun and interesting; blogging that is and I think it will be a very new and exciting way to communicate with people. I would also like to thanks my readers.. if I have any for putting up with my crappy spelling and sometimes my fragment sentences. Hope you enjoyed what you read and will expand your education in some of the topics discussed in my blog.
Sincerely,
Rachel

HW#34 Gold and the Date Palms

Golds role in the family savings in Iraq is that gold is the family's savings. It's been like that since 1990 beause the Iraqi, which was $3 kept fluctuating like crazy (Riverbend,100). Because of this many Iraqis transfered their savings into gold so that the value wouldn't change. Right before the war most Iragis pulled their money and invested in gold. Gold in Iraq is called zeeneh by the local women (Riverbend,100). It is used for show and also is greatly used when families are in financial trouble. So gold is very valuable because it is the family's life savings. So when Riverbend's aunt is freaking out so much that the Americans would come and raid the house because it is her life savings!!! Much like gold, date palms are greatly teasured by Iraqi citizens. Date palms are important to Iraqis because they like "an oases in the desert," they allow the Iraqis to hope for good times (Riverbend,103). The palm trees are also very useful as they are beautiful. They can be used for making a syrup called dibiss. This is eaten with rice in some places and eaten with bread and butter in others (Riverbend,104). Another item that can be produced by date palms is vinegar which is called khal in Iraq. Every part of a palm tree can be usefull to an Iraqi citizen therefore they treasure them very much. Now with the cutting of the date palms in Dhuluaya many citizens are at a lost, and are afraid of the repercusions.

HW #33 Education Podcast

The podcast that I decided to watch was “Challenges at a Girls School In Baghdad.” It is part of a series called Alive in Baghdad Life from Iragis to you and it was published on May twenty-first in 2007. The link to the podcast is http://aliveinbaghdad.org/2007/05/21/challenges-at-a-girls-school-in-baghdad/ if want to check it out for yourself. The general topic of the podcast was about the struggle of getting the children there safely and being able to hold a normal educational practice. In order to hold a regular schedule all the girls need to be able to make it to every class and because of the war going on around them it is very difficult to have this happen. So many of the teachers just teach the classes as normal even if multiple students aren’t there. This though allows those who didn’t get to school that day to fall behind and defiantly affects their grades and work. Many different students and teacher appear. One teacher had a red shirt on that had white stripes on it. She also was wearing a white hijab, red lip stick and a gold ring. She had very small eyebrows and was sitting when she was talking to the camera. The scenery inside and outside of the school was very plain. All the walls on the outside were plain white as were the inside. There wasn’t a lot on the walls, no posters and pictures as there would be in an American school. The only thing I saw on a wall was a map and it was painted on the outside wall of the school. There are many things a viewer will learn from watching this podcast. First off is that fact that Iraqi education is struggling but you will also discover that dispite all odds many young girls and children want to go to school. I think this podcast makes a much bigger effect on people than the videos they show us on the news and such. It is more direct to the problems in Iraq and not just more footage on bombing and attacking. I think this podcast is very memorial because of the children’s faces, they look so eager to learn and yet they are so crippled by what they lack in tools and time.

HW #32 Aquila Al-Hashimi

Aquila Al-Hashimi is a women who was attacked on September 20th 2003. "She lives in Jihad Quarter and was leaving for work when two pick up trucks with armed men cut off her car and opened fire on her and her brothers" (Riverbend,75). Armed men ran out of their homes to see what all the comotion was about, and started fighting with the gang. Aquila was taken to the hosiptal she was in a very ctritical state but she was abole to stablize. They brought her to the Al-Yarmuk hospital and later transfered to the Bagdad Airport hospital. She was wounded in multiple spots on her body such as: foot, shoulder, and stomach. In this entry Riverbend stated that it was very sad that Aquila was wounded because she was one of the "Decent members of the council." This showed that no matter who you are as a women you are still in extreme danger. Aquila was involved with many foreign affairs and lived in Iraq. The gang that attacked Aquila wasn't known so Ahmad Al-Chalabi began an investigation. But like many other people he had his biased opinion on who was at fault. He thought that Saddam and his loyalists were responsible for the incident. Aquila had many enemies who didn't agree with a women being able to have so much control so many of her fellow council men opposed her. One of the reasons they didn't like her was that she was also a prominent part of the former government and that she didn't ware a hijab. There were many differnet views on who was truely at fault for the attack but no one has been arrested for theie actions.

Hw #31 The Amriyah Shelter Bombing

I decided to research the Amriyah shelter bombing on February 13th which is mentioned in Bagdad Burning written by Riverbend (Riverbend,46). I found this topic very interesting because she compared this bombing to the attack on the Twin Towers on September 11. This shelter was home to many Iraqi citizens during the Iran-Iraq and the Gulf war (Wikipedia). The United States was the country behind the bombing; they thought the shelter was being used as a military command site. They sent over two laser-guided also known as “smart bombs” in 1991 (Wikipedia). The attack occurred at four in the morning, the first bomb went through ten feet of concrete and the second bomb went right through the hole that the first bomb created. People located in the upper level of the shelter were incinerated by the heat, while the shelter’s water tank killed everyone in the lower level. The bombing killed 400 people, mostly women and children (Wikipedia). The men and boys over fifteen left the shelter in order to give the women some privacy. The shelter’s debris was sent flying into many other surrounding houses. This horrific event caused many families to loose their love ones. The shelter is now a memorial for the people who died in it. Their photos are located inside the shelter. This relates to the book because it shows yet again another side of a different war. It allows us Americans/ readers to see the Iraqi side of the Amriyah shelter bombing. It also lets us realize that we all feel and hurt for love ones whether we are Iraqi or American. As stated in Bagdad Burning, “Its strange how horror obliterates ethnic differences- all faces look the same when they are witnessing the death of loved ones” (Riverbend,48). I think it good to hear the other side of the bombing because it allows us to realize that we are all human and we feel pain no matter what color or religion we are.

Works Cited:
Wikipedia, Amiriyah Shelter Bombing, November 11, 2007
Wikipedia Foundation Inc.

HW#30 Speech Two on Animation

Today I attended a second speech for Keene States Citizenship Symposium. Like the first speech it was located in the Main threatre of the Redfern Arts Center. This speech was called "Animation as Political and Socail Constructions." But unlike the first speech, it had multiple speakers. First was Jiwon Ahn who is a Keene State College instructor of film studies. Sander Lee was second to speak and he is a KSC professor of philosophy. Last to speak was Mark Timney who is an associate professor of Journalism. These three people all spoke about the same topic but all had many different ways of going about it. First of Ahn spoke about actual Anime art and drawing. She spoke about how Anime artist protray what they see in the media into their drawings of women. An example of an Anime that shows a women/young girl, in nature bond to a tree. This demenstrates how Anime "challenges everyday life" as Ahn mentioned in her speech. This type of Animation is called Japenese Punk art and it is the most successful anime out there. Sander the second speaker of the night talked about how a disney propergander cartoon and another cartoon effect how people during WWII were brainwashed into thinking a certian way. The first example is of Donald duck, who is working in a factory making weapons for Nazis' in Germany. This cartoon's sybolizes that even a duck with a temper will easily comply to Hitler and his armies. In the end of this short cartooon, it shows Donald waking up from a dream and all around him is American flags and symbols. He states that he is glad to be in the United States of America. This shows that only American can stop the rise of Hitler. This is encouaraging people to give up their liberty to make sure that Hitler is brought down from power. The other short cartoon was of Bugs Bunny who was caught by a Nazi. He was brought to Hitler and just as they were going to look in the bag to see the wonderful American rabbit, out pops Joeseph Stalin. Hitler and the Nazi jump back in fear this shows that the USA is not the only country that can confront Hitler. It shows Hitler as a person who can easily be defeated. The last speaker Mark Tiney talked about the Comedy Central show South Park and how it is an example of Model citizens. As soon as Mark stated that I had to laugh, for south park and model citizens in the same sentence just sounded appauling to me but once you going lookin for the model citizens in the show you do find very good examples. South park incourporates satire into the show. "Satire is the use of ridicule or scorn often in a humerous or witty way to expose vices and follies" said Mark. These three speeches showed how people can be expressed, brainwashed and model citizens. I found this speech much better than the first one because it allowed me to learn that animation truely effects and presents our views and the world around us.

HW#30 Speech One on Voting and Fairness!

Today in Keene State College's Citizenship Symposium, I attended a speech in the Main theatre. This speech was called: Voting Theory and the Question of Fairness it was presented by Vincent Ferlini. Ferlini is the assocate professor of Mathematics here at Keene. It was a very formal, and educational speech. It focused on the different methods of voting and how it is and is not fair. There are many political and fun ways of voting such as presidential campaign and American Idol or Surivior. Voting is a way of allowing the majority to help make decisions for a certain campaign. There was a brief history that Ferlini mentioned, such as that during the 509 BCE in Greece they developed the voting tactics that are stilled used today. There were many methods mentioned in Vincent's speech. One was the plurality method where the canidate with the most number of first place votes is the winner of the campaign. Another method is the Majority method which the most used and most known method. The Borda method was developed by Jean-Charles de Borda during the 18th century. This method relies on a number scale, the candiadate with the most votes receives four points, second three, third two and etc. "The Method of Pairwise comparision determines to what extent each candidate is or isn't preferred over each of the other candidates." An interesting fact that I learned during the speech was that in order to win the election 270 votes are needed from the Electoral College. The conclusions that were made from this speech are that different methods develop different results. Also that each method exhibits characteristics associated with fairness and unfairness of a voting method.

Hw#28 Letter to Riverbend

Dear Riverbend,
Your blog really educates me about the other side of the Iraqi war. It makes me feel very uneducated when you talk about all the politics and such of your country. I don't feel like I know anything about the American's occupation of Iraq. I never knew that women actually had jobs and were able to walk around without their hijab or headscarf. I had no idea that they now don't have jobs because it is unsafe for them or their companies don't want to be responsible for what happens to them. Also I totally didn't realize that women had to have a man walk her everywhere because of her safety not so that the man can control her. They are looking out for her well being and so she doesn't get abducted or hurt. I had such a wrong view of why women have to be escorted around. This just shows how clueless and brainwashed us Americans are by the media. Half of the information you talk about in your blog I had no idea was happening. Your book/blog has opened up my eyes and allowed me to see the other effects the war has on Iraqi families. I totally agree with the statement you made on August 22 2003 saying "We're all the victims of decisions made by the Bush administration." I feel that all Americans and Iraqis are suffering because of one man's decisions. The American soldiers are suffering because they don't want to be in Iraq and the Iraqis don't want them there in the first place. So much damage and death has occured and nothing has really come out of it all, it seems never ending. I also had no idea about the nine, one month ruling presidents of Iraq. I really feel plain stupid and like a child when it comes to what is happening in Iraq. The news here in America only shows our views of everything. I really wished they would show us what is really going on over there. I think more Iraqi people should be doing what your doing, expressing what you have had to live with. I think more Americans would understand and want to pull out of Iraq if more knowledge was shared about what our men being there does to the everyday society. I want to thank you for sharing your stories and your knowledge on what is going on, to help us understand. I really apreciate it and it makes me want to get out troops out of their ten times more than i ever wanted to before.

Sincerely,
Rachel