So I've been thinking lately about blogging and the internet and everything about the world wide web and what it has done to our personal lives and the messages it sends out about race, gender, sexuality etc. I have this blog, you see, and if I had not put a picture up of myself on this blog, technically no one would know if I was black, white, yellow, brown, blue, or gold. Technically no one would know if I was Muslim, Asian, Indian, Native American, British, Australian, Italian and so on and so forth. This blog, the internet, allows anyone to become anyone they want - especially when you think about photoshopping and what not. But what many fail to remember is what it actually means to have a blog, to have a public web journal, with your thoughts on the internet. Yes, thoughts are made public when you speak your mind to another individual but thoughts and feelings on the internet are there for whomever. Literally...whomever. It bothers me really that I have a blog. Blogging is something that many do enjoy following as some web journals are creative, interesting and humorous. But to be a blogger means knowing the dangers blogging can bring to an individual. Having your words written out on the internet can bring in who knows - online predators, sex offenders, racists, sexists, and crazy politicians. Now....I say these things. I post my thoughts onto the internet. This means the sex offenders, predators, racists and sexists can see what I write if they come across me on the internet. This is public. This is more public than reading what I wrote only to my classroom of students. To be honest I find it unfair. I don't like the fact that I was never asked how I felt about starting a blog especially when I'm getting graded on it. How much liberty do I actually have with this? If it is indeed my blog. Some days I hate knowing I have to write a blog and put my name out there. Because it's never fun to feel targeted, exposed, naked and raw. And some days I love the blog because then I get put my beliefs out there and hopefully start awareness to those online about what's going on with us. What happened to our community, our species.
We need to move forward and create a vision of our world (because we're talking world wide web here) coming to the resolution of living together in peace and happiness. To not make other human beings, who all have feelings, suffer just because of their gender, race, ethnicity, class, age, or sex. We belong together in the place we call home - the earth. So one day am I maybe going to get a nasty comment from some other blogger about how I'm some weird peace loving chick who should be pushed aside? Where does it end? It pisses me off honestly, that in our world, our people, have over time chosen to create us as unequal just because of our physical appearance. Hello people! We're more than that! We're more than what we see in the mirror - and I think secretly we all know it. As individuals we know that. And yet what has this hatred towards others physical appearance lead us too? War. Anger. Violence. I don't know about you, but I think it's a lot more fun to not live in fear of being killed by another human. I think it's a lot more fun to have friends and family and hang out and laugh and play. And I think, as individuals we all know that. We do, we've just forgotten because we see color. We see color in humans. Color is awesome. I love blue and red and green and black and purple and white and pink and brown and every other color on the palette. Color is everywhere. We LOVE to see it (those of us who are fortunate enough to be able too). Why not then embrace the color of our physical bodies? We're all different shades on the color palette - that's all. Embrace it.
Friday, September 24, 2010
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
The Digital Divide
Selections from Technicolor emphasize the technological inequalities that permeate cyberspace. These inequalities are not merely economic issues, yet also inequalities amongst race and sex. Logan Hill's short essay, Beyond Access, elaborates the lack of access to minorities of fundamental technology that exists in American homes. Hill lets the reader know that minorities are two to three times as likely to not have a telephone in their home, with African American and Latino homes being half as likely to have a computer than whites and Asians with less than that having internet access. Hill believes lack of access to the internet is an issue that has been placed aside widening the digital divide instead of placing proper technological material in schools and libraries to allow those who need access to learn the skills of the internet that essentially runs our nation, our world today.
Mimi Nguyen loved the Xerox machine, working on her "zines", cutting and pasting and copying. She slowly moved to a new dimension of design: the computer. A web journal became her new zine, writing her thoughts, while also posting images of some of her zines. As an Asian American woman she wrote in her punk rock, cynical voice on the type of material that would pop up on the internet when searching for asian+women. Of course all that popped up was pornographic material which only reinforces the notions of what kind of people are making these sights available, straight, white men. She quoted Peggy Phelan who wrote, "If representational visibility equals power, then almost-naked young white women should be running Western culture." As Nguyen goes on to say, that if representational visibility equals power, then naked Asian women should be running most of cyberspace, especially when that is all that shows up when "asian+women" is searched on the web. Comments started to come to her Web journal, criticizing her identity, mocking her and accusing her. These brutal responses to her website are examples of how the hierarchy of "the body" continues not only in the natural world, but the cyberworld. It is Nguyen's essay that I feel I could explain to others, as I have been subjected to some hostile remarks - not on a web journal, but through other commentary the internet allows users to do.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena wrote a compelling essay on being a Latino and the assumptions of his inability to properly learn the ways of technology or computers. He draws on the stereotypes of Latinos being incapable of learning such skills of the computer and other technologies. If they were given the proper access to such technologies they would be able to acquire skills. You cannot learn how to use a piece of technology unless it is in front of you. Duh.
Something I am unclear about is Henri Lefebrve's notion on "extra-technical". Please help me understand!
Mimi Nguyen loved the Xerox machine, working on her "zines", cutting and pasting and copying. She slowly moved to a new dimension of design: the computer. A web journal became her new zine, writing her thoughts, while also posting images of some of her zines. As an Asian American woman she wrote in her punk rock, cynical voice on the type of material that would pop up on the internet when searching for asian+women. Of course all that popped up was pornographic material which only reinforces the notions of what kind of people are making these sights available, straight, white men. She quoted Peggy Phelan who wrote, "If representational visibility equals power, then almost-naked young white women should be running Western culture." As Nguyen goes on to say, that if representational visibility equals power, then naked Asian women should be running most of cyberspace, especially when that is all that shows up when "asian+women" is searched on the web. Comments started to come to her Web journal, criticizing her identity, mocking her and accusing her. These brutal responses to her website are examples of how the hierarchy of "the body" continues not only in the natural world, but the cyberworld. It is Nguyen's essay that I feel I could explain to others, as I have been subjected to some hostile remarks - not on a web journal, but through other commentary the internet allows users to do.
Guillermo Gomez-Pena wrote a compelling essay on being a Latino and the assumptions of his inability to properly learn the ways of technology or computers. He draws on the stereotypes of Latinos being incapable of learning such skills of the computer and other technologies. If they were given the proper access to such technologies they would be able to acquire skills. You cannot learn how to use a piece of technology unless it is in front of you. Duh.
Something I am unclear about is Henri Lefebrve's notion on "extra-technical". Please help me understand!
Friday, September 17, 2010
you and me baby ain't nothin' but mammels, so let's do it like they do on the Discovery Channel
Students at UNH's annual University Day were asked how they felt about their university having a porn policy on their campus. This policy, in theory, could potentially be limiting access to pornography sites over their internet connection, in hopes to prevent public users of the campus library viewing pornography in an academic setting.
Questions began to get asked like, "If you blocked words saying pornography (or child pornography in the case of what occurred here on campus) then you wouldn't be able to find articles talking about the issues of porn like many students have done in research papers and other essays." Then you get into the discussion of pornoogprahy on the internet in general. especailly when you talk about the contents of our constitution. Yet we still continue to try and communicate to others that it is wrong to put these images on the internet which is free for all viewers because proclamations in our constitution say we have a freedom to post such content. It's called the WORLD WIDE WEB for a reason. The issue for a porn policy at UNH is about a web system filtering all pron/child pornogrpahy websites, a web system which has been employed by our government. Should those guilty of posting or consuming child pornography be arrested? Or do we go the other direction and put offenders into a psych ward for mental evaluation?
Many people are uncomfortable when talking about sex and the naturalness of it. For humans sex is not just procreation, it is desirable and pleasurable. It is artful and naked and pure. Where is the line drawn between erotic pleasure, pornographic positions and art? A male and female couple once had a gallery, with an audience, with them performing sexual acts with one another, trying to express its beauty. Can pornography not also be described as erotic sexual acts performed for a viewer? I don't know, it gets me all confused because there are so many different sides when talking about sex as it is so personal and private for some people. It means different things for so many different people. So we have to consider tthe definition of pornography. It's defenitions are so complex that one cannot distinguish art and pornography, pornography and sexual freedom. They're too complex to discuss in a court of law. So really, asking UNH to put a filter on all pornography could potentially lead to a tangled debate in the justice system.
Child pornography would still exist in the homes of millions across the world. As Daniel Quinn puts nicely in his book, The Story of B, Quinn elaborates how we cannot just make programs to change things we've ruined to make them better, we need to see the vision of what we're aiming to fix. We want the vision to be for all people to know that children are sacred spririts to us and not to abuse their youth and their bodies as ways to get aroused- let alone put it on the internet.
Should the very fact my blog says pornography in it be filtered by a porn policy? Having this blog means to publicly have my ideas on the internet, even though it may just be for a class. My blog can be found by thousands who already have accounts on blogpost and other blog websites. Our culture - and others who rely on the internet - has been so accustomed to the quick, unlimited access of the internet. We really only use so many websites that it is forgotten what it really means to be on the "world wide web". Pornography on the internet is just one of the many problems the internet has brought in to our society.
Questions began to get asked like, "If you blocked words saying pornography (or child pornography in the case of what occurred here on campus) then you wouldn't be able to find articles talking about the issues of porn like many students have done in research papers and other essays." Then you get into the discussion of pornoogprahy on the internet in general. especailly when you talk about the contents of our constitution. Yet we still continue to try and communicate to others that it is wrong to put these images on the internet which is free for all viewers because proclamations in our constitution say we have a freedom to post such content. It's called the WORLD WIDE WEB for a reason. The issue for a porn policy at UNH is about a web system filtering all pron/child pornogrpahy websites, a web system which has been employed by our government. Should those guilty of posting or consuming child pornography be arrested? Or do we go the other direction and put offenders into a psych ward for mental evaluation?
Many people are uncomfortable when talking about sex and the naturalness of it. For humans sex is not just procreation, it is desirable and pleasurable. It is artful and naked and pure. Where is the line drawn between erotic pleasure, pornographic positions and art? A male and female couple once had a gallery, with an audience, with them performing sexual acts with one another, trying to express its beauty. Can pornography not also be described as erotic sexual acts performed for a viewer? I don't know, it gets me all confused because there are so many different sides when talking about sex as it is so personal and private for some people. It means different things for so many different people. So we have to consider tthe definition of pornography. It's defenitions are so complex that one cannot distinguish art and pornography, pornography and sexual freedom. They're too complex to discuss in a court of law. So really, asking UNH to put a filter on all pornography could potentially lead to a tangled debate in the justice system.
Child pornography would still exist in the homes of millions across the world. As Daniel Quinn puts nicely in his book, The Story of B, Quinn elaborates how we cannot just make programs to change things we've ruined to make them better, we need to see the vision of what we're aiming to fix. We want the vision to be for all people to know that children are sacred spririts to us and not to abuse their youth and their bodies as ways to get aroused- let alone put it on the internet.
Should the very fact my blog says pornography in it be filtered by a porn policy? Having this blog means to publicly have my ideas on the internet, even though it may just be for a class. My blog can be found by thousands who already have accounts on blogpost and other blog websites. Our culture - and others who rely on the internet - has been so accustomed to the quick, unlimited access of the internet. We really only use so many websites that it is forgotten what it really means to be on the "world wide web". Pornography on the internet is just one of the many problems the internet has brought in to our society.
Monday, September 13, 2010
oye - technology
First of all, as much as I love technology it totally blows. We become so dependent on it that we assume it will 'naturally' just work for us, hence me believing my blogpost had posted itself and without double checking to make sure it had (me, relying on technology) left the computer and now here I am rewriting! So I apologize to Courtney for this post taking so long to come up, and to my other fellow bloggers if someone was left without a blog to comment on. With that out of the way here goes:
Eve Shapiro has totally figured it out. She has truly come to understand the way technology has shaped the way societies view gender and the body itself. I particularly enjoy her arguments between gender and biomedical technology and all the "ologies" that are linked to the medical field. Elaborating on social scripts shaping us as individuals and societies she has been able to argue biomedical technology as a mediator between our physical and mental lives. It is true that when we miss class or work we must legitimize our sickness through doctors notes to let our 'superior' know why we were not present. What Shapiro says is why can we not let whoever know on a personal account of how we were feeling. Our bodies are our source of knowledge, and where do we as humans draw the line of how much to trust our bodies over technological innovations - as we have been thought to believe technology knows best.
Her argument can connect with the AIDS PSA video. Yes, technology has encouraged us to help the AIDS crisis and reverse the effects of the awful disease but our physical and mental bodies let us know when something is not right - not technology. On Page 30, Shapiro brings up feminist philosopher Donna Haraway who argues we have all become cyborgs especially now with such biotechnology tools recrafting our bodies. Through social scripts, AIDS was seen as the victims problem, that it was their fault they got the disease. Well...we didn't know there was such a thing in existence until it came about - same with cancer and all the other crazy diseases a human can come in contact with. The AIDS epidemic is prevalent and affects a huge amount of people across the world yet (for me) it feels it has been pushed aside in so many ways because of the social script that was created between the link of AIDS and gays. Yet on the positive side we have to acknowledge how technology has been good to us in the effort to find a cure for this nasty epidemic.
We've figured out how to get to space, no? We have all this advanced technology. Then, let's figure out how to save more lives, right?
Eve Shapiro has totally figured it out. She has truly come to understand the way technology has shaped the way societies view gender and the body itself. I particularly enjoy her arguments between gender and biomedical technology and all the "ologies" that are linked to the medical field. Elaborating on social scripts shaping us as individuals and societies she has been able to argue biomedical technology as a mediator between our physical and mental lives. It is true that when we miss class or work we must legitimize our sickness through doctors notes to let our 'superior' know why we were not present. What Shapiro says is why can we not let whoever know on a personal account of how we were feeling. Our bodies are our source of knowledge, and where do we as humans draw the line of how much to trust our bodies over technological innovations - as we have been thought to believe technology knows best.
Her argument can connect with the AIDS PSA video. Yes, technology has encouraged us to help the AIDS crisis and reverse the effects of the awful disease but our physical and mental bodies let us know when something is not right - not technology. On Page 30, Shapiro brings up feminist philosopher Donna Haraway who argues we have all become cyborgs especially now with such biotechnology tools recrafting our bodies. Through social scripts, AIDS was seen as the victims problem, that it was their fault they got the disease. Well...we didn't know there was such a thing in existence until it came about - same with cancer and all the other crazy diseases a human can come in contact with. The AIDS epidemic is prevalent and affects a huge amount of people across the world yet (for me) it feels it has been pushed aside in so many ways because of the social script that was created between the link of AIDS and gays. Yet on the positive side we have to acknowledge how technology has been good to us in the effort to find a cure for this nasty epidemic.
We've figured out how to get to space, no? We have all this advanced technology. Then, let's figure out how to save more lives, right?
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Stop Texting! I'm trying to talk to you, damnit!
Technology. It is supposed to be the phenomenon that makes mankind smarter, wiser, more progressive. But when does technology get in the way of how we truly interact, communicate, feel. So is my generation dumb because of our technological advances? Maybe, but how are we defining dumb? I want to believe that technology will make our world a better place to live and helps us as human beings. My generation is not dumb...we have been raised in a society of technology that has created room for more distraction, a more fast paced way of living. Without technology we would not have been able to print multiple copies of books so that multiple peoples can read them and become "educated" and "knowledgeable".
I love texting. I loved texting so much I never made phone calls anymore and told myself it was because i didn't like talking on the phone. Yet, my goodness, has that changed for me. I LOVE talking on the phone. I can hear how someone is talking, how they're expressing their feelings. A text message is read in monotone. A text message is read how you, the reader, interprets it. Typing as a means of communication has made us suffer a loss in human relationships - connectedness.
Should young ones learn how to use technology in school? Totally - because we are all ready so advanced in science that it would seem to be merely impossible to start all over. Teach children how to use computers and the technology that has helped us learn and understand things, just faster maybe. By incorporating technology into youths education we're preparing them for a new generation where even more technology will be produced. This is where our current generation needs to realize and not forget the importance of what it feels like to go exploring, climb trees, build forts, sing, dance, play basketball, solve a simple math equation. Technology seems to have become so progressed we may not ever need to see the electric guitar in someone's hand again because we'll be able to play one virtually. If that ever happens (which in some cases of music these days it is true) I sure hope I don't see it. We wouldn't want to upset Garcia, or Hendrix now would we?
I love texting. I loved texting so much I never made phone calls anymore and told myself it was because i didn't like talking on the phone. Yet, my goodness, has that changed for me. I LOVE talking on the phone. I can hear how someone is talking, how they're expressing their feelings. A text message is read in monotone. A text message is read how you, the reader, interprets it. Typing as a means of communication has made us suffer a loss in human relationships - connectedness.
Should young ones learn how to use technology in school? Totally - because we are all ready so advanced in science that it would seem to be merely impossible to start all over. Teach children how to use computers and the technology that has helped us learn and understand things, just faster maybe. By incorporating technology into youths education we're preparing them for a new generation where even more technology will be produced. This is where our current generation needs to realize and not forget the importance of what it feels like to go exploring, climb trees, build forts, sing, dance, play basketball, solve a simple math equation. Technology seems to have become so progressed we may not ever need to see the electric guitar in someone's hand again because we'll be able to play one virtually. If that ever happens (which in some cases of music these days it is true) I sure hope I don't see it. We wouldn't want to upset Garcia, or Hendrix now would we?
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