hmmm...

        Today, there is currently multiple protests, wars and births.  We are constantly becoming more interconnected and disconnected then most of us can ever imagine or comprehend.  People that have access to the internet are checking their emails as if it were their job or a necessity.  The gap between the educated and uneducated, wealthy and poor, etc more than ever before.  There are even people out there claiming that the world will end in 2012.  Yet amid the chaos and turmoil, life continues, people continue to work together and people are still finding happiness.  I believe that even with the media and many others reporting only the bad things happening locally and internationally, that people will persist and love one another.  Society may change or crumble, but humans are resilient and have great ingenuity.  Keep living people.  Always Check back for videos, pictures, thoughts and news.

Update

Well, I am back for from all New Years celebrations and ready to do some more blogging.  Keep checking for new posts.

My Thoughts on My Blogging

           I want to do a review on my blog, my thoughts on blogging, my feelings about the process, and how the availability of my blog makes me fail, at this point of time.  After all the questions I want to address are taken care of, I hope to realize and put forth how I have grown up to this point in relation to blogging.
          When I began this blog life was great and I felt that I had no need to blog, also that it was beneath me.  I felt that it was pointless and that bearly any blogs actually were worth my time or any one else's time.  The first few blog posts were at best annoying and absurd.  As I continued blogging it became slightly more enjoyable, but I was still not comfortable with the process as I am more of a private person.  At the present time I feel that blogging is something that may be fun and enjoyable, and for the most part I feel comfortable putting my thoughts and ideas out there.  While this change did happen, I still feel that blogging is a pointless, busy body, selfish act/process, but I have found that it is a great way to express your ideas in a subtle yet unsubtle way. 
             I wrote my blogs in a way that I would feel comfortable with literally anyone reading them as I will not retract what I have written thus far and believe that I have been more then conscious of other's feelings about subjects I have covered.  I guess if I really wanted to be more sensitive in order to reach a broader audience I would not address certain issues that might turn a larger group of people.  Though it was not my intention from the onset of my blog to gain the widest possible audience possible, but to put my ideas out there and see what people think.
          There are many changes in my life as to what I do that I did not do before.  I now check a greater variety of news sources on various media on a daily basis from internet, newspaper, etc.  In addition, I have now read several blogs that I check once and a while that I would never had checked previously.  Finally, I do have a greater appreciation for those that are able to maintain a blog on a daily basis.  As this review of my blogging affair must come to an end, I will continue to grow as a person and this blog will continue to live on.

The Media System and Reform

   The media system has changed tremendously over the years.  This change has happened naturally due to companies and such just wanting to change to gain greater profits and other reasons, but there has been change that has come due to political activism, economic activism and freedom rights activism by people of various countries.  The media system seems to be moving toward a consolidated ownership as companies are buying up other companies and cutting down the possibility of entrepenuers entering the media arena.  I see that less and less people are active or unhappy with the status quo in that many do not choose to physically act on their thoughts or care to act.  I am of the mind that it needs change because the for profit model that most media companies/corporations are using is outrageously wrong.  News companies need to be less about profit and more about the truth.  These news corporations such as Fox News, NBC, ABC, MSNBC, etc that report the news rely heavily on news nets, geographically and historically significant locations, and eye catching news.  This is maybe the most economical way to get news and report it.  There needs to be a better method for getting news that reports both local and global news with some in between.
    In addition, the type of news being reported is not fully representative compared to what is actually happening.  The news for the most part reports eye stopping news that includes war, robbery, violence, disease, marriage scandal, celebrity juice and political problems.  The news net lets many positive stories of hope and such fall through the ropes.  Furthermore when issues are debated on television, the media companies try to present the issue with each point of view with equal amounts of time.  The problem is that even those views that are held by just a few are given equal time.  A great example is the climate change debates held on television where all sides are being presented as equal possibilities.  Most scientists accept and see climate change as happening, and that it is causing trouble for the planet.
  Now as far as the most important issues to watch out for as the media system changes are consolidation, how media is collecting news stories, what news focuses on as newsworthy, and focus on the news corporation/company on profit.  These issues need to change and there is hope that this will happen as time moves on as social and political pressure seems to be on the rise.  The only worry I have is that activism is such a loose term, and maybe people will just do the whole 'click-through activism' that Hesse talks about in her article "Facebook's Easy Virtue 'Click-Through Activism' Broad but Fleeting".  That is what I believe the future holds.

video games and violence: truth or myth

           The evolution of video games and a certain reality(virtual reality and semi-real environments) that has been created with that evolution has led to many changes in the lives of people all over the world, but more importantly, to me, the American people, since 1940s.  Serious popularity came in the 1970s leading to now the video game industry is the fastest growing industry. At the same time there has been 57 school shootings (August 1966 to February 2008), of which 34 of those shootings took place since 2000.  This is just one of many statistics of increased violence that people have employed for their argument that video games are the cause or are at least correlated to the "increased" violence that people feel is happening all over the US.  The media seem to report mostly on the bad that is happening in society and less on the positives.  The best corellation/cause example is Columbine High School massacre that occurred in 1999 where afterwards the critics or the commentators on the event pointed to high amounts of violence in movies, video games and regular television.  There have been countless studies trying to argue that their data supports the arguement that the more violence youth experience the more likely they will be violent.  A documentary film called 'Game Over: Gender, Race and Violence in Video Games' that tries to support the argument and here is a clip from the film.  The film's focus is on people particularly youth being sucked into a virtual reality and not being able to maintain separation between that and reality.  The film even draws on military statistics for supporting the argument by saying that the military uses the video game Doom to train soldiers to react and shoot with less thinking and less hesitation.  This is supported by the statistic the marine corp gave saying that "they have had experiment after experiment to show the value of these simulators, but the greatest experiments are things like World War II where only 15% to 20% of the riflemen fired, and Vietnam where 95% of the riflemen fired."
           My view is that this is nothing more then people trying to point the blame and have a scapegoat, instead of actually trying to fix the underlying problem that has been the true reason for the increase in violence.  The underlying problem is that education is slumped and family structure is crumbling as people have moved to an individualistic thought process and away from the community mentality.  As far as the blanket statements in the first paragraph argument about video games and violence there is a key point or area of discussion is that needs to be looked at.  That is the emotional investment and connection that people put into the video games.  There are countless young people who have played only violent video games and have turned out just fine without becoming very violent.  For example when I was younger I played tons of video games and look I ended doing biology research and have never done anything violent like studies suggest.  The important component that emotional investment brings is that it tells how people reason with reality and the virtual reality created in video games.  The idea that people need to be able to separate themselves from the virtual reality of the game and their characters so that they are able to maintain their mental state is key to life.  Furthermore the military's stats are extreme because those in the military are willingly pushing their own psychy into the game and training of shooting.  The military personel have the emotional investment in the training and the simulations so there is little else to suggest otherwise.  With all that said please tell me what you think about my argument and how that video games have affected your life.

Globalization and Social Movements

            The process of globalization is when ideas, cultures, politics and economies around the world increase in connectivity and interdependence.  Globalization has been occurring at least since the seventeenth century, but the process accelerated with the european industrial revolution as inovation allowed for faster travel and communication.  Over the past century the United States has spread what the country's citizens hold most valuable (materialism and individualism) to other countries.  This is visible through the fact that you can go to distant locations and here american music (rap and hip-hop) for example in clubs in Hong Kong and Dubai.  The world for the most part perceives citizens of the United States through the television, for example televised political events, television series(Leave it to Beaver, Pimp My Ride, Desperate Housewives, etc), and movies.  Many people in other countries see through this media that US citizens have many material things and are self centered with little worry or care about others' lives.  These people seem to see that having a television is a sign of stability and wealth.  Most of the media that reaches the masses outside of the United States portray this almost problem free society with little difficulty.  This view has been pushed onto other societies and cultures thus the people of those areas increasingly want what they see on television.
            On the reverse side of things when global media products that do not originate from the United States reach the citizens of the United States there is this huge transformation of the products.  My experience has been just this, the products have been made easy to understand and translated into English.  I feel as if I am at a loss on somethings and at an advantage at others.  What I mean is that through having most media products of non-US origin translated and formated for easy viewing I lose some of the little intricacies that come with hearing and seeing things in the original format.  An advantage to the formating is that I am able to view many varieties of products without spending the time and money learning the language of the original product.  Another advantage is that I am able to become aware of other cultures and societies that would otherwise be unavailable to me.  The global media products that I tend to use are international news websites (http://english.aljazeera.net/) and radio (http://www.bachataradio.com/bachataradioondemand.htm) to gain further perspective about current and past events, as well as learn about issues and events not covered my media in the United States.  Furthermore, I enjoy listening to a vast variety of music from around the world in the native languages and in traditional form to try to experience what other people experience through their language.  An example is . This leads to my next point of discussion on why I have mixed feelings on globalization.
            The final point of interest that I want to talk about is my mixed feelings on globalization.  I am passionate about learning about the world of which I live in and believe that everyone needs to try their best to keep up to date on what is happening around the world within their means.  The overall trend started out bad back when european were invading countries left and right.  Though over time countries have become more conscious, the countries that have been attacked have lost some of their history, their culture, social values and local religion.  There are many points to mention, but these are what I value most and see as paramount in the in discussion on globalization.