Trading books

After our class in the library yesterday I had an idea that isn’t anything particularly original or clever, but I think it might be useful nonetheless. This may only apply to the people who are writing about the media. Many of us are likely going to be using some of the same books for our research. I thought it might be a good idea to get a discussion going on which books we have and maybe even write a little bit about it or suggest it to someone else, for convenience’s sake. What do you guys think?

Firefox and research

So I’ve been playing around with alex’s suggestion and using stumbleupon to look up articles and blogs for research and I’m pretty impressed so far. I’ve used of for a while as a time wasting device but never for anything useful.

Also, if anyone uses firefox and hasn’t upgraded you really should. It’s very easy to organize your bookmarks. It even has a new tag feature, and if other firefox users have tagged the same page it will suggest their tags to you. Very handy for research.

When we had our meeting about our proposal drafts, we briefly discussed the fact that each member of our group happened to have chosen to write about the media. When I first realized this myself, I was a little concerned that my proposal wasn’t unique. I had that reaction of “Oh, great. My paper is going to be just like everyone else’s.” After the initial panic wore off, I wised up. The fact is, it’s not at all surprising that we all chose to write about the media. When we turn on the TV, the news is on. When we walk down the street, most of us take a glance at the day’s paper and read the headlines on the front page. It pervades every area of our life, and in the US, much of the news centers around government, and therefore DC as well.

I think the movies we have watched in class thus far probably also had something to do with it. Both of them focused on the bad side of the media and prompted us to reflect on what we had seen. I suppose the point for writing this is to say that the media is a HUGE topic, and I definitely think each of our papers are specific enough that they may not coincide at all, and I’m relieved to not be concerned about it any longer.

Nation Building and Body Building Abstract

In this chapter of Building the Body Politic, the author details the formation of Washington into the city it is today. She catalogues the events that caused the city to switch planners and illustrates the struggle between its hopeful image as a utopian urban environment and the concealed realities of poverty, racism, and disease. She demonstrates this through her contrast of spaces meant for monuments and alleyways that housed the working class inhabitants of the city. This disparity is attributed to the expectation that the city would display the ideals and history of the country but failed to incorporate the need for working class people to live in the city. She provides both professional opinions and historical facts to support her points. The author suggests that progress is being made to transform the city into a more inclusive environment, but that it will never achieve the forced order and grandiosity that was originally intended.

The Mr. Smith Controversy

One fact I kept coming across when I was researching Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is that in addition to being condemned by Senators and other American figures for its portrayal of a corrupt Senate and supposed Communist morals, Fascist nations in Europe banned the film because they were worried their people would be drawn in by its Democratic message. Powerful people all over the world tried to silence Capra’s message in the same way the Taylor machine and the press tried to silence and twist Jefferson Smith’s story, yet today, it is considered one of the best films of all time. I’m very curious as to how a movie with such good intentions could be viewed by so many people as a threat, and what has changed. My first instinct is to assume that it was a result of the same paranoia and tension that caused the Red Scare in the US. But if that’s true, are things really that different now? Isn’t there just as much paranoia about situations in the Middle East and Mexico, and isn’t America just as tense about addressing these issues? I suppose one would have to have lived through it to truly understand what the political environment was like at the time, but I can’t help but wonder what changed to alter the public’s perception of this film.

Metro and

I’ve been taking Metro for years but it wasn’t until this week when I was thinking about what to write in this blog that I’ve really paid attention to who uses it.

I think Metro is unique in that people don’t mind riding it, and they find it fairly useful. In many other cities, such as New York, the subway system is very extensive, but people instead choose to use other forms of transportation. For some reason I’m unaware of (I’ve only been on it once myself) many people elect to take cabs around New York, despite the fact that the subway is faster and cheaper. In other cities, such as Los Angeles, people rarely use the Metro system, because although it is available, it does not reach many parts of the city and is often confusing. Most people find that simply driving is much more convenient.

In DC, however, Metro is wonderful. It goes almost everywhere in the cities and reaches most bordering areas, it’s relatively cheap (compared to most subway systems,) and it’s easy to use. Something I’ve noticed, which I attribute to this convenience, is that Metro riders seem to consist of a population that reflects very well on the people who live in the DC area. People of all backgrounds, races, and socioeconomic classes regularly use Metro as one of their primary forms of transportation. Those of us who have lived in the area for a while tend to take Metro for granted, but I am personally fascinated by how something as trivial as a system of transportation fits into a city like DC and becomes part of it.

Welcome

Gonna make this short because I’m using my dad’s phone (internet’s down). I’ve never blogged before but I like reading them so hopefully this will be fun. I guess that’s all for now!