HW 30: Citizenship Symposium 1

The Citizenship Symposium I saw started with an opening speech by Emile Netzhammer, the Keene State Provost. He spoke a lot about our citizenship to New Hampshire and to Keene State College. He really encouraged people to go out an vote. The main speaker for the assembly though was Nancy Tobi. The title of her session was “Citizens Gone Wild: Taking Control of Our Democracy.” The racy, yet catchy name caught my attention and she led off her speech with a lot of good information. Nancy is related to Moses’ brother and something interesting is that she believes Moses started democracy, leading his people to freedom from Egypt. Nancy grew up in Lexington, MA. It was the only area in the fifties selling real estate to Jewish people.
The main part of her discussion was about our government and how our people run the government. “Government is the servant of the people, and not the master of them,” (Bev Harris). Nancy really stuck to this quote, and mentioned it often. She talked about the Declaration of Independence and what it means to us and our country. Nancy talked a lot about voting and how votes are counted. She believes that votes should be counted by hand and not by machines, especially Diebolds, which is the system used for 81% of New Hampshire towns and cities, including mine. There are many errors used with Diebolds and that is why Nancy believes that should discontinue the use of them.
Nancy was very passionate in her speech about voting in America, our government and how some things need to be changed. She wants to change the voting systems in New Hampshire and in America to make them more accurate. And she gave a lot of information for what we at citizens can do to help change that.

HW 28: Open Letter to Riverbend

Dear Riverbend,
First of all, I love the humor in your blog. It makes your blog more fluffy and light and makes such a terrible subject easier to read. I cannot even begin to imagine was life is like over in Baghdad and I can imagine humor is a way of getting away from it all. Your blog is great, very interesting to read, though somewhat hard to relate to, I am learning a lot.
From all the information you shared in your blog from pages 7 to 42 the worst I read was of course people dying for no reason. It is hard to imagine innocent people get frisked, and their hoses raided for no reason. The news on Henna Aziz being assassinated in front of her family is absolutely devastating. It is so unfair. I can’t imagine living in an area where innocent people are just taken away from their families so cruelly and abruptly.
Your list of reasons why at one point you hated the American Troops is completely understandable. They are reasonable and I don’t blame you for hating them at some points, especially for invading on unsuspicious people driving and looking through their bags and frisking them.
I think it is so unfair that you can’t go outside without “bodyguards” and you have to wear skirts to look less suspicious, which I don’t really understand. I never realized how much freedom women had in Baghdad, and it must be terrible to get that taken away. Not being able to work or just go outside and take a walk is awful. The fact that young children are being taken out of school is ridiculous and unfair, and that alone should not be allowed. I think you are a very strong girl and I have so much respect for you and the life you are leading.

HW 27: First 2 Blog Posts

Works Cited:
Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 2005.

This book so far seems really interesting. It is written by an Iraqi girl who goes by the name Riverbend. She made an online blog to share with the world her day to day life living in Baghdad during the war. This book/blog fits into our course work because it is, as I said, a blog and our class is based on blog writing and the importance of blogs on our country and world today. It ties in with women in the digital revolution because the book is in fact written by a young girl today. Riverbend explains that she made this pretty much just to rant and complain about the war, (Riverbend, 5). From reading this book I will learn to have a more open mind about this war and what it feels like to be living in Baghdad. I learn about life in Iraq as a woman and how it feels to live in the middle of a war, since none of us have had to deal with that. I think overall I will just learn more about this war going on, on the other side of the world. It will provide many benefits for me because I will learn more about our world and other cultures.

HW 25: Intro & Forward of "Baghdad Burning"

I thought the Forward and Introduction of Baghdad Burning was very interesting and it has already begun to open my mind and see the war in a different perspective. The forward, by Ahdaf Soueif, was a very brief description of the blog written by “Riverbend.” He uses many good quotes from her blog about the war and it helps bring his forward together. He talks about the recent war, and the invasion in 2004 to Iraq and how Riverbend approached her new lifestyle because of this.
The introduction of Baghdad Burning, by James Ridgeway, goes into much more detail about war and how Riverbend’s family is dealing with it. He talks about American politics and how the Bush administration wanted to send troops into Iraq even before 9/11. He talks about the American Government and how Riverbend refers to it as “the puppet show.” Ridgway talks about the Gulf War and World War II and how they built up to the 2003 war in Iraq. Riverbend also had to deal with the Gulf War by her home. He goes into depth about the Riverbend’s culture and the background of her culture like how it is “one of the oldest and richest civilizations in the world,” (Ridgeway, xii). Riverbend comes from a good part of Iraq where she was able to have a job, but unfortunately had to stop working after the war began. She now lives at home with her family and in fear of American Troops. There is also much talk about Saddam Hussein, Sunni Muslims, Shiites and many other different groups of Muslims living throughout Iraq.
The forward and introduction were very informative and well written. They each had a lot of emotion and passion about Riverbend’s blog and they have made me want to start reading this book/blog and learn more about this girl’s life.

HW 24: Then and Now

Woolf explains deeply as to how far history has come by the end of her book. Women have come very far and are not treated so inferior to me. Woolf notices that women and men are more equal as well. “I had come at last, in the course of this rambling, to the shelves which hold books by the living; by women and by men; for there are almost as many books written by women now as by men,” (Woolf 79). Women also were not only writing novels they were writing information books such as books on Greek Archeology and aesthetics. This compared to now has completely changed. Women are very equal to men, we can do whatever work men can do, we can write whatever men can write. Women don’t sit at home raising a family and cooking like they use to do in Virginia Woolf’s time. I would definitely say we’ve come a long way.
Woolf says, “…if we have the habit of freedom and the courage to write exactly what we think…” (Woolf 113) and to me, that is what a room of one’s own is. In comparative to this quote I believe that I do have a room of my own and I think anyone can have one. Back in Woolf’s time I think she was lucky to have a room of her own because where women were treated inferior to men she wrote exactly how she felt in this book. She wasn’t afraid of what other people think and I think Woolf would love to see our world now.

HW 23: Woolf and Jezebel

"With Apologies to Virginia Woolf"

I have been reading blogs online lately and it seems that everything revolved around gossip. The blog Jezebel has many blog posts about women celebrities and the gossip going around about them at that specific time. I do enjoy all this dubious gossip (Woolf 61) though. Where do I find information about Lucia Moses? Hair? Comediennes? Movies? Angelina Jolie? The latest celebrities? Why all my questions can be answered on www.jezebel.com. Women getting noticed about the new film Smiley Face is wonderful in the post “Living Dolls: The Stepfordization of Hollywood’s Comely Comediennes.” I love how this blog does not agree with patriarchy. They are trying to show people that films with a girl protagonist in a comedy film can be a good thing. I should fondly agree with them about this. Overall Jezebel is a great feminist blog and I should continue keep myself updated with it.

HW 22: Chapter 2 Patriarchy

I think Woolf said the paper proved that England was a patriarchy because it mostly had to do with men. “Somebody scored big in South Africa (who I would assume to be a man.) Sir Austen Chamberlain was at Geneva,” and “Mr. Justice commented in the Divorce Courts upon the Shamelessness of Women,” (Woolf 33). The only bit of news that mentioned a woman was about a woman who hung herself. The paper and Woolf makes it sound like England thinks society will be better now that there is one less woman around. This paper had headlines about men, which proves the point that England is a patriarchy. Woolf also discusses throughout the chapter how men are said to be superior to women and they have all the money, knowledge, and education. It basically seems to be saying that women are stupid and pointless.
I took a look at The Boston Globe to see if it would give a transient visitor to our planet the impression that the United States is a patriarchy. In my opinion no, The Boston Globe does not give this impression. The front page of The Boston Globe had stories about high school students in Massachusetts, the unfortunate loss the Boston Red Sox had last night, Romney and Giuliani in the presidential election, and expected layoffs for Boston Scientific Corps. There are also many other stories and sections of The Boston Globe such as arts and movies, automotive, books, weather, and jobs that could interest people of both sexes. In conclusion I don’t think The Boston Globe shows patriarchy in the United States at all with its broad range of stories included in its paper.