media

was on dial-up last week, so i just avoid the Internet altogether. so here’s my post from last week, now able to publish it and all…

News around the world changes from place to place. If any person believes globalization leads to a merging of the cultures, they should try watching news or channels from other countries. Personally, my roommate and I love watching the Russian channel, and I used to watch German news for my German class last year. There are such differences, it makes it seem impossible that all of these different cultures are going to be the same one day. Even in the States, the news is so different from each state. Media is a huge influence on many things, and i just found several diffences between the area I’m from in Pennsylvania, and Fredericksburg, Virginia. Fredericksburg is close to several cities, Washington and Richmond are only a step away. The news here really does horrify me, I do not even watch the news anymore. It is filled with not much more than murder and violence. At home, probably the most exciting thing on the news is about how Rocky Ridge will be opening their Annual Christmas Lights up soon. Trust me, the Christmas lights are not that exciting, they are actually left up all year round and just unplugged after January 1st. Even when something tragic happens, like when one of my friends slipped off a cliff and was killed, the coverage is minimum. I found out more about his death on myspace than from the television news and papers. The media seems to live on fear here, wheares opposed to lil’ old York and Lancaster, the media prefers to cover the crowd at Circut city this morning when the doors opened at 4am or how Tanger Outlets opened up at midnight (it’s now called red-eyed thursday instead of black Friday, apparently). Or up in Canada, the news is even more boring. Just found it odd that little distance made such a huge difference in the media news.

Islam and Europe

finally was able to log on! i haven’t been able to get to this page for about a week now, not really sure why, but now i can post up my other blog i did last week as well…

interesting little fact, the leonid meteor shower might be able to be seen Saturday, Nov. 18, at 11:45 pm; the US’s east coast is supposed to be able to catch it, but we might be a little far south…

The Muslims in Europe are not getting along too well with the rest of the Europeans. To me, this is proof that it is going to take a long time before the world is living in one community and one culture. in Europe, there have been several problems with the Islamic community interacting with everyone else. some of this is due to lack of tolerance for that religion. for example, in 2004, France ruled that it was illegal for Muslim girls to wear their headscarves in public schools. I was actually in Egypt at the time this happened, and got to see a true point of view from a Muslim woman. This woman was a devote Muslim, she wore the entire veil, but it was not like she was uneducated or anything. She was currently enrolled in college to become a doctor. She believed it was wrong for the government to make sure a decision, it is a sign of their devotion to Islam. Another issue is just a general fear of anyone involved in that religion, as seen in the USA as well. after 9/11, and the London bombings, people began to fear that relgion in particular, stereotyping the Muslims. Until people learn complete tolerance, there really is no need to worry about the world merging into one community.

pro-environment

i didn’t follow the midterm elections, but apparently more pro-enviroment members were elected into congress. environmental issues are among the biggest right now, with threats such as global warming. so i decided to see exactly how the environment is affected by globalization. found out some interesting things…just makes me think maybe we really should start thinking more about the environment and less about the money. many people buy products without thinking about how that product may have or does affect the environment, or what harm the company they are buying from does. take the tropical rainforest and the farming industry, for example. many forests are torn down to be used for farms. rainforests take years and years to create, and are torn down in matter of weeks. the trees are sold to make furniture, and the land sold to farmers. the soil from the rainforests are rather infertile for crops, and crops may only grow for a few years. After those few years, the soil is ruined, the farmer must go and tear down more trees for new land. Many corporations such as McDonalds are involved in this deforestation. For example, the soybeans grown in Brazil that are used to feed the chickens for McDonalds. These soybean farms cause some forest clearing directly, but create more deforestation by taking the cleared land and savanna, making other farmers and ranchers tear down more forest so they have land themselves, according to Philip Fearnside, a member of Brazil’s National Institute for Amazonian Research in Manaus. These soybean farms are also inhumane. In 2005, about 150 farms were raided, and some 4,000 slaves were found, and freed.

Arechicken nuggets really worth it? You don’t want to be supporting a slave system, and the loss of the rain forest would lead to huge problems. without vegetation, there would be no more oxygen. Kinda makes surviving tough…

wikipedia for spies…

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15503834/

the US government started a wiki of their very own! it’s called Intellipedia. it is much more secretive however, not open to public eyes. this wiki allows all the different gov’t officials to create their own pages and be able give access to the rest of the intelligence officers to compare and contrast information. i found this fascinating that the government is using the same technology the rest of us are. there are different levels that different users have access to, such as unclassified, sensitive, and secret.

this is a big risk for the government to take. if the system is hacked into, a ton of top-secret information may be taken a hold of. however, this allows for the whole intelligence community to see information, leading to less mistakes as in events like 9/11.

“untouchables”

i found these articles rather interesting. i sent the one about the organ company to my friend who plays the organ. turns out, she’s been there before. just thought that was cute.these 4 companies all had something in common that made them the best.

1. they are all located and all the products are manufactured in America
2. they have products that are harder to come by, or at least harder to come by with such high quality                                  3. everyone whom works for these companies actually knows about the product
4. most of the products produced are ones that Americans have a need for, like the artificial hips and farm equipment           5. most of the companies are in relatively isolated areas, making it easier for them to set up more buildings if needed or an established delivery line. little bit harder to do that in a city.