Semester Summary...It's Over Already?

I've been trying to come up with a witty and philosophically unambiguous ending for this semester of blogging. For days now, I've let the potential closings percolate in my head, like a crock pot full of words instead of soup. I realize that that is a strange analogy, but these days most of my ideas come from food. That is even stranger since this blog is supposed to be about politics. But food can blend with just about anything, right?

I have had plenty of fodder to work with this semester: the amazing election season, the hilarity that is Sarah Palin (she never fails to amuse), the very interesting turmoil that comes with a president-in-waiting behind a president that gets shoes thrown at him (and, as I heard on the radio today, some sheik from Saudi Arabia wants to pay about $10 million for those shoes). This just proves a few things: (1) politics will always be fun to write about when there are funny politicians out there as bait; (2) even though the election season is over, I can still attempt secret car wars with those who have "Allen for Senate" or "Say it 'aint so, Joe" stickers hanging limply on their back bumpers; and (3) I should have said much more about the ridiculousness that is politics in this semester's blogs.

Maybe because I was so downright scared of what might have happened this election season, I didn't find the humor that is out there, but if I do tackle politics in the future, I think that would be my goal: because if we can't laugh at the horrendous state our country is in (economy, global warming, wars on two fronts, wars on civil rights, attacks on those who are just sick and tired of the politics of the holidays, and so on).

Will there be a next time around? Probably so. I'm sure I'll rekindle blog writing next fall, as I will be taking this spring off from ENG 112. Potential topics might include: the environment; 70s and 80s easy listening; historical fiction (what's so fictional about it, really?); addiction to the Food Network; or a plethora of other manageable topics. I have a few months, so I'll marinate on that for the time being.

Ciao! (Or chow!, as you like it.) See you at the inauguration parade...

Could Blogging Have Stopped WW2?

Check out this article from the Associated Press and published on the Huffington Post: "Nobel Prize Winner: Blogs Might Have Stopped Hitler." In this short post, Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio suggests that the free-flow of information could have prevented WW2.

Do you agree?
Why WW2 and not the genocide in Darfur? The Russia-Georgia aggression? The U.S. foreclosure/bank crises?

Another Political Corruption Case?

It's not so hard to believe: as my quasi-sister-in-law reminded me a few months ago, Chicago wasn't called the windy city because of the weather. Rather, it was because Chicago politicians are all full of hot, corrupted air. Today, we learned that Democratic Governor (and under investigation long before today) Rod Blagojevich (pronounced Bleh-goya-vich) was arrested today because of charges of "scheming to enrich himself by selling Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat for cash or a lucrative job for himself. In excerpts released by prosecutors, Blagojevich snarls profanities, makes threats and demands and allegedly concocts a rich variety of schemes for profiting from his appointment of a new senator" (Associated Press, 2008). What's frightening about Blagojevich's profanity-laced tirade unleashed on anybody who wouldn't pay him for the senate seat is the boldness (or inanity) of his actions.

Of course, we've seen this before. Even today, Larry Craig, the Republican senator from Idaho, lost the appeal of his disorderly conduct charge relating to his "wide stance" gay-sex solicitation charge stemming from a vicarious visit to a Minneapolis-St. Paul airport bathroom stall (Orr, 2008). Then there is Ted Stevens, another U.S. Senator, who was convicted of concealing home-improvement gifts and who was just convicted in the last two months, right before he lost his senate seat to Anchorage's mayor, Mark Begich.

Is it that senatorial and U.S. gubernatorial jobs attract criminals? Maybe, but probably not any more so than any other job that has power and influence attached to it. Rachel Maddow, on her December 8th MSNBC show, pointed out that in 1993, the Chicago Sun-Times happily (or relievingly) reported that in the previous 12 months, there hadn't been a Chicago alderman who was convicted (or charged) with a crime. There are petty criminals everywhere. Governor Blagojevich was in the right place (Illinois government) at a very strange time, a time when a senator like Barack Obama had recently gotten elected and around the same time performed amazingly at the 2004 Democratic National Convention. As Obama's star was on the rise, Blagojevich's was on the wane. In the last few years, he has been in trouble for everything from land deals to family feuds. The hope of ending Illinois corruption (the previous governor, George Ryan, was also convicted of corruption and is serving time in federal prison), doesn't seem to have been broken by Obama's good fortune.

But there is a point to most of this: that even those who are most corrupt in U.S. politics can also do some good in their time in office. Ryan passed a moratorium on the death penalty; Blagojevich attempted to pass a law that would force pharmacists to honor all prescriptions regardless of personal position. Even Larry Craig promoted a balanced federal budget (unfortunately, this was on the only positive thing I could find in his record). Finally, Ted Stevens is pro-choice. The point is is that corrupt politicians are mainly people who, even if we agree with them on some issues, have come to our attention for trying to work around a system that they were elected to support. It's as bad as Pete Rose betting on baseball, as bad as grandma's overly dry pot roast. It's what we expect of politicians, and it's why Americans might so ambivalent about politics.

Let's hope with the election of Barack Obama (I'm crossing my fingers here) that we see a new turn toward ethical political reform, not only in the White House (I've yet to mention the legal problems with the last two holders of that office), but spread across U.S. politics as a whole. Don't hold your breath but, instead, make sure your representatives are holding up their end of the bargain: representing us instead of trying to rip us off. The first thing you can do is contact your local state and U.S. Representatives. Check their records. Contact them. And if all else fails, don't vote for an incumbent whose track record makes you blush.

References Cited
Associated Press. (2008). Illinois Governor's Words "Beyond Greed." MSNBC.com Retrieved December 9, 2008, from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28148126/

O'Connor, Matt, and Rudolph Bush. (2006, April 16). Ryan Convicted in Corruption Trial:
Co-defendant Warner also guilty. Chicago Tribune. Retrieved December 8, 2008, from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/custom/newsroom/chi-060417ryantrial,0,4525779.story

Orr, Jimmy. (2008). Senator Larry Craig Loses Airport Bathroom Misconduct Appeal. ChristianScienceMonitor.com Retrieved December 9, 2008, from http://features.csmonitor.com/politics/2008/12/09/senator-larry-craig-loses-airport-bathroom-misconduct-appeal/

Salam Pax links

Hi Everybody,

Check these out:

1. Salam Pax's original blog at tinyplanet.org/iraqblog
2. "Shut up, you fat whiner!" at justzipit.blogspot.com
3. Salam Pax for The Guardian newspaper: http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/salampax
4. An article by Slate journalist Peter Maass: http://www.slate.com/id/2083847/
5. Salam Pax's new blog at http://salampax.wordpress.com/

And this quote, from Salam Pax and published on The Guardian's website, in the article "I Became the Profane Pervert Arab Blogger":

My name is Salam Pax and I am addicted to blogs. Some people watch daytime soaps, I follow blogs. I follow the hyperlinks on the blogs I read. I travel through the web guided by bloggers. I get wrapped up in the plots narrated by them. I was reading so many blogs I had to assign weekdays for each bunch, plus the ones I was reading daily. It is slightly voyeuristic, especially those really personal blogs: day-to-day, mundane stuff which is actually fascinating; glimpses of lives so different, and so much amazing writing. No politics, just people's lives. How they deal with pain or grief, how they share their happy moments with anybody who cares to read.

And I cared. We had no access to satellite TV, and magazines had to be smuggled into the country. Through blogs I could take a peek at a different world. Satellite TV and the web were on Saddam's list of things that will corrupt you. Having a satellite dish was punishable with jail and a hefty fine because these channels would twist our minds and make us do bad things. They spread immoral values. Of course he and his buddies were incorruptible so they could watch all the satellite TV they wanted.

"A" Complete Guide to Blogging?

Check out this link on Amazon.com about Ariana Huffington and company's new book: The Huffington Post Complete Guide to Blogging. For homework this week, read the first chapter (just scroll down the page a bit). Would this information help a newbie jump into blogging?

Check This Out: Worst Blogs?

Hey Gang,

Check out this list by JP Raphael at PC World magazine: do you agree about the 11 "lamest" blogs on the net? Did any of those blogs come up in your "Worst Blog" search?

Julie

Staying Focused

In the course of my blog writing (this semester on politics), I've had an easier time staying focused on my previous topics. Those were: politics (fun, during the midterm elections), finances (pretty interesting), the dissertation (absolutely horrible experience, will never write about writing again!), home improvement (harder to write about and stay motivated than it seems), and, finally, back to politics, which is a topic that makes me wonder, sometimes, why I didn't major in political science.

So I played hooky last week: I didn't post a thing. I kept thinking that I could come around to it, that something political would strike me: the Franken/Coleman recount (according to the Huffington Post, the difference is now down to 13 votes out of 2.9 million); the Martin/Chambliss revote (the polls close tonight at 7 p.m.); the Obama cabinet; even the big bailout(s); there's plenty of fodder out there.

So why am I having so much trouble this semester? I guess it amounts to what everybody else in this class is dealing with: when one juggles classes, grading, dissertation, husband's new job, husband's surgery on Friday, dogs, planning the Christmas Iditarod (our drive to Colorado), and so on, it seems as if politics has been put on the back burner. I mean, Obama won, right? I have finally had the opportunity to relax, something that I didn't think would happen since the midterm elections when everything ramped up.

Here's something that has been bugging me, and it's probably not worthy of a full-length blog post, but it's about post-election hypocrisy: Politicos around this great nation seem to be changing their colors. I have been expecting Keith Olbermann to put George W. Bush at the top of his "Best People in the World" this week because he finally owned up to it, saying that, as you can see here in the article from the LA Times, "Bush tells ABC News: 'I was unprepared for war'." Next thing you know, Bill O'Reilly will be stating that it's a good thing there is separation of church and state. No, wait, he just said that this week. That wasn't his opinion 5 years ago. Give kudos to Olbermann again, who pointed this out on Countdown. This week, O'Reilly stated that he was "a secular guy." Just a few years ago, here's what O'Reilly said: "These antichristian zealots talking Judeo-Christian philosophy today reject that honor. But in reality, they are cowards. They hide behind the bogus separation of church and state argument to batter any public displays they find offensive. Led by the ACLU and aided by secular judges the anti-Christian Americans are insulting and denigrating a key part of America." I expect by next year both O'Reilly and Bush might join the American Atheists, but that might be an insult to my husband, a proud atheist. To see O'Reilly vilified by Olbermann, check out this link:



So it seems as if the next month and a half will be absolute mayhem: some politicians will be falling off the radar (let's hope that's Sarah Palin, Larry Craig, Fred Thompson, Michelle Bachmann, Rudy Guiliani, and even Bill Clinton) while others will be making appearances for the first time. And the pundits will continue to harrass and harangue. I'm looking forward to learning more about Ron Paul, though, because I get the feeling he won't be going away any time soon. He's like Ross Perot on steroids, which isn't a bad thing, now is it?

Post Feedback This Week

Hi Everybody,

Hopefully your Thanksgiving was a nice and safe one! Just as a reminder, I will be giving feedback on this week's posts later today and tomorrow. Remember also that you will have two more posts due next Tuesday, and feedback for those will happen next Wednesday. Just hang in there--we're almost done the semester.

This is the perfect time to start thinking about your blogging community: how well have you researched and read blogs in your subject area? Attempt to read 1-2 new blogs a day for the next week or so--then you will really have a nice selection of community members to choose from.

See you in a week!
Julie

Watch that Tone!

There are all sorts of ways one can manage the tone of their writing online. When it comes to blogs, however, the tone can feel much more informal, a "hey you!" message yelled IN ALL CAPS for effect rather than a more subtle "I really mean to grab your attention." These stylistic differences can certainly be seen in blogs.

Blogs can be both personal and professional, political and apolitical. It all depends on the person and the context of the post. I, for one, tend to have a semi-informal approach in the writing of my blog. While the context this semester is politics, I'm no expert on foreign policy, I'm no Rhodes scholar, I'm just a composition professor who happens to be addicted to politics. So my tone is most likely "academic-lite." What does that really mean? It means that I attempt to pay attention to the words I use as I articulate points, considering both my audience (this class) and the genre of blogs. It's a tricky balance sometimes to say the right thing the right way. When writing about politics, being too obnoxious or verbose can turn a reader off.

Like Stephen King has said, "The road to hell was paved with adverbs" (Moncur). Adverbs, those "-ly" words, litter our writing, especially academic writing and, as the case may be, strangely, romance novels. Where else would you find him staring longingly at her heavingly ample bosom? Where else, but in a blog or online, could you find out that someone was "really, really republican" or even "two very-nearly-Democratic-Party-house-organs" (whatever that means, see Kinsolving for a clearer explanation)?

Most blogs, it can be pointed out, like The Drudge Report, are light on the professional tone and would rather get down and dirty, more like The Enquirer than The New York Times. For example, the big headline (with, unfortunately, no front-page story to go with it) says "100,000 Citizens Resist Obama in First Week." What does that mean? He's the president-elect. What can one resist at the moment? It's not as if we can re-do the elections. The sneaky part of that front-page headline is that it's an advertisement, asking readers to sign up to oppose a "socialist" Obama. Really, now? We've gone to the Marxist argument again? (How's that for a shift in tone?)

Then there are regular blogs like "Just Another Political Blog," in which our author, Canadian Zach Hall, provides thoughtful and philosophical-esque commentary about not just Canadian issues but, rather, about global conundrums such as the environment. I think our class blogs should strive to be more like Hall than The Huffington Post and Drudge. First of all, in ENG 112 we don't have ample supplies of copywriters at our disposal; we aren't paid big salaries to blog; and we haven't the archive to rely on previous work or the vitriolic ire of political party affiliation. That said, what is impressive about a one-person blog like Hall's is that it sets an appropriate tone: concerned citizen, intellectually curious, not afraid to use a thesaurus as he educates us about his understandings of politics.

In the end, the tone of any piece of writing should match the content and context of the piece. If one is writing about the war in the Congo, descriptions of murder and rape will appear. You can't and shouldn't be squeamish about telling the truth. If one is writing about relationships, it could be a mixed bag of psychology and emotional dialogue. Just remember: there are good samples and blogs to mimic, especially in your genre. Find them, peruse them, comment on them. You'll never know until you really venture out how your blog fits in to the rest of your community.

References Cited

Kinsolving, Les. (2008). Round 1: The Barack-Hillary Feud. Accessed November 17, 2008, from http://www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=40362

Moncour, Michael. (2007). The Quotations Page: Steven King. Accessed November 17, 2008, from http://www.quotationspage.com/quotes/Stephen_King

Check out this Iraq Veteran-Blogger

First, the story on CNN.

Now, Colby Buzzell's blog: CBFTW.

Facebook: An Election Frontier/Faceoff

I have been quite surprised by the anxiety and animosity that has been swirling around in this postelection week. Both with my family and with friends, what could have been a surprisingly exciting time for celebration (Obama, according to the Associated Press, won by over 8 million votes) has turned into a post-win funk. This should have been a time for gratuitious champagne drinking and general deep sleeping at night. Instead, the Facebook/home faceoff has begun.

First, let me speak to family political affiliations. It just so happens that I'm the child of two retired military professionals; both raised by lifelong Democrats but both of whom vote Republican (one for military reasons, one for who knows what). My sister is a mixed-bag of political affiliations: she once worked for the Dukakis campaign, and she's both voted for Gore and Bush Jr. My brothers are staunch Republicans, probably because of their father's politics. And then there's me: a very liberal liberal who admitedly voted for Clinton, Clinton, Bush, Kerry, and Obama. I've even gone the red route on occasion.

So why are family relationships so tenuous during election season? It can all be summed up by law student Megan Bode, in "After You Vote, Please Leave Politics at the Polls" for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The honeymoon phase of trying to convince our partners, aunts, cousins, or pals that their candidate isn't the right one fades, and we are left with just bitterness, anxiety, and stress. My sister called me to explain her vote to me on Wednesday morning. I had just had a stunningly long day at the polls the day before, and so the call (and the admission of which candidate she chose) was surprising. Then came the litany of reasons why. Of course, I didn't agree with her explanations about foreign policy and general experience (because if I did, I would have voted for McCain, too). I wondered why she was unloading so much on me. Did it really matter? Then came the zinger. She said, "You'll just have to get over your dissapointment in me." Was it dissapointment, or shock, or something else? I still haven't tied an emotion to it. It was too late to convince her otherwise: she had already voted, and the election done. Yet this revelation, more than my brother's snarky text that he'd jokingly "decided Obama--psyche!" really got to me. I guess I had expected more.

One would think that once the election is over, that the feelings of anger would subside. Not likely if you were to read Jezebel's Online's article "How Facebook Status Updates Are Ruining Your Post-Election Social Life" by a blogger that goes by "Hortense." I never realized how much animosity I still harbored when I would view friends from college or high school or my last job posting comments on the social networking site about bunkering down in Idaho, running out to get a gun, the Democrats taking everyone's 401K, or what a charlatan Obama is. Really? Has it gotten that bad? Obama seems to be coming off in some of these anti-Facebook groups as a communist or the antichrist (if you can believe it, there are at least 5 Facebook groups touting this one). Of course, there is free speech, and I'm sure there have been many who have also accused Bush of being the bearer of Armegeddon as well, but I wonder: is all this displaced anger going someplace?

I can't be alone: almost 20,000 views of the Facebook faceoff from the Jezebel site show that the topic is timely. For those of you with Facebook, have you almost lost your cool with a family member or friend who has been I-moting (Internet emoting) politically spurious comments that leave you speechless, uncomfortable, or even crazed? What do we do about it? Confront our family members and friends? De-family/friend them? Ignore the behavior? This is a question I don't know how to respond to. Any feedback would be helpful!

The Election ... Amazing!

This will be a somewhat teary, emotional, adrenalin-filled post. I ran a Virginia election precinct today and it was overwhelming. Weeks of training and reading up on Virginia Laws, preparation all day yesterday at our voting site, and up at 4 a.m., at the precinct at 4:45, opening the polls at 6 a.m., calling the registrar about 50 times with voters in the wrong locations, not registered, having moved, missing absentee ballots, and a myriad of other issues. Calling an election polling station hectic is a kindness. It was a monster. I just got home at 10:30 p.m.

There were times of silence; after 9:30 a.m., as the trickle of voters came in small groups instead of a deluge. And there were times of anger, especially when democratic and republican election officials try their best to do their best to protect voters and at the same time don't think of voters as real people but an "ideal." There will be more of that in another post.

I am proud of my country. I can admit that I've always loved America, but there have been times I've been mighty confused by racism, poor economic decisions, certain political actions past and present, ignorance of civil rights for hundreds of years, and so on. But there has been so much more beauty than anything else. Just seeing the smiles of the volunteers at the Fairfax County Government Center is but a small example: standing the rain, on their feet for 14 hours, easily giving a smile and a helpful hand with all our precious materials: our votes.

I hope we can become a more unified country. I know it will be hard. It will take years of a crushingly bad economy and two wars in which we must support our soldiers and all innocent people in war zones. I'm not a preachy, emotional person, but I'm crying my eyes out tonight. Happily.

Most Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about Polls...

At this point in the election cycle, I'm generally pacing up and down, and back and forth, spending hours talking about politics (I got a call from Moveon.org today with a request to volunteer this weekend) and then surfing political blogs to find out the latest tidbit of news on what will happen to America over the next four years once we know who our president will be and the direction our country will inevitably go.

The website that crunches every number in sight is FiveThirtyEight.com. The site's authors and contributors, Nate Silver and Sean Quinn, pour over statistics and polls done by the major U.S. Polling Agencies, from Zogby to AP to Gallup. They crunch the numbers from a variety of polls, whose methods are sometimes interesting and strange. For example: say you're 20 and haven't voted before in a presidential election. In some traditional poll models, you might be excluded from the data because you don't have a track record. In this upcoming election, polls like that would exclude millions of new registered voters, 350,000 alone who were registered in Virginia between January 1 and October 1 (this excludes all those last-minuters who turned in forms in the wee hours of October 5th or 6th, the last days to offically register) (Raising Kane, 2008).

What's so great about this poll projections website is the vast amount of data that one can pour over: what are Virginia's numbers? With 13 electoral votes, we're holding at 95% odds to swing to Obama, 5% to McCain, say Silver and Quinn. But those numbers, like the polls themselves, update daily, sometimes several times a day. It all depends on who picks up the phone. And for most of us who predominantly use cell phones as our only phone, it won't be us that they call. My sister, who has a landline and lives in Gainesville, has gotten, at last count, 13 polling calls. I've gotten none. Check out this great article highlighting some interesting statistics on cell-only users at Politics and Technology. The thing to pay attention to is what will happen to polling in the future: more and more people are dropping land phone service and are moving to cell-only service. And because it a federal (FCC) law that doesn't allow solicitation on cell phones, we generally get polling peace and quiet. This quiet will eventually skew phone polls unless the federal laws are updated.

Of course, I can't tell you in one short blog everything you would want to know about presidental voting polls. But I can tell you that sites like DailyKos.com, who prominently display daily tracking poll numbers (today it's Obama 51%, McCain 40%) do draw my attention. And that's no surprise: in the land of the 59 cent burrito and "Zero Money Down" on a house or car, it seems as if America has a love affair with numbers of the right variety. It also just so happens that because I have already voted for Obama (no secret there), I have to say that I'm pretty pleased about how these numbers are tracking. But then again, they'll have to hold for 8 more days. And crazier things have happened.

Reference Cited
Raising Kaine PAC. (2008). 350,000 New Registered Voters in Virginia Since January 1, 2008! Retrieved October 26, 2008, from http://www.raisingkaine.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16521

Back to Politics: Vote 2008

Starting in mid-October I'll be cranking away at this blog again, and I haven't blogged since the midterm elections in 2006 on issues surrounding politics, but if this isn't the perfect time, I don't know when it would be.

I'm now moving from an assistant chief in this year's elections to an actual chief of a polling site. I'm both excited and terrified. Excited to be part of the process and to be taking on a job that I believe allows me to make sure that everybody who shows up at my polling station has their U.S. given right to vote. There are times, of course, in which I've had to turn people away--but it's usually that they showed up at the wrong site, or that they forgot they didn't change their registration after college. I've never had to turn somebody down due to ID purposes (unlike what might happen in Indiana). I'm slightly obsessed and a little bit terrified that I might not get any sleep the night before and be a zombie during the action of the day...

I have seen people being unfairly treated when voting. A woman who happened to be African American was being unduly "processed" at the check-in table before she was given the "a-ok" to vote--I wasn't working this site, just voting at my own polling station, and I think this experience caused me to go volunteer to work the polls. I didn't hear the whole conversation between the woman and the poll workers, so I don't know for sure what went down, but I didn't leave until I saw that she voted. My hope is that it was for a legitimate reason (roll-related) and not racism. I'd like to think that, in Virginia, we don't discriminate, but I've lived in the south most of my life and I know better: discrimination happens everywhere. So I think it's up to us to protect all citizens and make sure not only that they feel safe voting, but that they have every opportunity to vote.

I'm just hoping that this November I get enough sleep the night before and that we get a great turnout. I hope that this process works this time, and that everybody votes. Otherwise, we can't complain about how the world is falling apart if we do nothing to speak up about torture, needless death, environmental protection, illegal wars, a deficit that grows every second, women's rights to their own bodies, better MPG standards on cars, and so on, and on, and on, and on...

FINAL CLASS IS ON!

Hey Y'all,

We will meet on Thursday (May 8) night for our final class. Please bring analysis papers, printed-out favorite blogs, and yourselves, of course (ready for short, informal presentations).

Thanks go to Dr. Trad, my surgeon. He scheduled the surgical shenanigans for Friday at 1:30 ...

Julie

Summary Post: Home Improvement

Well, it's hard to believe but eight weeks are here! Class ends on Thursday and so does this installment of my blogs. Each topic I have chosen has made me more proactive in some way.

First I started with politics. After that blogging experience, I became an assistant chief election officer for Fairfax County. I've worked 3 main elections, and it's been a very rewarding experience. Then I blogged about personal finance. I was into money before, but this blogging topic really opened my eyes about what I could do differently. Rev up those Roth IRAs and get moving. And I did. Then there was the "dissertation" blog. What a farce! I thought that since the other blogs had enhanced my life in some way, then blogging about my dissertation would keep me writing it in earnest. This didn't work at all and just ended up alienating both my audience and me from the project. (This reminds me: always consider one's audience!) Finally, in this semester's blog installments I tackled home improvement, and I think I've done a lot in a little time: reseeding and manicuring a front lawn; ripping off wood panelling and painting the hallway; buying (they're on the way!) new light fixtures for that hallway and some nice frames for family photos to give it some personality; fixing a leaky roof; and buying (just one) a chaise lounge so that I can relax as I grade final papers.

Home improvement is really about environment setting. Walking into a nice, updated home (or part of a home) gives me a satisfied feeling. It's so much better than the 70s throwback that this house was. Improvements need to continue: we didn't buy new construction. However, that's ok. There is something to be said about doing it yourself. It might not be perfect, but I paid less and got it my way!

See you online...
Julie

Green Living

I have recently become fascinated with "green" living. Last week was Green Week, and local cities (like the one I was visiting in Bristol, Rhode Island) were sponsoring "green clean-ups," in which, ironically, multitudes of men on gasoline mowers were cleaning/polluting all in one.

Now, Home and Garden TV is having a sweepstakes, and the prize is none other than a "Green Home." HGTV describes the concept home with 7 main environmental goals: (1) Conveniently Located so long travel isn't necessary; (2) sustainable site, in which the environment around the home is not unduly affected; (3) water efficiency--reducing home water use by about 40%; (4) energy--the home will use approximately 25% less energy than a comparable home in a regular neighborhood; (5) materials and resources all locally provided or made; (6) indoor environmental quality; and (7) education--the sweepstakes educates the public about all the potential options for "green homes" (HGTV, 2008).

So this got me wondering: how environmentally friendly is my own home? Within the last year we remodeled the kitchen, throwing away all the old cabinets in the local dump (no green there); we bought new cabinets instead of refinishing the 1970s ones (nope); we bought mostly Energystar appliances (50% on this one--the frig was a good deal and so that one isn't so efficient); new siding makes the home more efficient (that counts); we replaced stone pavers with green grass (great for the O2 but still takes on water, so 50% there).

Here's where I can go green: new bamboo flooring, as it's a rapidly renewable resource (so says HGTV) and that can go all throughout the downstairs. We can also buy environmentally friendly paint for any future remodeling job; we can replace the overly cold-running refrigerator with an Energystar appliance; we can run fans instead of air conditioners; we can turn off lights (I'm already a fanatic about that); we will replace all old windows and the door with better materials so that the home is fully insulated; we can keep the old, crooked tree in the backyard that is upending the air conditioner because it provides great shade to the house; and, finally, we've replaced all bulbs with the newer halogen ones so that we save on energy.

Well, it's not much, but it is a start.

References Cited

Home and Garden TV. (2008). Green Home: How Green is the HGTV Green Home? Retrieved April 28, 2008, from http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/green_home_2008/article/0,,HGTV_30916_5816498,00.html

My Blogging Community: Ideas

If I were taking ENG 112 and had to come up with my blogging community, the first thing I would do is isolate what community I am in. Realistically, my blog can be a part of multiple communities: those of English teachers, those of writers of classroom-based blogs, those of people who are interested in home improvement for a variety of reasons.

Because the assignment for the analysis paper requires students to discover which genre community they are a part of, this means that the focus should be on the actual content of the blog. So from all of this I understand that my community for a paper in ENG 112 would have to be other home improvement bloggers.

Here is a list of bloggers that fit the bill:

1. Heather Goss's Diary of a Fixer-Upper, which is linked in Washingtonian Magazine. This is a refreshing look at a successful career woman who is investing in a home and trying to do the work herself. Great photos abound, and her writing style is easy, conversational, yet informative.

2. Houseblogs is a community of bloggers with very up-to-date information on the mortgage crisis, "green" (or environmental) building, how to build the debt-free way, etc. The Houseblogs site is quite like the Huffington Post site. One main page links me to dozens of home improvement bloggers. I could get hundreds of bits of data on this site daily, and I include all of its bloggers as multiple sources yet linked in this easy-to-access site.

3. And now to a real expert. Bob Vila's House Blog is a great site because of his vast experience in home improvement. Anybody who has watched "Bob Vila" or "Bob Vila Home Again" on PBS or the DIY Network would recognize him. And his name is big in the industry--sometimes we just need to go to the "experts." He has 27 years in the industry, and so I feel quite comfortable taking his advice. I would use his site by fact-checking other suggestions from other bloggers and seeing if Vila has commentary on that issue. That way, like with academic research, I both know who I'm quoting and making sure that I have the most informed information possible.

And now-on to the paper!

99.152% Done My First Post-Blog House Project

I never thought it would happen, but hell as frozen over. Well, maybe not. But my hallway project (with exception of one corner's light touch-up and the remounting of a new light) is complete. Because this wasn't a necessary project (like fixing a leaking toilet), it was more of a labor of love. And here's what we did to get the "hallway project" done.

The initial problem was the wooden paneling was that it was, well, wooden paneling. I can't see any real justification for it. My childhood bedroom was a child's wood paneling fantasy, and that was in the 70s and 80s, so maybe this remodeling project is about escaping my childhood bedroom for something more "grown up." The panels graced the stairwell as nicely as any 1970s cheap plywood could, attached by nails and glue, made to look more like wainscoting than an actual wood wall because it only went partially up the walls. It was both cheap and incomplete. Coupled with tacky eagle-encrusted light switch plates, my husband and I think we bought this townhouse simply to rectify my 1970s flashbacks.



And so we tore down paneling, sanded down the remaining glue, patched holes, painted walls upwards of 16 feet in spaces (the stairwell itself soars up two storeys), and at one point I was teetering at the top of a ladder, inhaling fumes, trying to be a perfectionist and getting the job done right. It was a one-time-only study in perfection for me. I don't think I'll go back to that soon.

I think the most important thing about home improvement is that the job actually improves the home. I go up those stairs at least ten times a day, and before the redo I could feel my blood positively bubble over to boiling when I wondered why it took me three years to get to the job. But now that I have completed it, I wonder what I can do next. So if you read this, answer the poll above. I promise to tackle the job that gets the most votes!

The Association...

One thing that homeowners might have to deal with while working on home improvement projects is the dreaded homeowner's association. The purpose of that association is to keep your neighbors (and you) in line. They take dues (ours is double--we have a neighborhood association and the Reston Association [RA]) for things like garbage and landscape maintenance, management of parking issues, and basic oversight of each home. When a home gets into disrepair the homeowner's association (in our case, RA) can put a lien on the owner's property, which requires the homeowner to fix the problem or pay a penalty before they can sell the home. RA actually did this to a neighbor of ours because her front porch light wasn't the right shape. Unfortunately the acceptable light design was discontinued years ago and RA hadn't updated their documentation. $120 dollars later, the lien was finally gone. But talk about bad blood...

The purpose is protection, one guesses, from crazy neighbors who might bring down the value of other properties with trashy front yards (think 50 garden gnomes) or tractor trailers parked on the lawn. But what we have experienced with our neighborhood association is a partnership with predatory towing companies, an interest in cheap holiday decorations (which have only come down last Sunday, four months later), support for the local solicitors such as the ice cream truckers, who blare horrible calliope music in the form of the repetitious "Music Man" in the neighborhood every day at least twice a day, and a general interest in unrest.

There are sites on the web that are out to help homeowners learn the real problems with these associations. For example, the American Homeowner's Resource Center attempts to shine a bright light on the real legalese that these associations can use to take power from homeowners. The goal of these associations was once a good one: support your neighbors and community, keep the neighborhood clean, and everybody's property will benefit. Short of starting a revolution, however, I don't see what we can do to remove Reston Association from our lives other than moving. However, with the way the housing crisis is looming large in our neighborhood (at least 6 foreclosures or short sales at last count), that isn't a possibility.

So what are homeowners to do? Maybe all one can do is fix up their property to code and neighborhood standard and wait it out while maniacal neighbors snoop and intrude and just plain make nuisances of themselves. In the meantime, I'll be buried up to my eyeballs in paint.

Home Improvement's Not Always Been So Pretty

As I was priming the stairwell walls this week, I was thinking about the turn to "hipness" that home improvement has taken. It's now considered a cool thing to do to take a house in disrepair and to do all those fixer-upper things (painting, carpentry, drywalling, plumbing, electrical work) that we used to hire out for ages ago. There are even titles for people who do this as a career: "flippers," who fix up dilapidated homes in the hopes of a big payday. But, back in the day, those jobs related to home repair were solidly blue-collar. You didn't do them because you wanted to make a lot of money, but you took those jobs because there wasn't really anything else available.

One of the many people involved in home repair was my grandfather Bernard (a.k.a. "Pete"). Pete was a WW2 vet who came back from France and Germany scarred, grumpy, silent, but ready to work. He took a job as a painter and worked 6-day weeks until his health deteriorated. Some of it was from a youth of smoking and blowing up cherry bombs in friends' cars. Then there was the war. The years of painting (I remember the most famous building he painted in Worcester, MA, was the Polar Bear Cola Co. building, and it must have taken weeks). Every night that I spent in his presence I can remember him drinking a beer and pouring a pat of salt on his hand, in the space between his thumb and index finger, to replenish all the salt he lost as he sweat through 10-12 hour days of painting.

It was not glorious work. It was strenuous, backbreaking: when Pete died he was inches shorter than when he was young, with a stooped back, replaced knees, arthritic hands. And then there was the emphysema. Of course that wasn't all from painting, but who knows about what fumes he breathed in for 40 years during his work? When he came home, he was covered in paint, smelled like paint, and just wanted a smoke or two or five. On his days off, my mom remembers that during the summers he would drive his wife and daughters about an hour to get to the beach. Even on his days off he wasn't off: coughing, hacking, curling under the strain of making people's homes and workplaces brighter.

And so while I was painting my one small stairwell, I thought about how Pete handled doing it, day after day, month after month. It had to have gotten monotonous, ingratiating, irritating. To deal with unfair practices and health issues, Pete had joined a painter's union (does this explain why I'm so pro-union?). But in the end all his health issues caught up with him and he died in a haze attributed to emphysemic senility.

Why am I reminded of this? When I was at Home Depot the other day, after I had my paint mixed (Ralph Lauren's "Architectural Cream"), I wandered over to another aisle in which "environmentally safe" paints (called Freshaire) were being sold. Of course I was lazy and just kept the paint I had mixed, but a part of me wondered what damage I might be doing to not only me but future people who buy my place. What ingredients are in the RL paint? What is better about the environmental stuff (more on this in another cross-over post)? Could these technologies (even in paint) have helped my grandfather have a better end-of-life? If I breathe in this stuff, what will happen to me in 10 years?

So maybe this is silly, or over-exaggerated, but I continue to wonder ...

The Day of Two Jobs

Well, we've begun early. And added another home improvement job to the list today. Because it was beautiful, sunny, and in the 60s, I decided to go ahead and reseed and dirt the front lawn, take the panelling to the dump, buy paint and edgers, and sand the stairwell walls.

Here are a few things I've realized about home improvement jobs. One has to be really patient and do things perfectly to get the job done right. I am neither patient nor do I care about perfection; that would explain the so-so paint job in the kitchen. But this time I let my husband take the home improvement lead. He sanded while I had the glorious job of holding the vacuum. An hour later, it's 90% done (batteries died on the orbital sander and are recharging).

Even though I didn't do all the work, I have been reading up on Internet home improvement sites so that as I move along this semester, I can learn and tackle as many jobs as I can.

The first great site is "Hometime" by the PBS home improvement gurus. What's great about this site is not only the written text, but the buried videos and purchase lists that come along right on the main page. Talk about navigation ease. In addition, the Do-It-Yourselfers have great tips on painting our tricky stairwell. What's nice is that you can also view videos on this site, or if you have cable just turn on your trusty DirectTV and watch shows like "DIY to the Rescue" and "Sweat Equity" because really, there are two fundamental reasons to do these renovations: enjoyment of having a nice home, and resale value.

References Cited

DIY Network. (2008). Home Page. Retrieved April 1, 2008, from http://www.diynetwork.com/diy/tv

Hometime. (2008). Drywall. Retrieved March 30, 2008, from http://www.hometime.com/Howto/projects/drywall/drwl_8.htm

The Beginning of Improvement?

We've decided on a project to complete: the "stairwell job." It's not that complicated, we've started already, and if we don't finish the job my home will look like the underneath of a highway bridge. Here's what we have done so far: We've already removed the wooden paneling (still waiting for removal to the city dump), and on Saturday Dac (the Mr.) patched all the holes that came into being from ripping the panelling off the walls. The next few steps in the process will be:

• Sand all new patches and old glue blobs that still appear on the walls;


• Purchase a nice, neutral nonwhite paint. My options are from the Ralph Lauren
  collection: Cream stone, Sailor's Knot, Modern Studio, and another sample I just lost;


• Prime and paint the stairwell, which extends up at least 16-17 feet in places. This might make us use some tricky ladder combinations to get that done; and


• Sit back and enjoy a nongraffitied stairwell.

About that graffiti'ed wall: Apparently there were at least two men
living in this house in the 70s; one is named Bruce. The other, interestingly,
is Manino Jr. Maybe it's Bruce Manino Jr., but the handwriting is different. You see, we found inscriptions on the wall from those responsible for the fake wooden panelling, and so I'm dedicating this job to Brucie, wherever he might be now.

Costs
1. One can Ralph Lauren paint: $26
2. Sander from Home Depot: approx. $20
3. Patching adhesive: $5

Full cost of project: about $50.

Timeline
1. Sand down spots Friday, April 4
2. Purchase paint Friday, April 4
3. Paint: Hopefully by April 15

Let's see if I can now stick to the schedule!

Examples of Summary, Synthesis, Analysis: The Matrix

Summary: “In the near future, a computer hacker named Neo (Keanu Reeves) discovers that all life on Earth may be nothing more than an elaborate facade created by a malevolent cyber-intelligence, for the purpose of placating us while our life essence is ‘farmed’ to fuel the Matrix’s campaign of domination in the ‘real’ world. He joins like-minded Rebel warriors Morpheus (Laurence Fishburne) and Trinity (Carrie Ann Moss) in their struggle to overthrow the Matrix” (Gittes, 2006).

Considerations of Synthesis: Think about how the Matrix was filmed (there is a short on the DVD called “bullet time” in which the Wachowski brothers explain this new filming technology). Now consider how this bullet-time technology has been manipulated, in both music entertainment (music videos from Rascal Flatts) and parody (think the Scary Movie franchise). These entertainment venues are taking an idea that became quite popular from The Matrix movies and expanding it out to other genres. This keeps The Matrix in the news and shows how this particular technology evolves in mainstream media. Ways for us to synthesize “bullet time” (see “Bullet Time … Sort Of” on YouTube).

Think of ways to combine ideas from multiple sources to further your position on any topic imaginable. Using multiple sources to come up with new ideas is the main goal of “synthesis.” Could we now write an article on how technology (specifically “bullet time”) has allowed for new conceptions of the use of special effects in entertainment, using as sources not only The Matrix but Scary Movie and music videos?

Analysis: James L. Ford’s article “Buddhism, Christianity, and The Matrix: The Dialectic of Myth-Making in Contemporary Cinema” in The Journal of Religion and Film, Vol 4. #2, 2000.


References cited

Ford, James L. (2000). Buddhism, Christianity, and The Matrix: The Dialectic of Myth-Making in Contemporary Cinema. Journal of Religion and Film, 4(2), 2000. <<http://www.unomaha.edu/jrf/thematrix.htm>>

Gittes, Jake. (2006). The Matrix—Plot Summary. Retrieved October 25, 2006, from http://imdb.com/title/tt0133093/plotsummary

Home Improvement

Ok, so I have chosen my topic for the next eight weeks: home improvement. I can hear you saying it now, "that's a boring subject." Well, it isn't as exciting as my last forray into blogging, in which I carped on and on about my dissertation topic. That was an experience I thought would be good for me and it ended up confusing me even more. I have learned in blogging about various topics (politics, finance, composition theory, and now home improvement) that I need variety in writing, that I need to learn to use power tools, that I need to explore avenues that interest me (like making my house livable), and I think this blog can be a great catalyst for that.

So. Here I am. We're in the middle of a house project right now (removing horrid wooden panneling from our stairwell), and it's been at the ready for about 3 weeks. Another reason I think this blog will be good for me is that it will motivate me to make some positive changes in the house. We have done a lot so far: torn down an ugly overhang, put on new siding, added new lights downstairs, almost-completed the half-bath, painted the deck and fences, fixed masonry, installed a new kitchen, even. But there is so much more to do: scrape the glue off the walls (the glue that held the disgusing panneling in place), install new floors downstairs (the vinyl tiles and carpet have been abused by my dogs); change light fixtures upstairs, remodel the 1973 bathroom, down to the lovely flowery vinyl tiles, move the water heater (long story), fix closets, paint rooms, repaint deck (wrong stuff!), resod front lawn, build out small decks in front of house, and so on!

I know for a fact that all of this can't be done during this course, but here is what I can do: learn to use power tools; investigate do-it-yourself vs. expert work on all the projects left to go; attempt a job on my own, like finishing the half-bath (24 months and counting!); interview a friend who is a jack-of-all trades carpenter/plummer/electrician; and plan a budget that will let me know if these things are doable or if I'm just smoking somthing. Finally, if this isn't enough territory to cover, I can provide commentary and review on some of my favorite HGTV shows (House Hunters, anyone?). I think there's plenty of material to work from.

So now I actually have to get off my backside and do something. This is what enrages me about blogs like mine...action is required!

So, until Thursday...