Informed
Yesterday, I urged everyone to at least be informed. Not a very difficult thing to do, because information is always just a mouse click and read away. I also made some comments in my last post about people feeling indifferent about the war and not feeling that it was important enough to bother with. Well Matt Wong has so kindly expanded on that thought and made an interesting/entertaining analogy in the process. I was never good at elaborating my thoughts or expressing them very well. Hopefully this blog is helping me with that.
So just a small thought...I too, am disturbed by the general indifference I see around me. I think of it in this way: A responsible and successful democracy is built upon citizens that take an interest in their political institutions. In fact, when democracies first came about, there was a lot of active participation and that was their strength. Nowadays, people are complacent or take for granted what we already have, when we really shouldn't. I get the sense that in arab countries the political awareness is much higher; for example, it is very common for citizens to sit around after dinner and talk about politics. What impact will this disparity hold for the futures of our respective societies?
Anyway, that was a little off topic, what I really wanted to get at was being more aware. And I think I didn't go about it in the right way...shock and sensationalism. After all, that is the very thing that Michael Moore believes to be the problem in America. But really watch it yourself and draw your own conclusions.
As you can already probably figure out, I get most of my information from the Internet (in fact, my parents find it strange that I don't read the newspaper and every so often try to get me to read it). So I just wanted to link to some interesting articles I came across. The first one is about an American Senator who is opposed to the war. His opinions are very similar to mine, so that's why I'm linking to it. The next one is on France's motivations and role on the world stage. It was written by an American of course, but still a good read. Here's a very well written article, albeit somewhat lengthy, in the New Yorker. And one more article, a lighter one, if you don't mind scrolling down to it (and soon it'll be off that page completely). It compares one of my favourite movies of all time, Boyz N the Hood, to the war. Pretty funny stuff.
On last thought on the Oscars. Adrien Brody had a really eloquent speech, which was in sharp contrast to Moore's. But I guess that's Moore's style, blunt and confrontational. With Brody in mind, here's an example of an article with a punch line.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to blog about reading other media sources for a more balanced viewpoint. But some big news today was that Al-jazeera has set up an english language site. Although you probably can't access it, because of those pesky hackers.
--Nelson
Yesterday, I urged everyone to at least be informed. Not a very difficult thing to do, because information is always just a mouse click and read away. I also made some comments in my last post about people feeling indifferent about the war and not feeling that it was important enough to bother with. Well Matt Wong has so kindly expanded on that thought and made an interesting/entertaining analogy in the process. I was never good at elaborating my thoughts or expressing them very well. Hopefully this blog is helping me with that.
So just a small thought...I too, am disturbed by the general indifference I see around me. I think of it in this way: A responsible and successful democracy is built upon citizens that take an interest in their political institutions. In fact, when democracies first came about, there was a lot of active participation and that was their strength. Nowadays, people are complacent or take for granted what we already have, when we really shouldn't. I get the sense that in arab countries the political awareness is much higher; for example, it is very common for citizens to sit around after dinner and talk about politics. What impact will this disparity hold for the futures of our respective societies?
Anyway, that was a little off topic, what I really wanted to get at was being more aware. And I think I didn't go about it in the right way...shock and sensationalism. After all, that is the very thing that Michael Moore believes to be the problem in America. But really watch it yourself and draw your own conclusions.
As you can already probably figure out, I get most of my information from the Internet (in fact, my parents find it strange that I don't read the newspaper and every so often try to get me to read it). So I just wanted to link to some interesting articles I came across. The first one is about an American Senator who is opposed to the war. His opinions are very similar to mine, so that's why I'm linking to it. The next one is on France's motivations and role on the world stage. It was written by an American of course, but still a good read. Here's a very well written article, albeit somewhat lengthy, in the New Yorker. And one more article, a lighter one, if you don't mind scrolling down to it (and soon it'll be off that page completely). It compares one of my favourite movies of all time, Boyz N the Hood, to the war. Pretty funny stuff.
On last thought on the Oscars. Adrien Brody had a really eloquent speech, which was in sharp contrast to Moore's. But I guess that's Moore's style, blunt and confrontational. With Brody in mind, here's an example of an article with a punch line.
Anyway, tomorrow I'm going to blog about reading other media sources for a more balanced viewpoint. But some big news today was that Al-jazeera has set up an english language site. Although you probably can't access it, because of those pesky hackers.
--Nelson
posted by Nelson at 1:39 AM
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