I'm Feeling A Little Paranormal

I am a reality show junkie... all of my friends know it too. I will watch any, and every, reality show created. I've enjoyed watching everything from The Biggest Loser to I Love New York. I have no idea why I am so intrigued by reality shows. But lately I have been disappointed with all the new shows coming out because I feel like producers are running out of ideas for shows.

So for right now the one reality show that I absolutely love is called Paranormal State and it is on the A&E network. The show follows around the Penn State University Paranormal Research Society. Not only am I a big fan of Ryan Buell, the director of the society, but I love the cases that they investigate.

It pretty much, at it's simplest level, is another "ghost-hunting" show. However, the story lines focus much more on real people that are dealing with difficulty in their lives and how to heal that hardship. It also helps that the paranormal research team experiences on camera very scary encounters that I honestly do not think are staged. I really recommend this show, even for entertainment purposes, and from there you can decide what you believe is real. But you should definitely check out an episode or two because it is a great show. Go to A&E to watch episodes.

Darfur and the Olympics

I read an article this morning from the New York Times website entitled Changing the Rules of the Games written by Ilan Greenberg. I think the article is very interesting and I definitely recommend that you read it, especially if you are interested in the recent controversial reactions towards the Summer 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.

The article discusses an organization called Dream for Darfur. In meetings that they have, they have been contemplating the approaches of the Chinese government to advertise the Olympic games. But also about how the country's oppressive government may not be the best place to hold a world event, such as the Olympics. The article also brings up the point that the Olympics may be a time to set global issues to the side and just have a good time. All in all, it is a very well-written article about the current opposing views to the Summer 2008 Olympic games in Beijing.

Google told me the world is ending

So I Googled "March 2008" on CNN.com to see if there were any big news stories that I had missed for the month of March. One of Google's sponsored results that I got read "2008:God's Final Witness." Next to this, the byline read "Unprecedented destruction will come in 2008, leading to America's fall." So intrigued by this craziness, I clicked on the link which lead me to www.the-end.com. It is a website from a pastor of the Church of God who wrote a couple of books that supposedly prove that the prophesy shows that the world will end in 2008. He says that these books are directed towards the descendants of Abraham, which are those who are part of Islam, Christianity, or Judaism. I am a Christian and even the description of this book seems at least mildly offensive to me. The pastor himself is trying to prove that he has the ability of prophesy. Why are ridiculous websites like this one coming up in my Google results? Maybe that should be monitored, Google.

Biggie and Tupac... Ooops

This week The Los Angeles Times published an apology for inaccurate coverage of the 1994 shooting of Tupac Shakur. The Los Angeles Times used information in their coverage from a forged document which suggested that friends of P.Diddy, also known as Sean Combs, had set up the attack on Shakur. After making these pretty severe claims, the newspaper had to retract their article because the documents they were using were forged. To read more on this newspaper slip-up, you can read the New York Time's article on it entitled Newspaper Says Article on Rapper Was False

NIU Shooting Covered by the New York Times

I felt like there wasn't much media coverage about the NIU shootings that happened last month, on February 15, 2008. Maybe I think that because I wasn't paying enough attention to news that week, but I honestly felt like I didn't learn anything about the situation from the news.

So I went to The New York Times website to look at the type of coverage that they had of the crisis. I first read the article published online from the day of the shooting entitled Gunman Slays 6 at N. Illinois University and I thought the coverage was pretty good for having limited information.

This article overall emphasized the feelings of students involved and it illustrated almost a play by play narrative of what happened. This tactic almost seemed like a sensationalizing technique to help the reader feel sympathy, imagine the scene, and create intrigue.

My Reading Curse

With the crazy schedule of a student, it is very difficult to find any time for enjoyable reading. Throughout college, I have started numerous books, read about 100 pages, and never finish. I never can find time to finish. So maybe if I write about the book I'm trying to read right now it may encourage me to keep going for once, even amidst my most hectic semester. In January, on my most recent trip to Hawaii, I started reading Come Be My Light which features letters written by Mother Teresa. Although I have only made it to page 103, as following my reading curse, I really enjoy this book.

So far through the first hundred pages it has pretty much just been Mother Teresa writing to a priest to get permission to start a mission in Calcutta. She faced much opposition to her God-given dream of serving the poor in India, and even after a hundred pages, her dream has not even been started. So it has been a slow start to the book, but the life lessons that are strewn throughout the letter so far, are amazing to read.
From what I can tell so far from the book, I would absolutely recommend it if you are interested in spirituality. However, patience is a virtue that is taught through this book as it has a very slow story line, and so far, is not very action packed. But I love to read the actual letters of Mother Teresa; they are truly inspiring.

Office of International Education

Yesterday I attended a session held by the Office of International Education discussing the issues that international students are facing. The discussion was intended to help faculty and students understand the hardships international students face. The professors who attended the session were from the Economics, Psychology, and Mathematics departments. Even faculty from Disability Services were there as they happen to hire mostly international students and would like to understand visa and social security issues as well as the background checks that are needed for new hires.

The session explained to the faculty how difficult it is for international students to obtain a visa, and how post 9/11 security measures have complicated the students' progress.

It was an interesting and informative look into the struggle that international students must deal with to work and learn at our university. For related programs and sessions, check out the Office of International Education website at www.colorado.edu/OIE

Violence in pop culture can change the news

The desensitizing of American news viewers begins at an early age. The Television Violence Monitoring Project conducted by UCLA researchers was a study that recorded the amount of television violence for three consecutive years. This project found that 61 percent of television programs contain violence. These statistics are courtesy of www.safeyouth.org and you can simply follow the link to find out more about their research on television violence.

American media is very unique because it not only is disseminated all around the world as the most popular media force but it also contains the most graphic images. U.S. popular culture, including TV, movies, and video games, has become so violent that the media consumers have, as a result, become very desensitized.

The more violence we are exposed to in pop culture, the less and less we will react to or even notice real violence and tragedy in the news. With desensitization, only the truly horrific events in the news will have impact on U.S. pop culture consumers. Therefore, in order for news media to gain attention from a disaster or crisis, the news must be sensationalized to affect the audience. But many don't trust the validity of sensationalized news. Therefore, it becomes difficult for news organizations to both be fair, accurate, and not sensationalized while trying to actually attract a very desensitized audience.

Sports Photography

I am currently taking a class called Press Photography, taught by photojournalist Kevin Moloney. Each week we have a different photo assignment. The assignments are intended to give us a look at the variety of work that photojournalists produce. This week our assignment was to shoot interesting sports photography. I particularly loved this assignment because it made photojournalism its own sport! It's very difficult to follow the ball with your face plastered into a viewfinder.

We learned that every sport has what Moloney calls an "armpit" shot. Yes it basically means how it sounds. Many sports shots that make the newspaper are the armpit shots because they 1)have the ball in it and 2)are taken at the height of the action in the game.

Even if you get an artistic shot out of your sports work, it's likely that no paper would pick up your photo. A sports photo is not about being artistic. It is about explaining the passion and drama of the game in a more obvious manner.

However, the one photo that I chose to turn in as my final project photo for this sports assignment was a photo that truly portrays the passion that these women put into the game. This photo was shot at the last women's basketball game of the regular season when CU beat University of Missouri.

The Your Hub Experience

Last week I posted a piece entitled "The Buzz on Campus" to Your Hub. At first I found the Your Hub experience to be rather easy. I registered online quickly and without any problems. I wrote up my piece at home and planned on typing onto Your Hub the next morning before class because my computer at home is not reliable.

When I got to class to post on Your Hub, I could not enter the site. The site home page has each visitor first select what city and state you are from so as to direct you to the stories and blogs that have been posted for your city. On the morning that I need to post on Your Hub, I kept getting a syntax error when I selected my state. So I tried to simply log in to my account. I kept trying to log in and an error message kept appearing that I had an incorrect password or username. I kept trying, thinking that maybe I had forgotten my password. But my fellow classmates were also experiencing this problem right before class started. We had put posting off until this day because we had assumed that the Your Hub site was reliable and accessible; however, it was not.

I was able to log on to Your Hub by nighttime and successfully post. By this time in the day it seemed as if they had worked out the kinks in the website because it was running more smoothly.

Overall, I found Your Hub to be interesting to look at citizen journalism. However, if it was not for a class assignment I don't think that I would ever post to Your Hub. I feel like it's not an environment for individual creativity, like a blog may be. It is coldly formatted with little an individual can do besides write and post pictures.