A Few Pieces of Wood...

After reading this article by Postman I can’t help but to agree and disagree with many of his statements. I somewhat agree when he says that politics is like a show business but I believe that it is up to the individual to further look into candidates running in political campaigns. When he was talking about when people see commercials about political problems and see fast solutions because the commercials are only 30 seconds long, I believe that if people are truly interested in politics they will take those commercials and look deeper into the problems and the candidates. It’s up to the individual how much they choose to want to learn about candidates.
I’m very happy that I waited until today to write my blog on Postman’s article because as I’m sure everyone now knows, Democrat John Edwards has dropped out of the presidency race. I know this does not have much to do with Postman’s article but one of the things that Postman says in his writing touches on what I saw today when I was watching Edwards drop out of the running. Just to set the record straight, I do support Edwards and I do believe in a lot of the things that he was and is pushing for to help better the United States. I believe he would have made a good president, but I also believe that he knew that there were two other people ahead of him who the United States would rather support. Making it clear that I do like Edwards I would like to comment on something Postman said in his article and something I saw on TV today. Postman quoted, “if politics is like show business, then the idea is not to pursue excellence, clarity or honesty but to appear as if you are, which is another matter altogether” (Postman 126). When I was watching Edwards step out of the race today I saw something that sort of disturbed me. After he had given his speech, and while the cameras were still rolling, Edwards along with his son (at least I think it was his son) were shown helping put up some wood strips on the porch where he gave his speech. The owner of the porch was a victim of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005, and with what was shown it was clear that the owner’s house was not fully back to normal. Now I know that one of the things that Edwards fights for is getting victims and New Orleans back on their feet. During his speech today he did say a lot about how there are still homeless victims in New Orleans and how he will not forget about them, but I just thought it was kind of a cheap shot to show him put up a few pieces of wood. I personally have gone down south 6 times to help rebuild houses that were hit by Hurricane Katrina and I think that is why I was so disturbed by what I saw. A few pieces of wood are not going to help anything but make Edwards, or as Postman would say, appear to be excellent and honest. The only thing I can hope for is that viewers watched that segment and instead of getting hostile like me at seeing him and his construction skills, hopefully they will see that 29 months later there is still much needed work to be done.

First time as a blogger

So I've never been big on the whole blog idea so I'm a little nerveous to see how it goes this semester. I feel what I will use the blogging for is it show articles or videos that I find to tell others in class. I do have friends who choose to blog and basically tell their life story through blogs but I am not that kind of a person. I find it a little odd when people read personal things about me and that's why I think I will just choose to stick with youtube and the internet.