Magazine vs. Newspapers

When it comes to what I like to read better magazine or newspapers I will almost always say magazines. I think that my generations of young people sometimes use magazines as a way to know what is going on in the world, to keep us up on the latest trends and the latest celebrity gossip, its one of my guilty pleasures. My fave magazine at this time is Vibe and Teen Vogue. I like vibe magazine because it keeps me aware of what is going in the African American community as well as discussing what’s hot in the world of music and who the new trendsetters of the season are, and problems that African Americans are facing in the community. I enjoy reading Teen Vogue magazine because I love fashion and they have journalist that write just for that for that purpose. When I was in high school I used to refer to it as the bible for today’s youth. I like how Teen Vogue magazine realates to the teenagers and at the same time they can relate to young adults to. I love reading magazines made for women or young girls because I think that it’s great that they make magazines just to relate to the problems young girls deal with everyday. In my opinion I enjoy reading a magazine rather than a newspaper because you get little more of the writer’s opinion and it feels more personal.

The Kite Runner and Propaganda
Propaganda is a term used in society all the time. It is everywhere we look, it’s when we turn on the television, when we read a magazine, when we use the internet, and in some cases the term can be used when we read a book. In the case of the book The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseni many people believe that this book is a form of propaganda, even though the book can be interpreted in many ways I think that propaganda is the strongest way to describe it
In The novel Amir and Hassan are best friends but are soon torn apart by a war and a series of unfortunate events, and both are far apart living in different countries. In the book Amir goes on a trip to Afghanistan where he has to deal with his painful past and he is needed to save his now dead brother‘s son Sohrab from the Taliban. Amir feels immense guilt for being the one responsible for Hassan and him not having a friendship. As a way to become good again he rescues his nephew.
In terms of propaganda I think that this novel is very one-sided, because you are only hearing the point of view from the narrator. In the story the U.S makes the Taliban’s out to be these bad people. They use the character Assef to be the symbol of all Taliban’s trying to make the U.S think that they are all Child molesters and cruel people. The Taliban’s have done some horrible things, but the U.S has done some horrible things also. I believe that the U.S should admit that they are partly responsible for some of the things happening in the country of Afghanistan. Unfortunately they will never admit it because the U.S thinks that their way is the better way and are not easily compromised.
When the narrator starts to explain Hassan as a “Hazara” It gives generalization that all Hazara boys are illiterate and they were not considered real Muslims because of the way they practice their faith. They also make Amir out to be the model for all people who live in Afghanistan who are rich people who are selfish and cowardly.
Amir treats Hassan like a servant instead of a friend because he is ashamed of having a servant as a best friend because he is of higher class than Hassan, and the fact that Hassan fed from the same breast did not make a different to Amir. The propaganda in that is society has taught him that with higher class you are of more importance than the poor and you have more option and opportunities provided for you because of your wealth. Even though Hassan was a coward for not standing up for his brother/ best friend he was still confident because he had riches, and society taught him that this is what matters the most.
In The novel the narrator explains how there is destruction all around him, and that the Taliban’s is the cause of all of the chaos in Afghanistan. It is again that I recognize the propaganda. The U.S blames Taliban for destroying Afghanistan. Amir also blames the Russians communists for what happen to their country.
After the September 11, attacks The U.S made Afghanistan’s out to be the enemy. I admit that I was one of the ones who blamed the whole Afghanistan country for September 11. Now after having read the book I realize that this is not the case. This book overall is good propaganda, because of this book it has change my view in the way I look at Afghanistan and the Taliban. In fact I felt sorry for the people of Afghanistan for having to live in such violent and dangerous conditions. Now I see that they haved struggle for so many years to just get a portion of what we have in the U.S which is safety.
In the Novel America is known as the Afghanistan Saviors, The author makes America to be this great land of the free, not knowing that it is partially America’s fault that the Taliban destroys Afghanistan and their the cause of their people feeling pain. It Shows this in the book that the young Amir Tries to make a comparison and he found that he is more happy to be in the U.S Where things are peaceful not like his old home in Afghanistan.
I Think that this novel not only gives us idea of what’s going in Afghanistan it also gives children who are stuck their fearing for their lives wanting to die gives them hope that they might actually have chance of living at least a fraction of a normal life some day only if they make it to the U.S. This book has reached a whole generation of you people and causes us to think outside of United States for once and to think about the problems going on in other countries.
Propaganda can be described in many ways. I think that this book represents how the U.S views the Taliban; they view them as these horrible and cruel people. But in the end you can’t help but to wonder who the real enemies are and who is really left to blame. I think that this question can never be answered because people are going their own opinion, because everyone interprets propaganda differently. There are always going to be different points of views of this book. After reading this book I’ve definitely learned a lot more about the Middle East. After September 11 I did not really care about what was going on oversees, but when this novel The Kite runner was published it changed my view of The U.S and Afghanistan.

New,News,News.........News

I don't know if anyone's notice but the online mercury news and the actually Newspaper for Mercury have different headlines. The front page news online talks about gel being aloud on airplanes such as lip gloss and small toiletries. Since the 9/11 incident they banned gels for a while. The headlines on the newspaper talks about how they are celebrating 15 years of a column called "Road Show" that talks about the bay area traffic. They also have little differences such as colors. The colors on the online news papers are more alluring. I feel like it's a newer version of our regular newspaper. On a regular newspaper you can read the sections called the "funnies" and play the crossword puzzles. I personally like reading the newspaper because I like reading the funnies and my horoscopes and trying to figure out the crossword puzzles. I don’t see similarities between the paper version and the online version of the news as far as the way they look. I feel that reading the news online is a little bit more exciting and uplifting. There's something boring about flipping through a smelly gray newspaper. It’s also a way of saving your pocket change by reading the news online. In some ways it doesn’t really matter how the news looks just as long as its accurate and real news.

Is College A Little To Stressful?

I heard about the incident that happened yesterday when a college student committed suicide. Then I think to myself it's amazing how college can get so stressful so quick for some people, now in no way am I suicidal! I would drop out of college before I kill myself! The fact of the matter is I think about that student and I think about what went through his or her mind. Why did that person resort to killing themselves? Then I think about if they were thinking the same things about life after college. Then I think about the choices that person could've made without killing themselves. I believe you always have choices and there always another way out instead of suicide.I apologize for any person I offended especially if this person committed suicide for a different reason or if it was even a suicide for that matter, or if you knew this person in any way. Please comment me back on your thoughts and ideas about this. I really want to know other points of views this

Life After College
I'm only a freshman so someone please comment me back if you have other ideas or think I 'm wrong. When I was in middle school I was taught to have good behavior and good grades to get in to a good high school. When I was in high school my educators told me that if you get good test scores and have good grades and join clubs you are almost guaranteed to get into a college, once you get to college you are set for your future. Thinking back I realized they lied. There is no guaranteed chance that after high school I will have a job working in the media. I don't know about you guys but that scares the "hell" out of me. I know that I'm only a freshman and I should have to worry about these things untill I graduate, but the reality of it is that no one is guaranteed a job after graduation. I've met certain people here at SJSU that have family members and friend with BA's and Master Degree’s who still have trouble finding jobs. I guess I'll just deal with the problem as it comes and not worry about right now. This post really didn’t have a purpose, I just felt that I needed to vent.

Propaganda

Everyone has encountered some kind of propaganda in their life, from magazines,books,posters and T.V. When I read magazines I see propaganda everywhere. For example beauty, The media portrays an image of what a women should look like; tall blonde and a size two. This is what is so called the "American beauty" even though that their are millions of wemon in the world that do not have this image, it dose not matter because These woman are what sell magazines covers. This is what the people in hollywood think is the classic beauty.

When you look at T.V and you see a air Jordan commercial you think of the slogan Be Like Mike! They are trying to target the audience of all teenage boys who wants to play basketball like Micheal Jordan. My older brother is a example of how if propaganda is used right, you can influence anyone. My brother has every pair of Jordan's ever released and he still collects them as a grown man. Little dose he know that the propaganda in these air Jordan's commercial has encoded in his mind since he was a little boy that Air Jordan's are the definition of what "cool" is. When I was in high school the majority of boys had Jordan's and if you were a girl you had to have owned at least one pair of Jordan's including me.

When you look at shows like the Brady Bunch your looking at what's supposed to be the average "American Family" the Brady bunch never tackled issues like the usage of drugs and alcohol, because the idea of that show was that the Brady Bunch be viewed as good,clean, and innocent. After that show you are left with the impression that this is what every family should be like. The truth is that everything is not black and white; there are always shades of gray. You have to be living under a rock to not experience or seen some type of propaganda

Publishing Books To Downloading Cd's

When People download music, they do it because it cost less, and it takes less time to download than actually buying a Cd. My teacher raised a good point in class, asking us why we think downloading music in not as popular as buying Cd's; considering that they are both forms of media. What do people usually do when you want to buy a cd, and they go to every store and they find out that the cd that they want is sold out! What’s the first thing you do? Well, you go download the music from the internet right? You can do the same thing with books; you can buy a book online and read it as you would if the book were in your hands. Reading a book online dose not have some of the advantages that a regular book has. Books are more portable you can bring them anywhere you go . One of my class mates said that reading a book online is strenuous to the eyes. I think the idea of downloading books from the internet hasn't caught on yet, maybe I'm wrong, and we will soon be downloading books off the internet all the time. It just seems weird buying all books online because I'm not familiar with it. My teacher said that she couldn't imagine throwing all of her books away and just reading her books online, because she has an emotional attachment to all of her books. I feel the same, but I think the publishing world will find away to make buying books online even more popular to the public. Recording company’s made buying cd's popular replacing records I think the Publishing companies will have the same success.

My Own Record Company

If I had my own record company and I was in the position to make some major changes to to my label to make it work better. I would have all of my artist release album singles. When the artist is recording their new album on their official band site they would have their album on their page so the fans can get a first listen to their music and decide if they want to buy the album themselves, cause no matter how much you download their is nothing better than the real thing. I think with every album that artist release they should have what are called "bonus tracts" These are exclusive tracts that can only be heard by buying the album. I would have my artist give personal interviews and exclusive outakes in the recorded process of the CD, this would be sold in a DVD that is sold with the album and can only been seen if you buy the album. More fans will be more willing to buy a CD for twenty darllors if they have that exclusive footage like the DVD sold with the cd.When new artist sign to my label they would have to earn what is called "street cred" first, So they would start a myspace page and post some new songs from their album and get there friends response so their fans feel close to the artist and so they could feel involved in the process of picking a single, this will slowly but surely build their street cred, The Record companies need to realize that the fans makes the artists. All of these ideas would be effective in a positive way towards the record label.

To Download? Are Not To Download? That Is The Question

Okay, everyone has their opinion on music and how music should be received and given, in class I learned that it is actually legal to make a copy of a CD, but it is illegal to let someone else take the CD and make a copy of it,but if your just listening to the copy CD then it's not technically stealing. Yeah I know, confusing huh? But do the same rules apply to downloading music? Is it technically stealing if your just sharing your music with one other person? That's what downloading music is, if you think about downloading sites like limewire what your doing is sharing, the only difference is your doing it with millions of people instead of one person. My teacher made a good point in class about that, saying that when you steal music from really big bands that make a lot of money it wouldn't hurt their sales, but if you download music from small independent groups or artist who are trying to make a name for themselves in the industry then its immoral and wrong. My thoughts are what if you only like one song from that artist on the CD, or if the album is taking to long to be released and you really want their latest single, or sometimes the album is just to much money. Is it right that we give are last dollars to an artist who is making millions everyday to make them rich and leave us broke? When artist work hard on their albums in return they make a lot money, but what do we get in return? We get nothing but 20 dollars less in our pocket. So in the end downloading music is more affordable for us, but buying the music legit can help them, so then your left with a decision who should be the one to pay? Them or you?

Youth Obsession With Celebrities

It starts when kids are able to speak their first words, or maybe when their old enough to remember a song that they heard, or when they see someone on t.v do something that they want to emulate. We all pick out our role models, whether its our parents, uncles, older sisters, or brothers and the most ever popular celebrities. Why do we pick these celebrities as role models, why are we obessed with their lives more than we are our own? I mean dose it really matter how many times J.Lo gets married? Or if Lindsey Loham's breast are real? These celebrities are what we call the root of perfection. Wouldn't you kill to have Sharkira abs or Angelina Jolie lips. My point is we love it! Celebrities are interesting and keep us from really dealing with the real world and our own real problems. The media is sending us the message that Their extravagant lifestyle and larger than life demeanor is what we should all want. Our role models are a better version of what we wish to be, so we are constantly Trying to fix ourselves on the out side to be another version of them. My thoughts are we spend so much time trying to look, sound, and act like them to be a better image of ourselves.