Thursday, May 31, 2007 ' 4:25 AM Y
& your soul is all i ever wanted
LaLaLa kchan is not angry anymore..so don't worry Drew!!!
Yes I love my title XDXD.
Yeah I am less pissed now but I still think that Vista sucks AT THE MOMENT. So I hope it gets fixed soon.
Let's see, went on the lake again yesterday and this time I TRIED to wakeboard. Needless to say I didn't succeed and nearly pulled my arm muscles out trying. But it still looks uber fun so I am HOPING that I will succeed before I leave!!!!
And the day before yesterday went to a friend of Max's house after dinner...they have a super huge place with a large pond, a pool and a hot pool. Wow! Plus 3 dogs, two HUGE show dogs and one tiny cute something that is JUST CUTE!!!! It looks a BIT like a sausage dog and it's legs are soooo short! So when it goes down the stairs, it's legs are just too short that it has to HOP down! omg it was just so funny/cute/antisocial. Tok me forever to convince it to let me pet it. And the 2 big show dogs were like...80 pounds each, that's like 40 something kg so WHOAAAAA. But they were nice and friendly and CLEAN. hahahaha yes, one licked me on my face and there was no dog breath smell at all.
Okaay er what else? Oh we played beer pool and I let the other teens taste freeze dried durian and you can bet that that got a reaction!!!
hahahaha. Okay I am starting to get culture shock here! Wondering if I won't fit into typical american tenn society. Was reading a book about a girl who started drinking when she was in 8th grade, that is about 14 years old. Scary! And she was describing the following about US colleges, I think I shall run down and grab the book to quote: (The title is "Smashed" by Koren Zailckas)
"Roughly half of college athletes, both mals and female, are binge drinkers, and a 2001 study by the NCAA found that 80% of college athletes drink." pg 128
"The US government still spens twenty-five times as much on campaigns tofight drugs as it does on campaigns to prevent underage drinking." pg 207
"It is the year of the faternity asshole: At Dartmouth Coleege, Zeta Psi is publishing the
Zetemouth, a fraternity newsletter that chronicles the brothers' sex lives. It prints sexy photos of women the brothers claim they slept with, and categorizes them as "loose", "dirty", "guaranteed hookups" and "sure things". They are releasing the "Manwhore Edition," in which one reporter writes that so-and-so "strikes again", and "she's dirtier than ever...if she hooks up with one more Zete I'm going to need a flowchart just to keep up." Another article promises to deliver "patented date-rape techniques" in a future edition." pg 227
Makes college sound scary doesn't it? But of course that won't be the whole crowd, though I am now pretty sure I won't be joining any Greek houses.....
And to round off this post, I watched a fantastic program on the media yesterday night! Even better, it's available online. It highlights so many interesting issues we discussed in GP so I am totally mailing it to Mr Cheng. Haha, er Aj students if you are "forced" to watch this....well.....*evil laughter* Somehow I recall to mind Felicia saying that she will never eat again. XDXD (To be understood only by 1405 XD)
I watched only the first hour of the 4 part series but I already have several comments, aired below.
Newspapers bought over by corprate companies that are merely driven by profit for investors just do not work. The example given is the Los Angeles Times, once reputed to offer some of the best reporting in the US. After it was sold off to the Tribune (based in Chicago) the editors had to face cuts after cuts in budget, pages and eventuall staff. And this was at a time when the newspaper was making 20% in profits. TWENTY PERCENT that amounted to about 200 MILLION (If I remember correctly) And they still continued to demand cuts, resulting in the resignation of one editor (who is now lecturing in Harvard) and then they fired his successor who made public his refusal and anger at being asked to cut even more. At the same time, the Tribune put itself up for sale due to falling stocks and OMG other people have offered to buy it but so far there is no news. More ironically, the LA times has received a total of 13 Pulitzers (wow) and the final shot showed the current editor (who I unfortunately cannot stand due to his.... attitude which totally toes that of the company) posing with this happy face over this STAR that the paper received (you know...those stars like those in hollywood that are given to actors/actresses) for the camera in honor of the 125th (i think) year of publication of the paper!!! It is so ironic that what I perceived as the symbol of the downfall of the quality of the paper would receive an award on the paper's behalf.
Secondly, the opinion that most newspapers should be centered on local news, and leave the serious reporting of world events to other papers such as The New York Times and The Washington Post. (The only other paper besides these 2 to have a full time staff positioned in Iraq would be the LA Times, if i remember correctly). This view is totally the opposite of globalisation, and is known as hyper-journalsim. Feature all the local events more than the world wide events. So yay! Let's all become wrapped up in our perfect little lives here and not care for the world! It's not that hyper journalism is bad, yes I am sure people want to see their athletic kids and so on be portrayed in dazzling array in the local paper but what about international issues that matter? I for one am dying due to lack of international coverage of news in the paper I am reading here..thank heaven for online newspapers!
Which brings me to the next issue, the internet. Did you know that new and information you get from Google comes from other resources (namely newspapers)? Google or Yahoo is not going to invest resources into journalism, it's just not profitable (As seen in my first para of comments) But nonetheless, even if it is not feasible for newspapers to compete with online news, newspapers are the SOURCE used to report most of onilne news. Like mentioned by someone interviewed on the show, it's a whole chicken and egg scenario.
By this point I was feeling the urge to make a few hundred billion and save the newspaper from the vagrancies of profit minded people and try to restore some proper journalism so that I have someting decent to read. Reviews and commentaries and investigative journalism take up resources but there are some of the things that encourage your people to think and to analyse and to question if that government really is representing what you believe in and if that government you voted for is doing its job and not falling into, well, corruption and making money at the taxpayers' expense? Of course, happily, there was this sweet old guy who is super rich and is involved in the art scene in LA who is willing to buy over the LA times and settle for between 8 to 9% profit. (Hallejulah) Of course, he is super rich already so he doesn't have to care about stockholders etc.
Bottomline? Do watch it. It is SUPERB. Is journalism to become a profit based industry that serves readers only WHAT they WANT to read (gossip concerning various celerities etc) or instead, provides what they SHOULD read (why Bush is an #^&& ...i'm joking!) such as global issues that may affect their lives in a much bigger way instead of Miss So and So flirted with Mr Who and Who and OMG they are having a baby and buying a huge mansion in LA!!! Yes, immigrant issues, power issues, WATER issues, because ultimately WE will be affected by these because, heck, we're just the middle class society with less than a couple of grand to our names so we can't really plonk down a few hundred grand to have water transported from the already diminishing swiss alps whenever there is a drought. Yeah, we have to just LIVE with the water cuts and blah!!!
Hm, so much for my long winded rhetoric. Link to the site below!
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/
~kchan: let's do some serious thinking. i'm sunburnt too.
