Essay

From Violent to Victim
News stories have more to them the one might expect. No I’m not talking about hidden symbolic messages, that would be boring and not worth writing about. All news stories have their own timeline, and the original breakout of that story is only a small part of the timeline. A perfect example of this happened just this mouth, and continues to happen right now. This very moment. I suggest you stop reading this because the time spend reading this will prevent you from learning the latest in this story. Why are you still reading? Well if you insist on going on.
Soccer. Not exactly the sport one thinks of in America, unless your thinking about sports that are loved around the world and ignored in America. Then it would be the first sport that comes to mind. However, most of the time soccer plays second fiddle to our love of football, and, well, mostly football, with a little bit of basketball and baseball depending on where you live. This was not the case earlier this month when a New Mexico soccer player caused a stir. Her name is Elisabeth Lambert, and her story was spread so fast through so many outlets, that repeating it now is almost unnecessary. However I am going to repeat the story because there is more to it then one might think. See the story becomes a story itself as it moves through different media outlets. As time goes on and the news spreads, opinions about it change that changes the story that the media outlets want to put out.
Here’s the basic background. The day was November 5th, 2009. The soccer game was a Mountain West Conference Women’s Soccer semi-final. It was between the University of New Mexico, Elisabeth’s team, verses Brighum Young University. At half-time Brighum Young was up one to nothing. Miss. Lambert did not like this, and that’s putting it lightly. During the second half of the game, Elizabeth Lambert kicked, tripped, and punched girls on the other team. Specifically two girls, Carlee Payne, and Kassidy Shumwan. The first was the girl who made the goal in the first half; the second was the stand-out girl on the team. It’s the second girl who was the victim of the now and forevermore infamous ponytail pull. This was no ordinary ponytail pull. This was a ponytail pull that brought the six foot tall girl to the ground. One second she was there, the next she was on the ground crying. For doing all this she got a yellow penalty card.
All of this, though very dramatic, would probably go unnoticed if it wasn’t for the fact that someone got it on tape. If you can’t predict what happened next, then you haven’t been a member of society for the last few years. The video appeared on, everyone now, YouTube. See the magic of video means certain aspects of Elizabeth’s behavior was noted. The certain aspects being alluded to here is her seemingly lack of remorse. Remember the ponytail pull? How could you forget? Well, after said ponytail pull when Miss. Shumwan was on the ground, Elizabeth didn’t even look down at her. Not even to make sure she didn’t trip over her. This kind of evidence is best exemplified on tape. And the fact that the internet is worldwide, that doesn’t hurt with spreading the news.
From there it goes to the major mews networks, and morning news shows. The spin they were putting on the story, that Elizabeth’s behavior was, according to Good Morning America, “despicable losership.” Losership here being a new word. Ladies and gentlemen this is what violence causes, the addition of words to our vocabulary. Surprisingly, it’s a little known fact.
Soon after the story broke, a facebook page was formed, “Ban Elizabeth Lambert from College Soccer.” In just a couple of days, this page gained 3,605 members. Translation, the public was not happy about what happened and the media reflected it.
Of course after all of this negative press, two things happened that didn’t surprise anyone. When something like this happens some responsibility has to be taken. First the University of New Mexico suspended Miss. Lambert indefinitely. Elizabeth also offered an apology to the girls, their team, and her own team for her actions.
For a few days questions were raised about the roughness of soccer games, Elizabeth’s playing history (apparently she had a history of rough play), and how could the refs. Of the game be so oblivious to what was going on in the field.
Then, just when the public thinks this story is over and done with, and they all have to go back to the ‘relatively’ new Michael Jackson news, something changes and the Elizabeth is back.
A new question arises in this story, would Elizabeth be getting this much coverage if she were a boy? Apparently soccer is a very physically nasty game. See as Americans we did not know this because when it comes down to it we don’t care about soccer until it involves girls beating up on each other. Part of this newfound breath in the story came from Elisabeth herself. On November 17th she spoke out to the public for the first time since the incident occurred.
I definitely feel that because I am a female it did bring about a lot more attention than if a male were to do it. It’s more expected for men to go out there and be rough. The female, we’re still looked as, oh, we kick the ball around and score a goal. But it’s not. We train very hard to reach the highest level we can get to. The physical aspect has maybe increased over the years. I’m not saying it’s for the bad or it’s been to overly aggressive. It’s a game. Sports are physical.
She also discussed so key points like how she doesn’t recognize herself on the tapes, and that’s not the kind of player she is at all. Although the New York Times did report on her press conference, the gender issue was really seen on the blogs. People started to stand up for Elizabeth. Now the story wasn’t mean soccer girl, it was gender in sports is held at double standers. Just a few days later the opinion changes and the media reflects that again. Did you really think America would stay mad at a cute little blonde girl for very long? Even if she does play rough, she’s an American girl at heart. She doesn’t even recognize herself on the tapes.
Now he story doesn’t end there. See I myself am adding to it right now. Simply talking about it some of my opinion is leaking through and adding to the story. I’ve been adding my own commentary here and there but here is what I think about the whole situation. Elizabeth should be banned from the soccer team for her actions. I don’t think the gender thing has much merit because there is a small detail that seems to be missing when people bring it up. The rough and tuff in the boy’s games are pro games in other countries. Again, soccer in the U.S., not a big thing. I don’t think the standers held by people in another country, for a pro game, should matter when it comes to a college game in the U.S.
Now I’ve added to the story and am a part of its time line. What started off as a soccer game with little rough play has turned into a national phenomenon and a topic for a simple essay. Believe it or not, this is not the only story this happens to. This happens to ever story ever reported. All it takes to start is a little human interest. That’s what keeps a story going, human interest. If people weren’t interested then the news outlets wouldn’t report on it because they would just lose money, not a goal in any situation. If people weren’t interested then the bloggers wouldn’t pay any attention because, being part of the people, they wouldn’t care. However the biggest blow due to lack of interest is something I haven’t talked about yet mostly because it’s hard to prove. Conversation. When people are interested in a story they talk about it to their friends and family. This happened with Elizabeth, but it’s hard to prove. Conversation has a huge impact on the spread of news and the development of a story. Every time someone tells the story their adding their opinion to it, and becoming part of the timeline.
If one takes all that into consideration it’s easy to see how a story doesn’t end with its original reporting. It doesn’t even begin there. News stories are dynamic and constantly changing. You just have to pay attention.

Not as Far Behind as I Was an Hour Ago, But Still Not Caught Up

I’m definitely a write it and leave it type of person. I don’t really like to go back and look at stuff that I’ve already written. When we first got the lists of blog posts, this was the one that I looked at and went crap, I so don’t want to do that. But I’m going to have to do it anyway which makes me so not happy right now.

The post that I’ve decided to revisit is the one where we talked about reading the New York Times. I know, about half the posts qualify under this description, let me clarify. I believe it’s the third post in the second unit, I titled mine, “Done With 33min. Left Till Due Time”. Obviously this wasn’t my best piece of writing because it was rushed, but then again almost all my posts are done close to due time (or days after, sorry for the delay) and are rushed.

The reason I’m revisiting this one is because my perspective has changed. When I wrote it I was still getting used to checking the site, and had to remind myself to go on. Now I go on all the time, sometime more than once a day to read things, granted I haven’t checked it much in the last week, but I had other things going on.

When I wrote the post I also didn’t feel more informed because I was looking at more human interest stories than hard-core news. I still mostly only look at what I can fun stories, but I don’t feel like I’m not learning much anymore. I don’t know why this changed but I like that my head is full of facts about vegemite and Mickey Mouse instead of Iraq and Afghanistan.

A new idea that I would add to the post is that the sigma that all news is negative is only partially (there is no way that is how you spell that word) true. Yes the main headlines tend to be negative, but there is still positive news beneath the surface.

I think I have a better understanding of countering now. Even though there were parts of my post that I wanted to change, there were still ideas that I had that still hold true.

(I'm also posting this post in the same color i posted the other one in)

I Know I'm Really Far Behind, I'm Working on It

I like how Harris addresses that there is a difference between countering and arguing. According to Harris, when one is countering, they’re not saying that another person is wrong, more that they ‘forgot’ something or didn’t clarify something enough.

When people argue, their main goal is to convince the other person that they’re wrong. The problem with this is that it’s nearly impossible to convince someone that they are wrong. With countering, I think the main purpose is to convince a third party that there are flaws in someone’s point. It is very unlikely that, as writers, the things we counter will be considered by the original writers. I really doubt that Hedges or Jarvis will see our criticism of their witting, but the pint is not to convince them, the point is to convince others.

In this way countering is like forwarding in that its part of a continuous timeline. One person write something, another counters, and then a third person counters. However when the third person counters the second person they don’t necessarily agree with the first person because there are more than two sides to any situation. They could bring something new to the table. I don’t really like that phrase; bring something new t the table. I think it’s because it lack the dynamic quality that is going on. A table doesn’t move. I think what going on is that the stuff from one table is being transported to another table and slightly altered. Then it goes to another table. I think this metaphor also works for forwarding.

That’s all I’m going to write for this one because I am so far behind in all of my classes that I need to work on other stuff.

Forwarding about Forwarding

Harris views life as a continuing conversation that everyone is a part of, but no one can summarize because no one has been a part of it the whole time. I like this metaphor, and I see how it works for life. The chapter went downhill after that. Personally I think the whole chapter could be shorted to just the beginning explanation and the bullet points on page 39. Forwarding is basically when one uses another’s point idea or quote to improve their point idea or quote, or improve the one they’ve just forwarded. I think the hardest part of Harris’ definition of forwarding is that it’s not arguing. In Harris’ words, “A Dialogue is not a debate… The arts of conversation are subtler than those of debate.” (See I just forwarded Harris talking about forwarding. It’s like looking up dictionary in the dictionary, and Googleing Google.)

Did anyone else notice that Harris talked about spheres to? Page 37.

According to Harris there are four different ways to forward texts: illustrating, authorizing, borrowing, extending. He then goes on to explain each in agonizing detail, until he explains that sometimes they work together and he forwards a piece by Barbara Ehrenreich saying it’s, “An example of intellectual writing at its finest.” Harris gets some cool cred here because Barbara Ehrenreich happens to be, in my opinion, an excellent writer.

On to forwarding in the blogs I’m following:

From AmericaBlog:

• Good morning.This morning, your President is speaking at the White House
  Tribal Nations Conference. According to the emailed White House "Daily Guidance
  and Press Schedule":
  
  As part of President Obama’s sustained outreach to the American people,
  this conference will provide leaders from the 564 federally recognized tribes
  the opportunity to interact directly with the President and representatives from
  the highest levels of his Administration.
  
  Now, that sounds like a good idea. And, it sounds very policy and substance
  focused. I look forward to the White House LGBT Conference when the President
  invites LGBT leaders and activists and gives them the opportunity to interact
  directly with the President and representatives from the highest levels of his
  Administration. I'm sure Brian Bond, the LGBT liaison at the White House, is
  working on this right now. If not, he should be. Rep. Michelle Bachmann,
  arguably the most extreme of the extremist GOPers in Congress, has invited the
  teabaggers to Capitol Hill today. They're taking a "last stand" against the
  health insurance reform bill. Busloads of teabaggers are descending on the
  Capitol. And, no matter how many teabaggers really show up, we'll be told it's
  millions. It should make for some good visuals and video.
  

That was easy, it was the latest post. I’ve noticed a lot of forwarding in the blogs. Most posts are someone taking a quote and expanding on it, unless their criticizing it which I think will e discussed in the next chapter. I included the part about Michelle because I’m very excited about maybe seeing footage from that and laughing my butt off. Since I’ve put in the AmericaBlog excerpt, I’m not sure if I have 250 words and I forgot to check before I put the quote in, so I’m just going to assume that I do.

I Have No Idea What To Title This

The New York Times has things in common with the blogs I’m following, but I think there are more differences. To an extent they cover the same information, but the blogs are kind of limited to health care, while the New York Times coves all sorts of things. While health care is a big issue right now, I don’t understand why the blogs insist on talking about it every day because not much changes on a day to day basis. If it did the New York Times would cover it. The best idea that I can come up for it is that it all comes down to purpose. The New York Times is focused on informing while the blogs are focused on hating Republicans. Another possible reason is that there are lots of people associated with the New York Times and not as many for the blogs. The blogs are dependent on bigger sources like the New York Times to get their information. (Although I don’t think my blogs get a lot of information from the New York Times specifically, but here it’s used metaphorically.) Likewise the New York Times uses blog like writing. Their entire opinions section has the same purpose f the blogs. (Again not specially my blogs’ goal of hating on Republicans, but the whole idea of persuasion.) To summarize, the relationship between blog and the New York Times is that, the New York Times gives a brief overlook over a lot of things, while the blogs take a topic and elaborate on it.

Today was pick random words and change their color day.