Paper DOS!!! (the “i” of Dios is missing)
My RSSSSSSS Feeeeeeds!!!!!
Boating through the web I discovered many personal pages which contained beautiful websites and RSS Feeds that seemed to mock me intellectually. The pages seemed to boast “look at me I have a cool personality because of all my awesome websites. Don’t you want to RSS Feed me?” Well, to that I say “Fuck You!” I have now become empowered by my teacher, the fantastic Dr. Coach Mark to create my own pageflake. Finally I now have a place to stick it to the web-man! Well, not really… but I have a really cool webpage that contains a lot of sites that I think pertain to my immediate interest and necessity for information. The principle idea is that by accessing my own page I shouldn’t have a need to go anywhere else.
All these devices are what I need to get through my every day and they are all one page. Such as CNN http://www.cnn.com and BBC News http://news.bbc.co.uk which instantly makes me look smart because I want to know how depressed I should be about the state of the world. I find BBC to be more reliable than CNN because they are not owned by Ted Turner. Plus whenever I read stuff from the BBC I cannot help but imagine it with a British accent which always makes news easier to digest. On top of that I have the wonderful blog of Arianna Huffington http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington to help me keep tabs on the political movements going on in the colon of the campaign trail plus a wonderful RSS feed that connects me to several other relavant political blogs http://www.2008-presidential-election.info/blog/2008/ this is a fantastic collection of blogs and very supportive in the drunken cloud of campaign information overload.
To level out the depression on the heavy handed news I have the sanctuary of the absurd and comedic wit of The Onion http://www.theonion.com/content/index . Granted The Onion News may not be plausible or even PC it is still a fun side of the news that can level out the melancholy gloom of the real news. And of course there will always be YouTube www.youtube.com … ahhh, the many hours and days I have spent surfing through YouTube to collect and save my sanity while working my jobs when the boss isn’t looking. Yet, let it not be forgotten that there are still educational videos dealing with the Presidential Campaign such as debates and campaigning. It is instant access to the TV minus the commercials.
ZOTERO!
A powerful research device which has been instilled into my mind is Zotero http://www.zotero.org/ which is a cataloging system for your computer where you can store articles and book information for referencing and bibliographies. When doing research online this toolbar can be invaluable… once you get the hang of it. On tackling the issues of politics, finding a good book can be incredible hard. Who could cover a campaign and not make it sound boring? Well, the answer is none other than the Doctor of Gonzo Journalism himself Hunter S. Thompson.
- Thompson, Hunter S., Better Than Sex: Confessions of a Political Junkie (New York: Random House, 1994).
- Hunter S Thompson, Fear and Loathing: On the Campaign Trail ‘72 (London: Flamingo, 1994).
These books are inspirations and trailblazers for the legion of on sight journalist who now hold true that if they don’t tell it like it is who will? Then again, many people have argued that there is a danger in reporting with subjectivity because true journalism is being an “objective professional,” we have all learned that this is bullshit. It is important to expose the objective facts but it is also important to enter the human aspect of digesting the information and if need be shitting it out so others can either be offended or empowered.
Another book that is inspiring in its humor and wit in educating the American people about the democratic system in their country is:
3. Jon Stewart et al., America (the Book): A Citizen’s Guide to Democracy Inaction (New York, NY: Warner Books, 2004)
This is more of a mock textbook which presents the absurdities of the system in a colorful manner compiled by the brilliant writing staff of The Daily Show. When fake news crashes with real news opinions and nostrils start to flare.
DIIIIIIIIGO!!!
With the power of Diigo I can surf the web pages and not only bookmark pages I find interesting and relevant but I can also highlight and add sticky notes of comments that I and other members of the Diigo Community can easily access and discuss. This adds more steroids to the standard web bookmarking technique. Instead of having a huge list of bookmarks which i cannot remember what they are anymore I can ad tags, make sub-categories and share with other members with my same interest. Plus, it has a beautiful name… DIIIIIIIIIIIGOOOO! If only a computer can echo so all my imaginary friends online can hear it.
DIGITAL SOULMATE
What’s that you say? I’ve gone mad with webtool power!? Well, you may be right, I don’t have an imaginary friend to talk to about wonderful new lightweight inventions. But I do… at least I like to imagine him as my friend. Zetawave, at http://del.icio.us/zetawave , is a member of del.icio.us who has been maintaining hundreds of fascinating bookmarks regarding politics and interesting news. His interest are sharp and relevant to the madness of the current rat race of the election and if I want to know what interesting is going on in the world today, or if there might be something I missing from the news sites I can go to del.icio.us and check out Zetawave’s network. Granted we have never met but I think would have some good conversations of a pint of ale.
Maybe if I’m lucky I can meet some new friends! Maybe I can get drunk with them online… we can iChat and pound shots while arguing about our rescources and problems of lack of communication. The internet is the most important game of telephone ever invented. We are all strung together by 1’s and 0’s and we have to constantly now check over our shoulders to make sure that what we are writing is accurate. Information spreads fast. Sometimes so fast that the truth is only dovetailing behind it until everyone feels like letting it catch up by slowing down and talking about it.
And what would my pageflake be without a connect RSS Feed to my very own EduBlog. Hopefully this edublog which connects my pageflake (hopefully I can figure out this digital connect4 game). http://rousselet.edublogs.org/
Wait… Now I am getting weirded out… If I am writing this about Pageflake on my blog and you can access my blog through pageflake than that means… we are all going to suck ourselves within a contiunal link! My god… the future is now! Hazah! I won! No. We won!
Pageflake is amazing site which everyone can access and put up their favorite websites that express their interest and the best part is that the webpages are constantly being update by the feed. So maintenance isn’t very demanding which is great because I have a terrible problem with keeping ahead of the kids.
Damn kids.
If I find another laptop on my roof I’m keeping it!