Back to Blogging
April 12, 2009
Bluntly, there is no other way to express where I have been the past six months besides the words: “I screwed up.”
In a nutshell, I suddenly abandoned my healthy readership, and disappeared into my supposed alibi consisting of sad excuses of overloading homework and events. I took a break, fiddled with a possible culturedecoded.com, and ended up less than I started with. And although I understand that most likely some of you — my readers — may not read my work again, I want to apologize for my naive pause from blogging and come back just as I left Culture Deocded.
An overwhelming amount of events have occurred in the political world as I have left, and I want to discuss them as soon as possible. A President Barack Obama has taken countless actions to bring the free world back to where it once was, some of which I disagree with and some of which I agree with. Iraq has remained a focal point in the middle east, and there is still question in the air over when american troops will really pull out. Somalian pirates have put a fixture in the previously quiet Gulf of Aden, and America is torn over what actions should be taken. The president has purchased a long awaited dog, and Vice President Biden has taken swings at Karl Rove, and the press is taking sides.
As far as the status of the blog, I encourage all of you visiting and returning to leave comments on what you think about the issue at hand. A successful blog is not just written by the author, but by its readers, and if you contribute, there will be very interesting conversations for a long time.
So without further ado, I will continue where I left off, and work as hard as possible to initiate political discussions that will benefit everyone.
— pacer521
How Blogging Has Created A New Dimension In Politics
September 21, 2008
When the first concepts of blogging were tested, no one could have imagined its impact on national press and its credibility. But furthermore, blogging was not imagined (and certainly not intended) to not only effect the way we look at the political center-stage, but slant it all together.
But how has blogging done this? The answer is simple and obvious, but otherwise a genius long-term formula that has overblown its projected stardom. Blogging is everywhere, in politics, sports, health, cooking, business, schools and education. But more importantly, its everyone.
And this essentially has two meanings. Anyone who wants a say in their interests has a blog, and if they are credible and truthful, people in higher places will recognize that by quoting and linking them, thus sending the blogger up the ranks. And because blogging has this concept of rising through the ranks, every person who has an interest in something can try it, while being anonymous or not. And this has not only created great bloggers, but famous bloggers. Hence bloggers like Matt Yglesias, who have risen through the ranks based on their credibility and their ability to pump out interesting posts. Then there are also strike-it-rich bloggers like Perez Hilton, but then again this post is about politics.
The second meaning of this would be the necessity for all high-up people and corporations to have blogs. For example, although blogging is truly headed towards the destruction of credible news, Rupert Murdoch is forced to have his own blog. Why? Blogging is not just a trend, it is truly the future of media, and everyone is grabbing their share of stock. And furthermore, hence online webzines and newspapers like The Huffington Post and numerous other smaller magazines, created and run by bloggers.
But above all of this, the effect blogging puts on politics is not only fascinating, but a serious factor in the 2008 Election.
Before blogging, political press would take their time publishing articles about what they wanted to point out, and now the web has completely changed this habit into a thing of the past.
An example would be the simple gaffe of the McCain campaign’s economic adviser Carly Fiorina, who pointed out that both McCain and Palin wouldn’t be fit to be the head of a major corporation. The gaffe, routinely covered by think tank Think Progress, was literately handed to bloggers by the press. And the bloggers didn’t leave any mercy — the liberals blasting McCain on how he can’t even pick a loyal campaign advisor and the conservatives lashing back with anything they can find.
What blogging really can accomplish is unlimited, and this is what has created a new dimension in politics. Both parties know that they can’t get away with anything blatant, and they have to play the press as well as the bloggers.
This is comparable to playing table tennis with a backwind — it can both help and hurt you, depending on if you fight the wind or let it play your shots. And in a sense, all you need to do is let the bloggers bite on something juicy and you have hit a genius spin shot carried to the other side of the table by the wind.
Hence the vice presidential pick of Sarah Palin, which has created so much noise in the press and blogs that every blogger has featured their own “credible” opinions on, dividing lines in both parties and more importantly creating story after story, claims after claims, and rumors after rumors from everyone on the web. And meanwhile, the McCain campaign, sitting back in their Arizona headquarters had the press and blogs outdoing themselves head over heals, while all they did was simply make a pick and dream up three stump speeches.
So what’s my point? Blogging, whether you like it or not, is the new media, and the political world knows that they can’t fight it. They need to run with blogging if they want any victory.
Observation: The Power of Palin
September 5, 2008
Sarah Palin’s stage presence is not just (frankly) full of it, but rather a powerful force that transcends her image right before your eyes.
And as the second chapter in the saga of the Republican convention comes to a close, all anyone can talk about was what everyone originally thought was a mire introduction to the grand closing — John McCain’s speech.
But it was instead the main figure of the entire convention, and the talking point on both the web and television, creating many side stories as well. Why? Palin’s speech was powerful. So powerful, in fact, that not only did it spark very heated initial reactions, but later provided so much aftershock that it seemed apparent to me to write about it.
Putting my strong political opinions aside, I must give Palin credit — that no matter how completely false and utter lies she used, it was hard (even for me) to shake of her speaking passion, mostly credited to how zoned in she was. And because of this, I know for a fact that many gullible Americans have fallen “victim” to her transcending speech, ignoring her factual mistakes and instead focusing intently on her valiant, confident speaking power.
And right now, no matter how many people (including me) stress the comparison between the top of each party’s ticket, because of her star power, Palin has gained the public centerpiece of not only the Republican party, but the image of politics in general. And, strangely, this is not because of the higher possibility of her being commander and chief in the near future, because — as my sister would say — John McCain is like a “dinosaur”, but rather because of her instant celebrity status and overall image that is so different.
By different, I don’t mean because of her gender, but rather her breed. She is a new breed of politician, far away from your raging and shouting, sweaty middle aged point maker, but rather someone who we have not seen yet — a setting of mind that many teachers know to loathe. She uses her stature and newly-found political ego to her advantage, acting like she knows for a fact that each and every single thing she says is true, in the most convincing way I have ever seen this done among politicians.
Simply put, she’s a giant black whole for your brain, in the form of a person who would most likely be the farthest away from that status — a small town governor of the second-least populated state in the US.
So — as a word of caution, not a political recommendation –please vote on what you believe, not what you have been convinced to know.
Google Finally Gets Its Revenge on Microsoft
September 3, 2008
As search engine powerhouse Google recently released its own web browser, Chrome, marketing strategy crossed with the future of the web, compiling into a tech buzz comparable to the elections this year — change.
And so sweet it is. Chrome not only offers breakthrough surfing features, but provides light at the end of the tunnel in terms of giving an easy and effective alternate browser to Microsoft’s Slow, Crash-Happy, and Ugly Internet Explorer, which currently occupies 75 percent of the World’s computers.
Also, by creating Chrome, Google finally gets it’s chance to get back at their enemy, Microsoft, which is intent on reducing traffic to Google’s search engine. (shown here when typing in “google chrome” to Microsoft’s own search).
So what does this really mean for Google? Sadly, not much. Although all tech junkies will most certainly download and use their browser, corralling the millions of technically un-savvy Window’s users will be another task entirely.
Movies and Video Games — Why They Don’t Mix
August 31, 2008
Recently the difference between the silver screen and the numerous thirty-inchers hooked up to gaming platforms, dotting bedroom’s across the globe has been merged. But has it been abused?
Adam Elkus wrote a piece that I recently discovered, titled Game Over, Curtains Close, which gives an interesting analysis toward why video-game adapted movies have always been worse than their predecessor. He lets in the common argument from disappointed gaming fans: that the cast of the movie, its director, and its plot pails to compare to the superiority of the original game.
But this is contradicted entirely with the case of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children, which was written, directed, produced, and scored by the exact same people who made the original game. Consequently, the movie was a complete flop — going straight to DVD.
So what really is the difference between video games and movies that is so large, yet undiscoverable? Elkus argues that because video games are active and movies are not, watching a video-game based movie would ultimately be a direct contrast to watching your friend play video games over his back for two hours.
Although I do believe this is true, I think there’s more to the argument than that. In truth, a movie may be different morally than a video game, the audience is a big factor. Movie-goers are simply different people with different tastes than gamers, and that carries out to the theaters. And no matter how original the remake may be, it simply will fail because no one watching it will enjoy.
And because a movie is the opposite of a game, a gaming movie will never succeed in the box office. Simple as that.