BLOG XII (LAST BLOGGG EVVAAAA)

Due to the 2007 film, The Golden Compass, many people from all over have been claiming that Phillip Pullman, the writer, attempts to attack Chrisitanity. In Al's Book Club, a reader asks Pullman if he is "anti-catholic and promoting athiesim". Pullman states that his films in no way promote athiesm, but state that religion and the government should be as far from eachother as possible to keep from disasterous effects. He references the Afgani Talliban and claims that if religion and political power are not kept as far away as possible, then they will "send armies to war or to condemn people to death, or to rule every aspect of our lives, it rapidly goes bad."

The Golden Compass is a very ambiguious movie in which the audience can draw conclusions and parallels between the fictionional world of Pullman's imagination and the world in which we live. The movie claims that dust is a bad thing that connects the different universes. The Magisterium, which is ruled by the Authority, wishes to get rid of the dust which was created by the Authority. This could be taken as:
The Magesterium is the church.
The Authority is God.
The Dust is Original Sin.
In order to rid of the world of (dust) original sin, we must first rid the world of the Authority (God).
When the film is looked at from this perspective, it can definatly be taken as attacking Christianity. But this is not exactly what the writer was claiming and not the reason he wrote the book.

(Not to be graded portion) I personally think that people need to stop analyzing things so closely because its a good book and I want to know what happens next so they should make another movie. This also strongly backs my statement in which I claim that we should all stop analyzing media because it will just lead to another epidimic like the Manson Murders and stuff like that. If he would have just not analyzed the stupid songs, that may have not happened. So thank you Mr. Hughes, you have probably raised up a mass murderer. (Not myself or anything)

Blog XI (A directed free write)

This summer is going to, well I really have no idea. This summer will pretty much consist of me working all the time so I can afford gas which will rise to astronomical heights. I was just fired from my MOTHERS store in which jewelry was sold. We closed the smaller wtore which resided in gonzales and so we didnt have enough hours to go around between the three employees so the decided to let the only one who was blood related to the owners go. I then called my uncle and asked him if i could have a job and he said yes so i was extremely overjoyed that I had a job and I didnt have to see my crazy aunt a lot. I have about seventy five more words to bs so lets see. After working all the time so I can feed my car, I am going to hang out with my best friend katie because she just graduated last night and I am going to miss her because she is going to college and I am stayin in this lame hell hole that they like to call "school". I am actually very distressed that the seniors and not seniors anymore and it makes me want to cry a lot. So summer will be good.

Blog X (Unqualified Defense)

Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism is a documentary made by Robert Greenwald about Fox news network. The whole documentary was basically claiming that Fox News is not as "fair and balanced" as it tries to come across as. Greenwald uses first person testimonies from former employees to push his point farther across the line. He claims that Fox distorts the facts, picks guests, and spins stories all to its own advantage. This claim may seem biased and untrue to most of the people who watch fox news, but there is more to this claim than meets the eye.

A study done by FAIR (Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting) in 2003 has backed up claims maid by Greenwald in Outfoxed. FAIR did a study in which they studied 25 weeks of Fox's Special Report. In this crucial segment, Brit Hume has one-on-one chats with guests selected by the network. FAIR found that over 71% of guests on Special Report were conservative. They also noticed that the few liberals that were on the show were closer to the middle of the political spectrum. (Still Failing the "Fair & Balanced" Test, FAIR.com) This shows Fox's extremely tilted viewpoint. Fox doesn't accurately present the "other side" in many of its arguments. Another study was done in which the guests were divided into three groups: Conservatives, Centrists, and Progressives. These guests did not automatically fall into the category they claimed as their "political party", but were categorized by voting records and interviews. In this study, 57% of guests were conservatives, 12% were centrists, and 12% were liberals. 20% of the guests of the show were non-ideological. This means that viewers were five times more likely to see a conservative rather than a liberal on Fox's Special Report with Brit Hume.

Greenwald also claims that Fox doesn't report news, they report more of a watered down version. A study done at the Program of International Policy (PIPA) in the University of Maryland showed that people who primarily watch Fox news are more likely to have misconceptions about the war in Iraq than people who watch PBS or listen to NPR. So, what does this mean? Fox News distorts the facts to fit its own agenda. The people who watched Fox believed that the US did find nuclear weapons in Iraq, when in fact, we didn't. people who listened to NPR were more likely to know that there were no weapons of mass destruction found. (Misconceptions, The Media and the Iraq War, WPO.org) This, once again, shows how Fox twists its "facts" to fit it's tilted viewpoint.

Works Cited

"Misconceptions, the Media, and the Iraq War." World Public Opinion.Org. 2 Oct. 2003. 5 May 2008 http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/international_security_bt/102.php?nid=&id=&pnt=102&lb=brusc.

Rendall, Steve, and Julie Hollar. "Still Failing the "Fair and Balanced" Test." FAIR.Com. Aug. 2004. 5 May 2008 .