During class on Friday, I couldn’t help but connect what we were learning about copyrights to a paper that I’m working on in my College Writing class about plagiarism. The basic premises of copyright and plagiarism are pretty simple and similar: give credit to the person with the idea and don’t use another's creation as your own. But there is something about copyright that seems so much more frightening, mostly because there’s a lot of ambiguity in copyright law. In writing a paper or article or book, it’s pretty straightforward what to cite and how to cite it. Yes, yes, it does get pretty complicated when you’re a professional and your work is being published, but as a college student citing my work is fairly simple as long as I pay attention while I’m researching and follow the correct format. In contrast, I felt overwhelmed by copyright because it’s such a long and complicated process to follow the laws and it’s unclear when you need to do so. The guidelines and restrictions are mostly clear, but when you try to apply them to the project that you’re working on it becomes confusing because every situation is different and a lot of the copyright laws are up for interpretation. But the presentation in class did help clear up some of my nervousness about copyright simply by making me aware of the rules.
Over the weekend I was struck by an article I read in the New York Times and since I don’t have a whole lot else to reflect on for class, I’ll give you a little bit of my opinion on the piece. It was about the affiliation between Barack Obama and Bill Ayers… do any of you know who he is? Well I didn’t either until I read this. Ayers was an anti-Vietnam activist in the 60’s and at one time or another he had plans to bomb the Pentagon and Capitol Building here in DC! The article further goes on to explain the relationship between Obama and Ayers and also addresses how Ayers has changed since his bomb-plotting days in the 60’s. He’s now a professor at University of Illinois at Chicago and has published many books. Apparently Ayers and Obama’s relationship is becoming controversial, though, as Republicans are using their friendship against Obama’s credibility as a presidential nominee. I have a problem with that… just like I had a problem with the whole Reverand Wright thing. Do we as citizens of the U.S. really have the right to tell a person who to associate with? I’m sure all of us have friends that may have done some bad stuff, but that doesn’t mean that we will do the same. I certainly don’t think that Obama would bomb our country… it’s almost funny how stupid that is. I know that Democrats definitely do that too, it just annoys me to no end how politics can become so nasty. There should be some sort of political ethics police that keeps the talk on policy not on personal life. Unfortunately, this next month will probably be overflowing with this catty behavior so I guess I’ll just have to get used to it! Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/04/us/politics/04ayers.html?th&emc=th
Also, I am awful at editing videos and I wish we could just present our points of view rather than go through the stress of figuring out iMovie. The end.
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3 comments:
Just because Ayer's was once leader of the Weather Underground and Barack happens to be friends is totally unrelated to the race. They both live in the Hyde Park neighborhood of Chicago and both are very accomplished, scholarly individuals. Sarah Palin's comment that Barack associates with terrorists is absurd and just shows how desperate the Republican Party is becoming.
I agree completely that the connection is more of a grasping-at-straws move.
However your comment that "There should be some sort of political ethics police that keeps the talk on policy not on personal life." is a little worrisome.
You gotta take the bitter with the sweet. Though it's annoying and sometimes upsetting when comments like this are made, the minute someone is regulating it you're in dangerous territory. The fact that you, me, seamus and most everyone else understands that it's a ridiculous claim is adequate. If someone chooses to disagree, it's still their right.
You're totally right Jasmine, freedom of the press! I just hope that other Americans are as smart as we are and recognize the ridiculousness that is flashed in our faces from the media. I guess it's not so much regulation that I was hoping for, just dignity and respect between politicians. Palin can't possibly think that Obama is a terrorist and it's so manipulative of her to bring this up just to get media attention... and get the attention of Americans who are easily swayed by the media as well. So I would retract my statement about wishing for political ethics police, and just beg for a little respect from these politicians who may one day be in charge of my country and therefore my life!
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