I was going to call this an open letter, but it’s not. It’s a direct plea to you to name my colleague and me to your presidential exploratory committee.

It’s simple. You’re super. We’re just as super. We are disciples of your ideology. You will be a devotee of my homemade chocolate cakes. (See MAD Baking for photos.)

Let’s be clear: Jessica and I are not unemployed smucks who are looking for free peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we hear you provide to your indentured servants. We have jobs, and we use your creative work product to avoid doing them. At times, we have been so dedicated to making a better tomorrow, tomorrow, that we have put it off until the next week.

Miss Jessica is working toward her Ph.D. in political communication. She uses that talking black box to spread your words to the hundreds of impressionable students in her course. I champion the First Amendment by talking about gateway theory – which, despite its name, does not actually involve smoking pot.

We would give up all this and our substantial grad student salaries to help you become the next President of South Carolina. Please note we have already secured voters in Ireland. If you act now, we would also use our talent and ability to purchase white smoke to get you elected Pope.

Together, we have extensive skills in research, persuasive speech, and international affairs (specifically, Canada). But, we know that’s not really what you care about. You want to hear the three rules for winning the Republican presidential nomination. So, here they are:

Squirrel!

Sincerely,
Megan and Jessica

In the midst of wooden coasters and steel death-defiers, I sat on a stage facing a couple hundred high school journalism students and their advisers. To the right was a woman who has found a way to make money from her blog. To the left was a Pulitzer-winning television journalist. Me, I was the old-school one of the bunch, even if I was 15 years to the junior of either of them. I was at the Kennywood Amusement Park Media Career Day representing that dinosaur institution: newspapers.

So, definitely, I should have seen it coming. One of the students, one right up front, raised her hand and asked: “Aren’t you afraid of losing your job?”

Truly, I was pretty terrified of this prospect. She probably didn’t know that less than two weeks ago the newsroom lost one-third of its editorial staff. A satellite office was shut down. Its weekly paper killed. Yeah, losing my job was a real fear.

But, I was on stage. And, when you are on a stage, you act. While it took some will power keep to my composure, when the words started pouring out as answer I felt like they were the truth.
I admitted that losing my job at the newspaper was on my mind. But, I countered, leaving a newspaper doesn’t mean leaving your career. What journalists are – their true essence – is storytellers. And, this world here will always need good storytellers. I challenged her to become the best storyteller she could. Be the best in her field. Have the most experience under her belt. If she didn’t end up in a newspaper, she’d still have a chance to work her magic in the part of journalism that has yet to unfold.

Then, Mr. Pulitzer Prize piped in about Mo-Jo and buzzwords and took the pressure off me. I got to hop on the rickety tracks of the Jack Rabbit. But, still I wonder how to nspire the Lois Lanes of the world to invest their education in journalism if we can’t promise them a life in it? How are the leaders of the news biz going to create excitement about storytelling in the future if we don’t do something about it now? How are we going to keep the Fourth Estate a government watchdog if the only inspiring thing about journalism is celebrity? How we harness the fire and passion of j-school students into the skills that will keep democracy alive?

My perspective gives me little original to add to the conversation about Egypt. I just keep thinking of all the communications research that could be done on the topic and all that future fights for democracy that could learn from this example. It gets my blood boiling with excitement. And, as an added trinket, I especially enjoyed the bottom of this story that mentions that demonstrators also rallied to help catch thieves who damaged some of Egypt’s relics. They want freedom, but they’ll be reasonable about it.

But, I have been turning a critical eye toward the articles that discuss the possibility of a “kill switch” in the United States. This Slate article, titled with the HORRIBLE pun “Block like and Egyptian,” argues that it would be logistically difficulty to replicate the effectiveness of the Egyptian shutdown because there are so many ISP providers across this great land. Jim Crowley tells the Wall Street Journal that if the government called ISP providers here, most would ignore the order. I’m not entirely sure I believe that.

Even with all these techies that say the “kill switch” is unlikely here, I can’t help draw the comparison with 9-11. That day, the president grounded all planes. There are lots of air carriers, but one order to a federal transportation agency brought air traffic to a halt. It seems logical enough that one order to a federal communication agency could bring all Internet traffic to the same stop.

This MSNBC article brings up the infrastructure aspect: Blowing up the ports that house all those cables connecting continent to continent, like the one in Miami. Again, it calls it highly unlikely. But who called terrorist flying planes into tall buildings likely?

If the legislature doesn’t address the possibility of a shutdown of the Internet in its national conversation before it happens, I fear citizens might not like the answers when it happens.

Local communities need reporters paid to sit through these meetings. Reporters provide the obvious service of condensing two hours of sitting into 500 understandable words on the status of teacher labor contract negotiations. They also, I believe, curb the temptation to circumvent sunshine laws and open records regulations.

That’s why I’m so concerned that Jay Rosen of New York Times thinks the success of Wikileaks is built on the failure of traditional media.

“The watchdog press they treasure so much died,” Rosen said in his latest video blog. “Mostly what our journalists did, with a few exceptions is they just went on to the next story. The watchdog press died and what we have is Wikileaks instead.”

Journalism schools filled to capacity with students eager to expose corruption after Watergate. Today’s students are eager to enter the field so they can write about travel and fashion. How do we restore the nobility of questioning the mayors of towns of 100,000?How do we find people who will keep our government honest? How do we steer the bright and curious into newsrooms instead of law offices?

How do we make sure we’ve got people who care enough to write more than a brief after the next Sunday night burglary at a D.C. office building?

When genius strikes in Baltimore, Maryland, the Down House, Kent, England, or Independence Hall, Philadelphia, humanity can’t afford to let ideas be watered down by a community of editors with conflicting interests.

“Man as an individual is genius. Men in the mass form a headless monster, a great, brutish idiot who goes where prodded.” Charlie Chaplin

And so, I am frightened by a world that doesn’t recognize the isolation of good leadership, the morals of the courageous, and the valor of the fight. I am frightened that passivity could leak into apathy about the truly beautiful things in our world. I don’t think that an idea as strong a peace can be forged by masses of ho-hums, or that:

“A treaty can be beaten out by members of that community that allows them to reach consensus and move forward.” Michael Nielsen

Ideas like this suggest that just because we are now online and not physically in the same place that the mob mentality disappears. But, 100 years ago great thinkers were understanding how people change philosophies as a crowd.

Still, though the wishes of crowds are frenzied they are not durable. Crowds are as incapable of willing as of thinking for any length of time. Gustave Le Bon

That is not to say that I don’t believe in imitation:

“Imitation, if noble and general, ensures the best hope of originality.” Edward Bulwer Lytton

And, certainly, I agree that building the body of knowledge leads to a more complete text:

“The idea of a purely linear text is a myth; readers stitch together meanings in much more complex ways than we have traditionally imagined; the true text is more of a network than a single, fixed document.” Stephen Berlin Johnson

That’s why I kept my own “commonplace book” of quotes as I worked through the mind-warping texts of Norton’s Anthology of Theory and Criticism with Dr. Grant Snyder.

But, let us not forget that the Declaration of Independence had to be defended with blood, that the Descent of Man cost Darwin his health, and that Poe’s work didn’t escape a “dull, dark, soundless autumn day” and make it into the incandescent light of our libraries until after the man died penniless.

Because,

“The nose of a mob is its imagination. By this, at any time, it can be quietly led.” Edgar Allen Poe.

Finally, though, I chose and thoroughly dissected the website of EMILY’s List.  This organization promotes Democratic candidates with a pro-choice agenda. I used a combination of OpenSecrets and the organization’s “About” pages to learn more. The group has been around since 1985 and raised more than $81 million for candidates, its site said. Today, its members number more than 623,000.

My Internet search also yielded two interesting facts about the organization: 

1. EMILY stands for “early money is like yeast.”
2. The Container Store is one of the top contributors to the 527, with $92,000 . I thought containers were just containers.

On this site, the members make themselves known by signing up for an e-mail list. Visitors to the site are also expected to contribute cash. This is the same member process as MoveOn. Much of the types of content are also comparable, such as information about the supported candidates, propaganda about the organization’s success, and encouragement to visit the social networking pages of the organizations. If anything, I think EMILY’s List provides more content on its website than MoveOn. Specifically, there are pages dedicated to training people in activism, blogs by the organization leaders, and information about moving the activism from “armchairs to the streets” (Rohlinger & Brown, 137).

While the interviewees in the Rohlinger & Brown study talked extensively about the benefits of anonymity regarding their activism, I don’t see that present in either the MoveOn or EMILY’s List sites. This is especially true on the Facebook pages of both organizations, where comments appear with your name unmasked by a handle. For instance on a status update made yesterday on the Facebook page EMILY’s List, there were more than 500 “likes” and 23 comments. Comparatively, there weren’t any comments posted to the three entries of the official EMILY’s List blog. And, posted to the latest entry of EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock blog was just one comment left relatively anonymously with a simple signature of “Renee.”

I don’t think this contradiction can be explained away by a difference in social perception of the ideologies of the two organizations. I think it is safe to say that the progressives of MoveOn have the same stigmas and detractors as a group that promote pro-choice women candidates. Maybe the fear of expressing unpatriotic thoughts has decreased since the time of the Rohlinger & Brown study?

So, I’m saying it hardly felt like course work to be “forced” to watch two episodes of The Daily Show. I watched episodes from Monday and Tuesday online today because once again I am living without cable. Then, I headed over to Google News and browsed the information board that definitely was not static.

I didn’t stop to read the full text of a story until I got to “The Artistic License of Social Network” from the Guardian. I’m interested in seeing this movie sometime. As in, I haven’t seen it yet. So, truthfully, the story was just lots of literary references that never told me if I should see the movie. However, the word “anti-bildungsroman” baffled me. I opened a new tab and searched out the definition. Apparently, this I should know this word. I certainly have read enough coming-of-age stories.

Back to the fluid information board I went. The next story was a brief on Brett Farve that also told me nothing. The final story allowed in my time slot was a story in Huffington Post about Glenn Beck sending out Mormon battle cries. Weird. So weird that I had to open another tab and do research on the Mormon wiki about the White Horse Prophecy and on the author of the column. It’s apparently all legit.

So, oddly, my results don’t mimic the results of Xenos and Becker because I didn’t seek out political information or further my knowledge of the topics Stewart talked about in those episodes. However, I would agree that it was impossible for me to watch the two episodes and learn nothing. I did learn that Rich Sanchez had been fired from CNN and I would probably be able to recognize the face of Rahm Emanuel’s replacement. I was primed so that the next time I see a reference to it in the news, I’ll have more background information.

While this wasn’t classic gateway theory, I also participated in something I’ll call Duncan-gateway. When I read something that has political or historical context, the Internet makes it so much easier to delve into the deep-down crevices of that subject. When I was weirded out by the Beck story, that was a gateway for me to learn more about Mormon prophecies and about the employment history of the author. It gave me knowledge that I needed to better decide what weight to give what I was reading.

Todd R. Duncan, 25, of New York, a data architect. He’s my baby brother.

Sarah Beth Goodwill, 29, of Pennsylvania, a material analyst. She’s my best friend.

1. Describe your online shopping habits.

KWD: Picks a product and researches it. He buys products ranging from inexpensive to a couple hundred dollars.

TRD: Buys clothing, electronics, cellphone holsters, and even student loans. He buys online every month. He spends a couple thousand dollars annually.

SBG: Buys home products and also entertainment products. She makes purchases between one and three times a month and estimates she spends $600 annually.

        2. How have your expectations of online merchants changed since your first online purchase?

KWD: Has more confidence in online merchants.

TRD: Expects products faster and also expects better product descriptions.

SBG: Is more trusting of shopping online because of success.

            3. How have your expectations of in-store merchants changed since your first online purchase?

KWD: Store merchants are more eager to explain things than they used to be because they know that people his age are techno-savy can buy online.

TRD: They haven’t.

SBG: Expects best price in store or will go online

              4. How has the type, importance and cost of online purchases you make changed since your first online purchase?

TRD: Variety has expanded.

KWD and SBG: No answer.

              5.  If you have ever had a negative online purchasing experience, what steps did you take to resolve it?

KWD: Had problem with a printer. He called the retailer and then the manufacturer. He spent more than four hours on hold. Never was resolved. Will never buy from manufacturer again.

TRD: Had only one negative experience and didn’t try to resolve it because of the low purchase value.

SGB: Received a product with part missing. Called customer service and got part by mail.

        6. Which statement most accurately reflects your philosophy on the trustworthiness of Americans?

        A. If someone tells me he or she will do something, I don’t doubt he or she will follow through.

        B. Generally, Americans are good people, but there are a few bad apples out there.

       C. I don’t like to do anything before getting it in writing.

       D. All Americans are just out for themselves. I don’t trust anyone.

KWD: A

TRD: B

SGB: B

This phone survey showed that the subjects, who buy online, are also generally trusting of Americans. Two subjects said that because of success in buying online, they have grown to trust merchants more and are willing to buy a different variety of products online. KWD went on and on about his negative experience, but he was still the most trusting of the subjects. Without prompting, two of the three subjects talked about how experiences have increased their trust in online merchants. It was unclear from their answers if the trust had a direct correlation with their trust in the folks of the real world.

The first post I considered from this blog was an open letter from country-singer Charlie Daniels, which in successive paragraphs calls President Obama a socialist, an elitist, and naïve. He also suggests the president has Muslim alliances.

Sedition laws would have outlawed this speech and put Daniels in jail. Attacking the POTUS in modern times is accepted practice. Daniels isn’t likely to have G-men show up at his door tonight, though he also might not headlining music act at the next White House dinner.

Cammaerts calls American rights to free speech “absolutists.” I think this is foremost a characterization of the laws in regards to political speech. Our society and Constitution put the right to attack a politician, even with what may be lies, above the politician’s rights to privacy and ability to protect his reputation.

Political speech can “advocate the end of democracy” (560) or use the platitudes of democracy to suppress others (561), and its all protected.

I thought the debate among the com mentors was interesting because it discussed if Daniels had enough standing to do this….or should he “just shut up and sing.” Some people recognized they were being hypocritical by telling Barbara Streisand not to talk politics, and others justified their stance, saying Daniels is more intelligent than the soprano.

The second post I examined was simply about two jagoffs (excuse my Pittsburgh-ese) who discussed on TV their thoughts on seeing former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in either Playboy magazine or the White House. On the face of it, I wouldn’t have claimed this to be “particularly decisive,” but the comments perked my Internet antenna.

About 10 comments down, “NavyBuckeye” defends the rights of Terrell Owens and Chad Ochocinco to talk about Palin’s body and his right to buy porn magazines.

“That’s the beauty of freedom… you can be immoral and its your right,” the former military man from Ohio says.

In much of blogosphere, the speech is comparable to porn. It’s quick and dirty low-level communication. But, even still, I would never advocate that it be hindered by the government. After giving a bunch of examples from Belgium, Cammaerts surprised me by coming to the same conclusion.