Janetnews.com Blog

Here’s a neat site that lets people with different viewpoints debate:

Opposing Viewpoints

Google a controversial topic and you will be swamped with blogs and message boards filled with readers’ thoughts, some insightful, others biased or not factual. Russell Fine hopes to provide an alternative with Opposing Views, a Web site that went live in July. It presents debates between two experts on either side of controversial issues, along with reader responses.

“Our basic mantra is to focus on issues people really care about, the things that keep you up at night, and our goal is to provide you a way to become educated and well-informed,” Mr. Fine said.

Interesting article in the NYTimes that talks about social interaction and how intimate it is becoming.
Brave New World of Digital Intimacy

Social scientists have a name for this sort of incessant online contact. They call it “ambient awareness.” It is, they say, very much like being physically near someone and picking up on his mood through the little things he does — body language, sighs, stray comments — out of the corner of your eye. Facebook is no longer alone in offering this sort of interaction online. In the last year, there has been a boom in tools for “microblogging”: posting frequent tiny updates on what you’re doing. The phenomenon is quite different from what we normally think of as blogging, because a blog post is usually a written piece, sometimes quite long: a statement of opinion, a story, an analysis. But these new updates are something different. They’re far shorter, far more frequent and less carefully considered.

In New Orleans, blogs become crucial decision-making tool

Bloggers said their fascination with the possibilities of using online networks to track the storm and help others was fueled by new technology available to them as well as lingering frustration over the response to Hurricane Katrina three years ago.

Kali Akuno, an education and training coordinator with the U.S. Human Rights Network, was part of a group along the Gulf Coast reaching out to African-American bloggers to help resettle hundreds of people displaced as they evacuated ahead of Hurricane Gustav.

Online followers as far away as Oregon, Washington and Rhode Island extended offers of hospitality, Akuno said. The group had already placed 150 people, and was looking to find shelter for 200 more who contacted it in New Orleans.

“People are definitely responding,” Akuno said. “The main thing we learned from three years ago was the importance of staying in contact with each other.”

Interesting article about how Obama writes his speeches:

How Obama Writes His Speeches

The toughest aspect of writing a speech isn’t so much the rhetoric, it’s the ideas—which take time to incubate and develop, says Andrei Cherny, editor of the journal Democracy and a former White House speechwriter under Clinton. “The hardest part about writing a speech like this is not the mechanics of it but what you want to say and how you’re going to say it, the strategy of it,” Cherny says. For a speech of this magnitude it’s not uncommon for politicians and their staffs to work on language for months, going into double-digit drafts, according to Cherny.

Is it me, or is the visual rhetoric that Obama wants to portray is AGE?  He says he’s graying rapidly, I really don’t think your hair can go gray in a matter of one week!!!  Hmmmm….

One year later, and it still hurts.  Losing my mom(Patricia Jean Johnson) to ovarian cancer was the most painful experience of my life.  I don’t want anyone to forget her.  I want her memory to still live on.  I miss her laughter, her advice and most of all her love.  If I had one wish, it would be to cure cancer so mothers like mine would never have to suffer like she did.  

Below is a picture of my Mom and Vince Gill.  It was a happy time when life was simple and happier.  I think this was Fall 2003 when she accidentally bumped into Vince Gill while getting BBQ in Nashville– just four years before anyone knew she would be gone.  How I wish I could jump into this picture and give her a hug!

I received this alert in my email today about more funding for Ovarian Cancer Research.

House Subcommittee Provides $25M for Ovarian Cancer Research

Yesterday the House Appropriations Subcommmittee on Defense marked-up the FY09 defense appropriations bill.  According to Chairman Murtha’s statement on the DOD appropriations bill, the bill includes $25M for ovarian cancer research.  The bill still has to be approved by the full House Appropriations Committee, the full House of Representatives and the Senate. We have a long way to go, but it is a great start.  We wouldn’t have such a great start without your hard work over the last several months urging Members to sign letters in support of an increase, to talk to Chairman Murtha, and to support the increase! (See more about our efforts below.)  You’ve called, you’ve e-mailed, you’ve made personal visits and your efforts paid off.

Thank you so very much!

I just read this article from Newsweek about if it matters if John McCain is computer literate. Andrew Romano made a good point when he said most of us are computer savvy because we work with computers in the workplace, but when you’re a Senator or even President, Internet surfing is left up to staffers and legislative assistants. In fact, a computer is not even in the Oval Office for security purposes. It’s not that one does not want to learn, it’s all about the necessity to use the computer for daily activities… here’s what Romano had to say:

McCain Can’t Use ‘a Google.’ So What?

The only problem? This line of reasoning is misleading. For one thing, McCain’s computer illiteracy doesn’t reflect a lack of curiosity–it reflects a lack of necessity. Over the past 10 years, most adult Americans have encountered and explored computers primarily in the workplace, where the ability to communicate and find information on the Internet has gradually become a required skill. But McCain’s job in the U.S. Senate–where all communication and information has to be filtered through staffers–has actually made fluency more difficult to achieve (or at least less necessary). When aides are responding to your messages and briefing you on every imaginable subject, the incentive to get online sort of disappears.

I know that I would not want the President of the United States to fall for any phishing scams nor get Spam for Al Qaeda. I would rather see the President work less on his MySpace page and work harder at bringing down gas prices,bringing a peaceful end to the War in Iraq, and finding a cure for cancer.

Don’t walk to the theaters, run!  This is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time that is fun and energetic and ENTERTAINING.  The audience was clapping, dancing and cheering.  It will be a movie that I will see over and over again.  I was not surprised to see Rita Wilson’s and Tom Hanks’s names as Executive Producer.  Meryl Streep MADE this movie as well as Amanda Seyfried who plays Sophie, Meryl’s daughter.  I have to say, I walked into the theater thinking I would see an ok movie, but  I walked out knowing I saw a GREAT movie.