I know many of you have not seen the newest Harry Potter film, so I will not post about that as of yet, but here is an entry inspired by the events surrounding the film the past few weeks and influential they can be.

As many of you know (or at least you should know!) elections were held yesterday all across the country. Among the governors and resolutions voted on, several local and city elections were held to vote on new mayors and city council members, even in the small town of Hillsdale, Michigan. And today, after all the ballots were counted, the people in Hillsdale have a new mayor younger than most of us here at Bryn Mawr.

Ever since the US Open in August and September of 2005, many in the tennis community, and not, have been keeping close tabs of the doings of an up-and-coming star by the name of Sania Mirza, a young woman from Hyderabad, India, who has been shooting up the rankings over the past few months. Sania, however, is not being recognized for her power shots and excellent on-court play, and sometimes not even for the fact that she was the first Indian woman to crack the top 40 in tennis or win a professional tournament. People from inside the tennis world and out have been criticizing her as traitor of the Muslim faith because of the clothes she wears on court, as they see this attire as being against her, and all Muslims, faith and beliefs.

So for the past two sessions in our WOI section we have ended up talking about race relations in the US. I had promised my classmates to post this link to Harvard University's Implicit Association tests. These are great for understanding your own biases with regards to religion, age, gender, as well as race. These tell you the honest truth about you and what you really think, whether you like the results or not.

I've been a member of several fandoms, or groups of fans interested in a certain aspect of pop culture, for about 7-8 years now--pretty much ever since I've had access to the Internet. Recently, there has been an insurgence in the studying of fandoms on the part of academics and quasi-academics across the world. My question is: Are these studies legit, or are they just ridiculous and not worthy of any attention?

I was actually working on a totally different post until I got some scary e-mail from my friends and family across the Southeast, all about Hurricane Wilma. I had been in class all day, and came home to find out that we are currently seeing the strongest hurricane ever in the Atlantic, possibly in the entire world, ever.

These past few days at home have been interesting, to say the least, but certainly worthwhile after a trip to the movie theater yesterday.

Last night, while on a radio call-in show he hosts, Bill Bennett, author of, might I add, The Book of Virtues, made the following quote:

"I do know that it's true that if you wanted to reduce crime, you could, if that were your sole purpose, you cold abort every black baby in this country and your crime rate would go down...that would be an impossible, ridiculous and morally reprehensible thing to do, but your crime rate would go down. So these far-out, these far-reaching, extensive extrapolations are, I think, tricky."

Yes, Mr. Bennett, that was possible the dumbest and most ignorant thing anyone could have ever said.

im sure some of you are already well-acquainted with it, but i thought i should just point out a site ive visited for a very long time that highlights what happens when people get a little carried away while blogging, or just in their lives. its really comical, sometimes sad, and a great way to see how not to blog.

many of you on this blog probably have no passing interest in professional tennis, mens, womens or doubles. i, however, do, because of a long and strange series of events which i will not recount for you right now. but, i do think you should become aware of the fact that tennis, forever seen as the snobby sport and completely uninteresting or appealing to anyone not a member of the upper class, is trying to change this fact-- just in a completely wrong and insulting way.

and here it comes. we spoke briefly about why we are reading such works like "fahrenheit 451" and "1984" in the beginning of our course and how it all relates to the internet and blogging worlds-- here's why:

so i just basically felt compelled as a citizen of the world to post these two little tidbits i found courtesy of the livejournal daily show community

ive now added 2 additions to the news aggregator: the comedy central daily show video aggregator, that collects for your perusal the videos of each segment of the daily show monday through thursday. ive categorized this feed under news, because, in reality, the daily show does give us the news, just with a slightly different spin than other mjor news and cable news networks.

the second, more fun-- although its hard to be less serious than the daily show-- feed that i added was the feed for the vh1 television show "best week ever". this feed was put under "fun and fashion", since the majority of the posts relate to pop culture, celebrities, fashion, and other things that are simply just fun to read and look at. they are a links plus a little commentary blog, mainly used as a supplement to the show, but it stands alone quite well. some of the content may be offensive to some, but thats the advantage of using an aggregator: you dont have to read the entire article if it offends you!

so, i dont know about many of you, but i sure as hell miss getting comedy central in my room...

These two chapters are very interesting when paired together, in my opinion. Both have to do with the form and function of blogs, but approach the topic in varying ways and opinions.

this is off-topic, mostly unrelated to our csem, but very important, or at least, it should be, to you:

i, too, feel my family is a strong community in my life. i have my mom and dad, who are mostly old and grey, but still cool in some ways, but very different from me. i also have my 28 year old bro and his wife and 2 sons, and my two aunts, who live with me and my parents in our house. its an interesting community, filled with adults, as it has always been.

so since everyone else has focused a lot on their family communities, ill share some other communities i am a part of-- after the break!