HW 30- Symposium Sessions- BORING

The first speaker I saw at the Citizenship Symposium at Keene State College was June cross. They introducer introduced her as ‘Donya’. According to her, ‘Donya’ means a woman who deserves respect. The introducer was a Mexican woman who was dressed in it looked like a silk dress made with vibrant colors. Mrs. June Cross then came to the podium dressed in blue pants with a purple turtleneck, with a sweater over printed with colorful designs. She had what it looked like as long black dreaded hair and gold earrings hanging from her ears. The light reflected off her glasses a little bit. Mrs. Cross did not speak long; she got up and mentioned that there wasn’t much history that we needed to know. She stated, “How much history you need to know, is how much lets you know.” I though that was an intelligent quote. It really got me to think in a different way about history in general. I enjoyed that. She proceeded to say how she believes that a mother daughter relationship is the most important relationship because it is the most complex relationship that exists. The documentary then started to roll. I did not enjoy it very much. I found it somewhat boring but informative. Unfortunately I was not able to stay for the question answer period but I am sure some of my doubts could have been explained. I did not really learn anything but I would have to say that the thing that made me think the most was when she talked about how much history one needs to know.

The second Citizenship Symposium session at Keene State College that I attended was presented by the former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter. He talked about “Citizen Soldiers and Global Warriors”. HE was dresses in a gray suit with a light blue dress shirt. He wore a darker blue tie with a silver tie pin. He looked very professional and his attitude was extremely intense. He seemed very stern and into what he was saying. I could tell that by his hand gestures that were non-stop throughout his presentation. The purpose of his entire speech was to portray the relationship between and citizen and a soldier and then the term global and warrior and how both comparisons come together. He talked about how in the U.S. we have the privilege of free speech and how without debate we have nothing. However, I was only able to listen to him for an hour and I really got the impression that he was not really into debating. He seemed very firm with his opinions and did not seem open to others. He does like the right to protest though. He talked about how people are afraid to stand for what they believe because they do not want to be ‘anti-American’. He stated that people need to express how they feel without being scared. He thinks that just because you are against the war does not mean that you do not support your troops (The feelings of a lot of Americans). He proceeded to talk about the constitution (which we all received a pocket version of) and how it is the only document that holds the United States Citizens together. He made a nice analogy, which was the only part of his speech that I enjoyed, comparing war to fire. He was referring to how people do not like war and how it is still ok to support our troops. He said that it is just like fire and fireman. We do not like our houses being on fire but we do like firemen to fight it. Just because we do not like war, does not mean we don’t like soldiers to fight it. That analogy really made me think and I think that it was the only intelligent comment that came out of Mr. Ritter’s mouth that night. I thought his speech, which was an hour long, was really dragged out. He could have easily condensed it into a five our ten minute speech but talked really slow and said a lot of useless information. I had high expectations for this speech and was surprisingly let down.

The last session of the Citizenship Symposium I attended here at Keene State College was called, “Blogging, Are All Citizens Publishers and Reporters?” This session consisted of three different speakers, Mike Caulfield- a Blue Hampshire blogger, Jim Rousmiere- the Keene Sentinel executive editor, and Emile Netzhammer- the Academic Affairs Provost and Vice President at Keene State College. There was supposed to be a fourth speaker but unfortunately, the most famous in my opinion, Lara Clawson- blogger for Daily Kos, was not able to make it. Each speaker took a turn giving their opinion on blogging. The most interesting opinion on blogging was of Jim Rouismaniere. He proceeded to talk about how he believes that there are three main points of the relationship between blogging and journalism. The first point that he discussed was about disclosure. He stated that how in journalism the author states their name and how blogging it can remain anonymous or use a fake name if they didn’t want to reveal their identity. The second point he discussed was the difference of opinions versus factual information. A blog can and mostly does contain opinionated information where as a journalist can only write based on facts. The last but most important (in my opinion) point was that blogs are “written to the choir” were as journals are based for the public to view. All three speakers talked about how journalist and bloggers should be treated equally. However, I strongly disagree. Maybe I disagree because I am not a personal fan of blogging and do not really understand it, but I do disagree. A journalist requires specific writing skills, as well as in-depth research of a topic. Blogging on the other hand is purely opinion based for the most part and anyone can do it. I am writing in my own blog right now and I surely do not have the skills to be a journalist by any means. I did not enjoy this symposium session based on the mixed views that the speakers and I have.