Who would have thought that I would have spent a month of my life, needless to say during the summer, in the state of Iowa? Aside from joking around with the children of the corn, what else was I to do, go cow-tipping?
Yes, embarrassingly enough, this was my poor perception of the fine state of Iowa prior to my engagement in the Hubbard Law Fellows Program at the University Of Iowa College Of Law. While there, I had the opportunity to take classes at the superb institution, visit a highly reputable law firm, go canoeing and most importantly, get to know fellow students from across the United States.
One simple incident during this month is the actual motivation for this blog. After class one day, I met with a friend and was challenged to play this online game: http://www.sporcle.com/games/world.php . “Can you name the countries of the world?”: 15 minutes, a map and the pressure to name all 196 countries of the world. I took on the challenge, exuding confidence and dashed through the first five minutes naming countries from North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia, Africa and wherever else came to mind. Of course, the inevitable came around the sixth or seventh minute and I was out of countries to name. I was stuck at 50/196. I stared at the map for the time remaining and just couldn’t realize I only knew 50 out of 196 countries. Of course I knew a couple more that I had just forgotten about but the bottom line was that my performance had been…pathetic, I know. So once my fifteen minutes ran out, I made a pledge to my friend that I would excel at this game and have the ability to recognize all 196 countries by the end of the summer. The truth is, I still haven’t been able to master the game, playing it every so often, though I have improved to a mediocre 120/196.
Aside from revealing my ignorance, this country game catalyzed new thoughts. What did it signify that I struggled to name one-fourth of the countries in the world? Was my view of the world really that narrow? I have always had a special interest in Latin America, frequently reading current events regarding South and Central America but I realized that even this knowledge wasn’t enough. It didn’t strike me until then that I had a duty to expand my intellectual and geographic knowledge. Where was this geopolitical man I sought out to be? As a college student, I’m constantly preoccupied with different obligations on campus and I place myself in this bubble. If my plans in life were to remain in California for the rest of my life, I suppose it would be fine only preoccupy myself with local and national issues. The truth is that I plan on traveling and working abroad so I can’t allow this ignorance to accumulate. There is so much going on in the world that it would be foolish to attempt to keep up with every current event but I realize I can do so much and I have already taken a step in the right direction this semester. I have committed myself to perfecting my Spanish speaking, reading and writing skills so I have enrolled in a Spanish course at USC. In addition to this, I plan on learning Portuguese sometime in the near future (I might just invest in Rosetta Stone). Meanwhile though, I’ll continue reading articles from http://www.cnn.com/ , http://www.ap.org/ , all the new bloggers I’ve found and other sources as I attempt to understand the global community.
For the purpose and effectiveness of this blog, I would like to cover and blog on the effects of globalization on Latin America. Normally, I’m all for inclusivity and I would be interested in giving coverage to the worldwide effects of globalization but so that I may fully understand the ways of globalization, I’ll blog exclusively on Latin America. I realize this may limit the knowledge of the world which I seek, but the interconnectivity of the countries in the world allows me to indirectly broaden my understanding of the countries of the world.
My blog list:
Latin American Thought: http://latamthought.org/
Gateway to the Americas Political Desk: http://gatewaytopolitics.blogspot.com/
The Latin Americanist: http://ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com/
Profile
Oh Latin America, how I love thee. If I could, I'd travel to you every year. Luckily, the blog "The Latin Americanist" provides a forum for all things Latin American, covering business, politics, and culture (excellent). It has several contributors and so there's much information and updates on current events from Latin America. I chose ourlatinamerica.blogspot.com because they post a blog daily and their vision aligns with my initial purpose for my blog (originally, I had considered creating a blog that would be very much like an online news forum). Fortunately for them, their blog has garnered much success through its professional and informative means. It has coverage on several current events from different Latin American countries and other countries from different continents as well and it provides brief descriptions for each.
The post titled, "Today's Videos: Mad Science" explains the 1940’s incident in Guatemala where researchers from the United States government experimented on thousands of Guatemalans with sexually transmitted diseases. It also brought to light current findings regarding these exploitations. I enjoyed the structure of this post because it’s brief, factual, to the point and it provides a humanitarian outlet. The use of bullet points to display some information also makes the post easier to read as opposed to having the paragraph structure throughout the entirety of the post. Though this blog may seem like any other news outlet, I argue that its presentation makes it different. It's everything but mainstream, yet it's no less effective. There are no advertisements, yet I believe its 1,165,482 page view is a testament to the blogs success.
At the end of the post, a video is provided of an interview with Wellesley College professor Susan Reverby, the academic who ironically discovered the documents on the Guatemalan experiments while researching other occurrences. Throughout the whole post there are links which direct the reader to the original source of where the author retrieved the data and information. This form of linking other websites and providing a video adds to the blogs credibility, in addition to making it more interactive.
The following post from Tuesday August 30, 2011 titled, "World Watch: Deadline" ventures outside the stated goal or mission statement of the blog and provides coverage on different countries such as Libya, Asia, South Africa and India. Brief descriptions such as "Libya: Rebels gave besieged leader Muammar Gaddafi a deadline of the Saturday to "peacefully surrender," or "Asia: The Food and Agriculture Organization warned of a possible resurgence of the H5N1 avian flu virus in several Asian nations," make it extremely easy for a reader to become informed of several current topics while having the choice to follow a link to learn more.
Like I mentioned earlier, the way I pictured my blog initially was as a forum where I could share news from different countries. This blog has me reconsidering this initial purpose. I would like to provide coverage in a concise manner similar to this blog, but as for my blog, I would like to focus on one area of discussion. At the moment, I have developed a genuine interest in the topic of globalization and since I have a strong connection with Latin America, I will blog on the effects of globalization in Latin America.
Voice Critique
Posts: Ideas, not money, will make Central America Safer
US-LatAm Relations
By: Eliot Brockner
Don't you hate it when you find yourself with a self-righteous, arrogant human being who won't let you speak your mind? No matter what you say, your input is worthless and you might as well just keep to yourself. Well, wait no more because Elliot Brockner is here and he has some questions just for you. Elliot Brockner, the author of the posts, “Ideas, not money, will make Central America Safer” and “US-LatAm Relations” gives an impression right-off-the-bat of an educated individual with opinions on the complexity of safety issues in Latin America and of the relations between the United States and Latin America.
In one post, Eliot commented on the necessity of more innovation when it comes to providing security in Latin American countries as opposed to simply funding current projects which don’t delve into the foundation of the problems in order to remedy them.
“Lead with good ideas, and the money will follow. Fund all (or most) ideas. Scrap the bad ones, and invest more in the good ones. Revise, tweak, and remain as nimble and creative as the enemy, which is very much both of those things.”
His philosophies are extremely simple in theory, but the same can’t obviously be said for their practice. He doesn’t come off as an academic, though he has contributed to The International Relations and Security Network and World Politics Review. His usage of parenthesis shows his understanding of the practicality of his theories. Even his sentence structures reflect on his theories. They’re simple, short and clear, meanwhile retaining his insightfulness, similar to his theories.
His knowledge manifests his post to the last sentence which says:
“The simple promise of more money creates the illusion, and the expectation, that the problem will be solved.”
Though he seems to be preaching, he remains modest and unpretentious. He distinguishes himself from other critics who may simply and solely bash on US foreign policy or Latin American economic policies. You find no self-righteous academic here.
In all his posts, Eliot creates links through words to English sources like Google News and many other Spanish media outlets to provide the sources for his claims.
Eliot begins a previous post on United States-Latin American relations with:
“My apologies in advance: the last thing the world needs is another blog post on US-Latin American relations. With that out of the way, there really are some interesting developments going on that warrant mention.”
The moment I read this, I again sensed the humility of Eliot Brockner as a writer. He’s clearly done is research, shown by his common use of linking to other sources, but he ends with questions. He demonstrates his knowledge but he enjoys interacting with the reader. He relies on the reader to make a conclusion of their own on the topic of “Latin America’s decade” and the recent inactivity of the United States in Latin America. More specifically, on the topic of the varying roles of the United States and which one it should and should not play. His voice isn’t made obvious through figures of speech or visual clues but through the overall structure of his blog posts which make them captivating and intriguing. Like I mentioned before, he concludes with various questions, one of them:
“Economic and cultural ties between the two regions are generally very strong, with the possibility the latter grows stronger as the Latino population grows in the US, and these are things that will likely not change in the immediate future. But what will US policy towards the region be (if there are changes), and how will it differ from the status quo?”
It takes a well-read, professional individual to provide input on these topics without giving off a self-righteous vibe. Eliot is able to do this gracefully without a problem.
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