Foreign news compared

News is just not an American, it is a worldwide thing that is happening and their news is slightly different than what we talk about. The topics that those news companies talk about can range from the stuff that we can relate to as Americans, or look at it and have this look of, “What the heck is that?” but that is because we are not part of their culture and a lot of things that we find strange, they treat as everyday life.

Take the country where America was founded from came from, England. The Times online that is in located in London, is a lot like its counterpart over in New York because it shares a lot of the same pages that you can go to. In fact most of the site structure is laid out the same as the New York Times website minus the really fancy writing that The New York Times has. It is very nice to go on this site and not be looking around for certain things that show you the different news stories since it is a lot similar. They talk about the world news and sports, but they cover their sport of choice, Cricket, because that is a world sport that is done in most countries except America.

The next news source I have chosen comes from across the ocean to the land of the rising sun, Japan. Now this site is a little more confusing to look and find certain things on it, since it has Japanese mixed in with the English, but there are some topics that Americans will find interesting because their culture does deal a lot with ours. It talks about the Patriots winning against the Jets in their sports section, but right beneath it talks about a Judo pioneer that just died, and we do not think that Judo is more than something you can do in your spare time, but it is part of the Japanese culture. Any type of martial art is considered a sport. They also seem to review movies that just came out because they have one for 2012.

The final news source is from the chill mates from down under, Sydney, Australia. These blokes have some of the more interesting news out of the three, since it is full of a lot of scandal involving higher class of people actually getting into trouble over things. It is interesting since they have a lot in common with England in the realm of sports, since they both play games like cricket, which Americans prefer baseball. They also have some interesting video clips of “Can you microwave a turkey” or “Limbo girls bends for $5000” and that is just one of those moments when you realize that you are not in America anymore. These guys have some interesting topics that really make you scratch your head, but more so cause they are interesting. There is one thing that this newspaper does have in common with New York Times online; the same fancy that the New York Times has is similar when looking at it.

The one thing that ties all of these different sources together is what they talk about in the world news, which I see a common theme. In some way, shape, or form they all talk about how Obama is going to tip the war in Afghanistan by sending more troops in which a lot of people are not so happy about. That seems strange that the only thing that the three have in common is that one little thing, but it is not really the only thing. A lot of what they are talking about is trying to make a broad audience want to go to their site for the latest news, so they all try and get a lot of different things that will bring together different cultures. So they will have movie reviews, sports from different countries, and even the top gossip that is happening to attract people.

Times Online UK

Japan Times Online

Sydney Morning Herald

Bureau Reporting: what I learned

It is amazing just to be able to go out and see what college students come up with on a spur of the moment interview. Sometimes it is very intelligent and other times well not so much on the intelligence. But it was helpful to understand how to do Bureau Reporting by getting out and asking people.
First of all, it got us out of an underground dungeon and out into the sunlight during class even for just a little bit to go out and talk with our peers about how finding money for college is important and sometimes difficult to acquire because of certain channels that a person has to go through. This time was important as well since I myself have never done anything like this before, so it was a big step out of my comfort zone, but it was needed because sometimes I stick too close to who I know and not so much branch out.

Most of the people that we asked when we reported were open and willing to be reported and quoted for the blog, which was cool. It showed to me that Biola students have one, become accustomed to being interviewed, and two, they know that their fellow peers will not say anything that will put them in a bad light.

At the end of the day, Bureau Reporting is a fun exciting way to be able to do more than just sitting in the office; it gets people out into the field and live in the moment of everything happening at that time. I would like to do this again, if possible, because I found this more entertaining that just waiting for something to happen, I was going out and getting the news before it happened.

Biola University Journalism department
http://www.biola.edu/academics/undergrad/journalism/

Muslim in the military a different perspective

With what just happened at Fort Hood, I am going to speak if I was a Muslim, and how it is different in our Armed Forces for them.

Being a Muslim in the military is sometimes more dangerous because other military personal do not know what to do with me. Back before 9/11, most of the guys in my from my division were my friends, we use to do so many things together, like going out and seeing a movie or just eating lunch together in the mess hall. But after 9/11, a great majority of my friends stop talking to me, started looking at me with this look of hate since radical Muslims destroyed about 3000 lives on one day. Don't get me wrong, I thought it was appalling too, what these men did in the apparent name of Allah. The worse things came after they figured out what happened, I was sleeping one night and did not hear a thing, and found the next morning my tires slashed and car very badly keyed with words like terrorist all over it. Come to find out later from a friend that stayed true to me that other military personal had came that night just to do, and nobody in my neighborhood stopped them.

I took this to my commanding officer at the time, and he refused to do anything about it because I could not prove anything more than a friend saying it which was dumb, so thought I would take matters into my own hand, I put up lights that would keep my property illuminate at night so that nothing should happen, boy was I wrong. The day after I put the lights up, I found them broken on the ground with the words "Go back to the Middle East" witting on my lawn. I was not very happy.

Later that day, I found out that I was being sent to Iraq for a week to get the information that was coming out of there, that went over real well with my fellow officers. When I arrived in Baghdad, the transport that I was in got a RPG right in the tail section, and sent the helicopter in a tail spin toward the ground, I ran over to check on the pilots. They were a little banged up and needed help, that is when I noticed that gas was leaking from the tank and then got both of them out of there very fast. Because of this act, all of my fellow officers were finally treated me with respect again, something that I needed for a long time.

But it did not help once again with another fellow Muslim decided to act inappropriate and kill all those people at Fort Hood. I was for a while treated the same way again until the two pilots that I saved step forward in my defense. The other officers backed off since both of them were higher rank and then it all calmed down again, but for how long...

compare and contrast print and online media

With the New York Times both in print and online up and ready lets go and see what some things are similar between the two different forms of media from the same place. Both of them share the same style in writing in the title, which is good because it would look strange if there was one font on the print side and then a font for the online one. Both media's talk about the massacre that just happened at Fort Hood, Texas. There is a difference about what topics they were talking about, the print version of the New York Times talks about what lead him up to the shooting and all the emotional trauma that was apparently happening during his time in the army and all the things that happened after 9/11, where the online media is saying that he was in contact with a extremist who wanted to the Muslims to rise up and attack the American soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan because they had taken control of their land.

There is also a lot differences between the two media's. Since the online one is constantly changing world, as I write this blog, it is already ahead of what the print is for the next day, so for example the top story on the print is about the shooting, whereas the online is about that woman have been ascended into the Iraqi elite police force and they grab your attention with a picture of many woman in military uniforms looking very imitating just like they need to be. One of the biggest things that are different between the actual papers and online is that the story about the health care plan that Obama is trying to pass. In the paper, all it is words, as it can only be, while online where they are open to more different ways, there is a video post describing what is going on with the health care plan, which is more interactive and engages the person watching. The print also talks about Nelson Mandela, former president of South Africa as a great leader during his time in office.

Also another thing that is completely different about media's is that the online can incorporate advertisements on the side of the website to help promote other things, the paper has the advertisements, but they can not change as much as the online one, since the advertisements could change with just a simple refresh of the page to make different ones appear to show new things

New York Times online

nytimes.com

Worship music makes a better statement.

People who do not listen to worship music assume that all the songs can refer about God in some way. For the most part they are right, there are a couple songs that straight up mention God in the lyrics, but not all of them have that. Some of them have just a positive statement that makes them hit a person harder than a lot of other music.

Brandon Heath's song, Give me your eyes, (Found here) talks about have you ever though about just looking at someone with a smile in your heart, and not a ticked off look like a lot of people do, and show them that people do have a heart and not a cold outside that we always see. It is not that difficult, I believe to go and help a person who is down, or they just dropped something and everyone else is walking right past without noticing, if anything, that makes me mad because what did that person do to deserve that from the start.

The Motions by Matthew West (Found here) is a little more specific on that God is the only one who can help. How many people go through life doing the same things, get up from bed, go to work, go home, eat dinner, sleep, and never think of anything more than that. The song is asking to help us get out of that idea and become more trusting and letting other things come in to affect our "comfort zone".

Now Hillsong Untied's song, What the World will never take (Found here) is referring to that the world can take away almost everything except one thing, Jesus. Throughout the song, the lyrics just speak that because of the love that He has for us, no matter how much the world tries, Jesus will always be there to give us strength when we are down, because that is what He does.

Another Hillsong favorite, Break Free (Found here) is amazing that it is just saying to "Break free" from the stuff that causes you to do stuff that is not what you normally do. The lines where it says "to get up and dance" does not mean to do the bad dancing, dancing is a form of worship and should be what is respectable to Him. I have been to clubs where the other type of dancing is going on, and I can say, its disgusting, our bodies are not something to be used like that, and come on, it should never be used like that.

In the end, if you want something that does not have swearing, has a positive meaning, and something that is easy, worship music is where it is.


Break Free

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BObRMO2Vsbg&feature=related

What the World will never take

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5S69RGuXDZI


The motions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dva6-Yu3zkI


Give me Your eyes

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OihvG607W-c

Ghostbusters: the Video game

"Who you gonna call?" those words have been synonymous with the classic 1984 and 1989 films written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis that are just brilliantly written to be funny tale of a group of ghost hunters who capture ghosts. Both movies are considered classics because of icons like the Stay Puff Marshmallow Man and Slimer.

Twenty years after the last movie, Ghostbusters: the video game is released. Set in 1991, the Ghostbuster business has been growing and the group deicides to hire a new "Rookie" to help out. This "Rookie" gets the job of carrying Egon's (Harold Ramis) new, untested equipment and you are excited so much about that. All of the original cast returns to have there voice be captured in this new light. From Janine Melnitz (Annie Potts) answering the phone with her line "Ghostbuster, what do you want?", and Ray (Aykroyd) and Egon (Ramis) taking in terms that you have no clue what they are saying. The humor from the movies is still retained with scenes when Peter Venkman gets slimed by Slimer in the first movie, or the dancing toaster from the second one.

The story was written by Aykroyd and Ramis, so it does continue off of the original, and does include the car, Ecto-1b which comes with new equipment to help the "Rook" throughout the game. The story also has a few twists that give the player something new to expect and not feel like you can guess the next part. The ghosts actually act like ghosts in that they will fight you, go through walls, throw things at you, and just act mischievous at times.

But the thing that sets this apart is that it comes with a multiplayer mode which allows you to go online and be a ghostbuster with your friends or random people you have never met. You can choose your profession, and what ghostbuster you can be. Most people that play online seem to be very nice and not like in other games where they swear when Overall, this game is truly a delight to play, and now that it has been out the price is down and you are able to get it cheaper that when it first came out.
http://www.gamestop.com/Catalog/ProductDetails.aspx?product_id=73004

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters