Blog 3

Article I Read: http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/09/30/grace.beauty.missing/index.html?iref=mpstoryview

For this week’s blog I chose to write about an article I read on cnn.com. It was about a 30 year old teacher from Georgia named Tara Grinstead who went mysteriously disappeared one night. She had been at a dinner party with some friends and had left alone, saying she was going home. Nobody has seen Grinstead since that night- October 22, 2005. There were some signs of violence in her house and some suspicious things, like the fact that her cell phone was there and her purse and keys were gone. The police say that there were clothes lying around the house. Her family says that she never went anywhere without her phone and she would never leave clothes lying around, which makes the police think that some sort of foul play occurred. One of the major suspects in her disappearance is her ex-boyfriend, who was spotted hanging out with one of the cops that night. My guess is that he had some role in her abduction, but it’s being covered up by the cops. What interested me about this article was the date. When I read the headline and clicked on the article I assumed it would be a recent disappearance because it was one of the top new stories. The fact that Grinstead hasn’t been seen since 2005 makes me wonder if they have reopened the case or if there has been recent evidence that has brought the case back into the news. I think it’s really sad that it’s been almost three years and they still haven’t found her. I can’t even imagine what that would be like if someone I knew disappeared. Overall I found the article very interesting, and I hope she is found soon or that someone will come forward with evidence.

Blog 2

This week, I started reading Breaking Dawn which is the 4th installment in the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. I read the first three this summer and I absolutely loved them so that’s why I chose to read this one. The general plot is about a girl named Bella Swan who falls in love with a vampire named Edward Cullen. It sounds really weird and I thought it was going to be stupid until I picked up Twilight. The writing is a lot better than I expected it to be, and all four books are very captivating. When you’re reading about something like vampires, it’s hard to imagine what is going on because most of us have never seen a vampire before. That is what makes these books so good. Meyer’s impeccable amounts of detail make it impossible not to be picturing the entire story in your mind. Another thing that Meyer does in Breaking Dawn specifically is that she uses multipiple points of view. The Preface to Book 1 is from Jacob, Bella’s werewolf friend’s perspective, which is very interesting. Since all the previous books are from Bella’s view, it’s hard to truly understand her relationship with Jacob. Seeing it from Jacob’s side brings a whole new light to the matter. The rest of Book 1 is Bella’s thoughts, and Book 2 switches back to Jacob. The final book (3) returns to Bella’s point of view. This is really interesting for me because authors don’t switch back and forth between perspectives very often, and if they do it’s every chapter not every book. Usually I don’t like the change in point of view because it gets confusing and unless you stop reading at the end of a chapter every time, it’s hard to just pick up the book and start reading because you forget who’s section of the book you are in. Just like with the vampire topic though, I like the way Meyer chose to write Breaking Dawn. It helps you understand what is going on with Bella and with Jacob without being too back and forth. Another thing I love about the Twilight books is that there is not really a climax because the whole thing is just so intense! I am almost done with Breaking Dawn, and I’m bummed because it’s the last one. But I can’t wait to find out what happens!

Blog 1

I read an article in Newsweek today about Sarah Palin. I chose to read it because I am very interested in the upcoming election and I am curious about John McCain's VP choice. The article talked about the similarities and differences between McCain's choice and Walter Mondale's choice of Geraldine Ferraro in1984, something I hadn't thought about before. Ferraro ended up being a bad choice for Mondale- they only won one state. (This happened to be Minnesota) At first though, people were very intrigued by Ferraro and it was believed that she could really help Mondale win the race to the White House. But the craze died down shortly, and women started to get intimidated by Ferraro, afraid that their husbands would think them less worthy now that there were women going out and being Vice President. I think that’s really interesting that women would be that worried, because it’s not like Ferraro was just going to swoop in and steal there husband. The article suggests that the 'Palin Effect’ will die down- and I sure do hope it does. Another major thing that this article talks about is how so many people are only supporting Palin because of her gender and they want to get rid of sexism. I think this is really stupid because the whole point of getting rid of sexism is so everyone’s treated equally. Not voting for someone just because they are a girl is just as stupid as voting for someone just because they are a girl, in my opinion. And why didn’t these feminists stick with Hillary Clinton, someone who is both a woman and is a good politician. A thing that I liked about this article was that they did a really good job of showing both sides of the story. Newsweek is usually pretty left wing, but this article gave Palin a pretty fair chance which, although I do not agree with Palin one bit, made it more interesting to read. Overall, the article was really well written, and was 6 pages just packed with information.