Throw another shrimp on the barbie!

Australia here I come!

Actually I don't leave for two weeks. But the countdown begins.
In other news, can't wait for this quality piece of television

Jayhawk Journalists

Check out this blog, which is great.

Deep Throat

The journalistic community (and the world) has been abuzz after Deep Throat revealed himself last week. Here is Bob Woodward's piece.

William Allen White

William Allen White was a brilliant writer and a brilliant man. I was especially touched by the obituary he wrote for his daughter, Mary White. You should read it if you get the chance. Grab a tissue, this will make you cry.

Of course, what made White so famous in the first place was his essay "What's the Matter with Kansas?"


It seems a lot of people are saying that. Especially with the evolution hearings. For some reason--maybe it's because of all the Jayhawk journalists out there--these bigoted things (oh, like trying to stop teaching evolution) seem to get all kind of press!! You know, other states have had the exact same kind of controversies. We're not the only ones! We just get the media attention...

OK, I've been a slacker

My blogging has definitely slacked off lately... The thesis has become my life. Seriously, I'm not kidding.

I was finally starting to get over my severe disappointment and then the impending depression that set in after KU lost to freakin' Bucknell in the first round of the NCAA tournament, until I read this article. Mizzou people...*sigh*...always so unclassy. At least we made it to the tournament.

If UNC loses to Villanova tonight, my world will be much better. Not that I have a huge grudge against Roy Williams, I just want to see 'Nova do well since they served us a shalacking in December. Got root for something.

I feel I should post things to this blog. I mean, that's what blogging's all about, right?
Anyway, this is a funny site if you haven't seen it already.

OK, back to the thesis...can't waste any more time.

Kansas in the news

Kansas has sure been in the news a lot lately. Yes, I know...the small, flat, home of dorothy and toto and not much else...has been grabbing a lot of national news headlines. I'm not a Kansas native. I'm from the neighboring, (and after I moved here I discovered) much-hated state of Missouri. I feel like even though I've only been here two years, I'm more of a Kansan than a Missourian now. I appreciate Missouri. There's a lot I like about the state...but for the lack of finding more eloquent words, I feel like Kansas has its shit together a lot more than Missouri. Better roads. Better schools. More pride. More consideration. There's not all that stubbornness that comes along with being the "Show-Me State." I don't know...I'm not a native of here, but I've been thoroughly impressed by what I've seen in Kansas so far... But then again, I've only lived in the northeast part of the state...

Anyway, back to my original idea for this post. I went to CNN.com today and two of the main stories (BTK and the Steve Fossett flight) involved Kansas. One day last week the top two most e-mailed stories from NYTimes.com featured Kansas in the headline. Larry King had an entire show about the BTK guy. Yes, we're getting a lot of attention for the mass murderer guy in Wichita...so that's probably not a good thing. But I guess as a Missourian, I'm not used to seeing my state featured on the national news (that, of course, is when our governor doesn't die in a plane crash and then beats John Ashcroft posthumously...I'm glad Jean was named Senator, but I can't help but think the country would have been a better place if Ashcroft would have stayed in the Senate instead of becoming AG....) Yes, I know, if you're from New York, L.A. or D.C., most all of the stories on national news organization Web sites come from your place of residence. But I had a small little thrill this week by seeing all the Kansas stories in such prominent positions of the national media agenda---for better or worse.

KU wins!

KU beat K-State tonight in the last game for the four seniors in Allen Fieldhouse. Yesterday was the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Fieldhouse so celebrations were definitely in order. The basketball players wore retro jerseys. The cheerleaders and crimson girls wore 1950's-era outfits. And the best part, the cute J-hawk mascots had tuxedos on!! They were so adorable!! Mike Lee, Keith Langford, Aaron Miles and Wayne Simien all gave very thoughtful, emotionally stirring, tearful goodbye speeches. When I was a kid going to basketball games at SMS, I always thought these speeches were so important. So touching. As I've grown older (and admittedly much more cynical) I sometimes groan when I listen to these speeches. They're made by 22-year-old kids who, as athletes, often overemphasize their importance in society. Just because you can shoot a ball doesn't mean you can walk on water. As we get older, moments like these are special, but they pale in comparison to bigger worries. When I was a senior in high school, I practiced my speech for the big banquet at the end of the year for days. It went over well...my friends and the parents clapped and laughed at my clever jokes (or at least I thought they were sooooo clever at the time...they probably weren't...) And then life went on... I've done plenty of exciting and cool things since then, but nothing seems as important to me now as they did when I was younger. Maybe I've lost my fire, my drive. I don't know. But I really enjoyed the speeches by Mike, Keith, Aaron and Wayne tonight. They were full of some ego-driven moments, but overall those guys have a good sense of what's important. I appreciate that.

I feel much better now

So I went back to my old topic which looks for media bias between black and white quarterbacks. I worked on it all last year, so my literature review and method are in pretty good shape (needs work--editing, adding of some studies, cementing things, etc.) But I FEEL SO MUCH BETTER NOW!!! The only think I feel bad about is that I should have done this 3 weeks ago!!! The blog/Supreme Court thing was going absolutely NOWHERE!!! Anyway, hopefully I can get my lit review and method in good shape so I can defend it by April. And then I can conduct the study next semester and get done with school!!! I'm so excited. I never thought I'd be so thrilled with the aspect of graduating and getting a job. When I first came to grad school it was mainly because I didn't want a 9 to 5 job. Now that's not sounding too bad... Hopefully I'll be able to get a job...new stresses, but I'm trying not to think too far ahead.

i hate my thesis!

ok...just trying to vent here. i'm really disliking this thesis topic. i wanted to study media coverage of the supreme court. somehow, during the course of writing my literature review on that, i got over into this dark world of blogs. my professor in charge suggested maybe doing a study on how blogs cover the supreme court differently than mainstream media. ok, that's nice, but do bloggers really even pay attention to the supreme court!?!? no, is my guess. so i'm thinking i'm going to have to take the supreme court out of it period...and look at the top circulated newspapers and compare what issues are being covered to the most influential blogs (probably using technorati or feedster or something like that to determine them...) so this is kind of interesting. i'm going to test agenda setting theory to this new world of blogs. but i don't really know if i consider blogs as news sources. i know some people are using blogs as their news sources (that's why technorati and others like it are in business....) but do they have an agenda setting function?? i just don't think so...and that's going to be hard to argue. i'm so frustrated. this sucks. :(

info on blogs--help!

So I just re-shifted my master's thesis project to looking at blogs. I was going to do just media coverage of the Supreme Court, but my advisor suggested looking into blogs. I think I'm going to do a content analysis of mainstream media vs. blogs in what cases/issues/justices they pay the most attention to. If anyone has any suggestions/comments/help I'd appreciate it. E-mail me at jennyb1780@yahoo.com. Thanks!!

Hi!

Hi--I just started this blog.