Birth of a Blog

Hello World.

Look what I built!  I didn’t build it all by myself.  I am using a template created by Blogger, which I have tweaked within an inch of its life.  I am standing on the backs of a lot of bloggers that came before me.  A great teacher has also inspired me.  Of course, I am making a bit of a joke about this line of thought.

I want to share a little bit about me, and my odd perspective on things.  I am a liberal.  I am a feminist.  I am a mom, a storyteller and a teacher.  Specifically, I teach computer science at a local university.

I love visiting New Mexico.  A few years ago, I had the opportunity to see the ruins of a lost pueblo in Aztec.  On my way out of town, I stopped at a gift shop.  The store was selling Storyteller dolls made by a local artist.  Storyteller dolls, if you aren’t familiar with them, are distinctly New Mexican pueblo art.  The doll is really a clay piece of pottery shaped like a woman with children climbing on her lap to hear her tell stories.  The real storytellers were the primary way of conveying culture, myths and traditions among the Cochiti people.  As such, she is the gateway back through time.  She is both a kind of goddess and a mere mortal sharing her truth.  Looking at the dolls in the gift shop, I wondered about the storytellers of our time.  I think to some extent, we’ve given that role over to the media.  Increasingly, for me at least, my storyteller of choice is the Internet.  I rely on the information that I find online to shape my sense of the world as it is, as I hope it could be, and the role that I may or may not choose to play in it.  It is a bit unnerving to realize the influence that it sways.

I am taking a class called Media in the 2012 Election and this is the product of that endeavor.  What I hope to do here is share a little bit about what I have found in my travels on the Internet as it relates to the presidential election, the media in general, or stuff that makes me think about either of those in a new way.  I want to pick apart that influence.  On the right of this post you will see a list of my Stomping Grounds.  I turn to these sites for news and "sort of news” most frequently.  I also follow suggested links from my Facebook friends.  Of particular note are the links for On the Media and Jack Shafer.  I will be reading these religiously for the purposes of this blog.  I also want to focus a little bit of attention to Romenesko.

I hope that you’ll come back often.  Comment.  Look around.  Squat.  Whatever.  It’s friendly around here.