Once Upon A Time

I have read about Mr. Rogers before I read this article but I didn't really enjoy reading this one at all.  Maybe it was the way the author worded it and asked so many questions or set the scene.  When I read through it I got mad every time "Once upon a time" would show up, I don't think that it was needed every single time he put it in there, I thought it was stupid.  I enjoyed reading about Mr. Rogers' everyday life and it was something new to me to find out that he did the same routine every day and every night.  It seemed to me that Mr. Rogers was the type of guy that wasn't routine, he seemed like a guy that was doing things that others would expect him to.  I think that this article shows the things that went in the writing of the chapter for the ophthalmologists book.

The thing that makes this a good article is the dialogue between Mr. Rogers and the author as well as the other people that are mentioned in this article.  Another thing is that it shows that Mr. Rogers goes to multiple cities seeing different people but it also makes it seem like all of this is coming from the conversation that the author is having with Mr. Rogers in his apartment in New York City, I think this aspect of the article. 

I like that the author talks a little about each person and what is going on in their lives and also how Mr. Rogers is involved in each one of their lives.  My favorite part of this article was "He looked ver little in the backseat of the car.  Then the car stopped on Thirty-fourth Street, in front of the escalators leading down to the station, and when the doors opened--Holy S**t! It's Mister F***ing Rogers!"  That right there was by far one of my favorite parts of this article along with the part about the children singing the song that is played at the beginning of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.  Another aspect that I liked about this was that the author had a gorilla named Koko who learned sign language and did the sign for child when it watched Mr. Rogers on T.V. 

The author of this article approached it by using an anecdotal type article.   This is the author telling a story of how their conversation went with Mr. Rogers and what happened as a result on this conversation, I think that it was a good way to start the article because it gives the needed information about Mr. Rogers and what he went through to be able to write the chapter for the ophthalmologists' book.  I think that the author has a well written article, there are some things that I would change about it but all in all I enjoyed reading and writing about this article.

Reporter

Hello All,

I have recently watched "The Reporter" in my International Mass Communications class at school.  The movie is about Nicholas Kristof, who is a Editorial/Opinion writer for the New York Times.  He has traveled all around the world going to countries that have been experiencing genocide, wars between rebel forces and wide spread disease.

This video was intense right from the get go, it started off with Kristof and his crew walking with some African people from a tribe in Africa.  The images that I saw were sad.  I didn't really know that people actually lived like that.  I have seen pictures and scenes from movies but I also thought that they made it seem worse than it actually was.  It really is not good in Africa, people have get their water from when it rains, they have no electricity and they only have the bare essentials from what I saw.

I think that the two people that went along with Kristof  received a reality check as they were traveling throughout Rwanda and Congo.  I don't think that they actually understood what was going on over there until they arrived in Congo and had to live there and deal with everything that those people went through everyday of their lives.  Watching Kristof go from village to village to find out about the wars and the sicknesses that were going on, I saw that he actually cares about these people and wants to get their story out to the world about what is going on in their village and to get people in the United States to have a better understanding of what they are going through.

I think that the part in the video that got to me the most was when Kristof and his crew went to talk to the warlord General Nkunda that was ruling the streets and towns in Congo at that time.  The two others that went with him didn't know what to expect while they were going to talk to the General Nkunda, they both looked scared while Kristof was speaking to his people.  Then when General Nkunda came out, they seemed to be scared for their lives which is totally understandable.  I was taken aback when the warlord showed and let Kristof and his crew talk to the Hutu captives that they had.  I didn't think that General Nkunda would be alright with Kristof asking questions and having the Hutu captives give their honest answers, it was just weird to me.

This video was a big eye opener to me though, I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video.  It brought many emotions that needed to be brought to the people of the United States.  I would definitely recommend this video to anyone who wants to learn more about what is going on in Rwanda and Congo.