I am not an avid news watcher, article reader, or blog scroller. In fact, typing and blog posts this year is the closest I’ve ever come blogs. So when I stumbled upon the “Barf Blog,” by Doug Powell, I didn’t really know what to make of it at first for a blog can have many of its own rules, but I knew what interested me and disinterested me.
The Barf Blog, for the most part, disinterested me.
The Barf Blog is intended to inform the reader about “safe food from farm to fork.” Throughout this blog Doug Powell explores food and it’s corrupt effects on society through labeling, disease, over pricing, nutrition, and cleanliness of food. At the same time, Powell also divulges into his personal life with his daughter and wife, and his many food related adventures in Canada, Kansas, New York, and Australia. Each day he makes around five to ten posts, each around two to ten short paragraphs long. Quantitatively the Barf Blog discusses many aspects of the food industry in just one day. Qualitatively Doug Powell barely shares a personal opinion or deeper thinking.
Powell gives a short, and many times, repetitive scope of the corrupt food industry. Whether it be “3 sick; SD Salmonella outbreak associated with baby chicks” (4/20/13) or “34 sick, 2009-11; Salmonella and duck eggs in Ireland, outbreak summary“ (4/19/13) or “First, you growl: when your dog’s food is recalled for Salmonella“ (4/16/13) without any personal insight, Powell posts small random outbreaks of Salmonella almost daily. Although, yes, it is morally disturbing to hear people are dying from food, to read a very minor outbreak everyday is repetitive. Even then, it isn’t very shocking to read because very few people die and it’s affecting people from all around the world, like Irish duck eggs containing Salmonella getting 34 sick, or German sandwiches containing rat poison getting 25 sick.
Holistically what interested me most was finding out Powell’s opinion on monkey nuts, and elephant poop beer. He used humor, and let out his real persona in these posts, which is why I found it most interesting. Not only that, but he supplied interesting pictures and videos for both posts.
The most disappointing thing about this blog was when Powell would share an interesting argument, but wouldn’t support it. In “Duh: Consumers finally figure out organic is an excuse to charge more“ he argues that organic food isn’t necessarily healthier and that “microbial food safety should be marketed at retail so consumers can choose.” However for the rest of the article he goes into how “Americans need to learn this for themselves” and states several pointless statistics. I was more interested in learning how organic food could be unhealthy and how his retail strategy works. He does this again in “CSPI, Ramsey race to the gutter of food gimmicks.” In this he denounces food shows, which he doesn’t even watch, to be the same as they were ten years ago in that they were “nothing but hackdom.” I understand this is a personal blog where Powell has the freedom to voice his opinions, but considering he is a professor at the University of Kansas, Powell should qualify his claims.
Besides his bits of humor, I don’t think I would willingly read this blog on a daily basis. I suppose this blog is not my cup of "vomit."
I'd like to compliment you on taking a very big risk, and completely critiquing the blog itself. It's a really tough step to disagree, but I think you really qualified your points, and also made your arguments clear. I think one of your strongest points of your post is the fact that you understand where the blog itself is coming from, and then dissect what exactly is wrong with the approach of the bloggers themselves. You clearly point out what is strong and what is weak about the blog - which shows that you really paid attention to the posts themselves and how they were able to engage -- or not engage -- you. Overall, I'd like to say that you tackled the evaluation task pretty nicely. Good job, keep up the good work!
ReplyDeleteI don't really know where to start, so I guess I'll just jump right in and say that I agree with most of what Alex is saying. I liked that although you weren't a fan, you still pointed out the strong as well as the weak points from the blog. I also really liked how you began, talking about what you personally were not interested in, which kind of explains a little bit more about why you didn't like BarfBlog. It's a blog. I like that you used quite a few quotes, it made you sound really credible. So, as usual Matt, great job. :)
ReplyDeleteAgree and agree. The two elements that make this impressive are the voice and the details. You are consistently specific and consistently animated in this response, which makes it both super-fun and super-credible. Nicely done! The only area for improvement I see is tackling that ever-elusive skill: complete, consistent control over your sentences. At times you strive for some longers sentences--which I'm definitely a fan of--but they're not quite perfect yet, so keep using them and keep working to master them. Here's an example: "So when I stumbled upon the “Barf Blog,” by Doug Powell, I didn’t really know what to make of it at first for a blog can have many of its own rules, but I knew what interested me and disinterested me." The "at first" seems clunky--maybe move it or remove it--and the transition to "for a blog" needs some sort of punctuation to clarify it. "Interested me and disinterested me" is also clunky--even taking out the first "me" would help, or making "interest and disinterest" more specific. As is, this sentence is a little confusing. Fix those two things, and you've got a rock-star sentence. These are nitpicking points--if all you have to work on is beautiful sentences, you're in good shape. Keep up the good work!!
ReplyDelete