http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:..........sunset........jpg

This class was the first time that I actually had a blog.  I didn't really see anything great about the blog and it seemed sort of like a waist of time.  The only helpful part about it was when I posted what I was going to write about and then other people commented on it.  They told me what they liked or disliked about my subject and the information I planned to use to persuade the audience.  This information did help me a little bit in writing my paper.  But besides that, nobody commented on anything else I put, so it was basically just putting my thoughts on the blog.  Which in my view of thought, I can do in my head and if they are really important then I will right them down on paper.  I thought blogging about the reading that we were supposed to do may have been good becasue nobody really talked when we discussed it in class.  In this case though, I thought we should have made just one blog and then have everyone comment on that so everyones thoughts were on one post instead of several different blogs.  Overall, my first experience with blogging was very poor and I will probably never use it again unless it is required for a class.  I feel like if I want to express my thoughts and have people comment on it, it would be way easier with a social network such as Facebook.  On these sites, people will actually look at what I put and comment on it.

Commonplace Topic

For commonplace, I am going to be writing about how Branch Rickey, the manager of the Dodger's, was the leading figure in desegregating baseball instead of Jackie Robinson.  This idea originally came to mind when I played against kids of other races in sports when I was younger.  This made me sort of curious as to how they first started intermixing the different races and how hard that must have been for them kids to try to do.  When I was younger, I was mostly told that it was Jackie Robinson that started the desegregation of baseball.  I became curious of this because I wondered how Robinson could be the starting influence when blacks and whites weren't getting along at that time.  He wouldn't be able to just join a team by himself.  After doing a little research, I found that it was Branch Rickey's bold move that initiated the desegregation.  Robinson needed a manager that was willing to run the tables and make this jump into history.  Rickey went against a lot of people's beleifs on the subject and he created a lot of enemies.  Without the this dramatic move by one of the managers, African Americans may have never started playing in what was an all white league at that time.