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December 6, 2005
A Marquette University student has been suspended for what he wrote in his blog. Apparently the offending posts criticized a professor (once, and without naming him/her) and detailed some nights of drinking. Some discussion here.
Jenny Attiyeh’s podcast site is featuring an interview she did with the three of us at the social software conference a couple of weeks ago. I haven’t listened to it, but I remember being particular depressed and snappish — the Internet is being murdered and my ThinkPad had just broke — but, fortunately, Chris and Stowe were delightful. [Tags: JennyAttiyeh ChrisNolan StoweBoyd podcast]
Of course Lamb and Lynx Gaede, angelic twin 13-year-old girls, are the new darlin’s of the racist set, singing pop songs with lyrics such as “Strike force! White survival. Strike force. Yeah!,” and throwing in a “Seig Heil!” now and then. They look simply adorable. Really. And their Hitler smiley face t-shirts are the apotheosis of the cuteness of evil.
But these are nasty nasty girls. For example, the name of their band, Prussian Blue, refers to the supposed lack of residue of that color in the gas chambers, “proof” that there was no Holocaust. (Here’s the bright side of Holocaust deniers: They at least think that the Holocaust is nothing to be proud of.) When they performed to raise money for Katrina victims, they tried to stipulate that the money only go to whites. One of their songs praises Robert Matthews, the founder of The Order and a bank robber, and William Pierce, author of the book that “inspired” Timothy McVeigh. (On the other hand, the same song praises Rudolph Hess as “a man of peace.” This confuses me. Hess was Hitler’s lunatic buttboy who secretly parachuted into the UK in 1941 to offer to leave Britain alone if Britain would stay out of the European fight. He was promptly arrested and spent the rest of his life in jail. He apparently didn’t have Hitler’s authorization to make this deal. Seems sort of wimpy to be admired by neo-Nazis. Also, Hess was insane, although that seems to be a positive in this group.)
Anyway, here’s an mp3 of the girls’ song I Will Bleed for You, in which the girls heroically promise that for those men who won’t believe, they will believe for them, and for those men who won’t bleed, they will bleed for them. They’re quite awful singers, although they have mastered the rock ‘n’ roll accent.
They’re sure going to brighten up Hell.
[Notes: 1. It’s not clear to me that the twins are anything but unknowns with an ambitious mother and people eager to write about them. (Yes, this includes me, obviously.) 2. No, I don’t really know who’s going to Hell. In fact, I’ve placed a firm bet on there being no such place.]
Resources:
Southern Poverty Law Center article
(Thanks to Leah Weinberger for the original link. Leah points out that there’s a Hitler smiley-face at this non-Nazi mega-collection of emoticons.) [Tags: neonazis evil PrussianBlue OlsenTwins]
December 5, 2005
Jeneane‘s got a job consulting with Bubbleshare, so I took a look. It’s a photo sharing site with a couple of twists: It’s about creating albums to share with friends v. family. (Yes, I know the “v.” means “versus, but it just sort of looked good.) And there’s no registration: They send you an URL for your album after you create one. The site is free but a premium service is on the way; the free service stores low-res images and requires you to renew (for free) your albums every year if you want to maintain them.
I can’t tell how they’re going to do, but they’ll do better now that Jeneane is on the case. [Tags: JeneaneSessum bubbleshare photos flickr]
Two men from far apart
sit near each other in the
hotel breakfast room,
leaning forward to snatch
the food from their spoons
so that they are not under the drip.
Both bend in homage to
gravity’s superior food handling skills.
They move together precisely,
as if programmed,
a tableau in which the absurdity of life
asserts itself, absurdly, as if it were
as real as gravity.
* * *
A root floats in the flat sea
banging against the land’s clean stone interface.
Its presence says nothing of where it came from,
a struggle we lose on the margins
but win everywhere we live.
* * *
At nine in the morning
it’s close to dawn.
The tilted earth still holds us tight.
December 2, 2005
[Remember: In the blogosphere, we are required to forgive one another’s bad poetry. It’s the law.] [Tags: poetry]
Paul Gillin is putting together a panel for the Massachusetts Software Council. The topic is “corporate blogging” and he’s looking for “prominent business people in the Boston area who maintain blogs.” If you are one or know one, leave him a comment or send email to paul
gillin.com
The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator for global economic expansion and development in an environment free from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions on Internet governance (i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United Kingdom, seems to propose just that – a new structure of intergovernmental control over the Internet.
Ok, so who wrote that paragraph?
Time’s up. Pencils down. If you answered Condoleezza Rice, you were probably cheating. But you were right.
You can read the full text (via The Register) of the letter from Rice to Jack Straw (“acting in the role of presidency of the EU”) that apparently turned the tide in the battle over ICANN. [Tags: icann internet CondoleezzaRice]
December 3, 2005
Amanda Michel of the Berkman Center interviews Global Voices founders Rebecca MacKinnon and Ethan Zuckerman. GV is currently being visited by a quarter million people a month, won Deutsche Welle’s Best Journalist Blog in English award, and is increasingly being used by the mainstream media to find out what’s happening in the world.
[Tags: GlobalVoices EthanZuckerman RebeccaMackinnon berkman AmandaMichel]
In some of my talks, I’ve been suggesting that the ability of people with different subjective viewpoints to talk with one another (via blogs, email, Skype, etc.) creates something new. It’s not objectivity. It’s not subjectivity. I’ve been calling it “multi-subjectivity.”
Someone at my Oxford presentation pointed out that “multi” is entirely the wrong modifier because it implies many individuals, rather than focusing on what’s occurring between them. But “intersubjectivity” carries baggage I don’
t want. So, how about “Massively Multiplayer Online Truth.”
Yes, I’m being cute, although I think it gets at something serious: The old, romantic view of truth was lonely. This one is social, and thus is joyful.
[Flame retardant underwear: MMOT is not a replacement for other types of truth. We need all of ’em.]
Lloyd Davis has posted a clip of my presentation at the London conference, a text summary of it, and a video one-question interview(tm) that features me at my jetlagged, adrenalin-receding best. As Rageboy has pointed out to me, the last features a full-pate exposure at the end. (Lloyd also expertly moderated the Open Space-ish meeting of the Open Rights Group last Tuesday.)
The Oxford Internet Institute has posted the video of my presentation there. It’s close to the one I gave at Online Info – yes, I have a couple of stump speeches – although the questions are obviously different.
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