A Different Story

I wanted to blog about the uprisings in Egypt. You know the uprisings, right? That's what I wanted to write about; the internet blackout, the looting, the burning, the riots, the destruction of priceless antiquities, the military response. It is all very interesting, especially the parts about anon sending aid to Egypt by providing dial-up internet and faxing wikileak-ed documents detailing their president's corrupt and inhumane regime.  

We aren't getting enough of this on the US news channels. Al Jazeera on the other hand has been publishing wikileak-ed documents about Egypt and Israel that were completely ignored by the US news agencies. By the way Al Jazeera's webtraffic has increased by 2500% in the last 24 hours; 60% of that is from the US (source). Meanwhile in The United States Snooki's book is a NYT bestseller  and news agencies continue to lay employees off by the scores.

That is what I wanted to blog about but then It dawned on me that this topic completely clashes with my theme. So instead of a thoughtful examination of a revolution in progress I have instead opted to leave you with this. Good for a couple of yuks.

More NYT links

Mr. Cavanagh didn't do anything wrong by posting these photos. He has the right to do so and frankly when kids are acting like insolent little shits a person has a responsibility to call them out on it. This guy should totally get more respect than he does. This is obviously a risk that you take when blogging, especially in a small community or a small class of people that you have to see twice a week.

Also more bad news for the newspaper industry. This time the LA Times is losing respect and readership. I see reports like this all the time and I'm starting to think that there simply is no solution to this. Maybe newspapers are like VHS and the internet is like DVDs. We should all stop crying about the poor long suffering newspapers and just move on. They should too.

Dr. Clark's links

A celebrity gossip blog without snark? Whats the point of that?  It's the American tradition to cut people down to size because they've brought so much joy into our lives. Yet this Jared Eng character works long hours reporting on the most piddling activities of the most piddling celebrities. I usually try to ignore stories like this but being forced to read this and confront the reality of human shallowness is just wrecking my brain. I completely understand why Dr. Clark would want us to see this. I get it. But this is not for me. Moving on.

I have never really been into social networks. I don't use any of them. The available information about me is (I hope) very limited. The only times my true name appears online is when schlubs donate to charities in my name as a Christmas gift, when I get mentioned in a newspaper or when distant relatives fill out family trees on geneology.com or other such sites. So the idea of specialized social networks still doesn't quite appeal to me but it is getting closer.

So Dubus is a great writer. These two pages are so well written that after having just finished reading them I can't determine whether the all the little feelings that the story stirred inside me are from my own memories of childhood or just the work of a writer who knows exactly what he is doing.

What I learned about blogging thus far

As most of you know I missed the first two classes. Now I'm here but by the grace of Roz and after only one class I can say I'm very glad to have made it. As far as blogging is concerned I think this is going to be slightly more difficult than I had thought. This isn't because blogging is difficult. It is because we are our own harshest critics. Finding a thought that I think is worthy of being shared in a post will take time. Translating the thought into decent, articulate english will take more time. For me blogging won't come as naturally as it does to some people, I'm afraid. I've never had a facebook page before and sharing the daily minutia of life isn't really my thing if I am going to blog I want to actually say something. This may end up being a great strength or a great weakness. We shall see.

What's all this then?

Ladies and gentlemen (since I have to call you something) this blog is all about me and the boring and confusing things that happen to me. I hope it will be funny, I hope that it will be educational and  I am really hoping that it will be coherent enough to be enjoyed at least by my classmates.