Pause

2006-12-03T15:27:00.000-05:00

Ok...turn that entertainment into a more confused & uncomfortable feeling. His video's, one of which is dedicated to the mother's of this country, are terrifying. At the risk of sounding un-patriotic (I don't like the term in general), saying we love our country, regardless of whatever goes on within it, is a brainwashed, cult-induced statement.
Hm...so mcuh to say on this topic -- might have to come back to it ...

Although, this isn't me responding to the MySpace account, anymore, but more-so to the creator's person. And as I learned from Jason Scott, that isn't (SHOULDN'T) be the issue. How the space makes me feel isn't the creators concern ... and because I obviously don't share his views on the parallels between freedom, love, God, and killer-cult abandon, I should just move on and find my e-niche elsewhere.

Right?

2006-12-03T15:19:00.000-05:00

haha! I'm so entertained w DocManJoyl: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=36903691

The fact that he has Disturbed's "Get down w the Sickness" as his theme song screaming amongst photos of "United we Stand", "Happy Holidays!", and "The 10 Commandments" (?!) is one of the best unintentional ironies ever.

2006-11-28T09:36:00.000-05:00

So I woke up this morning, checked my mail, opened up iTunes and then went to check out thefacebook. Come to find, when I typed in t-h-e-f-a-c-e-b-o-o-k none other than MySpace came up as the supposed end of my intented destination!

Weird...but ok, so maybe I was unconsciously trying to get ahead on this week's research. Who can say. Not a big deal....
until I meticulously typed in "thefacebook" again annd was once again met with the "mySpace-create your account" page. This happend twice more until finally I arrived at my desired destination.

I may just be extremely retarded this morning (....just this morning?). However, the number of times this occured freaked me out for a fleeting second; how much control does Colin have?! Could he be so lax abt these end-of-the-semester papers bc he stalks our every move across the interenet? Knows exactly how many blogs we view and when!?
.... yeah, yeah, I know it's just about as likely as President Clinton showering with a gay man for 40 days in the White House.
But still.

2006-11-27T17:05:00.000-05:00

I disagree with Jill Walker's( http://jilltxt.net/archives/blog_theorising/not_documenting_doing.html )opinion that:
"Blogs aren't about documentation. They're about doing, thinking and discussing".

Though she goes on to admit that blogs can certainly be used for documentation purposes, it is her opinion that they are not the most interesting part.

I tend to see it the other way around. I think the essence of blogs are, in fact, documentation. Whether political, personal, academic or dedicated to the techniques of knitting, people are blogging their thoughts in order to make their thoughts permanent. Permanence is something that is inherent to the art of documentation. People write, type or say things in order to establish a thought or theory in time. Regarless of their intention for how long they want this documentaion to last (i.e. Steph's super-short lived post about Jason), people write things down in order to establish an opinion or fact that they want people to know // remember. In attempts to make this thought more clear, I'm not referring to permanence in terms of longevity. I am referring to permanence in the form of explicit articulation, or in other words, documentation of a moment, idea or opinion.

I guess this all could just be a desparity of language thing ... in other words, "documentation" can mean different things to different people, which, in turn makes their opinions of documentation divergant.

I just believe that "doing, thinking and discussing" are simply actions underneath the umbrella of documentation.

2006-11-19T19:38:00.000-05:00

I thought it was interesting how in Dr.Crazy's ( http://reassignedtime.blogspot.com/ )
post about pseudonyms she editted the post in which she'd given away her real idenity AND had followed it up with another post entitled "SHHH!!! ITS A SECRET!!" ....only to speak about her relationship with pseudonyms in this way later:

"I do know that I'm careless when it comes to protecting my real life identity. I have been since I started blogging. It's never been tremendously difficult for people to figure out who I am. I cared in my former space, about this carelessness; I don't really care about it at reassignedtime.blogspot.com. Carelessness, I know, from things I do in my real life, is to some extent a part of who I am. Part of what that means is that I need to deal with the consequences of my carelessness, but it also means that I have a certain fearlessness, which doesn't really go with the "I'm not blogging under my own name" profile. So if I'm not afraid, why be Dr. Crazy? If I'm not hiding something, why bother with the facade? "

ALSO, here:

"Ok, so sure, I outed myself yesterday, but another blogger has taken it upon him/herself to out me on his/her blog. Even after I asked nicely that no one do that. Is it just me, or is that a really fucked up thing to do?I suppose I have myself to blame, but if the person will not change the reference to Dr. Crazy, I may be changing pseudonyms and changing addresses, or stopping blogging altogether. This is mainly because I do not want this blog to be google-able with my professional name. I didn't set this up as a "professional" space, and I don't want it to become one. I don't list it on my cv, and I don't ever want to. I also don't want to have to explain it to people unless I choose to do so. So, that's the dealio today. I was going to do a post about shopping, but you can thank the Outer for killing my shopping buzz, so that post will not be happening tonight. Tonight, I will be drinking some wine, prepping for class, and being irritated - both at my own carelessness and at other people's assholery."

...if she didn't care, then why bother covering her tracks?

Fortunately, she shed some light into this mild hypocracy @ the end of her post about pseudonyms when she said:

"Maybe this has been the question for all writers who've written pseudonymously. Or maybe it's just my question. But at the end of the day, I think that maybe all of the anxiety over naming doesn't really mean much. Maybe we all exaggerate the importance of our "real" identities, or of our "pseudonymous" identities or of both in conjunction"

...it's an interesting question. How important ARE our real idenitites in comparison to our written ones? Which one do we, the individual, consider to be real? Is Dr. Crazy's pseudonym her REAL, RAW, UNCENSORED idenitity? The core of her presonality that is inherently her & not her-in-relation-to-society?

2006-11-15T20:04:00.000-05:00

I choose Spazeboy. In my opinion, he was the most articulate guest in terms of his relationship with his Blog...in other words, his relationship with the political information worthy of his passion and attention.

From what I got out of class on Monday, Spazeboy began his (spazeboy)-information spreading via the bloggisphere because of his deep admiration for Ned Lamont. Having met him in person, sort of by chance, he decided then & there to support the man in every way possible. He "fell in love with him" & wanted to do anything to further his cause...aka, his campaign. His passion for Ned was intensified by the responses he got out of his initial posts. When people began to respond & AGREE with the things he was posting and believed in, it only furthered his momentum. "Why blog," we asked. In order to connect people to the relevent issues of Ned; but also because he craved the audience. THe more interest people shared in his passion, the more he desired to perpetuate his participation & percieved purpose in the campaign.

Even though Spazeboy swears to never become as involved with another campaign as seriously has he did with Ned Lamont, the issue of how he spreads information will always be based upon his passion for whatever he encounters. He blogs about things that he believes in -- and that other people believe in, too. The combination of personal drive & the public affirmation of that drive is what keeps Spazeboy etc.... blogging - spreading & absorbing information.

2006-11-14T14:46:00.000-05:00

What is my relationship to information?
It's a two-fold experience: My relationship with information is HOW I relate to and experience information that I am recieving; but it is also who I am in the information that people take from me. I absorb information and I perpetuate information.

In general, what I take in, I mean truly mull over and store in my memory is the same as what I am interested in spreading. People take in new information by way of reading and listening every day. On the simplest level, these "functional" tasks of absorbtion are the basis for one's relationship to information. However, a dynamic relationship, or a relationship WITH information as opposed to "to" information is an entirely different thing.

I think one's realtionship with information has an impretitive base in passion. People take, consider, react and eventually spread information that they CARE about. The reason our guests showed up on Monday was because of their passionate relationship with the issues of politics and the medium that blogging played in the perpetuation of their passion.

Blogging is the way in which people can interactively participate in their passions...on their terms. The desire to blog is the result of another, deeper desire to put something orginal out there.
It may be that one has a desire for any audience (like SPAZEBOY) -- & that if & when an audience shows up, the desire is highted by the attention. Another reason to blog may be as simple as "there's no one to please but me" (as was the case with Chris from CONNLOCALPOLITICS). He's not making any money. There are no upkeep costs. Therefore, blogging in order to please a greater public is insignificant.
In other words, blogs are the mechanisms with which individuals can easily further their passion for ..... whatever! ... (obtaining, spreading, exploting information...)

In terms of my own personal preference, I'm not a huge fan of blogging. This (shock! horror!) sentiment is probably largely based upon the fact that I'm not very technologically-savvy. I don't like linking. I don't like having embark on link-adventures in order to get the whole story. I like the permenence of a magazine article & the reputation of the New Yorker. I also MUCh prefer face-to-face communication to computer "mystique". At first, I wasn't sure if meeting the politicals of Monday night made me more interested in their blogs (aka, them) or not. However, the fact that I was even caught up in that question exemplifies a heightend interst when having the ability to place visual articulation with verbal articulation. When I begin to read a blog, I (almost) immediately find myself saying "I don't care..."
I guess when it comes to my relationship with information, I'm still stuck in the old-fashioned coffee-shop days that KURBY described as essentially being "over".

2006-11-07T09:50:00.000-05:00

Rock the vote!

2006-11-07T01:02:00.000-05:00

I have to say, I think our class experiement went fairly well...no facillitator was established but a wide array of topics were discussed starting with Kristen's desire to experiment w credibility by adding to Jason's info page on Wikipedia...tho this desire was crushed by a couple of members of class, it got the ball on ethics and credibility rolling...

from there we went to the topic of extreme blogs: should we link to them? Is it a way of perpetuating horrible material? Is the content even real? Hopefully...on the flip side, one might not want to "let the extreme blogs be". Who has the juristiction to try and put an end, or censorship to a blog? Should the final editting & commenting be placed soley in the individual creators hands? (See "Head in a Bucket" for further reference) This took us into the discussion of personal v. political blogs....

Could blogs like www.buzzmachine.com and the Reporters without Borders band together in order to create a "code of conduct"? Like someone (eek! I forget his blog&real name!) suggested in class, maybe a group of bloggers will be created that are able to "rate" other blogs in terms of their credibility. That way, people who are looking to blogs for truth and information will have a better way of knowing the credibility. Just an idea...but an interesting / thoughtful one.

The rest of the hour and a half we spent in the frontier town without our sherif, was used to explore the humor in blogs...YouTube "hello kitty" videos, laughing elmos, TV babysitting, Japanese animo, annnd the possible racism of Curious George were all explored...
In the end, a sense of nostolgia seemed to have set in among some of the students, myself included. Sometimes we just miss the "good ol days" of VHS, CDs (& their art work and lyrics included...), records, and a not-so-speedy need for instant knowledge

2006-11-06T17:07:00.000-05:00

In his 2004 NYT article, Jeffrey Rosen said, ''I would hope that bloggers would be more circumspect about what they post on the Web: it's no different than old-fashioned gossip spread by word of mouth, but modern technology has magnified its impact a millionfold, and it's potentially more harmful because of its permanence.'' ( http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/magazine/19PHENOM.html?ei=5090&en=0f68277267a43d84&ex=1261198800&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&adxnnlx=1162851025-8r/N9uHY/q/9is892aSNRw )

Are blogs really more permanent than word of mouth? What are the real reprocussations, here?...Neither Washingtonienne or Wonkette were affected from the drama that ensued after they posted about the sex scandals. True, Jessica of Washintonienne lost her job and her $25,000 income. However, she did not lose her blog or the subsequent ability to turn her words into, what I consider to be a true form of permanence, a book.

For the effect they have on spreading information, whether false, verifiable or true, blogs seem to have little to not ethical standards, regardless of the questions surrounding them. In the "Reporters without Borders" HANDBOOK ( http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/handbook_bloggers_cyberdissidents-GB.pdf ) ...the fact that they published a handbook for bloggers is mildy ironic... mention objectivity, trust, thoroughness, accuracy, fairness transparency & independence as guidelines on which people base their blogs.
However, in even the most political and seemingly academic (wikipedia?) blog-like mediums, a lot of these guidelines are mere ideas of wishful thinking.
Agreeing with Steph ( http://thelinkinblogs.blogspot.com/2006/11/ethics-and-blogging-dan-gilmor-in.html ), I believe blogs are very subjective & often attack "fairness" when confronted with other viewpoints.

"Ethics" seem to be something that goes along with credibility. THe more ethical something is, the more credibility it has. Yet, I can't see how listening might imply credibility. I'd like to further explore how the concept of listening (and striving for....what I believe is an impossible objectivity and interest/allowance of counter-opinions).

Are blogs meant to further knowledge? Are most bloggers out for a "common good" or more of a "cathartic release"? ... can it even be categorized? Will there someday by genre-blogs like there are magazine's and newspapers? Do we interpret them in such categories all ready...?

2006-10-24T22:35:00.000-04:00

I never knew anyone could talk as quickly and as much as Colin until we encountered Jason Scott.

...and I use the word "encountered" because by no means did Jason Scott drive 2 hours from Boston to Hartford to get to know our class. He merely barged in with all his "wiki-genius" and in entirely too long winded rants, threw up his "truths" about Wikipedia onto our roundtable.

Ok, fair enough. People like Jason Scott are important in trying to legitimize Wikipedia in the sense that so many people are using it as a legitimate source of information today. However, simply because he is angered by Jimbo's Wale's ability to manipulate the public into thinking they have an infalable source to knowledge, does NOT justify his games of playing the deceptor. The fact of the matter is, whether right or wrong, a lot of people use this "e" encyclopedia as a legit source of knowledge...a crediable place to obtain truths about the world. Creating 12 fake characters simply because you are proving the v. apparent (at least to people of academia) falability of Wiki editting and info is NOT a justifable passtime when you're platform is one of reform.

I was glad that Jason came into class, but I was completely turned off by his limitless rants. In my opinion he has way too much time on his hands and a verrry (ironic?) and convinient computer programing job in publishing.

2006-10-23T17:59:00.000-04:00

I agree with Brenda Starr's Wiki-post. I'm interested to see where Larry Stanger is able to take is CITIZENDUM project in the future. Like her kids, I have also been practically mandated to stay away from Wikipedia for ANYTHING pertaining to higher academic achievements. Just last week, in fact, my 18th Century Art and Architecture professor sprung a paper due 2 days later upon us as an extention of our midterm examination. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER were we allowed to use the internet for sources. Further, Wikipedia was absolutely off limits...google, he knew, would be abused regardless of his instructions. However, if there was any indication of e-sources, they had BETTER not have been from Wikipedia. Having heard this (or nothing at all) about Wikipedia from every other professor here at Trinity, I wasn't all that interested, surprised or disappointed.

....and then, I logged onto our Blogsite to find it the center of our attention this week.

2006-10-16T17:47:00.000-04:00

As I read through all of this video-photograph-textual question...my thoughts keep returing to POSTSECRET.COM
http://postsecret.blogspot.com/
I've mentioned this site in a previous post at the very beginning of my blogging experience. However, I think now is an appropriate time to put it out there bc it exemplifies how a more artsy-related blog can not only be interesting, but also very therapeutic.

It's not quite video, but it's more than text....The integration of two genres that can speak both visually and verbally. I think that people respond to different forms of expression in many different ways & for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it depends on the person & other times it depends on the person's moods. However, I think the distinctions between video/VISUAL experession and textual expression lie in the elicitted effect: is the message in your face? or in your head?

2006-10-02T16:55:00.000-04:00

I tried to find previously said photo-of-liberman here:

http://www.gawker.com/artists/chris-yormick.php

Regardless, a v. interesting site. Definitely worth checking out all the artists...

AND, here:

http://www.wonkette.com/politics/top/connecticut-senate-primary-scandal-lieberman-babyeating-photo-gallery-unavailable-to-voting-public-192896.php

2006-10-02T16:50:00.000-04:00

What do people think about netroots being so far left that democrats may never capture the 2008 campaign??

...also are there any suggestions for places to go to learn more about the growing "Rightroots" movement as well?

Do you think people will ever stop letting their blogg-able emotions get in the way of the honesty of an event?
Will people ever stop taking things out of context and allow for reasonable scrutiny of both sides of an arguement?
....does any of this matter to the growth of blogging?
....as far as I can tell, blogs are absolutely EVERYWHERE these days...places that I used to think were mere websites are actually blogs (shows how much I knew coming into this class, hey :-P)

2006-10-02T12:48:00.000-04:00

In reference to Colin's post about the "blackface incident" (--which I never got to view--it's apparently unavilable on all websites now. Could anyone find it?) I think I agreed most with is final sentiment:

"It would be good if the two campaigns and their surrogates would stop with the petty charges and get back to the actual issues."

I guess as the art of blogging evolves, I'd like to see more substance and less in-your-face emotion. However, this conflicts with (what I percieve to be) the essence of blogging in comparison to the more permenant form of information/opinion that websites, magazines and newspapers provide. At its simplest, blogging is an ongoing form of expression that people use to get their ideas heard. It can be in a cathartic sense as in a personal diary (i.e. Coffee Rhetoric), or, it can be political -- unfortunately uninformed or on the other hand, well researched.
While I was put off by her self proclaimed "bitchy-ness" and belittling, I thought that www.firedoglake.com
was, more often than not,a well-informed site. While she may have more crass than class, Jane Hamshire knows her politics and stands (far too?) firm for what she believes.
I think in a case of websites like hers, blogs can be used well in terms of exemplifying issues and providing positive campaign propoganda & awareness.

In response to a 10.01.06 post on www.nedlamont.com ...all that is being attacking is a facade!...a perpetual game of banter that boths sides are guilty of enhancing.
As a usually quite content NON-political person, I want to know, WHERE DOES THE PRESENTATION END and THE ISSUES BEGIN?? Why are campaigns based (soley?) on popularity or the apearance OF...when once whomever has the position, actually has to act upon their platforms...??

Out of this frustration, I have to say that I LOVE the use of YouTube. It gives people (bloggers, the generally uninformed public...) a chance to CONFRONT the issues with the canidates & their counterparts themselves. To visually assess a sitaution and to scrutinize. I pefer video proganda much more than word-of-mouth banter-bashing.

2006-10-01T16:45:00.000-04:00

For lack of my own better articulation...
Matt's post @
http://lieberdem.blogspot.com/2006/08/movin-out.html#links
speaks for how I feel about the many politics of political blogging...

Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Movin' Out
A few things. First off, an amusing headline from CNN.com:

MTV cartoon draws fire as rasict
At least, that was the headline as it read around 8:50. Apparentlee, teh CNN.com frntpage neads better copi ediiting.

Which leads me to topic 2: I was interviewed by CNN today, and a brief clip of the interview appeared on Paula Zahn Now tonight. The interview lasted 10-15 minutes, but they only showed about an 8-second clip of it. The exact words shown on screen were:

I think that when it comes down to it, the atmosphere that has been created in the blogosphere is one that is just as poisonous as the atmosphere of DC consultants, where they are spinning everything in favor of their candidate.
The obligatory megacut left out much of the context of that statement. Twice, the interviewer asked me a leading question to the effect of "So, you think that the bloggers have done a disservice to the Democratic Party?" I never took the bait, so they just played one of my more direct criticisms of the blogosphere. I think the blogosphere has the potential to revolutionize politics for the better, and we have already seen the seeds of that this year. But we've also seen some pretty rotten seeds get planted alongside them.

I think the intentions of the blogosphere are good, but the tactics of some of its members are questionable. The blogosphere's elite claims to be part of a people-powered movement seeking to introduce a new kind of politics into the American political system. But their tactics of "highlight if it helps, ignore if it doesn't, and spin everything" is eerily similar to that of DC consultants.

A root cause of this is the fact that the blogosphere to date has been pretty strictly divided based on ideology. There are the liberal blogs and the conservative blogs. There is some variation of opinion within each, but neither of the two spheres interact with each other, except to snipe and insult the other across the internet.

It's kind of like a group of 6-year old boys building a fort where only boys are allowed, then crawling inside their fort just to talk about how stupid the girls are, and to occassionally throw a water balloon at a passing girl (or at a boy who dares to hang out with girls). Since they only really talk with other "real" boys while they're in the fort, they become convinced that most boys agree with them, and deride any boy who doesn't as a sissy.

Seriously, that's about the maturity level of the blogosphere at the moment. Many of them show signs of maturity, but the group as a whole needs to grow up a lot more before it can reach it's full potential.

That's the goal of the blog that will be launched soon by Sundog and myself - to provide a blog where people of differing opinions discuss real issues in a thoughtful fashion, and talk with other instead of at each other.

The name of the final site is still TBD (we have several URLs reserved, but need to pick which one to use). Until then, here's the temporary URL while the new site is being chosen and designed:

http://demprogress.blogspot.com/

Sundog and I will be posting our thoughts there over the next week or two while the new site is being completed. If you are interested in being a contributor to the new blog, send me an email with a brief (500 words or less) writing sample and a summary of your political views. And yes, the name of the temp blog is a nod to the recently-formed "GOP Progress" website designed to get Republicans who don't want to toe the line demanded by the more hardline elements of the conservative blogosphere.

The first posts on the new blog will be up shortly. Hope to see you all there.

2006-10-01T15:08:00.000-04:00

Sidenote to everything "e"...
on Thursday, 9.28, I awoke to my alarm spewing an ad campaign for LL race. It concluded with, "You gotta wonder, does Liberman want the job -- or just the office? I'm Ned Lamont and I approve this message."

2006-09-26T00:01:00.000-04:00

....After just re-reading what I posted, I think it's worthwhile to say that while still skeptical about the whole purpose of Blogging, the fact of the matter is, millions of people are doing it. Even though I am disinterested in a lot of the content of the "personal" bloggs -- I am very much intrigued by the psychology behind them. How are bloggs changing people's lives in terms of loniless and depression? .... are they influential at all? I think www.postsecret.com is a major tesimony to the fact that, yes, blogging can be extremely influential in providing a positive experience in people's psychological lives.

For me, blogging is going to be a lot less about politics and a lot more about psychology. This then puts me in somewhat of a "double bind" in that, while I roll my eyes @ the narcissistic nature of the personal bloggs, I find them to be the most interesting.

2006-09-25T23:11:00.000-04:00

Ok. While I don't feel as though I have a real handle on the art of blogging just yet, I feel a little more secure in articulating how I (inititially) feel about all this communication craziness. First and foremost, I find blogging to be, at its very core, completely narcissistic. Even though communities are being created and the most self proclaimed-self absorbed people (i.e. http://www.matthewdicks.blogspot.com/ ) feel as though they are touching people's lives...the truth remains that their established communities are based upon some "narcissitic validiation" of exsistence. For lack of better articulation, I just don't see how the more personal bloggs are anything less than a deserpate attempt at some universal validation of their existence. In relation to the Bloggs of Coffee Rhetoric ( http://www.coffeerhetoric.blogspot.com/ ) and even Nonsense Now ( http://brettevans.blogspot.com/ ), what drives them to think that what they have to say is important?...further, and probably more interestingly, what drives those people who read their bloggs to go back? If anything, I would have to say it is either out of intense boredom, or a shared, reciprocal need for the validation that their thoughts on life are worthwhile.

I know this comes across as being insanely critical -- and that by putting my harsh sentiments out there, I am merely inviting people to comment on what I'm critizing. Further, I realize the fact that I feel it ok to ramble on about the pretentious nature of blogging might be contradictory in of itself...

2006-09-25T17:43:00.000-04:00

I know, I know. My first post is A. extremely overdue and B. a massive disappointment. For lack of a legit explaination beyond basic computer problems, no internet and the oh-so-familiar art of procrastination, I am writing simply to assure myself that I am, in fact, capable of posting. Issues that I will be logging on to discuss after class tonight include: the narissistic nature of blogs and Clotaire Rapaille's ideas about "codes"....until then....