Year: 2004

Categories
Just Shelley

Necessity

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I was supposed to be on crutches this week, but couldn’t afford them so am using my hiking stick to lean on. I was supposed to not put weight on my one foot, but I have to get up and down the stairs to get food and water, so I don’t have a lot of choice.

I am not supposed to wear my shoes for a while, but I have to go to the store today. And maybe while I’m out I’ll even go to my favorite river spot, look at the water, and listen to music.

I am injured and therefore have certain rights, such as being able to stay in bed and have a loved one wait on me, bringing me soup, fluffing my pillow, and telling me ‘poor baby’ at frequent intervals. (Properly appalled looks at the bruising on the foot and leg are also appropriate behavior in said loved one.)

But I don’t have the luxury of a loved one to care for me in my injured state. Necessity is forcing me into assessing my injuries from the fall last week, deciding which pain really isn’t endurable, and which one can I live with. Doing so, I’m finding that taking away the state of ‘being injured’ takes away some – not all, but enough – of the effects of being injured. And I get by.

In a way, the hacker last night, with his deliberate attack on me – not generic blogger me, but me – was an injury, and my first reaction was to pull back and just say, no, not playing any more.

But if I really wasn’t playing anymore, I wouldn’t do anything differently today then what I did yesterday. Turning off comments this morning, was about equivalent to me staying in bed and getting lost in the nice purpleness of my foot. Being a victim.

So I’m turning comments back on. But I am taking no measure that I wasn’t going to take yesterday anyway before the attack. A little tweak here, a simple little tweak there. Some good precautions, but no extraordinary measures – that’s just as much a dancing to the tune of the beast as turning off the comments.

So comments back on – and if the crapflooder takes down the weblog, so be it. I’ll survive. You’ll survive. All god’s chillen will survive.

And maybe I’ll even bring back a photo from the river for you.

Categories
Political

Reacting against symbols

This last week Dean Landsman wrote about a business meeting with a person, a long-time associate and friend, who during a heated discussion resorted to religious epithets. Dean wrote:

What shook me was the attitude as much as the epithets. I haven’t dealt with this sort of bigotry in over thirty years. And all this time, the nearly ten years I’ve been jovially interacting with this fellow (sending ribald or funny e-mails, sharing jokes, hanging out at professional meetings, and so forth) this was never even near the surface.

Calmly sitting at my desk and looking out at a pleasantly sunny day, it’s easy to wrap my mind around the complexities of the world we live in and to be able to see beyond the angers to a the core of what we can be. Yes this person said this, but here’s why. And yes this person did this, but there’s more to the story than first appears.

However, when faced with troubling times, when filled with doubt, fear, or uncertainty, our minds seem to shut down our ability to differentiate between stereotypes and reality, between symbols and people. Dean’s associate’s stress leads him to focus not on the deal, not on Dean, the man he knows, but on symbols associated with Dean – reducing the situation to a primitive state and then reacting based on this. To Dean’s horror and, understandable, confusion and hurt.

Yesterday, Israel’s ambassador to Sweden experienced a reaction similar to Dean’s associate – shocked at an art exhibit featuring a photo of a Palestinian suicide bomber in a pool of blood red water, at a conference on genocide, he reacted by throwing an exhibit spotlight into the water, temporarily damaging the exhibit.

His reasons for doing so was that he considered the exhibit a glorification of the suicide bomber in defiance of the pain of the families of the dead victims of the attack. However, according to text associated with the exhibit, the art didn’t seek to glorify the actions of the bomber; rather it sought to open the doors to a discussion about why acts such as this happen. You don’t have to condone these acts in order to want to understand them, and hopefully, find a permanent and peaceful end to them.

Unfortunately, the artist used a symbol almost guaranteed to generate reaction. But then, that’s what artists do, agree or no.

It doesn’t end by destroying art, but begins by not reacting violently to symbols. It begins by not reacting, and that’s not always easy. Or as Dean wrote:

I have decisions to make as a result of this. I will take my time, consider my options, and come to my course of action after some deliberation. At this moment the thought is to complete the one deal, and never associate with this fellow again. But it isn’t that easy.

Its never that easy. Broad strokes don’t do the job, that’s just talk and showboating.

In real life there are harder choices.

Categories
Political

Why I won’t pester the folks next door

You may or may not know that I live in Missouri. What you also may, or may not know, is that Missouri is right next door to Iowa, the state currently with a big red bullseye painted on it because of the Democratic Caucus this coming Monday.

I’ve been reading about folks heading to Iowa in order to get people out to support their candidate. In particular, now that the candidacy for Democratic nomination isn’t as clearly defined, the effort expended on Iowa, and I can only imagine, New Hampshire must be overwhelming to the folks that live there.

I thought about going to Iowa to attend one of the caucus meetings; outsiders can attend they just can’t participate. I thought about taking photos, interviewing folks and publishing my views of the meetings – being on the scene and reporting all that’s happening.

And then I woke up from my dream that I was employed by the New York Times.

Contrary to my earlier views on the matter, I’m rather pleased that there is such a contest going into the primaries: he who ends up on top of this heap will have honed whatever political weapons he has by the time he survives to make it to the Democratic candidate position. Where once I supported Dean, now I’ll support whoever survives. If it’s Dean, well great. If it isn’t Dean? Well, that’s just great, too. I want a strong candidate heading into the general election, running against Bush – not one that limps into the candidacy.

I think all of the top Democratic candidates now are decent people who will go into office, make mistakes, learn from them, and go on. None will run from a fight if forced on us, but none will seek one out. And none will discard entire segments of this country in order to support corporate interests. We’ll get back our air and our water, and maybe even a little of our dignity. Whoever will follow Bush will walk into a mess, but I think all the major candidates will deal with it the best they can.

When I vote in Missouri’s Democratic primary, I’ll vote for one person – but all the candidates have my support until we have only one.

One person, one party, one purpose.

Categories
Weblogging

Being deliberately attacked

I am being deliberately and systematically attacked through my comments in order to force them off.

Since I have no effective comment management, and no known comment spam technique will work, no not even mt-blacklist with this one, I have no choice but to turn off comments.

This attack is from the kiddie script that was found at slashdot, and yes, they are using proxies to pull in different IP addresses. Note, they change the URL to something completely nonsensical with each iteration, as well as the text of the comment. They are not going through the HTML, but are hitting mt-comments.cgi directly.

To repeat mt-blacklist will not work because the URLs are not on the list. In fact, it could quickly make matters worse, unless there’s a generic throttle built in. Also note, the changes made in MT 2.661 will not stop this attack.

Thanks to the amazing Phil, who I hope won’t mind that I don’t link him thus making him a target, I have some code to incorporate that will at least make bad boys have to wash their hands, first, before sitting down to dinner.

update

Stavros got hit through the trackback to me. He left several of the troll spoor for people to ooh and ahh. However, I loved Phil’s and Stav’s comments at the beginning of the list. They do a most beautiful sneer.

I love these guys – they make all of this fun instead of annoying. Which just goes to show that the trolls can’t ever win if you keep your sense of humor. And that’s the true ’social’ solution to this social software problem, isn’t it?

That and good friends.

Categories
Weblogging

Do not click that link

Comment spammers have now been replaced by hackers. New comment spam, wording of which I have left, has a link that goes to a site that has so many out of control media and pop ups in it, it took my Mac down.

Yes. My Mac.

Look for this link – http://www.nero-online.org/lastmeasure

DO NOT CLICK ON IT!

Our new friend wrote:

We develop our own scripts using varied languages and means and can defeat nearly any standard security measure you put in place.

We’re doing this because bloggers provide a waste to the internet, an amassing of imbeciles who think they deserve to be heard, and think people actually care.

Your only real solution is to turn all comments off. Obviously this will mean your egos will no longer be stroked.

🙂

HAVE A NICE DAY

Yes, this is a kiddie hacker, no doubt. This was manually done, and then the auto script was turned on.

update

Unfortunately, the kiddies are attacking in force now. Note that mt-blacklist will not work. Nor will the new measures put out by Movable Type. Sam Ruby’s update could work, but I don’t have the second component of it in place, so it’s not implemented yet.