Year: 2004

Categories
Political

But you’re a hater, too

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Last of the posts related to Malkin, I promise, but I did want to address one more comment from the “In Defense of Malkin” post. And then I’ll bid this particular topic of discussion good-bye. (I have a bet with someone that Malkin will be in the Technorati Top 20 by the time the election occurs–helped more by those who disagree with her, than those who agree–and wouldn’t want him to think I’m loading the boards.)

Jeneane left the following comment:

I think, quite frankly, she is a perfect example of not being able to take what she dishes out.

She writes – “What I take away from all this is that the Democrat Party waterboys in the media are in full desperation mode.”

What I take away from it is that the Republican Party sorority girls are in the “oops–I got caught chewing gum and twirling my hair” mode.

What continues to blow my mind is HOW any individual of any ethnicity other than REALLY WHITE can support the current administration, which has such a vehmently fundamental misunderstanding of the Bible that they really, honestly don’t believe some of us belong here.

How you can be anything other than REALLY WHITE FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN and still support Bush–I don’t understand. How do you parse Ashcroft, Rummy, Cheney, and George with who you are? I’m interested in hearing how.

Michelle Malkin isn’t white (her parents are immigrants from the Philippines), and is a vehement supporter of George Bush. Jeneane doesn’t understand this, or how anyone who isn’t white or fundamentalist Christian could vote for Bush. (Malkin is a religious conservative.)

I expect there to be any number of non-white, non-Christian supporters of Bush, for whatever reason. In nine weeks, I believe we’ll have one of the closest Presidential races we’ve had in history. Which means that unless we want to accuse half the country of being evil, stupid, or morally bankrupt, we’ll just have to assume that those who choose not to vote ‘our way’, whatever ‘our way’ is, will have good reasons for their vote.

My father is a Republican. He’ll be voting for George Bush. Though he is white, he’s not a fundamentalist Christian. He’s not evil, either, but he’ll still vote for Bush.

My mother is also a Republican, but this year I helped convince her to vote for John Kerry. Go me. Now, to Republicans, they shouldn’t assume that because my mother is voting for Kerry that she’s evil.

Now, me? I am evil. Bwahahahahaha!

Sorry. This isn’t to belittle Jeneane’s question because her comment is critical to our discussions now. I hope those who are not Christian and/or white and who are voting for Bush, in fact all people voting for Bush, will take a moment and respond–thoughtfully– to Jeneane in the comments or their own weblogs. To be honest, I wouldn’t mind hearing from folks why they’re voting for Bush myself. Those voting for Kerry are invited to do the same.

Among all the screamers on both sides of this fence, the intolerant and the angry and the unforgiving and those filled with absolute surety of rightness, there must be reasonable people who understand that those who choose differently are not evil or stupid. If not, I worry about what will happen in nine weeks when almost 50% of the country is disappointed when their man is not picked. We can’t continue to maintain this level of animosity.

The world will be watching this election, and many will be reading what we say. Those outside our borders should also be able to read why we’re making the decisions we are in nine weeks – but without the accompaniment of invective, and accusations of ‘traitor’ and ‘hater’.

In another comment about Malkin, I read, …Malkin is a hater. No different than any KKKer–that’s truly what makes her most unattractive.

So spoke someone who would be shocked if you quietly said to him, “But you’re a hater, too.”

Categories
Technology Weblogging

MT and WP: There and back again

Both Movable Type and WordPress should be having new releases in the upcoming weeks. Movable Type is scheduled to release August 31 (I can’t find this in writing–can someone point this out?); No announced date for WP 1.3, but forum talk has it that the current nightly builds are getting progressively stable.

With both releases, there is bound to be a movement between these two products. I imagine since MT has a larger installed base, there will be more movement from MT to WordPress. However,announcements about stronger comment spam prevention and dynamic PHP pages in MT 3.1 could be luring some old MT users back to MT from WordPress.

Currently I’m working on a WP to MT export script that will export WordPress entries into Movable Type format for import into MT. WP supports an RSS/Atom export, but that won’t work with MT 3.1 (or will it?) Before I can release it, though, I need to test it with MT 3.1. If anyone has a working beta of this product, and wouldn’t mind letting me create a weblog for testing, I’d be appreciative.

When 3.1 releases, I’ll port one of my WordPress weblogs to MT 3.1 and then write up the process as a tutorial here in Burningbird. I’ll cover how to export the data, import it into MT, and how to move the weblog’s distinctive look by converting between tool template elements. This will include merging stylesheets; taking WordPress’ single template and porting it into MT’s multi-template environment; how the commenting structure differs; and covering differences between the tools for functions to list categories, recent comments, and so on.

To do this, I again need access to a working version of 3.1 and someone willing to let me create a weblog in their environment, for demonstration purposes (we can get rid of it when I’m done with writeup, and taking screenshots.) I could download 3.1 myself, but I don’t have – and won’t have– a TypeKey.

When 1.3 releases, my hope is to port 2-4 current Movable Type weblogs into WordPress 1.3, writing up the process just as with the WP to MT 3.1 port: how to move the distinctive look, covering functional differences, what functions to use for sidebar information, and so on. By covering multiple weblogs, I should hit most of the major challenges people would face. I’ll also add any of my customizations that the individual want, such as per-comment moderation or fullpage preview, comment editing, and so on.

(I’ll first be upgrading Burningbird from 1.2 to 1.3, which means upgrading my modifications and plugins. When finished, I’ll do another code documentation generation and post links.)

For this, I need volunteers from among Movable Type users who are interested either in moving to WordPress completely, or seeing what their weblog will look like in WordPress. They’ll need to have both the space and extra MySQL database for me to create the new WP weblog, and to provide me access to their system. They’re welcome to follow along with the effort, but they can’t hover. Hovering people make me twitchy.

Finally, I need non-techs to read the tutorials as I write them and let me know when the writing leaves them lost, or my instructions aren’t clear. I know that techs will let me know when I’ve done something wrong, technically.

Hopefully, when I’m done, people–whether technical or not–can use these tutorials to move from WordPress to Movable Type, and from Movable Type to WordPress–not just moving the data, but all covering all aspects of the move, including look and feel. This will be the last time I cover moving between tools, and I won’t be following Movable Type after 3.1.

Disclosure: I don’t work for Six Apart, I’m not part of the WordPress team, and have closed my ‘port-a-bloggy’ business. I won’t be getting either a Six Apart t-shirt, or a WordPress thong (I have been offered a JournURL t-shirt). I am not writing this up for a major publication. No one will be sending me flowers or chocolates, and telling me they love me for this. I may or may not get extra links for this for a time, but it won’t make an overall difference in my popularity. I would need to talk about sex, become a man or Dooce, or switch to being a warblogger to do this.

All of which means that I’m not financially or emotionally dependent on either product, which one you use, or whether you move or not.

I am doing this because it should be fun, and probably more helpful than talking about politics (though I will continue talking about politics, sex discrimination, hikes, photography, and whatever else it is I talk about here). Also because my version of ‘open source’ support is to use and/or tweak software and then write about it so others can do the same. I also believe people should be able to move freely between tools, even if they aren’t technically inclined.

(My final reason is that if people continue to have problems with comment spam in MT 3.1 I don’t want to hear them bitching about it!)

(Just joking on that latter.)

(Sorta.)

Categories
Internet

Blacklists are evil

I have said it before and will say it again – blacklists are evil.

In an effort to reduce the serious spammer problems we’ve been having (specifically my domain and some others are being targetted), Hosting Matters is now blocking SMTP access based on IP addresses from some kind of ‘list’. Well, Charter cable is on that list, which means I can’t send email. HM put back the block of IP addresses I was in when I couldn’t send before–but my cable company just now changed my IP address, and I am, again, blocked from responding to an email.

(Update: and HM is again whitelisting the block holding my IP address – Annette and the gang respond faster than any other ISP I’ve ever had.)

I wish people would remember that the bad guys can route around blocks and blacklists faster than the rest of us can.

In the meantime, please direct all email to me – and I mean all – to my gmail account (in the sidebar). I’m a bit worried about the reliability of gmail, too, but at least I can respond back in this system.

I think Hosting Matters is the best ISP there is, and appreciate their interest in keeping us up and running, and bug and collapse free (they’re obsessed with this–I like this in an ISP).

But blacklists are evil.

Categories
Media

Winged Migration

If you’ve not seen the documentary movie Winged Migration, I can’t recommend it more highly. The filmmakers somehow manage to keep with the birds, filming at the bird’s perspective as the different breeds migrate around the world.

The visuals are extraordinary, with minimal human presence. There is a strong environmental element to the story, but the filmmakers never dwell on it. It occurs naturally, a part of the birds’ lives.

The humans in the movie appear infrequently, and are gone quickly and some may be disappointed by this. I’ve noticed that occasionally we don’t value films that don’t feature humans as the central element as highly as we could. I sometimes think as we progress, we lose our empathy to the world around us.

Ach, there goes me, moralizing again. Tell me to stop.

Stop.

Okay. Go rent it. It’s a beautiful movie.

*Warning: the movie is about nature, and not all nature has happy endings.

Categories
Culture Diversity Weblogging

We women, we hookers

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

I liked what Kevin Murphy had to say in the comments to the post “In Defense of Michelle Malkin”:

The only thing you can learn of substance from such an adverserial segment is that it’s pointless to expect to learn anything by listening to two unprepared pundits argue it out on TV.

We both agreed that it would take little to extend this to weblogging, and with nine more weeks until the US election–oh, how I wish it was over and done with–we’ll be treated to many more so-called online debates, which are really nothing more than contenders standing virtually toe to toe, scuffing it out in the dirt.

I don’t particularly care if people want to argue; it’s not my business, and we’re all adults here. But I am disturbed by a trend I see among a certain group of webloggers, and it was this that brought out my defensiveness of Michelle Malkin more than anything else.

I have no problems with anyone attacking Malkin’s words, or her viewpoint on things. For instance, leaving aside the dangers of abuse and the increase of state-sanctioned racism, Malkin’s views on racial profiling are short sighted for assuming that the foe will always be helpful by looking and acting like the foe.

However, there’s a difference between being critical of the words, actions, or beliefs; and using derogatory or disparaging remarks or techniques in order to discredit the person directly, especially based on a characteristic of birth, not what a person says or believes. This is what I saw with Malkin.

As I discussed already, Atrios calls her LuLu, after a little girl portrayed in the comics . But he let’s her off easy. Listen to some other fine liberal men.

“Malkin has been chosen to foist dumb ideas onto the world precisely of her background and what she looks like, and she needs to be called on that. It’s not like she’s an independent person who just decided to get this idea out there. She’s the product of an incubation system that’s worked the refs for some time now.”

Oliver Willis

“Yeeesh, Michelle Malkin is a bit of a nutter, but my god is she ever sexy when she’s acting all huffy…Oh so nutty, but oh so sexy. Grrrrrrowl. Gotta love that pout.”

Maladjusted-Fair and Balanced

“Michelle Malkin, the sexy, wild-eyed, internment camp vixen, got her ass handed to her by Chris Matthews on Hardball.”

Article One

This crew picked out frames of a video of a Malkin appearance to make fun of her eyes. And other things. Of course, one could say we do the same for George Bush–grab shots that deliberately make him look funny. But last I heard, no one said of him, I don’t think she’s attractive in the least , and I do find asian women attractive. She looks like a cheap asian hooker in “Platoon” or some other ‘nam movie.

And, well, I could go on. Calling her a hooker, focusing much of a comment thread on how she looks, making crude jokes about pulling her into bed; talking about ‘digging Asian chicks’, and how sexy she looks.

Some would say that if Malkin didn’t issue the statements she makes, she wouldn’t be generating this kind of remark. That she brought these types of statements on herself.

If that’s so, then where’s the line between her and someone like me? Or Maria. who wrote in the comment thread earlier:

I first saw Malkin on the Bill Mahr show only days before Shelley referred to her column and blog, and though I knew immediately that I didn’t’ agree with her politics, I was impressed by the way she focused on staying within the framework of the debate, rather than try to use cheap tricks, like getting personal or shrill, or play some card or other. Bill Mahr seemed to respect that, too … so no one got into a huff or had to walk off; instead, there were some interesting points made that provided ample stuff (not just fluff) for debate.

So yes, this comment here is in defense of Malkin’s right to be heard in her terms … which to me, in what I saw of her on the Mahr show, seem to be very much the same terms we demand for ourselves when we speak.

In comments in the post “In Defense of Malkin”, Kevin was kind enough to let me know that Atrios uses “Little Lulu” because it is some kind of ‘freeper’ handle for Malkin and her husband.

“freeper” is a FreeRepublican groupie. Right-wing conservative groupies. Gag me.

Anyway, that’s great. But since most of Atrios’ readers are not ‘freepers’, and probably don’t have this context, the term comes across as derogatory–rather than what it really is, Atrios and Malkin are great friends, and love to tease each other online.

No?