Year: 2005

Categories
Diversity Weblogging

Somebody is in trouble

I’m mostly considered a technology weblogger, if I’m pigeonholed into any category (usually I fight this kicking and screaming). I’ve written on politics, but I don’t focus on it. Same as I write on technology, but not exclusively (and hiking, and photography, and travel, and …) When I’ve been included in lists of ‘female political webloggers’, this has been more of an inclusive gesture than not, and appreciated.

So I haven’t been too involved in a recent continued discussion about the Steve Levy Article, Kevin Drum’s take, and the reaction thereof. However, one issue that keeps getting raised–that there aren’t as many women political webloggers because we women can’t handle the heat–can be firmly and safely put to rest when you read the responses of the lady politicos at the following weblogs:

Shakespeare’s Sister:

We’re not going to get anywhere as long as the male bloggers who post about this issue continue to do so with such appalling intellectual dishonesty. In private emails, male bloggers who publicly wring their hands about how to solve the problem of the dearth of women bloggers in the upper echelon, will admit that the reality is the difficulty of finding women worth linking to.

Women don’t give me much linkable material.

Women write on subjects that don’t interest me.

Women don’t know how to compromise on abortion rights.

Why don’t women post about Social Security? It affects them, too.

Women don’t write commentary, don’t come up with new ideas.

Gender politics is all secondary issues.

Rox Populi:

… clearly there’s a disconnect between what some male folk convey on their blogs and what they truly believe. And, I strongly suspect the leadership of the Democratic Party works much the same way.

Feministe:

Compromise on abortion rights? Social Security? And women are accused of following trends like a dog with its nose buried in its own turds? Right. Real original, dude. And I’m not even going to mention how specious it is to suggest that women are “uninteresting�? because we follow legislation that directly, tangibly affects us and only us.

Oops, here I go with that hysterical shit again. At least I’m more reserved than Jeff Jarvis’ rowdy channelling of Bushwick Bill: “Damn it feels good to be a cracka.�?

This subject is so unbearably boring and repetitive — and yet so freakishly maddening. And this time especially so. Apparently the candle lit romanticism induced by wide-eyed men blogging about the sad dearth of femininity in the political sphere is nothing but a sham.

(Jonathon, “Damn it feels good to be a cracka!” is better than “White, male, and proud of it!”, don’t you think?”)

Pam’s House Blend:

What is different is the defense floated out there that isn’t a hierarchy in the major blogosphere. This is ludicrous — there is passive resistance to acknowledge, seek out or promote new political voices, especially those that have something to say about gender politics from a perspective that is not white or male — why wouldn’t you want to bring something fresh to the table. You wouldn’t if you didn’t have a serious interest in those issues.

Our big boy bloggers have tended to gloss over the fact that the blogosphere is still, looking at sheer numbers, the domain of the Technorati testosteroni. Men currently rule the roost in terms of perceived bloggers of influence, and the article points that out. Guys arrived at the party first, and it’s a remained a fairly closed system on the Left for reasons that are complicated, but not excusable.

Grr, ladies. You make me proud.

Categories
Weblogging

Ethical dilemma

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

This is an ethical dilemma. There’s a weblogger reporting something as fact, yet I’m 99.99%, his ‘fact’ is completely fabricated. In fact, I’ve been pretty sure he’s full of it for a long time — taking weblogging on the longest roll in history.

However, I don’t have proof. I have strong circumstantial evidence, but no proof.

I suppose if this person was a reporter for New York Times, being a weblogger I wouldn’t seek proof. But we don’t fact check each other, like we fact check the Times or CBS. In fact, we don’t necessarily have the means to fact check each other.

Then there’s the issue of what harm does it cause. “Who cares.” After all, it isn’t that any of us are Dan Rather. In this case, though, I think there could be harm. I’m pretty sure it will result in harm to the weblogger, but it could result in harm to others.

Perhaps what I need to do is see if Sheila’s paper will fact check him — kind of turning the tables on the tabbies, so to speak.

I do know one thing: you all believe webloggers too much. And there’s nothing in this environment to support such faith.

Categories
People Photography Plants

A purple crocus podcast

I had hoped to have my annual post on the state of Etech finished today, but while working on it I found myself starting to take it far too seriously. This just won’t do. Time to take a break and return to it when I control the topic, rather than the topic control me.

In the meantime today is Spring, or at least, Spring for me. The weather was warm and the daffodils, tulips, and other flowers were in full bloom. The Magnolia is just now starting too bud, and the Missouri witch hazel ending its cycle, leaving behind a most wonderful fragrance.

I walked Botanical and grabbed some sunshine and photos. Though I know you’re all tired of flowers and that sort of thing I’ll still add a couple to this writing, just to break up the words. Between you and me, I like seeing something besides red, yellow, and orange on the page from time to time.

Walking over the bridge in the Japanese Garden, the koi fish followed along in hopes of getting some of the fish food you can buy from gumball-like machines at either end. While I was dropping food into hungry mouths, a fairly large group of people approached and several exclaimed in surprise when they saw the fish. They had strong southern accents — more mountain than plantation — and evidentally had never seen koi before.

A couple of women and a young girl ran down the hill to the stream that fed the lake and dropped down for a closer look, while one guy, who seemed out of place, walked around with a quarter in his hand, trying to break into the chatter and laughter.

Another guy yelled down the women, “Watch out, Hannah. That sucker’ll jump out and take your head off!” I finished my feeding and my photos and started to pass the increasingly loud group when the same wit yelled out, “They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.”

I glanced at him when I passed, this guy with pasty white arms, sparse straggly black chin whiskers raggedly covering blotched, pink chin and cheeks; matted dull, black hair under an old baseball cap, and huge gut falling out from under his too tight and too short gray t-shirt.

Botanical isn’t the only place with the sights of Spring. Tonight when I went downstairs to get a bottle of water, I noticed Zoë at the window, intently looking out. I peeked through the glass and saw several young bunnies hoping about, grazing on the grass.

And the daffodils are up. Life is good when the daffodils are up.

Speaking of bunnies, thanks to Scoble, I found what I *wanted from the Easter Bunny, a podcasting kit. No, seriously.

A couple of folk pointed out to me today that there’s a rumor going around that Burningbird isn’t Shelley Powers, an American woman. No, Burningbird is none other than Jonathon Delacour, an Australian gent.

I don’t know where these rumors start, but I decided to nip this one in the bud before it spreads too far. I thought I would record a podcast, and you all could hear my softly feminine voice with its distinctly American accent.

I also thought about taking a photo of my breasts, and posting it as proof of my sex, but for all I know, Jonathon has **man breasts, and could do the same. Wouldn’t it be the pits if his were better than mine?

Catching up on my reading, Phil pointed out that Google is looking to relocate to The Dalles, in Oregon. Great location, absolutely gorgeous area, finest wind surfing in the world, but Phil’s explanation left me equally surprised:

Great Googly Moogly. To build a data center, Google has to belly up right next to a dam, with a big ol’ river to use for water cooling? That’s more computers than I can imagine piling up together.

Geez, not even Bill Gates has his own dam and power station. I can see it now: the next time a major weblogging meme hits, Portland suffers a blackout.

And on that, more than past time for bed.

*Well, I really wanted a standards-based Internet Explorer, but the Bunny wouldn’t stop laughing so I had to change my wish.

**Note, I have nothing against man breasts — as long as they aren’t better than mine.

Categories
outdoors Photography Places Plants

Purple crocus

Today is Spring, or at least, Spring for me. The weather was warm and the daffodils, tulips, and other flowers were in full bloom. The Magnolia is just now starting too bud, and the Missouri witch hazel ending its cycle, leaving behind a most wonderful fragrance.

I walked Botanical and grabbed some sunshine and photos. Though I know you’re all tired of flowers and that sort of thing I’ll still add a couple to this writing, just to break up the words. Between you and me, I like seeing something besides red, yellow, and orange on the page from time to time.

Crocus

Walking over the bridge in the Japanese Garden, the koi fish followed along in hopes of getting some of the fish food you can buy from gumball-like machines at either end. While I was dropping food into hungry mouths, a fairly large group of people approached and several exclaimed in surprise when they saw the fish. They had strong southern accents — more mountain than plantation — and evidently had never seen koi before.

A couple of women and a young girl ran down the hill to the stream that fed the lake and dropped down for a closer look, while one guy, who seemed out of place, walked around with a quarter in his hand, trying to break into the chatter and laughter.

Another guy yelled down the women, “Watch out, Hannah. That sucker’ll jump out and take your head off!” I finished my feeding and my photos and started to pass the increasingly loud group when the same wit yelled out, “They are the ugliest things I’ve ever seen.”

I glanced at him when I passed, this guy with pasty white arms, sparse straggly black chin whiskers raggedly covering blotched, pink chin and cheeks; matted dull, black hair under an old baseball cap, and huge gut falling out from under his too tight and too short gray t-shirt.

Botanical isn’t the only place with the sights of Spring. Tonight when I went downstairs to get a bottle of water, I noticed Zoë at the window, intently looking out. I peeked through the glass and saw several young bunnies hoping about, grazing on the grass.

And the daffodils are up. Life is good when the daffodils are up.

Bright Daffodils

Categories
Technology Weblogging

Another update

I was asked to help a group weblog with its new look a week or so ago and it ended up being more work than I expected. However, I finally finished that work today — really, really finished– and have started my final descent for the first release of this product.

I found a couple of things I need to change. First of all, WordPress creates page titles the first time you save a post. However, I think the page title should match the post title up and until you publish a post. But, there’s a difference between a title being generated and one manually entered, so if go this approach, I’ll need to add a flag to the database.

However, I’m tired of numbered posts appearing because I forget to title a post when I save a draft, and then forget to change the post SLUG before publishing.

Some more clean up in Admin to pull all SQL separate from the processing.

And I’ve finally taken my first shot at integrating RDF API in as an extension to support the metadata effort. That one isn’t going as well as I would like — but it is optional, and if need be, I’ll leave it off the first release.

Oh, I do love my interface, and my comment management, but magic quotes got screwed up again.

All in all though, it’s movin’ along.