Category: Writing

Just writing

Categories
Writing

Truly understanding censorship

Sheila points to a nicely written how-to on newspapers having weblogs. This was spurred, in no small part, from the tempest in a teapost about Dan Weintraub and the Sacramento Bee’s new policy about editorial review of his weblog.

Many of the Blogging world’s illuminati became incensed by this action. Micky Klaus writes in a meandering, confused rant:

Unlike a mistake in a print column (or for that matter, a mistake on radio) a mistake in a “24-7 blog” can be easily and quite effectively corrected in the same place it was made. For this reason, the cost of a blog error is less than the cost of a print error. That means when you are balancing a) the cost of errors versus b) the cost of more procedures and “standards,” you come out in a different place for blogs than you do for print.

The cost of an error isn’t the amount of time to edit it, but the amount of damage the ‘error’, backed by a major publication, can do when read by thousands before correction.

Glenn Reynolds writes:

Unthinking political correctness, corporate-mandated dullness, and complete cluelessness, all in one event. If you want to know, in a nutshell, why Old Media is in trouble, this is it.

Taking a look at Weintraub’s statement that caused the uproar:

If [the California Lt. Governor’s] name had been Charles Bustmont rather than Cruz Bustamante, he would have finished his legislative career as an anonymous back-bencher. Thus there is reason to wonder how he would handle ethnic issues as governor.

And while people can debate forever whether MEChA and its more virulent cousins do or do not advocate ethnic separatism, it’s indisputably true that the Legislature’s Latino Caucus advocates policies that are destructive to their own people and to greater California, in the name of ethnic unity.

Making sweeping statements such as ‘…it’s indisputably true that the Legislature’s Latino Caucus advocates policies that are destructive to their own people and to greater California…” is something I would expect to read from a weblogger who is throwing opinions around without due consideration of the impact of the words. Perhaps that’s what Klaus and Reynolds want – more rants, less news and thoughtful commentary.

Doc Searls points to most of the articles on this issue, and seems to agree with Roger Smith:

In the future, in order to demonstrate their integrity, true blogs may have to be completely independent of major media. And maybe that’s for the best. At least that way we will be able to scrutinize the bloggers intentions without having to see through a haze of editing or, worse, the agendas (hidden and not) of media corporations.

I share Sheila’s take:

Weintraub’s comments about Bustamante are the sort of words you might hear in a bar. If Weintraub wants to pop off with unsubstantiated personal slams like that, add a comments capacity to his blog and give his readers equal opportunity to publicly challenge him.

Weintraub’s weblog is not a personal weblog hosted on Blogspot. It’s hosted and paid for by the Sacramento Bee, which has an existing editorial policy for opinions expressed by employees of the newspaper. The only crime the Bee committed is that it’s following through on what webloggers have been asking for – treating Weintraub’s weblog like it was a ‘real’ journalist’s effort.

You can’t have it both ways. You can’t say weblogs are journalism,and should be treated as ‘real’ publications. and then deny the sometimes stringent requirements of newspapers and other publications. An error in a weblog can embarrass a weblogger; an error in a newspaper can get the paper sued, or unfairly and adversely impact on the events being reported.

It is a given, and known fact, that people who work for a newspaper or other publication are bound by the editorial process for same. Sometimes this results in the suppression of news, but many times, this prevents offhand remarks and ill-thought comments from hitting the streets and causing damage that a retraction just won’t heal. Even a digital retraction.

Of course, the uproar on this event has died since Weintraub himself doesn’t see himself the victim of censorship, or being muzzled.

Perhaps folks upset by Weintraub going through the editorial process need a reminder of what censorship really likes like:

  • This week is the ALA’s Banned Books Week. Books on the list include any of the Harry Potter novels, The Chocolate War, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Native Son, To Kill a Mockingbird, and far too many others.
  • Amnesty International lists several authors imprisoned in their countries for speaking their mind, including Zouheir Yahiaoui who was arrested for for expressing his opinions online.
  • Al Jazeera has been banned from access to official sources of news in Iraq for supposedly sedicious reporting.
  • The directors of Zimbabwe’s four private newspapers have been charged with “illegally publishing” their newspapers. (Thanks to Frizzy Logic)
  • Reporters without Borders can also give you an eyeful, including the Defense Department’s clearance of all culpability for the death’s of journalists in Iraq by US soldiers
  • The Patriot Act

If Weintraub wants to start a personal weblog on Blogspot and carefully disassociate what he writes there from his newspaper, I’d be more supportive of him not ‘being censored’. However, the price a writer pays for a steady income from a publication is that the publication usually has some say in what’s written. It’s not just the writer who is credited, or discredited, when they spout off.

Categories
Books RDF Writing

A kinder, gentler Slashdot…and friends

Today Practical RDF was reviewed at Slashdot, a fact I found out when some kind souls warned me of the fact so that I might prepare for the hordes marching in. However, Slashdot book reviews usually don’t generate the server stress that other Slashdot articles can, and the server was able to handle the additional load with ease. This now makes the second time I’ve been slashdotted and lived to tell the tale. Thirds the charm, they say.

It was a nice review, and I appreciated the notice and the kind words. In fact, I’ve had very positive reviews across the board for the book, which is very gratifying for me and for Simon St. Laurent, the lead editor. I’ll probably earn ten cents for every hour I spent on the book, but at least I can feel satisfaction that it’s helping folks and the writing is respected and seen as a quality effort. That’s pretty damn important for a writer – worth more than bucks.

Well, bucks are nice, too.

Speaking of Simon and the book, I was reminded that I owe some articles on RDF and Poetry, and a view of RDF from inside the XML clan, and a few other odds and ends. Hopefully this nice little push will energize me again and I can get these written. It’s been a while since I’ve delighted in the act of writing.

I also wanted to thank the folks for the thoughtful comments in the Tin Can Blues posting. I must also admit I lied in the posting – horrors! – but the lie was unintentional. I forgot that when I worked at Express Scripts earlier this summer that one of the people I worked with started weblogging just as I was leaving. I still remember the shock I received coming around a corner and seeing him read my weblog. As to the question whether your writing changes when you meet those who read it, I remember that for two weeks after that incident, I focused almost exclusively on photography and technology.

There is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer to the issue of meeting webloggers in the flesh. I think it really is up to the person, and the opportunities, as many of you noted. For myself, several St. Louis webloggers and others passing through the community have invited me to events, cook outs, coffee, and beers, and all of the people are terrific folks, and I know would be a real treat in person. But it’s not easy for me to mix my worlds.

Ultimately for all the chatter I’ve indulged in online, I have become somewhat of a reclusive person; uncomfortable with larger gatherings (i.e. more than three people), quiet at any events other that professional ones. I love to speak at conferences, but I find corners to inhabit when I’m finished. This person in this weblog – assertive, outgoing, and anything but shy – is the real me; but so is the physical person who runs from parties and get togethers, and I just don’t know how to reconcile the two.

I do know that my not meeting people in the flesh doesn’t diminish my genuine affection for the people I’ve met and come to admire, respect, and like through this virtual medium, and maybe that’s all that matters.

(Po-ll-y-a-nn-a!! This sounds good, but I don’t think it’s that simple. I can see a time when friends met online but never in person become less tangible than the ones whom we’ve pressed the flesh with, in one way or another. Our presence will begin to thin as it stretches to meet always and continuously across the void; touching through the mists, our essence flows around the shadows cast by the real, becoming increasingly transparent – true ghosts in the machine.

Or maybe I’m just tired. And maudlin. Time for new topics…)

Speaking of people I’ve not pressed flesh with, Liz writes about Google search hits, mentioning the phrases she now ‘owns’, such as “introvert extrovert”. I checked my stats and find that I own or partially own several phrases including ‘parable’ (number two), Shelley (number one), and ‘love sentences’ (number two).

I thought it was funny that Dorothea, Liz, and I have part ownership of the word ‘frustration’ – Dorothea at sixth, me at eight, and Liz at ninth. See what all of you guys are doing to us?

The most problematic phrase I own is ‘baby squirrels’. Yup, search on baby squirrels and there I am, Kicking the Baby Squirrels, Again. I get a lot of visitors for ‘baby squirrels’.

I also own the number two position for the phrase ‘virtual friends’. I’d rather own ‘real friends’ but that’s owned by cats.

PS Nobody make AKMA laugh for the next week.

Categories
Political Weblogging Writing

Like to Like

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

The new group weblog Open Source Politics had its first week, and one can’t help but applaud the quality of much of the writing that’s come out of this effort. Of course, I know two of the people contributing, Mike Golby and Loren Webster, and have enjoyed their writing for some time so this isn’t surprising.

As much as I applaud any effort that gets Mike and Loren the readership they both deserve, I’m still not fond of these group weblogs. Rather than expose important issues to a new audience, the decidedly liberal nature of this weblog will either attract those who are liberal in the first place and likely to agree; or attract those from the opposite viewpoint, looking for cannon fodder. I think those who are more neutral are going to be pushed away by the tone and focus of the weblog.

I can see wanting to move political commentary from your weblog if you want to focus on writing or poetry or linguistics or some other specialized topic. However, if you’re hoping to influence people who haven’t made up their minds on specific issues, wouldn’t a more effective approach be to focus on writing or poetry or linguistics or technology, with an occasional sneaky aside into politics?

Speaking of politics, yesterday was the first of the Democratic candidates debate and though I know that people wanted fireworks, I thought all of the candidates were very responsible in focusing on Bush rather than each other. No candidate is perfect, but there were some good points raised. As for my political leanings, it’s no surprise I’m voting Democrat, but which specific candidate is between me and the button. I make no apologies that my focus is on removing Bush from office, rather than promoting any one of the Dems. I can say I don’t support Lieberman because of his hawkish outlook, and I don’t care for Gephardt because I think he sold us out when he stood behind Bush in the invasion of Iraq. Other than that, I’ll support whoever has the best chance to defeat Bush.

In line with recent discussion about politics and religion, the Pew Forum just released survey results relating religion and politics and voting in this country. Extremely interesting reading.

For instance, from what I can see from these results I would more likely to be voted president if I were Muslim than aetheist. In this country, we’re willing to concede a shared heritage from Abraham – reluctantly – but the non-religous, and one has to assume the polytheist and animist and other outsiders, need not apply.

In fact, unless there’s a drastic change in culture and attitudes about religion, it will be a cold day in hell before an aetheist is voted President in the United States.

Categories
Writing

Kristof

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

Coming home from the park tonight, I had the windows rolled down to catch the evening breezes, and the music cranked loud, enjoying being out of the house and away from the computer. I was on autopilot, not really paying attention to my surroundings until I pulled up behind a dark green car at the spotlight. The license plate read KRSTOF.

KRSTOF. Kristof. A name that evokes images of dark gypsies with mysterious ways, brilliant red sashes holding hair back from unnerving black eyes. I peered into the back window of the car but the glass was too dark and the sun against it to bright to see anything more than a shadow of a head. A male head. Of course.

When the light changed and as we drove, I thought about this man in the green car, with the name that rolls across your tongue like fine chocolate or the merest wisp of fine cognac.

Kristof is a hiker, like myself, but unlike me, with my walks along the Katy Trail and Powder Valley, he’s traveled all throughout the world, hiking the fjords in Norway and the hills of Scotland. He speaks with a slight accent, the product of his early youth spent in Europe, as the son of a university professor who taught medieval history.

His face is lean and dark from the sun, and wrinkles formed grooves down his cheeks and a single line between his eyes. He’s is in his 50’s, but age sits on Kristof as lushly and caressingly as the dark, sable soft mustache sits over his thin lips.

His hands grab the leather wrapping of the steering wheel, fingers long and slender but strong; gentle hands with calloused fingertips, a legacy of years of playing classical guitar. Around his neck he wears a silver necklace, weighed down by an extraordinarily carved amber leaf, held in place by intertwined silver vines. The pendant was a gift on his 40th birthday from his mother, an artistic and eccentric woman who used to make him soft boiled eggs sprinkled with chives and dotted with caviar for Sunday breakfast.

His parents are separated, and have been for years; though apart, they still remain close. There is love between them and always will be, but it’s not enough to overcome their need to be free — a need that chafes at the bonds of daily cohabitation. As soon as Kristof was old enough, they talked with him about this need to be apart and from that moment he alternated his time between them, content with his odd but satisfying family.

Kristoff’s father is retired, living in Denmark and doing research for a book on Margaret, Queen of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Margaret, a queen in a land dominated by men, was gifted enough to capture the hearts of the people and keep peace in her homeland of Denmark; strong enough to extend that peace through marriage and alliance to include Denmark’s neighbors, a rare moment of unification for an area with strong regional ties.

Kristof’s mother is visiting Russia, searching for fine specimens of Baltic amber, the stone she uses for all of her jewelry. At one time she used other stones, such as onyx and opal and Lorimar, but after her first creation with amber — the very pendant on her son’s necklace — she would work with no other material. In Moscow, she meets with an old friend and over cups of strong tea served in tall glasses held by delicate silver filigree, they talk of rumors that another piece of the famous Amber Room has surfaced. Entirely crafted of fine amber in different hues, the Amber Room was a gift to Peter the Great from the King of Prussia, and they say to walk within it was like bathing in pure sunlight. The room disappeared during the War, stolen by the Nazis and some said destroyed in a fire, others said at the bottom of Baltic Sea when the ship carrying it was sunk.

As much as he loves his parents, though, Kristof’s mind is not on them, Margaret, or amber. He’s thinking of a trip two weeks ago when he was visiting a close friend who lives in Maine. They had spent a fine day out on a boat owned by his friend’s brother, sailing about the bay with the Atlantic breezes cool as they blew through Kristof’s thick, dark hair; the sun warm as it touched upon the glint of silver at his temples and in his mustache.

The boat was trim and sleek and the gathering of friends and family was warm and friendly, made more so by another guest, the cousin of his friend’s brother’s wife. He had noticed her as soon as he stepped on to the boat, a woman with chestnut hair down to her shoulders softly framing a face lovely, but not beautiful. She had a light dusting of freckles across her nose that he only noticed that evening when they walked along the beach and he bent down to meet her face tipped up to meet his. The moonlight and the golden glow of the antique streetlight next to the beach picked out her soft grey/green eyes, a hint of laughter and something else, something more subtle, reflected back at him.

In the morning, they shared strong, rich coffee made smooth by sweet creme, and spread blueberry jam on fresh, still warm muffins. The day promised to be another fine one, with only faint wisps of fog curling around the trees by the shore. They ate on the porch, sitting in rockers worn grey from years in the salt air and smooth by the bodies of past visitors, occasionally tossing crumbs to the seagulls that shamelessly begged at their feet.

Kristof remembered her soft curves and generous mouth and the blue-green tang of the ocean, always the ocean behind and around them; but more, he remembered her laughter and how well their words met and melded into crystaline phrases he could still recall. He told her about autumn in St. Louis, looking at her from the corner of his eye as he spoke about the deep greens of the hills turned into the same brilliant colors of his mother’s collection of fine amber. He also made sure to talk about nights filled with delicately fried catfish accompanied by dark beer, and cool, blue jazz. His words were both a promise and a lure, and he wondered whether he should wait until he got home, or pull over then and there and call her on his cell phone.

At that moment, Kristof turned into the left turn lane, and I pulled up beside him and then passed, eyes forward and on the traffic surrounding my car.

Categories
RDF Writing

Practical RDF-Generating giggles around the world

Practical RDF has now been immortalized in a comic strip.

Achewood

Hey! I love black licorice!