Burningbird

In the last few weeks, there’s been a great deal of hostility in some of the weblogging neighborhoods. Other discussions have become heated, but most of those have been about politics and the (what was then) upcoming war in Iraq.

(It seems more fitting – if you’re going to get hostile, do it over something that really does matter in the long run. Argue and yell and stamp your feet and scream at each other because of war or because freedoms are being denied – not because of technology.)

It’s funny but we all say, “Why do we do this? Tsk, look at us squabbling. I grow so tired of this” – and then we proceed to link to these instances of bad behavior and make comments, and totally ignore pretty things. Like my moon pictures.

Here I go and post my first photos of the moon, which I thought were rather cool, and I had some fun with Photoshop, especially the ‘paired’ moon shot, but does this get notice? Only by a few people with, I dare say, exquisite taste. Everyone else was too busy elbowing themselves out of the way to respond to my post on the current fooflah of the moment. Including me.

(Uhm, I hasten to add: responses appreciated! Especially thoughtful ones! You all know what I mean. Don’t hate me.)

Doh! No wonder the same old fooflah continues, week after week. The only way to get attention around here is to pick a fight or join one in progress! The more petty the arguments, the more childish the name calling, the better. If we could find way to digitalize spitballs, we’d be using them, too.

No-no-no-no, I don’t blog it no more
I’m tired of waking up on the floor.

All I’m saying is, can’t we give peace a chance? Towards that intent, this week’s weblog reading and writing and participation is focused on:

• sharing personal interests (writing, technology, politcs, philosophy, religion, poetry, photos, humor, critters, the outdoors, family and friends)
• intelligent and civil discussions
• undebatable cuteness

Here’s a start. And another. Here’s Bb as Legos. And good advice.

And one more chance for the moon pics. Next week I’m going back to water, trees, and reflections. Hmmph.

Recovered from the Wayback Machine.

A couple of items of gossip. It seems that AOL is unleashing its folks on weblogging. According to Jeff Jarvis:

Yesterday, I was one of a privileged council of blogging elders – Meg Hourihan, Nick Denton, Anil Dash, Clay Shirky – invited to see AOL’s new blogging tools, which will be released later this year.
…
Starting weblogs allows the audience to create content and to market and to create value.
That’s why it’s a big deal that AOL is blogging

I remember AOL and Usenet and all those naïve users dumped on to the Usenet groups, coming close to all but destroying some of them. Now we have potentially the same thing happening to weblogging and all people can see is marketing and business, new social software vistas, and, more importantly – more people weblogging. Quantity! Content! More content to mine and to sell and to morph into RSS/XML.

Bah and bullshit.

Want to know what it will be like having AOL members online? The rules will change, starting with the fact that the AOLers won’t know who Jeff Jarvis, Meg Hourihan, Nick Denton, Anil Dash, and Clay Shirky are – and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

This leads me to my second item of gossip – John Robb left Userland. I’ve battled a time or two in the past with John Robb about technology, and I never would have expected him to leave, not while the company is still running. What’s more interesting, though, is that his weblog pages are gone – completely gone. So, who removed them? John, or someone else? One flick of a button on a machine, and John is effectively erased from weblogging.

John, wherever you are, whatever you are now, I wish you luck in your new career.

Looking at this, perhaps having all that fresh new blood from AOL – all without their little weblogging heros and talk about weblogging and this conference and that and all with little or no interest in the politics of weblogging – will be a good thing. A very good thing.

Here’s hoping for complete and utter anarchy.