BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

May 31, 2003

How to make fishwrap
: Matt Welch has a wonderful column about the newspaper biz post BlairBragg in the National Post (datelined Los Angeles, I should add).
He argues that newspaperpeople are more upset about BlairBragg because they (read: we) put it on a pedestal more than readers in most of America. Guilty. I love and admire the Times. That doesn't mean I always like it. The paper has become terribly overwritten lately, with writerly writers spending paragraphs showing off before getting to the point, which just wastes my time as I try to figure out what the hell a story is trying to be about. I've never said the Times is perfect, but it is damned good.
The problem isn't liking the Times. The problem, Welch points out, is emulating it in the wrong ways.

Almost every newspaper that views the Times as a role model... is a local monopoly in a less liberal city. Chances are, it will equate success with such Timesian yardsticks as Pulitzer prizes, and (in the immortal words of Rick Bragg) the ability "to go get the dateline."
Amen, brother. I've said here before that if I ran a paper, I wouldn't enter any contests. The only contest we want to win is the fight for the attention and affection of our readers. And the way to win that is to be useful, not to write 1,000-inch show-off thumbsuckers. But I say that such mondostories are born not of Times envy but of conference bragging.
Welch sees a silver lining in the cloud over West 43rd Street:
As importantly, the bulk of this navel-gazing is happening in public, giving readers a rare, transparent glimpse into the sausage-making minutiae of newspapering. A week ago, if you had asked 10 Americans about the journalistic significance of the word "dateline," nine probably would have said "that stupid entertainment show on NBC."
Perhaps. But the risk is that all this will make newspapers even more boring -- not only in their new sense of what's safe but also in their reflex to write reflexively, about themselves. Please, no.
Welch's money graphs (as we say in the news biz) are these:
Newspapers, in theory at least, are attempting to help their readers become as educated as possible about their city, country and institutions. Luckily for everyone, the World Wide Web has enabled consumers these days to have an unprecedented ability to consume, debate and, most importantly, repackage their own news, from nearly infinite sources across the globe.
Every person who has created a current-events weblog -- and there are tens of thousands of them, at least -- has been forced to write headlines, weigh the veracity of sources, select an appropriate mix of stories, avoid running afoul of libel and copyright laws ... basically, to make many of the decisions that are familiar to editors everywhere.
This has created a revolutionary level of reader sophistication, one that savvy newspapers will eventually recognize as a valuable source of feedback and potentially bottomless reservoir of distributed intelligence. If a newsroom uses the post-Blair level of scrutiny to strengthen practices and improve the product, these people will be the first the notice.
Right. We saw that during the war and not just on the Web but also on TV, as new tools gave the audience instant access to news as it happened or allegedly happened, including front-row seats at previously press-pass-only briefings. The audience had to learn, as reporters and editors have long-since learned (or should have), that you can't take the first word as the true word; you have to see how things shake out; you have to ask more questions; you have to doubt.
And so here's my money graph:
The Times represented the pinnacle of an old news business and it was taken to be as true as it gets because it was the best we had. But now we have something better and that's not more newspapers (or weblogs): It's more information, more up-to-the-minute news, more of it in the audience's control. And the audience will have to learn that news isn't easy. Nobody does it perfectly, not even the Times.free donlowd film sex

Put down that pen, Penn
: All I have to say is, this guy needs an editor!
I kept trying to read Sean Penn's full-page, type-crammed ad in yesterday's New York Times but it was so badly written, such a drone, and so full of Penn that I gave up.
See whether you have more stamina than I do.
Here's a PDF of the complete Penn screed.free donlowd film sex

Pincer movement on Iran
: Not only is the right -- that is, the White House -- putting pressure on Iran, but so is the left.
Here's a Manifesto for Iran signed by Noam Chomsky, Costa Gravas, Edward Said, Harold Pinter, and other leftie lights for the International Committee for Transition to Democracy in Iran:

...we hold that the peaceful transition of Iran to a democratic republic, free of all interference by religious authorities in the affairs of the state, would enable the decisive forces of the society—such as wage-earners, women, the youth, university students and professors, who have demonstrated their democratic will over the last six years— to play the principal role in the destiny of their country.
Iranian blogger ba2k publishes email from Said saying that he did not sign the petition and from Chomsky saying he did. The blogger is shocked that the group did not find a single Iranian to sign its petition. free donlowd film sex

Are you ready for your closeup, Miss Diaz?
: There is an evil side to technology. This from Television Week [via Lost Remote]:

Cameron Diaz is beautiful, right? After all, the green-eyed blonde has been a regular on People magazine's list of the most beautiful people in the world.
However, the magazine's editors-and most of the Western world-do not have a high-definition TV. If they did, they would see that Diaz's face is spotted with small pockmarks, the unfortunate consequence of a longtime acne problem....
When seen on film, Diaz's skin imperfections are not noticeable, thanks to Hollywood's talented makeup artists. However, with HDTV, the picture is so precise that the acne damage cannot be hidden. In a high-def broadcast of Charlie's Angels on HBO, Diaz looks like a different person. She's still very pretty. But to be very frank, I doubt that she would make People's most beautiful list.
I am writing this not to discount the considerable charms of Cameron Diaz. But the story illustrates the impact that HDTV is having on the Hollywood glamour machine. As stars run for cover-literally-the industry is searching for new makeup techniques that will combat the evils of digital television. With high-def now in fewer than 6 million homes, the problem is under control. But if new solutions aren't found-and millions more get HDTV, as expected-the technology could change our perception of who's beautiful and who's not.
: UPDATE: Ken Layne adds:
I've seen the HDTV screens in various sizes, and I have to agree it makes even an attractive person look like a grotesque, makeup-crusted whore on the wrong side of 50. Nobody needs to see anybody that goddamned close up in such perfect detail. I can be nose to nose with a living human and it will never compare to the horror of a three-foot-tall pixel-perfect Mike Wallace face.
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He's not anti-American; he just prefers flame-broiling
: I just came across a page from the European TV show Arte with a quiz: "Are you anti-American?" (in German or French). The first questions: "Do you sometimes go to McDonald's?"free donlowd film sex

May 30, 2003

.IQ
: Baghdad's first postwar Internet cafe opens, offering access for only $1/hour. free donlowd film sex

The Salam Pax litmus test

: I'm getting fed up with people ascribing their own opinions and world views to Salam Pax -- or to what is being said about him on blogs or in print.
If you dare to criticize him, says one view, then you're clearly a blind war-mongering rightie who won't admit the trouble America is having postwar in Iraq.
If you dare to value him, says the other view, then you're clearly a blind anti-American leftie who won't admit to Saddam's evils and America's success.
I've been called all of the above in my comments and even in IM and I'm tired of it.
It's all just camel poop.free donlowd film sex

Let's remember that this is just one guy -- one smart, articulate, brave, privileged, and haughty guy who happened to be the only witness to war in Iraq who could tell the world what he saw and what he thought online, taking advantage of this new and heavily gehypt thing called a weblog. Because of that, he became pseudonymously and deservedly famous.
But now, because of the way media works (and, yes, because of the way he's working media) he is risking overexposure before we even know his name. But more to the point I'm making, he is becoming a symbol that takes on whatever shape the speaker wants. Without even knowing it, he's being used. free donlowd film sex

I've tried to stay somewhat neutral and even-handed about Salam because that is, in fact, the way I look at him -- I value and respect him and what he has done, but that doesn't mean I also can't criticize some of what he says (as I do with many of the bloggers to whom I link!). But people keep assuming what I really think -- based, of course, on what they really think. So I end up having to give my Salam Creed every time I write about him, but apparently I have not done that well enough.
So, if you give a damn, here's what I really think:free donlowd film sex

1. I have always believed that Salam Pax is real and in Baghdad.
2. I value his weblog and I'm glad he has been writing it and continues to. He has a helluva story to tell and he tells it well and we're lucky to have had anybody there telling it. I would read his book. I would watch his movie.
3. I don't know enough about his background to conclude where he fit into the bad old days. The online columns about him and his privileged position are convincing as far as that goes. But I still don't know where he really stands and so I think trying to criticize him based on what he really thinks is impossible until you know what he really thinks.
4. I think he is getting a bit big for his britches now, which is both the fault of the media attention he has been getting and also his own fault for what he says and how he says it sometimes.. He has an attitude and it's getting grating.
5. I think he should reveal his name and his family history and his positions and stop hiding behind his nom de blog. He no longer has to fear Saddam or fear his father's wrath over his lifestyle (though, of course, that doesn't mean there aren't other forces to fear in Iraq). Still, revealing himself is the only way to stop people assuming who he is and what he thinks -- and assuming the worst to fit this agenda or that.
6. I agree with those who say he is to glibly critical of the American effort. You can't say that you're against Saddam and want him out and then try to easily slough off the sacrifice and work of those who did it for you. Yes, I'd say he's ungrateful.
7. On the other hand, I agree with those who agree with Salam that the American postwar effort has problems. The first problem, in my mind, is that the expectations were set too high. Of course, things can't be all fixed up and democratized in two months! What a ridiculous presumption! But then again, we'd be in better shape if we showered the people of Iraq with the fruits of capitalism and democracy right now; it would only pay dividends in the region. So we're not doing the best we can do. And that's not an anti-American position.
8. Finally, as I've been saying again and again, what we need in Iraq now -- what Iraq needs -- is more voices, more viewpoints. We need Iraqi weblogs written by individuals who are now free to say what they think, individuals of all sides. That is how to plant and water a democracy.free donlowd film sex

The reason Salam Pax rose to fame is because he was the only one there doing what he was doing. The reason he is becoming such a matchstick now is that he is still the only one doing what he is doing.
I urge him to find others to join him online; that will show that he is generous with his knowledge and open to a free future and willing to contribute his expertise to help build it.
So that's what I think, if you give a camel's ass.free donlowd film sex

: UPDATE: I see that Glenn Reynolds left a wise comment on the topic at a post below. So you don't have to go digging, here's what he said:

I didn't find Salam's post especially over-the-top. And I think he's very honest, and not at all over-the-top, in saying that things are better, but he doesn't know how they're going to turn out, and he's angry about some stuff that's going on.
From here it's easy to say that of course there will be problems. And of course there will. But living with them is something else.
I've said all along that I didn't think Salam was an agent of influence -- though of course I couldn't know -- because he didn't seem to do a very good job of pushing a useful ideological line for, well, anybody. His dad's obviously an even bigger shot than we thought. Now he seems to be doing well in the occupation, and if Salam were a sellout, the obvious move for him would be to be singing the praises of America all the time now, and explaining his earlier negative posts as self-protection under Saddam. He's not doing that. That suggests that -- while he may be wrong about stuff, of course -- he's honest.
As for the intemperate response to email -- hey, he's just getting the loads of crap that we bloggers out in the non-war-struck world have had a chance to adjust to gradually. God knows what I would have said if I had suddenly opened my mailbox to find today's typical collection of love- and hatemail by the hundreds, with no buildup.
My advice to Salam: put up a Paypal button. One person who sends you fifty bucks makes up for a lot of assholes who call you names.
free donlowd film sex

Gehypt
: Netzeitung, the German online newspaper, interviews Thomas Burg, the organizer of the BlogTalk conference in Vienna, and we see this wonderful exchange (don't worry: you don't have to speak German to enjoy the joke):

Netzeitung: Werden Weblogs zu sehr gehypt?
Burg: Nein, ich denke zu wenig.
Translation:
Netzeitung: Are weblogs over-hyped?
Burg: No, too little, I think.
Don't you love it: Gehypt. What a great verb for our age. It's the Gawker of verbs. I was with a bunch of people last night and told them about it and they all started using it, as in: Madonna's too gehypt.
free donlowd film sex

Salam updates
: Note that Salam is back today with a new post and, boy, is he pissed.
He'd better get used to controversy -- especially now that he's writing for the Guardian.free donlowd film sex

: Nick Denton is offering to help Salam get a book published. I emailed him sometime ago also offering help. I suspect he doesn't need it. He's media-savvy and he got himself a Guardian gig. I'll just bet the movie negotiations are going on right now. free donlowd film sex

: Says Ken Layne:

There's no doubt Salam is a guy who lived pretty well in part because his family wasn't a vocal enemy of the regime. But dead guys post no blogs.
free donlowd film sex

I'm suffering from blog elbow
elbow.jpg: Just got back from the doctor; annual physical-humiliation day. One of my complaints is a sore spot in my right arm; it limits my movement; it can be very painful. (And, yes, I'm a hypochondriac and a complainer.) Doc said it's tendonitis.
I couldn't think of what caused it until I returned to the office and talked to my real doctor, Coach Hauck, who explained that tendonitis comes from repetitive activity. So here's what came out:
(1) I've been blogging a lot more during the war. (So you could call it my war injury.)
(2) I've been blogging from the couch, now that I have wi-fi. (So you could call it wi-fi elbow.)
But you put the two together and it starts to make sense: I'm holding my right arm in a certain angle because the laptop is on the lap and my lap is on the couch and I'm holding it in that position more than I would if I were merely typing because I'm doing a lot of trackpad mouse-moving and a lot of clicking: I'm blogging.
Thus, I suffer from blog elbow.
I'm calling the New England Journal of Medicine.free donlowd film sex

: Update: Glenn Reynolds is in worse shape than I am.
We're going to found the Home for Old Bloggers.free donlowd film sex

Salam joins the Guardian
: The Guardian's story on Salam Pax has run at last -- and with it the announcement that starting next week, Salam will write a fortnightly column called the Baghdad Blog for the Guardian (under what byline, we wonder?).
The story says surprisingly little, tells us nothing new, does not dig into Salam's stories or opinions, and does not identify him (only saying that Salam is his real first name). free donlowd film sex

There is a shocking edit in the story. The Guardian quotes the story of the Guardian interview from Salam's own blog but deletes choice words -- as if we're not going to look at the blog and find this dubious edit.

Blog version:
A day before that I sold my soul to the devil. I talked to Rory from the Guardian.
Look, he paid for a great lunch in a place which had air-conditioning and lots of people from foreign. It was fun talking to him but when Raed saw me after “the talk” he said I looked like someone had violated me. So there is a bit of guilt. But that was washed away with the cool air-conditioning. Yeah, I am cheap like that. I would sell my parents for a nice bottle of wine.free donlowd film sex

Guardian version:
A day before that I talked to Rory from the Guardian. He paid for a great lunch in a place which had air-conditioning and lots of people from foreign.

What the hell?free donlowd film sex
May 29, 2003

How to blog
: Heiko Hebig points us to a super primer on how to blog using Movable Type, out of Tokyo. So when you are asked, you now have an answer...free donlowd film sex

Tools
: 20six, the impressive weblog tool that started in Germany and then started moving west is now in Britain, which means it's now in English.
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Chance, the blogger
: I'm struck by all the quoting and dissection and analysis and argument over one young man who suddenly has the ear of media big and small just because he was at the wrong place, Baghdad, at the wrong time, in a war, and he had the connections that let him start a weblog and speak to the world.
But reading more of Mark S. Meadows' interview with Salam Pax at Tekka (someone put a link to this part in the comments), I'm struck by the rhetorical meandering in unsuccessful search for a point:

I asked him, "What are the Americans pushing for?"
"Bigger markets. Politics. Soft Drinks. Making sure they will be successful -- financially successful. How could one nation have such influence on the whole world? These days you have to please the USA to make sure your country succeeds. I don't know… I don't know what they are pushing for. But they've been pushing since before the Cold War. And now these things are starting to spring back. Consider Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia… and now Iraq again. These things are backfiring. Iraq and Iran went crazy: the wars and the ideologies. The media do this to a large degree, and the media will backfire too. "The Global Village" … what stupid words. There is an implication of equality in this idea of "Village" but there is no equality. None."
Huh? Try parsing that paragraph and then please translate it into English. It's jibberish.
The problem is not that he said it, but that we asked to hear it. free donlowd film sex

And now read this (my emphasis):

I ask Salam, "How do you deal with something like this -- with cultural imperialism?
"Well, you need to know how to manipulate the media. Media is an American tool now. The Americans think that they are the only people making television shows and music and news. But more and more people are learning how to use these tools. Then suddenly these people use your tools against you. We are now learning how to get what we want to say on your TVs. If Iraq is not on the TV we are out of the American consciousness. Consider Afghanistan: if it's not on the TV, then let it rot. Osama bin Laden is an expert at this. He drops every now and then just a little note, just a few phrases, to al-Jazeera or whoever. Just to let you know he's still there...."
Well, he's making much more sense here because he's talking about a subject he knows obviously quite well: manipulating the media. free donlowd film sex

I've been wondering why he's really keeping his identity secret and I'm coming to believe that it is a very cagey media strategy, the essence of his media manipulation. It gives him control of his spotlight.free donlowd film sex

Before you start accusing me of either attacking Salam Pax or buying his line, save your keystrokes. Nor am I attacking him for manipulating media; it's your right to try to manipulate the media about you. And I'll still say I was glad to have his voice from Baghdad before and after the war; better his voice than none.
No, I'm simply marveling at this media moment.
What made Salam Pax interesting was his place and time. But that time has passed. And yet we keep asking questions and listening to answers because he remains mysterious and because he's still the only game in town. It's morning-show syndrome. We'll keep asking until we get tired of him or until we hear new voices. free donlowd film sex

New York, on drugs
: The smoking ban spreading slowly across the globe is having an odd impact in Holland:

EUROPE’S Mecca for marijuana users has suffered a sobering shock. Under a new ban on smoking in public places, the infamous Dutch coffee shops can still sell joints, but their customers will have to go outside to smoke them.
The Netherlands’ new national health guidelines were aimed at second-hand smoke from tobacco, not marijuana. Due to take effect next January, they are fiercely contested by Dutch restaurateurs and bar owners. But they are also threatening to drive a stake into the heart of the liberal Dutch drugs policy.
Yes, we know the affect of that second-hand smoke.
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At last
: It took Muslims killing Muslims to bring earnest condemnation and discussion of suicide bombing but at least it is happening. See this at Alt.Muslim:

But the power that suicide bombing brings with it is intoxicating, and as recent attacks in Morocco, Chechnya, and Saudi Arabia have shown, the line between civilian and combatant, Muslim and non-Muslim, has been all but obliterated. (Even Muslims celebrating the Prophet's birthday in Chechnya found themselves a target.) Now that the carnage of suicide bombing is claiming more Muslim than Western lives, scholars who were silent about (or even approved of) the use of suicide attacks are trying to put the genie back in the bottle. "Bin Laden's war is not with the US," said Abdulmuhsin Akkas, a member of the advisory Shura Council. "It is against the Muslims and the Arabs. Bin Laden's form of Islam is a violent way of life, and the Riyadh bombings showed us that." Open debates about Wahabbi schools that "breed extremists" appeared in the Arab press. Even jailed leaders of the Egyptian Al-Gamaa al-Islamiyya (Muslim Brotherhood) called the recent terror attacks "religious mistakes." But even a march of hundreds of thousands of Muslims against suicide bombing might not be enough to halt the bloodshed, as the tactic is spreading to new countries, genders, and targets.
Yes, just how will the genie be put back in the bottle? Can it be?
Katie Couris asked former Israeli PM Ehud Barak this morning whether suicide bombing will end even after peace with Palestine; there's no answer to that, not yet.
It is an evil coming out of the Muslim world today and it can be stopped only by widespread condemnation of the act and its supporters (including, I will repeat, Yasser Arafat). They must be repudiated the way a war criminal is.
Germany was deNazified. Iraq is being deBaathed. The Muslim world must be de-terrorized.free donlowd film sex

: See this, too:

Al-Azhar, the highest authority in Sunni Islam, warned Monday that Muslim rage does not justify suicide bombings, such as recent deadly ones in Riyadh and Casablanca.
"These savage and blind attacks have terrified the whole Muslim world ... and are in clear violation of many Islamic principles," Al-Azhar's theological research committee chaired by the institution's top cleric, Sheikh Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi, said in a statement.
"Taking Muslims' sentiments of frustration and injustice in other parts of the world" to justify attacks "is erroneous," the committee said.
It's a start.free donlowd film sex

Blogopoly
: Aaron Brown reports it first: FCC to restrict blog ownership.free donlowd film sex

Salam Pax interviews
: I can't find the comment that tipped me off to this but Boar talked to Salam Pax in Baghdad and here's his take:

actually, its not just that he's kind; as his father told me, salam has been doing this at risk of his entire family. his dad didn't find out about what salam was up to and if, prior to the regime's fall, the wrong someone had found out, heads would have rolled.
this is part of the reason salam's a good man; his freedom means something to him. he and i had a chance to talk in the middle of the mobile media empire named The Sheraton Hotel, Baghdad. we were surrounded by the mass media neither of us trusted. it was a good talk. Salam, like Ghaith, is smart, alert, and watching the distant waters of the US for ripples that will, when they break on the borders of iraq, bring problems. and he's smart enough to be ready for it. and smarter, still, to know how to use this energy to his own benefit.
salam unpacked for me the finer points of using media against imperialism, of what it means to speak iraqi arabic these days, and how important it is that americans take the time to familiarize themselves with cultures that aint theirs (noting that its even more important for non-americans to famliarize themselves with Amerika..)....
: Tekka, an online magazine, also says it has an interview. But you'll have to pay $50 to see it. free donlowd film sex

: Salam Pax said on his blog that he did an interview with the Guardian. Haven't seen it yet. Wonder why.free donlowd film sex

May 28, 2003

Blah-blah-blog
: Chuck Olsen, video Boswell to the bloggers, puts up a long snippet from our time together (gawd, I do go on) about blogs, journalism, and democracy. free donlowd film sex

Moving day
: Jim Treacher moved, into a much nicer house. I saw Puce helping him haul boxes.free donlowd film sex

Oh, Insty? Insty? Where are you, Insty?
: Glenn Reynolds isn't quite back up yet. The electricians are still working on his server. I envision his server being as big as a 1930s locomotive and they have to get up a big head of steam before he's back. But he will be back, chugging down the track...free donlowd film sex

: Glenn wonders how many were reading his backup. Well, in a matter of hours, it got to #16 on Blogdex.free donlowd film sex

Outting God
: Just as my servers went down this morning, I found this story that I couldn't blog. Damn, that hurt:

JESUS was gay – the University of Queensland gave $51,000 of public money to a PhD student to reach that conclusion.
Melbourne-based Rollan McCleary, who will today be awarded his doctorate, earned $17,000 a year to work on his three-year thesis on homosexual spirituality.
As well as his revelation about Christ, Dr McCleary has also reached the conclusion that three – or possibly four – of Jesus's chosen disciples were also gay....
Dr McCleary also believes that gay people find it easier to be Christian. "You don't have to be gay to be Christian, but it would be easier," he said.
Gay people, he said, were "looking for the ecstatic", sometimes in harmful ways, but were more inclined to be visionary and open to the transcendent.
He said Jesus's astrological chart, clues in the scriptures to which the churches had been blind and accurate biblical translations had all played a part in his conclusions. "The starting point is the matter of John, who always referred to himself as Jesus's beloved disciple," Dr McCleary said....
Hooboy.free donlowd film sex

: I thought Australia was the land of tough he-men. First they have Jesus singing show tunes (starting with Jesus Christ, Superstar, of course). And now we have this from Down Under: Limp-spined sports stars who, their coach fears, will off themselves if they're off the team:

THE Matthew Capuano sacking affair took extraordinary twists yesterday when Richmond offered the ruckman a lifeline and Mick Malthouse suggested mid-season axings could lead to suicide....
Collingwood coach Malthouse warned the public humiliation could leave players emotionally traumatised.
"We do not want to be one of the sports who has the first player dropping off a bridge or swinging from a bridge," Malthouse said.
Jeeesh.free donlowd film sex

Feels so good when it stops hurting
: I share the same host as Instapundit and we've both been down today as our host suffered a fire alarm that shut down the power.
Weird feeling: I saw things today I wanted to blog but couldn't.
I was blogagged.free donlowd film sex

: If anybody sent me email today -- to offer me great riches -- I probably did not and will not get it. Please resend.free donlowd film sex

The Dowd diss
: Even Gawker is piling on Maureen Dowd:

I find Dowd's column encouraging on some level because if Maureen Dowd can have a column, anyone can have a column. But I can't read it without desperately wishing I could have those seconds of my life back immediately afterward.
dowd_new.jpgbrown.jpg: By the way, were Maureen Dowd and Blair Brown separated at birth... or do they just share the same '80s hairdresser.... or will Brown play Dowd in the movie of the Times? (And that's your cue, bloggers: cast the Times movie now. free donlowd film sex

Iran
: Wired.com covers the BlogTalk conference and comes away with the story of Iranian bloggers.free donlowd film sex

Q&A
: Q: Why do you blog?
Der Schockwellenreiter: Because I live.free donlowd film sex

May 27, 2003

You want to talk media bias?
: Dateline: Baghdad:

The director-general of the controversial Arab satellite television, Al Jazeera, has been sacked, a spokesman for the channel has confirmed.
His dismissal follows allegations he worked with Saddam Hussein's intelligence services.

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Dialogue
: Pedram replies to my post below replying to his post about Iran, Iraq, Israel, and America. See also the spirited comments in both places.
I won't respond to Pedram's response; it's late and after a heated charity trustees meeting, my brain is done to a crisp.
But I will make one important point and note it well:free donlowd film sex

Here is a discussion about the hottest hotbed of issues on earth: the Middle East. It comes from an Iranian and an American -- two peoples who have not, let's be honest, trusted each other for decades. The discussion is passionate and pointed and honest.
Yet the discussion is also almost entirely respectful and civilized.
That beats what you'd hear on the street here or there, or on editorial pages across the world, or in the seats of power, or in the U.N. And -- pardon me for turning this into another damned self-referential blog about blogging -- but I think this is to the credit of weblogs as an medium. Weblogs are interactive -- moreso by far than print or broadcast -- but in a more civilized way than, say, forums and that's because we all own and care for our little corners of this world. I have my little plot of media land and I ask you to respect it as you ask me to respect yours. And so what could turn into a flame war -- or, in the real world, a real war -- instead becomes an effort to find some understanding or at least education.
No, weblogs are not going to bring us world peace and harmony. You can put away your tapes of It's a Small, Small World and the Coke song.
But weblogs across the world can create bridges and in this world, that's something.
And that -- to continue my neverending plug -- is why I want to see weblogs in Iraq, so they, too, can build bridges.free donlowd film sex

A happy ending
: Will at A Minute Longer reports from a mission to pick up truckloads of mail for our soldiers in Doha. The story has two happy endings -- first, getting past a bureacratic lieutenant and then:

The happy ending came on the drive home. Matt was riding shotgun, and a civilian SUV pulls up alongside us with a female driver and 5 girls, the oldest one around 12 and the youngest maybe 6. Matt is an incorrigible flirt, and those little girls didn’t mind waving and pointing and giggling when he started making funny faces and goofing off. It was the first time I’ve seen anyone local to this place smile, and the fact that the mom driving the SUV slowed down so the kids could play along was a good sign. Maybe the next generation won’t grow up hating Americans, thinking that we’re devils and warmongers. Maybe the next generation will remember that we’ve all got little kids in us, and we’re just looking for a reason to goof-off and play. That the real reason we came over here was so that little kids can be little kids, and grown ups can let their kids grow up safe.
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Women in Iran
: Steppenwolf, an Iranian blogger, gives just three examples of the issues facing women in Iran today.free donlowd film sex

: Meanwhile, in Pakistan, the Times of London reports:

RELIGIOUS police in part of Pakistan have been granted authority to enforce harsh Islamic laws that have been modelled on those imposed by the Taleban in Afghanistan.
Since a United States-led coalition toppled the Taleban regime, thousands of Islamic fundamentalists have crossed the Afghan border to find refuge in North West Frontier Province in Pakistan.The area, which is under the control of the Islamic alliance, has now begun to look more like Afghanistan under the Taleban than a part of Pakistan.
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The Internet returns to Iraq
: Glenn Reynolds points me to this story about efforts to bring the Internet back to Iraq. Next: Weblogs, lots and lots of weblogs.free donlowd film sex

Wieners
: David Weinberger got to Vienna and got the sillies. free donlowd film sex

The terrorists are coming! The terrorists are coming!
: Mike Wendland reports today on Priceline founder Jay Walker's brain dingleberry to put web cams on power plants and other criticial facilities so nosy web watchers can keep an eye out for evil masked men approaching to blow them up. Sign up here.
But...
How can you tell on a crappy web cam that somebody's suspicious or merely dressed like a union worker?
And by the time you see this suspicious person and notify somebody, isn't the plant probably already a smoking pile or rubble?
And if the bad guy can find the cam, can't he put bubblegum in the lense or hack it to show old episodes of Gilligan's Island?
And won't authorities be besieged by calls from crackpots like Gladys Kravitz spying on Elizabeth Montgomery? (That's a Bewitched reference, my children.)
This sounds like a remake of the remake of The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! free donlowd film sex

The hawks on the net go bomb, bomb, bomb
bomb, bomb, bomb
bomb, bomb, bomb.
The hawks on the net ask what is next?
Let's bomb Ira'an
: That's my contribution to the new Open Brackets song:

The Lefties on the web go yikes, yikes, yikes,
what the f++k;
guilt, guilt, guilt.
The Lefties on the web go yikes, yikes, yikes,
all through the strife.free donlowd film sex

The browsers on the web say upgrade me,
flash, pop, crash,
404.
The browsers on the web say upgrade me,
Every other day.

And a contribution from a reader there:
The blogs on the web go me, me, me,
My witty remarks,
and my views on tee vee.
The blogs on the web go me, me, me,
the sucking you hear is their vacuum.
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A camera, a blog, and a guy with a story to tell
: See what a guy with a camera can do when he has a web page (and no paper to pay for): Michael Totten gives us a tour of premodern, modern, and postmodern Portland architecture, including the ugliest building he's ever seen (which means he hasn't seen Jersey City).free donlowd film sex

All the news that's fit to print about all the news that's fit to print
: Having someone else do your reporting for you -- which is how Rick Bragg wrote a story from a Florida town without spending much time there -- is hardly a new or scandalous behavior in the news biz.
Every reporter you see on TV has a producer doing legwork aplenty -- and often even conducting the interviews (with the TV star edited in later).
The newsmagazines have armies of correspondents getting the facts for the stories written in New York (and whenever an editor wants to know something that's not there, they put a blank in the story -- a "TK" -- that is filled in by a researcher).
What Rick Bragg did was no cause for suspension or the sliming of his career. Says Bragg: "Those things are common at the paper. Most national correspondents will tell you they rely on stringers and researchers and interns and clerks and news assistants." And not just at the Times but everywhere in the business.free donlowd film sex

: If there's justice or taste in the publishing business (you're welcome for the straight line) no one will buy the book written by stinking liar Jayson Blair. It will have absolutely no credibility. But Times-haters will buy it and quote it and so someone will publish it.
Read Howard Kurtz' weekend story about the book proposal to see just how far up the ass a human head can go.

Blair says of Malvo, the alleged triggerman in some of the Washington-area sniper murders last fall: "The moment I began to see parallels between his life and mine was the moment things began falling apart." He writes of "how the frustrations of black men in this world can explode, crescendo into a huge rage that can manifest itself in some odd and sometimes unclear ways."
In the proposal, which was read to The Washington Post by a source not connected to Blair, the 27-year-old admits that he "really screwed up," "distorted the truth" and "embarrassed the New York Times and myself." But the dominant motif is one of anger -- hurling unsubstantiated charges of racism at the paper and promising to reveal the Times's "darkest secrets," which he says, without offering evidence, involve drug parties and one editor's affair with an intern.
Blair casts his story as one of "a young black man" told he would never succeed "by everyone from his white second-grade teacher to his editor at the Times, who rose from the fields and got a place in the master's house and then burned it down the only way he knew how."
He doesn't just play the race card. He plays the race casino. So black rage is an excuse for lying, cheating, sliming, and sleazing (and by extension to Malvo: murder)? No, there's no excuse for what he did. None.free donlowd film sex

: UPDATE: Late-breaking opinions..... Reading my comments on this post, I have a few responses..... I'm not saying that it's right not to credit stringer and other lowly souls. I'm saying that it is done everywhere and thus it's wrong to treat Bragg as if it is a sudden sin he just invented. It's not. It's standard practice. Whether or not it should be standard practice is an entirely different argument. But it's one in which Bragg should not be caught in the middle.... I need a copy editor to fix that last sentence..... Gawd, I miss writing with dots..... Stop me.....free donlowd film sex

: And on bylines: As I was saying to Elizabeth Spiers at lunch today... Andnow that she's a hot media property, that's quality name-dropping... Anyway, as I was saying today and now I'm obnoxiously quoting myself.... My own mother used to tell me about stories she'd just read in the Chicago Tribune and I used to have to say, "Yeah, Ma, I know, I wrote that." Reporters' own mothers don't notice their bylines. Thus, nobody else in the world could possibly give a rat's rump about Rick Bragg's byline....free donlowd film sex

May 26, 2003

Mattter, meet antimatter
: Heiko Hebig meets Haiko Hebig. free donlowd film sex

Germans, military snobs; Ukranians, military allies
: The Ukraine has agreed to send troops to Iraq to work with Polish forces there -- something Germany refused to do. free donlowd film sex

Compare and contrast
: The draft European Union Constitution is out. Compare:


: E.U. Constitution: Reflecting the will of the citizens and States of Europe to build a common future, this Constitution establishes the European Union, on which the Member States confer competences to attain objectives they have in common. The Union shall coordinate the policies by which the Member States aim to achieve these objectives, and shall exercise in the Community way the competences they confer on it. The Union shall be open to all European States which respect its values and are committed to promoting them together.
: U.S. Constitution: We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
Did the European version lose something in the translation from the French?free donlowd film sex

: I find it telling that the Constitution "respects and does not prejudice the status under national law of churches and religious associations or communities in the Member States." Why single out "churches?" Because there are not many synagogues left? Because they wish mosques would go away? free donlowd film sex

: Note that the Constitution has a sex quota (what about race and religion?): "Each Member State shall submit a list of three persons, of whom at least one must be a woman, whom it considers qualified to be a European Commissioner."free donlowd film sex

: The EU is going to have its own foreign minister. So what happens -- as happened lately -- when the nations disagree? Sounds like a mess. In any organization, somebody has to be in charge or no one is in charge. So who is it?

Member States shall consult one another within the Council and the European Council on any foreign and security policy issue which is of general interest in order to determine a common approach. Before undertaking any action on the international scene or any commitment which could affect the Union's interests, each Member State shall consult the others within the Council or the European Council. Member States shall ensure, through the convergence of their actions, that the Union is able to assert its interests and values on the
international scene. Member States shall show mutual solidarity.
Sounds as if they'll never decide anything. How convenient.free donlowd film sex

: "The Union and its Member States shall act jointly in a spirit of solidarity if a Member State is the victim of terrorist attack or natural or man-made disaster."
Bin Laden will test that.free donlowd film sex

: I'll be eager to read their bill of rights vs. ours when it's released.free donlowd film sex

Safe and sober
: Saudi authorities nab 60 kilos of TNT, 50,000 pieces of ammunition... and 64 barrels of booze. Given the pickle you're in, my brothers, I'd consider moving the alcohol police over to TNT duty.free donlowd film sex

DNC GPA
: Martin Devon at Patio Pundit grades the Presidential candidates' sites. free donlowd film sex

Iraq, Iran, Israel
: During the imprisonment of Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi, I linked frequently to Pedram Moallemian at Eyranian because he started the petition to free Motallebi (he also started a petition to "stop the hate" when he saw Nazi references on some Persian weblogs). He is one of a now-large group of Iranian bloggers I read daily and hope to get to know under the Tony Pierce dictum (below).
Lately when I've read and linked to Pedram's blog I've had a twinge of difficulty as he, more and more, makes anti-Israeli asides. On one level, of course, I accept that; everyone's entitled to an opinion, including opinions critical of Israel.
But two things have troubled me.
Today, Pedram takes me to task as a "member of the far right end of the political spectrum" (ha!) because I attack Yasser Arafat over his halfway condemnation -- and thus, halfway endorsement -- of suicide bombers. Arafat has murdered civilians and used his own people -- his own youth, for God's sake -- as weapons, as human bombs. Everyone's entitled to an opinion, Pedram, and mine is that Arafat is slime.
More often, Pedram attributes U.S. actions regarding Iraq -- and more to his point, regarding Iran today -- to the work of "the pro-Israeli group in Washington DC" and "hard-line American Jews."
Pedram, not everything is about Israel. Not everything is about the U.S. What this is about, in the end, is local issues of freedom and human rights and democracy and responsibility.
As for Iraq: No matter how and why we got there, no one can regret the disposal of Saddam Hussein's tyranny. That was vital for Iraqis, not Americans, not Israelis, but Iraqis.
As for Iran: I don't want to see us inserting ourselves into Iran, considering our troubled history there. But you want to see change, there, Pedram, for you you are involved with opposition groups. There is ample reason for change. And it is best if it occurs from within. This is not Israel's issue. I hope it does not become America's issue. It is Iran's issue.
I say all this in an effort to keep the dialogue going here in the Blogosphere. I've been excited to see bridges being built from person to person, country to country, culture to culture and I don't want to see them blocked and bombed through glib assumption and accusation. We're going to disagree; in fact, disagreeing is the best thing we can do so long as we keep on talking. So I'll keep on disagreeing with Pedram and keep on linking to him. free donlowd film sex

May 25, 2003

Changing the world
: With a paragraph's worth of clarity (next to a picture of a smart and pretty young women who has a weblog) Tony Pierce says it all:

this is the first time in mankind that people from all over the world, completely different people, can tell each other what its like to live where they live and do the things that they do.
why hold back?
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Dateline
: NEW YORK -- Well, actually, New Jersey, but who'll notice? You can't fire me! It's only a blog. Only I can fire me.
Anyway, following up on the latest NY Times scandal, the dateline caper, in which a prize-winning reporter gets sent to detention for not staying long enough at the place from which he dateslines his story...
I know of at least one big newspaper in this country where datelines are meaningless: Rewritemen took the wires and whatever else was handy and wrote stories under datelines as well as their bylines without ever leaving the desk. I was a bit surprised when I first saw this, but it was SOP.free donlowd film sex

Curves
: Gail Armstrong's verse on the seven ages of breasts.free donlowd film sex

My avatar can beat up your avatar
: From MTV Europe comes a wonderfully stupid bit of Flash: Digital Protest, in which you can launch a stupid protest and people's avatars will join you on the picket line with their stupid signs. Among the causes: Bring back the 80s... Bush sux... Burn the SUVs... Computers is bad... Hate McDonalds... No more frozen pizza!... Smash capitalism!... free donlowd film sex

Homeland security comes home
: Yale Law Professor Jack Balkin on the aftermath of the law-school bombing:

...a group of agents from the FBI and ATF came to my house Thursday evening. This was my second interview of the day. They were utterly professional and polite. They did their jobs incredibly well. But the first words out of their mouths threw me for a loop.
"Professor, we'd like to ask you about some of your writings....."
For a second, just for a second, I thought: "Oh my God, John Ashcroft has finally sent them to round me up for all those anti-Bush op-eds I've written."
And sure enough, one of the agents put a folder on the table in front of me containing a copy of all my recent op-eds, downloaded from the Internet and neatly printed out.
It quickly became clear what was going on. They wanted to know if anything I had written might have enraged someone enough that the person might consider taking his or her frustrations out on the Law School. They asked me which of my recent op-eds had gotten the most virulent responses. They didn't seem to know about my blog, or indeed, about blogs in general (although perhaps they were just playing possum). I explained what a blog is and how it changes the audience for political writing, how the Internet changes the group of people who can react to what you are saying. They asked for an example, and I mentioned how one of my op-eds criticizing Bush had been picked up by the conservative site NewsMax and distributed to their readers by e-mail and on the Web as part of a special "Insider's Report." The idea, apparently, was to stoke up some resentment at what NewsMax called the "most demonic form" of the liberal academy, an "Elitist Yale Law Professor."
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Losers
: A former adviser to former German Chancellor Helmut Kohl -- getting ready for the next campaign, clearly -- says Germany blew it:

Despite the announcement of plans to create a European army along with France, Belgium, and Luxembourg, Germany is less relevant in both European and world politics than it was before the Iraq war. Repairing the damage will not be easy. Every part of Germany's international position has been wounded by the Iraq war.

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Now here's a punchline waiting for a joke
: From ArabNews:

PR Drive Planned to Counter Smear Campaign
RIYADH, 25 May 2003 — The Saudi Committee for the Development of International Trade (CIT) plans to invite delegations from Europe, the Far East and North America as part of a drive to counter negative reporting on Saudi Arabia and provide first-hand experience of life in the Kingdom to opinion-makers abroad....
Addressing concerns among the delegates about girls’ education, Dr. Fahad said that 52 percent of students enrolled for public education are girls.
Mr. Bahlaiwa said the delegates visited the Shoura Council, a hospital, a school and the industrial township to enable them to correct their perceptions about the Kingdom. During their visit, the Saudis were able to address their concerns relating to women’s education, living in an Islamic environment, and overcoming obstacles in the development of Saudi-British relations.
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Yes, God is
: The best single gag in Bruce, Almighty: God's hat with a familiar logo: Yes, He is a Yankees fan.free donlowd film sex

On the road again...
: So the Israeli Parliament approves the road map, becoming the first Israeli government to utter the secret words Palestinian right to statehood.
This is good news, right? Even though we've been on this road before, via Oslo and Camp David. Sometime, there has to be good news. The world is due.free donlowd film sex

: Israpundit says...free donlowd film sex

Soloist needs choir
: Salam Pax has a new post up and I have one thing to say about it: We need more weblogs -- that is, more voices, more viewpoints -- coming from Iraq.free donlowd film sex

Strap it on, Yasser
: The way I read this: Yasser Arafat both endorses suicide bombers (or as al-Jazeera and I prefer to call them, human bombs) and supervises them.
He issues a statement telling them to try not to kill women and children.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has urged would-be suicide bombers not to kill Israeli civilians, saying it was "inadmissible to kill a child or a woman in a restaurant", an Arabic newspaper reported on Sunday....
In what he described as a message to "young people ready to blow themselves up", Arafat was quoted as repeating his longheld stand that "we oppose violence against Palestinian and Israeli civilians".
He then specified what he meant by civilians.
"The struggle against occupation is legitimate and I mean 'soldiers of the occupation'. It is inadmissible to kill a child or a woman in a restaurant or a cafe," he added.
Show us how it's done, Yasser: Blow yourself up.free donlowd film sex
May 24, 2003

New York justice
: The Soho House -- the new club/restaurant/hotel/spa imported from London that has a certain clique in New York all atwitter -- has rules:

2. Should a member infringe the rules of Soho House New York or make him or herself obnoxious to another member or be considered guilty of misconduct he or she may be required to furnish an explanation to the disciplinary sub-committee.
Oh, the possibilities are rich. Imagine this:
TO: Disciplinary Sub-committee, Soho House
FROM: Tina Brown, member
RE: Obnoxious Gawker person
Please be advised that Elizabeth Spiers said means things about me on that thing she calls a blog. Off with her head!
Or this:
TO: Disciplinary Sub-committee, Soho House
FROM: Anna Wintour, member
RE: Obnoxious Gawker person
Please be advised to Elizabeth Spiers tried to talk to me on the elevator. No elevator for her!
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So that's where he went
: Tim Blair is roasting fools on a new barbie. free donlowd film sex

BlogTalk
: Henry Copeland's BlogTalk presentation is up.
: Heiko (the one who can't read maps) has more pictures.free donlowd film sex

Cheeselovers unite!
: The Frankfurter Allegemeine Zeitung reports that the Germans now trust France more -- far more -- than America:

A new public opinion survey shows that Germans now overwhelmingly see France as their country's most important and reliable ally, with the United States having declined significantly in importance.
The survey, prepared by the Allensbach Institute of Public Opinion Research for the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, found that 49 percent of Germans said France was their country's most important partner, compared to 17 percent for the United States.
...only 38 percent of the respondents said their country could “rely“ on the United States. Asked if France was reliable, 62 percent said yes.
This is, of course, a treasure trove of punchlines: Yes, Germany can rely on France not to fight when it invades.... Yes, Germany can rely on France to piss on America, too...
But this also clearly reveals a big change in post-cold-war dynamics. Note this, too, from the FAZ: :
German Defense Minister Peter Struck has announced the closure of nine military bases and made it clear that the future of the German armed forces lies in operations abroad, not territorial defense.
Germany and France now have no threats. They are surrounded by civilized countries that are members of their club. They don't need us. Well, they don't think they need us....free donlowd film sex
May 23, 2003

Liberal talk radio: I'm ready
: Thom Hartman reports at Alternet that liberal talk radio is coming from... drum roll, please... Clear Channel. Of course, Alternet smells a conspiracy here: Radio loosens up for the left only after media consolidation (read: deregulation) goes forward on June 2.
Nevermind that: If Clear Channel is looking for new voices (not old saps and sods like Phil Donahue), I'll bet they could find fresh talent right here among blogs.
And I'll stand in front of the line: A sensible liberal, not afraid to talk tough, not afraid to offend those who deserve offense, not afraid to support a war, even.
And I talk fast.free donlowd film sex

Troubled Times
: Chris Hedges, the NY Times reporter and antiwar-book author who gave the booed-out commencement speech at Rockford College, tells a radio interviewer that the Times is looking into his views:

Q: What has been the response of your newspaper, The New York Times?
A: Well, they're looking into whether I breached the protocol in terms of my very pointed statements about the Iraqi War. I mean, that's something that makes them uncomfortable. I don't think they have a problem with the book, because the book talks more generically about what war does to societies although it certainly does mention what it has done to us since 9/11. So that's something that they're looking at.
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Bloomberg would die...
: ...at the sight and smell of this Iranian teahouse. [via Eyeranian]free donlowd film sex

daybyday3.jpg
Cartoon mullahs
: I've been remiss not linking to Chris Muir's Day by Day, the great online cartoon strip; Glenn Reynolds touted it to me long ago. My bad.
Here's today's strip making proper hay of Iran's blog-fearing mullahs (thanks to Pejman).free donlowd film sex

: And while we're at it, I have not seen any updates on arrested Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi in sometime. Hoder or Pedram: Please give us the latest.
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SARS source?
: BWG reports that a Hong Kong scientist believes SARS may have come from the civet, an animal used for food and perfume in China.free donlowd film sex

We're in for a treat
: Longtime readers of mine will know that I'm a big fan of Rossi (just Rossi); I linked to all her pieces on 9.11; they all displayed strong voice and perspective and wisdom.
Rossi also writes about food and about her amazing life (Jewsweek ran a great piece about the time her parents dumped her on a Hasidic doorstep in hopes they could detangle this frizzy teen).
She has been writing her memoirs but has had a helluva time finding a publisher.
So now she's making the big mistake of following advice I gave here the other day and she's going to post her memoirs for us to read -- and this is the important part -- in hopes that a wise publisher will spot this new talent and great voice and decide to print it in old-fashioned paper for the world to read.
I'll tell you when Chapter 1 goes up. You will enjoy. free donlowd film sex

Dulling down
: Nick Denton adds perspective on l'affaire Blair:

Jayson Blair is an exception at the New York Times; his journalistic 'techniques' are standard practice among British hacks. And, if I have a complaint about the New York Times, it's not about accuracy; the newspaper's dull. Howell Raines was trying to jazz it up. Whether he stays or goes, his external critics and the inhouse reactionaries will be watching. The old, cautious Times used to be known as the Gray Lady. Welcome her back.
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Virtual Wien
: I can't be at BlogTalk but I can sure read about it. Dave Weinberger has a list of BlogTalk blogs. Heiko Hebig has posts from the scene and pictures aplenty. Der Schockwellenreiter postet (is that the Denglish form of the verb?) auf Deutsch. PapaScott survived the drive. Hoder wowed the crowd with the vitality of Iranian blogs (and by the way, anybody have design work for him?). Martin Roell posted reviews of his talk (he'll also be at the upcoming Boston weblog conference). Lilia Efimova blogs aplenty. Maria Milonis told the group about weblogs in Poland (where, interestingly, 60 percent are women), reports Oliver Wrede (who has more photos). Here's live blogging in English und auf Deutsch. More from Azeem Azhar. And Dan Gillmor's busy.free donlowd film sex

bloggingthis.jpg: All this needs Project Lafayette to bring it together in one place. free donlowd film sex

: Martin Roell:

Favourite Quote: "The majority of bloggers feel better after having posted." Der ganze Saal lacht.
The whole room laughed.free donlowd film sex

: And here's the T-shirt they should all be wearing, courtesy of Dienstraum. In fact, all of us should wear them all the time. I sat next to someone the other night who heard me whine when the words "off the record" were used. "You bloggers," she said, "I have to watch out for you." Right.free donlowd film sex

Salam Pax redux
:
I will confess to being a bit coy about what I think of the articles about Salam Pax and about Salam Pax himself now. I didn't want to get caught up in the detective game of who-knows-what-when-where-how-why. But because there's now a discussion on the issues in my comments, I need to say what I think: free donlowd film sex

David Warren and Bryan Preston have used the evidence at hand to paint a convincing picture of Salam Pax's life that is probably accurate. He clearly is a child of privilege -- and in Saddam's Iraq, privilege and its source present an imposing moral problem. His grandfather, father, and other relatives are apparently connected with Saddam and the Ba'athists. Salam lived with more resources and less fear than other Iraqis. He is cheeky now and was even before the war. He associates himself now with antiwar or anti-American groups and snipes at us on his weblog. free donlowd film sex

I don't quibble with any of that. What I do quibble with in Warren's and Preston's pieces -- but really more in all the weblog chatter about them -- are the conclusions people are coming to about Salam Pax without knowing his full circumstances or his full views and certainly without knowing the man. And by that, I mean conclusions pro or con.free donlowd film sex

I still value Salam Pax's weblog before -- and after -- the war. I view it in the context of the times and circumstances and now, the man. But I'm still glad to have it. free donlowd film sex

Put it this way: If, in World War II, you'd had the chance to read the contemporary diaries of a son of, say, Albert Speer -- without knowing who he was -- would you have read them? Of course. Would they likely have been fascinating and informative even in view of the time and circumstances and relations? Yes. Would he have had a viewpoint? Naturally. Would we have to take everything he says with a grain of salt the size of Utah? We'd be fools not to. But we would read it and even learn from it.free donlowd film sex

I do not discard the value of Salam Pax's weblog because of his circumstances. I might discard them if I knew he were a war criminal and pathological liar but I certainly don't know that. I do know he is a witness. Preston argues that he's an unreliable witness. But some people in my comments point out, quite rightly, that a witness is not necessarily a journalist. This witness brings with him a viewpoint and baggage aplenty. But most any witness in that time and place would do the same. A weblog from a Shiite or a Kurd or an Iranian revolutionary would have just as much baggage. It's a proper argument, I think, to say that now that the war is over, Salam Pax should reveal his circumstances so we better understand his viewpoint but because he is gay in a Muslim country, that would appear to give him cause for continued anonymity. Still, if I met him, I'd press him to come out in more than one way.free donlowd film sex

Nonetheless, we need to get used to the idea of getting information from contemporary witnesses who have a viewpoint. Thanks to weblogs (and moblogs and audblogs and vlogs and all our new tools for publishing and communication) we are likely to have more witnesses to big events -- not just reporters -- telling us what's happening from the scene. And that is wonderful. All we have to do is know how to judge what they are saying in the context of their times and circumstances. I think that's what Warren and Preston are really trying to say: Take this witness with a grain of salt and we still don't know how big a grain because we don't really know him.free donlowd film sex

I'll take this one step further: This is precisely why I have been pushing to get more weblogs out of Iraq, so we get more witnesses with more points of view (and yes, more baggage). It is only through the airing of all this, at long last, that we will be able to get anywhere near the truth. free donlowd film sex

May 22, 2003

Why us?
: Norway asks why it was singled out in a screed from bin Laden's boy. free donlowd film sex

Cannibals v. pygmies
: When first I saw this headline in the Times of London, I thought it could not be real: "Pygmies beg UN for aid to save them from Congo cannibals"
But it is all too real and tragic:

“Pygmies are being pursued in the forests. People have been eaten. This is nothing more, nothing less, than a crime against humanity.”
More than 600,000 pygmies are believed to live in the Congo’s vast jungles, where they eke out a subsistence existence. Both sides in the war regard them as “subhuman”, and believe that their flesh can confer magical powers.
UN human rights activists reported this year that rebels had cooked and eaten at least a dozen pygmies.
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Salam Pax, analyzed again
: Bryan Preston of Junkyard Blog dissects Baghdad blogger Salam Pax for the National Review Online. He covers pretty much the same turf David Warren did a week ago. They both conclude that Salam Pax is a privileged son of Ba'athist power in Iraq. But then they both go one step too far judging the man and his motives before knowing fully his stance and his role. Not saying that's right, not saying that's wrong, only saying that's premature. Preston concludes:

As a supposed insider, his opinions carry weight with his numerous readers in a way that official Pentagon briefings or U.S. press reports do not. They shouldn't, because those opinions still flow from his old elite ways, and from a lifetime of steep indoctrination in party thinking. He is interested in reworking the truth about the Baath party both to assuage his own guilt and to get himself a leg up in the chaotic new Iraq. But that doesn't make him an official agent of influence. It just makes him a quirky, iconoclastic Iraqi whose life of irresponsible leisure has come to an abrupt end. His anti-American spin reflects an unconscionable irresponsibility and an effort to save himself, and truth just gets in the way of that. Thus, he is an untrustworthy witness to history.
: Update: Bryan Preston has more to say in my comments. free donlowd film sex

Worse than spam
: Somebody I know just bounced my email to him with one of those "spam protectors" that forces me to click on something to prove I'm OK before I can send email.
Confidential to you-know-who-you-are: Nope. Not doing it. Pain in the butt. I'm not going to encourage getting scores of bounced messages like that from everyone I do know. I'm not going encourage my email being blocked and delayed. Nope. Not doing it. I tried to tell you something useful. But now you won't know what it was.free donlowd film sex

Old fool
: Molly Ivins:

Much as I hate to interrupt what is apparently a deeply felt triumphalism on the American right, now that it's over, does anyone see any reason for our having invaded Iraq?
I realize that's what we all kept trying to figure out before the invasion, but don't you think it should at least be visible in hindsight? Good thing we won the war, because the peace sure looks like a quagmire.
If I had the energy, I'd pull out the fisking knife and start chopping. But I don't and this is just too patently stupid to be worth the effort. You want a reason, Molly? Try staring into a few mass graves, for a start.
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Out on top
: Gen. Tommy Franks is retiring.free donlowd film sex

Homelessness: the bright side
: I submit for your consideration Beer For The Homeless and Homeless Soccer (scroll down). free donlowd film sex

Free speech
: Lessig tries to muzzle Bennett on copyright.free donlowd film sex

Scorecard
: Ed Cone summarizes everything:

Mickey Kaus: Scrutineer is right that Instapundit is wrong that I am wrong; Jeff Jarvis is wrong that Instapundit is right that I am wrong.
Got it?free donlowd film sex

International relations
: Blogger and its new parent, Google, need to fix something: Hoder, who started the blogging revolution in Iran, reports that the new Blogger doesn't support unicode (which, I now learn, is a means of displaying no end of languages in browsers) and that means that the many Persian bloggers now using Blogspot can't. And that would silence most of them, for they are taking advantage of Blogspot because it is both free and anonymous. Hoder also reports that commenters in his Persian blog are paranoid about this, fearing that Blogger is trying to get rid of them. free donlowd film sex

: UPDATE: Good news from Blogger boss Ev in the comments:

We do support unicode. The new version is still in beta, so perhaps there's a bug with it, which we'll look into. But internationalization and character set support is much improved.
Pass the word.free donlowd film sex

Maybe SARS will have one positive impact on the world...
: ...people will stop spitting. free donlowd film sex

Open source entertainment
: I met someone yesterday who quit her profession -- the law -- to write a script -- the next Buffy! -- and so I asked the rude question: Do you have an agent? Her reply was a tired roll of the eyes: Not yet. But she knows some people...
Someone else I know has a pitch for a TV series, complete with trailer. Have you started taking it around? Eye roll. Not yet. But he knows some people...
Afterwards, I started thinking that if Hollywood had half a brain -- bets still out -- it would use the Internet and specifically weblogs to beneficially disrupt the inefficient and expensive system now in place to find its raw material, clogged as it is with agents and managers and executives and all their go-betweens, their people who know people.
Why not put that script online? Why not put the trailer online?
Now you might say that that's nothing but an electronic slush pile or perhaps a paperless vanity press. How does anything get attention? How does the gem rise above the lumps of coal?
The answer: The audience finds the good stuff and they do it through the magic of weblog links. The good stuff will get links and recommendations; the bad stuff will molder in a digital corner, ignored. And the best part of this is that these judgments are not being made by some cog isolated in an office; they're being made by your own customers, your audience.
This has worked with two novels I know of, one a thriller, one sci-fi. And it worked because a couple of clever publishers saw something no one else saw, got there first, and grabbed it.
Clever editors, publishers, producers, and execs need to bother to look in new places for new voices and new material rather than relying on the same hidebound network all their competitors rely on. That who-knows-who network is better suited for finding personnel than product (do you buy office supplies at Staples because you know somebody who knows them?).
If I were an editor of a paper or magazine, I'd find new writing talent on weblogs. If Tina Brown were an editor now, I bet she'd do the same; she's certainly paying heed to blogs.
This will work for books, scripts, treatments, and songs if creators put their work online and if the executives who control production and distribution let the audience do their work for them and point to the good and popular stuff (via Technorati et al). What happens if someone steals an idea? Then you have the proof online that you had it first.
All it will take is one hit found online for this to become the new darling of Hollywood. free donlowd film sex

Buddy buddy
: I went to a dinner/talk/network thing last night that was off-the-record, which is a good thing, because I think I called Jayson Blair "a stinking pile of lying shit," or something equally eloquent (and it had more impact after an allergic reaction to the strawberry tart occluded my throat and gave my voice the timbre of a really pissed of Harvey Fierstein).
Anyway, Eric Alterman was on the bill and I just want it on the record that we made up for our last awkward meeting and he was a gracious good guy. For the record.free donlowd film sex

: And, by the way, Jayson Blair is just a stinking pile of lying shit. For the record.
His interview in the Observer clinches it. He saw lying as some sport or as a waystation in his psychotherapy or, worst of all, as humor. Even in shame, he is arrogant. I look at him the way a soldier looks at a traitor, a cop looks at a crooked cop, an accountant looks at Arthur Anderson. Slime.free donlowd film sex

May 21, 2003

Yale bomb
: A bomb went off in the mailroom of Yale Law School. Nothing on any of the local weblogs. free donlowd film sex

: Let's hope, of course, that it wasn't aimed at a Bush daughter. Then we'd have news ripped from TV dramas.free donlowd film sex

War on terror and information as a weapon
: Iranian weblogger Khash Sajadi says

I don't see the Riyadh or Casablanca attacks as a sign of failure of war on terrorism or as prove of the theory suggesting war in Iraq will escalate suicide bombers. There has been many attacks on Western interests before the war in Iraq and will be for a long time. This is in the nature of Islamic fundamentalism to blame everyone else (western countries in the first place, if there isn't one, the "puppet" leaders of their own) for their own failures. Although I'm totally against Israel's policies in the West bank and towards Palestinians in general, but I can not deny the fact that number of Palestinians killed by Arab rulers in the past 50 years are still higher than ones killed by Israel. In my point of view, as long as the flow of information is limited by Islamic governments, it is easy to convince people the only way to get rid of the evil is to blow yourself up in a cafe. And again I doubt if America is genuinely keen to be peoples friend rather than rulers friend which means we have to get used to terrorism and be scared of everyone in a beach resort or restaurant.
Strikes me as reason to bring more news to Iraq and its neighbors in newspapers, on TV .. and on weblogs.free donlowd film sex

Oops
: The Presurfer has a headache:

I just switched from Blogger Pro to Blogger Dano, but it doesn't seem to work very well. I lost all the posts on the front page and my May archives as well.
I'm looking into this, so please bear with me.
And with Blogger...
: Oops II: Aaron Bailey blew up his Movable Type blog.
Bad blog karma today.free donlowd film sex

Danny Glover, ex-spokesman
: Danny Glover was just fired by MCI as its spokesman after a campaign against him by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, launched because, says a show's press release, Glover...

...called the president of the United States a racist, he blamed American policy for the murderous acts of September 11th, and he signed a petition comparing American soldiers in the Gulf War to 9/11 terrorists. He called America ''the greatest purveyor of violence in the world.'' And most recently Mr. Glover signed a letter of support for Fidel Castro.
Scott Baron among others complains that this is a blacklist.
But meanwhile, at a SunSpot newspaper forum, a reader says:

It is quite amazing that Mr. Glover complains about getting blacklisted for speaking in favor of a government that blacklists every single person who is against it. Mr. Glover has no idea what "very dark and very sinister means." As a Cuban having lived in Cuba all my life I know. In Cuba, all persons, from all walks of life who oppose the government are blacklisted. Dissenting carpenters, athletes, electricians, doctors, lawyers, farmers, you name it, are kicked from their jobs and given menial positions for the rest of their lives. Should Mr. Glover happen to live in Cuba and disagree with the government, right now he would be sweeping floors for a living.
The bottom line here is that we all need to stop being scared of free speech. Glover's a doofus. So's Scarborough. I've heard Danny Glover say many doofus things on TV; he's certainly not changing my mind about anything -- including MCI!
I wouldn't have fired Glover. I wouldn't have hired him, either.free donlowd film sex

: And then there's the Chris Hedges brouhaha. He gave what has been described as a Chomsyite antiwar speech to a Rockford College graduation and was booed offstage after 18 minutes.
Well, the college shouldn't be shocked. The guy wrote an antiwar book!
I'm not supporting what he said not am I supporting the mob boos.
I wouldn't have booed him. But I wouldn't have brought him either.
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Hallo, Wien!
: I'm very sorry that I won't be attending the BlogTalk conference in Vienna put together thanks to single-minded hard work by Thomas N. Burg. What I regret most is that I won't be meeting my many German-language blogging friends. Work schedules got in the way (as, I'll confess, did war nerves at the time I had to make the decision). Damn. Well, I just wanted to send my good wishes to all the lucky participants. Blog well. And snarf down a Figlmüller Schnitzel für mich. free donlowd film sex

Conflict
: Reynolds is right (and thus Kaus is wrong) about Washington Post media critic Howard Kurtz and his conflict of interest criticizing the media while in the media. First, as Glenn says, it's enough to reveal one's conflict and let the audience decide. Second, if he doesn't criticize the media in the media then who will hear him (besides bloggers)? Third, it's nearly impossible these days to live without a conflict. I was clothed in conflict as a critic and editor at both Time Inc. and News Corp. and, in the end, it came down to my own integrity and that of my own boss to maintain our credibility and careers. If you have Jayson Blair criticizing media in media, you'll get a stinking heap of lies. If you have Howard Kurtz, you'll get his honest view.free donlowd film sex

Advice
: Mickey Kaus has good advice for the Democrats on their Iraq stance:

Certainly the idea that Bush isn't capitalizing on our victory seems more salient at the moment than the Democrats' favorite charge--that Bush is somehow stinting on "homeland security."
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Gun control
: As the war was underway and we heard reports that Saddam had handed out AK47s to his people like Bush hands out tax cuts, I emailed a gun-control opponent I know (and like anyway) and asked what his position was going to be about gun control in Iraq. Never got an answer. But I could have guessed the stance we'd start hearing. And here it is, in an email and post from Del Simmons, a commenter here:

I am very saddened by the news that we are about to try to disarm the law abiding citizens of Iraq. It's a terrible idea, and once you think about it, I bet you'll agree.
Uh, sorry, but no.
The right to bear arms is not unlimited and not universal and certainly not God-given. This is Iraq, where there are no laws to abide by right now. This is a war zone. We're getting crap for not cracking down on lawlessness. So crack, we will. But we don't need any Joe, Harry, or Mahmoud pointing a machine gun at our soldiers.
Here's what's happening:
Iraqi citizens will be required to turn over automatic weapons and heavy weapons under a proclamation that allied authorities plan to issue this week, allied officials said Tuesday.
The aim of the proclamation is to help stabilize Iraq by confiscating the huge supply of AK-47s, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and other weapons that are used by criminal gangs, paramilitary groups and remnants of the Saddam Hussein government.
And while we're at it, we'll have them hand over any WMDs they happen to have in the basement.free donlowd film sex

Jump the Shark has jumped the shark
: I'm listening to Jon Hein of Jump the Shark on Howard Stern and it has become so predictable: Every show has jumped the shark, Hein decrees, and then he complains about the show. It's like listening to those drones who go on about the alleged golden age of TV: Nothing is ever as good as it was. Ditto Hein.free donlowd film sex

The perils of plenty
: David Galbraith is obsessing on the end of scarcity in media.
First, he quotes a report on Kevin Werbach's speech to TV Meets the Web:

The notion that many media organisations currently depend on their revenues through the assumption of ‘scarcity’ is as radical as it is true. As weblogs provide a rival to newspaper columnists, P2Ps topple record companies, open spectrum enables everyone to become a broadcaster and TiVo makes advertisers shudder, we’re entering a new era of both commerce and culture – an era where few can afford to be complacent but many can reap the benefits.
Note the relevance of this to my response to Glenn Reynolds' fears regarding media consolidation, below. The Internet and digital delivery are profoundly distruptive technologies.
Next, David quotes Corey Doctorow's explanation of what happens in an economy without scarcity.
What worries David is this: What happens in an information economy when information (and media) are not scarce -- thus their price falls and falls -- while the hard good we require -- food, for example -- remain in a scarcity-based economy and their price does not fall? He asks:
What if never ending cheapness created by the applicability of Moores Law and lack of scarcity in digital media conspire to create hyper-deflation?
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May 20, 2003

Pax pix
: Thanks to Michelle (in my comments) here's the address (at an antiwar site) where you can see Salam Pax' pictures (and also read his latest reports, Blogger being balky right now).free donlowd film sex

Glenn Reynolds (and Larry Lessig) are just paranoid

: I respectfully -- no, to hell with it, disrespectfully -- disagree with Glenn Reynolds' column on media concentration today (and with Larry Lessig's enthusiastic "what he said!"). free donlowd film sex

Before I launch in, I'll issue my standing caveat: I work for big media; I've worked for some of the biggest. I've even been on the wrong side of the synergy sword and lived to tell about it. Even so, I disagree with what the professors profess.free donlowd film sex

They're afraid that too few big companies own too much of the media. Ah, but what about competition from the Internet and satellites and such? they're asked. The Internet is dying, Lessig hyperbolically hyperventilates in response. Government and big business will make restrictive rules that mess up new media at the behest of old media, Reynolds replies. They're just being paranoid. They're big-media conspiracy theorists.free donlowd film sex

I never buy a conspiracy theory, for I argue that the world -- and especially government and especially big business and very especially big media -- are simply not well-organized enough to conspire. That's why synergy doesn't sell. No, I don't believe in conspiracies.free donlowd film sex

But I do believe in the marketplace and its power. In the end, consumers will win. Some people didn't want us to be able to tape music. But we do. Some people didn't want us to tape video. But we do. Some people didn't want us to be able to record MP3s. But we do. (And don't give me Napster as a yes-but; that was theft; many of the music services that came next were rip-offs; Apple's iTunes is a store with a good business model; consumers like it and it's succeeding.) Artificial limitations on consumers' desires cannot survive.free donlowd film sex

The world of information and entertainment is inevitably going digital and that will mean that we will be able to point any of many devices (PC, TV, phone, and gadgets not yet wetdreamed of on Gizmodo) to any media, and -- so long as we paid or someone paid on our behalf (read: advertisers or creators) -- we'll be able to consume; they'll be begging us to consume. This will utterly change the industry. But even now, there are fundamental changes occurring in this business: free donlowd film sex

First, the stranglehold of The Network -- any network -- is ending simply because there is more and more and more choice. On your TV, Hollywood is no longer fighting for slots on just three networks; there's now cable. On cable, programmers are no longer fighting for a score of channels; there are now hundreds. Online, there simply is no limit to the addresses you can visit and the choices you have. free donlowd film sex

Second, competition and distruptive technology have indeed disrupted this industry and if current regulations stand, we will see companies die unnatural deaths and -- mark my words -- we will find less entertainment and information product and less choice as a result. I'm shocked that my fine conservative and libertarian blogging colleagues would be defending government regulation while I, warmongering, flag-waving liberal that I've become, am fighting regulation. But the simple truth is that FCC Chairman Powell is seeking to deregulate this industry because the regulation is out-of-date thanks to these disruptions.free donlowd film sex

Third, the barrier to entry to the creation of entertainment and media is lowered to the ground and that infinitely increases the choice and voices of media. Hell, boys, blogs themselves are the very proof of that! Now anyone can publish or produce words, images, audio, and video to the world.... I repeat: the world! And don't tell me that you can't get distribution and are doomed to be small. Glenn: You now have a larger audience than many newspapers and magazines and TV shows (start with Tina Brown's). You have influence, as do Prof. Lessig, Dr. Marshall, and even the bloggers of Iran. Be warned: You soon won't be able to whine and carp and complain about the alleged big media bias of various newspapers or TV networks, for they won't be the only game in town and your voices will be heard in aggregate at least as loud as theirs.free donlowd film sex

So, gentlemen, I disrespectfully disagree. Be true to yourselves: Deregulate.free donlowd film sex

: Within 30 seconds after putting this up, a commenter, Del Simmons, said he didn't think Glenn and I disagree about the critical point that the Internet should remain open. Del's right and we do agree on that. I'm simply saying that the same is true for old media as new and I'm not worried about the end result of deregulation for either. Goose/gander.free donlowd film sex

He's gonna make us stars
: Chuck Olsen has a trailer for his Blogumentary up here -- along with a call for all of us to be his big Hollywood green-lighting investors.free donlowd film sex

Links to Iran
: The Globe & Mail interviews Iranian weblog guru Hossein Derakhshan and writes about weblogs in Iran and the arrest of Sina Motallebi. free donlowd film sex

Attention Howard Stern fans
: Did you listen today? Did you hear him talk about blogs and specifically Gawker? I can't listen when I do the bridge-and-tunnel thing into the city; Nick Denton just heard word of this. If you heard the segment, please tell all in my comments.....free donlowd film sex

: UPDATE: Anil emails to report:

A friend (Andre Torrez, Torrez.org) tells me that Howard Stern just explained blogging to a caller on his show. That's got to be some sort of
milestone, right?
Right!
Blogs are perfect for the Stern audience: The voice of the people.
: Anil adds in the comments:
A friend who heard it says his explanation was "Basically people writing about themselves because nobody paid them any attention in life". As opposed to people talking about themselves on the radio because nobody paid them any attention in life.
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: UPDATE: Mark's Friggin is a site that summarizes Howard every day; it was down earlier when I tried to check it on the blog reference; now it's up and Marc Weisblott reports that Mark's reports:

Howard took a phone call from a guy who wondered what the word ''Blogging'' (Web Loging) meant. Howard explained that it's when someone writes about their own life and puts it on the web. He said he's checked out some of that stuff but most of the stuff is boring. He mentioned a couple of the sites he's been on and how bad they are.
Admit it: Every one of you is now thinking, "Well, he didn't read mine.:free donlowd film sex

: Further UPDATE: My colleague in work and blogging, Joe Territo, heard the Stern blogging comments and he did mention Gawker. According to Joe, when a caller asked what blogging was, Howard explained that it's a web page where people tell you what happens in their lives and he complained that the writing on most of them is not good because it's not professional. He then said that he goes to Gawker every day. Joe said the connection was unfortunate, for it sounded as if he were lumping Gawker in with the clot of weblogs, though he's not sure that was intentional, because he did say that he does go to Gawker daily. (Yes, Elizabeth, I know you want to hear that Jonathan Franzen or Kurt Andersen or Tina Brown read you every day. But personally, I could not imagine a better audience than Howard!)
Joe and I agree, by the way, that a Howard Stern weblog would be a great weblog.free donlowd film sex

May 19, 2003

Road rage
: I hate a fit of road rage this afternoon -- not at any other driver but at the radio, when Benjamin Barber, professor of somethingorother, read his commentary on the rebuilding of Iraq. Says the Marketplace summary:

Barber says that because the U.S. wants to remake Iraq in its image, the decision about whether it should have public or private media, a state run oil industry or one farmed out to foreign energy corporations, should be theirs -- not ours. “If we take it from them, then the last rationale still standing for the invasion of Iraq -- its democratization -- will be as delusional and fraudulent as those still-missing ‘weapons of mass destruction,’” says Barber.
This is camel crap on so many levels in such little time. First, in his catalogue of rationales for this war, Barber leaves out the one factor he is supposedly defending even here: The people of Iraq. Ending the tyranny of Saddam Hussein is rationale aplenty. Saddam Hussein is indefensible.
Second, does the wise professor think democracy will be built in a day? Does he think that this is a matter of saying, "Ok, you guys, over to you now"? This means building the institutions of democracy, training its leaders, empowering its people. This takes work. Washington wasn't built in a day. Is it wrong to build democracy in our image? In whose image should we build it? France's?
Third, just for the record: Public, government-run media? Are you insane?free donlowd film sex

This very same day on NPR, in the morning, Sylvia Poggioli had a fine report from Kosovo (which I mention below) about the very, very slow building of democracy there under the auspices of the vaunted United Nations. Says the NPR summary:

Four years after a Security Council resolution established U.N. administration of Kosovo, results are mixed. An elected Kosovo parliament and coalition executive have been granted minor governing powers, but some officials say the open-ended U.N. mission in Kosovo refuses to grant real decision-making powers.
So, professor, would you prefer that we built democracy in the U.N.'s image?free donlowd film sex

Didn't Jayson Blair end up unemployed for such as this?
: Au Currant does a little choice retyping from Private Eye on the reporting of Robert Fisk:

As British hacks return from Baghdad, they have been belatedly catching up on what their rivals wrote during the war. They are surveying the dispatches of the Independent's Robert Fisk with particular interest -- and some amazement. On 2 April, three busloads of foreign hacks were taken by Saddam's spin-doctors to the town of Hillah to interview wounded Iraqis in the hospital. All of them -- including Fisk -- duly filed pieces on what they had witnessed. But the Indie's living legend sent a second report that day, datelined "from Robert Fisk in Musayyib, Central Iraq." Very vivid it was too. "Cafes and restaurants were open, shops were selling takeaway meatballs and potatoes," he wrote. "This was not a population on the edge of starvation; nor indeed did the people appear to be frightened. If the Americans are about to launch an assault through this farmland of canals and forests of palm trees and wheat fields, it looked at first glance yesterday like a country at peace." How had all the other hacks missed this? They were under the distinct impression that they had been ferried straight from Baghdad along the motorway to Hillah and then straight back again. They remembered no detours, no stops en route and no visits to Musayyib; they thought they had been allowed to leave the buses only for their chaperoned tour of the casualty ward. How had Fisk managed to visit Musayyib? And how come the picture he gave in the Indie did not quite tally with the fact that by the time he wrote his report the Americans had taken control of the main bridge at Musayyib, and hundreds of US military vehicles were already crossing the Euphrates?
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Sane v. insane
: Today's edition of ArabNews from Saudi Arabia has moments of helpful sanity and dangerous insanity. First, from an editorial, the sanity:

The real victims of such fanaticism are the Palestinians, whose dreams of freedom are set back even further every time a suicide bomb goes off. The real victims are the Kashmiris, who face increased intransigence from Delhi every time the militants attack. The real victims are ordinary Arabs.
The biggest victim of all is Islam. The actions of the fanatics feed Islamophobia. They send the warped message that Islam is a religion drenched in blood. They must stop. But it is not enough to say that this is the work of a minuscule minority, that the overwhelming majority of Muslims are sickened by these attacks. It is not enough to condemn. It is not even enough to hunt them down and punish them. The world has to see that the cancer threatening the Muslim world is being cut out — vigorously so. Unless something is done, it will create a backlash of its own — against Muslims, against Islam.
And, from a column, the insane:
Witnessing the terrorist acts that are conducted in the name of religion around the world, one can only wonder how did this all start? In the late 1970’s, three important events took place around the world whose consequences we are all still feeling.
In 1977, Israel elected for the first time a religious party to form its government, namely the Likud Party headed by Menachem Begin. Begin — a wanted killer who had been the leader of the terrorist group “Stern Gang,” which killed many people in massacres in Palestine — became Israel’s prime minister and began a new criminal wave of Jewish terrorism which continues today under Ariel Sharon.
In 1978, for the first time, a non-Italian was elected head of the Catholic Church. Pope John Paul, a Pole, collaborated closely with the Reagan administration. This was the beginning of the neo-conservative movement, which has now reached its zenith with the presence of the Israeli gang inside the Bush team: Men like Wolfowitz, Perle and others who have put Israel’s interests at the heart of US foreign policy.
Finally, In 1979, the Islamic revolution took place in Iran and increased the appetite of extremist Islamists for violence as a means of achieving their political agenda.
The sane Saudi says that his country bears a responsibility for what happened there; the insane Saudi blames anyone else. free donlowd film sex

Speech wants to be free
: Iraq already sports 50 new newspapers. free donlowd film sex

Blogging from Baghdad
: Salam Pax has new posts up today.free donlowd film sex

: I am dying to see more bloggers from Baghdad with more reports, more points of view, more opinions, the more the merrier. I'm not going to give up on this idea of bringing weblogs to Iraq. If Pax can do it, so can others.
Any suggestions where I should take this crusade in our government?free donlowd film sex

: Someone should donate bandwidth to him for his pictures. He found it was too expensive merely to upload the photos to his first service agency; another place agreed to take the photos; I'm sure they had no idea what kind of bandwidth this would run up; they're all down now. I'd like to see the photos. Any volunteers?free donlowd film sex

: Salam Pax concludes this after touring the country for a few days:

I came back from the trip seriously worrying that we might become an Iran-clone. If anyone went to the streets now and decided to hold elections we will end up with something that is scarier than Khomeini’s Iran.
Well, precisely. That's why it's vital to first set up the administration of good government, not to just play pick-your-tyrant.
Today on NPR, I heard a good report from Kosovo emphasizing that the U.N. is still in charge there and the locals aren't deemed ready to take charge of much more than streetcleaning (which they find, quite naturally, insulting). We won't take so long in Iraq, I predict. But this is no overnight job, building a democracy.free donlowd film sex

: See the end of today's posts:

When we were in Nasiriyah someone made a joke about saddam and the money we are using. Assel responded: “Ha! So now you find your voice?”. Yes we are all finding our voices now, suddenly everyone has an opinion. Everyone thinks he/she should be involved. Talking to all the volunteers in the cities we’ve been to really gives you a push. There was an article before the war, I think by makiya but I am not sure, saying that Iraqis after all this time have been depoliticized. You wouldn’t think so after walking in the streets these days. The people we deal with are my age or younger, we are not apathetic about the politics of this country. The University of Baghdad will be a very interesting place to be in these days.
That is the beginning of free speech, the beginning of democracy. Just the beginning.free donlowd film sex

Flash as a nonlethal weapon
: The Austrian Red Cross puts up a twinkie Flash schtick trying to teach children and idiots why war is bad and the Red Cross is good. Ug & Iggi are two cavemen who fight over a chicken until their warfare escalates to the point of chemical weapons and landmines. Go here and click on "English" and as you see the condescending cartoon images, click on the red type to read sermons such as this:

Rude aggression tends to be a male activity. There is always a lot of shouting and rude gesturing. Posturing with weapons is an important and recurrent part of the behaviour of any group that takes up weapons. This is an especially important part of military strategy. It is often ritualised. Frequently, there is no actual fighting. Even in primitive warfare, when there is fighting, the use of weapons is restrained in some way. Why do you think males fight more than females?
And what, exactly, is the point of this sexist tripe, you Austrian warmongers? free donlowd film sex

Can't beat Western modernism
: Bet they don't have this in Baghdad or Tehran:
So this weekend I drive up to the drive-through window at Burger King to pick up my kid's nutritious lunch, dreading that moment of miscommunication:
"Schwelcome schto Schburschger Schking. Schmay scheye schtake schyour schorder?"
Chicken tenders meal, large with fries and orange soda; cheeseburger [for Dad], large Coke...
You know what happens next; I could carry this shaggy-dog story for for a page of pixels: They repeat the order; I can't understand what the hell they're saying; I make them repeat the reptition; they get it wrong; I shout at the stupid box; they get pissy back, which only distorts the sound more; we repeat this routine four times; I drive up to the window looking angry and fearing that the bozo with the microphone just spit in my food.
But now my local Burger King has a new innovation: Right there under the schquack schbox is a monitor screen. "Confirm your order," it says as it prints out what the bozo with the microphone just entered.
"Right," I say. I'm happy. The kid is fed. No spit.
American technology.
American commerce.
Modernity.
Can't beat it.free donlowd film sex

May 18, 2003

The complete Salam Pax interview
: Here's my translation of the complete Salam Pax interview in the Austrian magazine Format. I put up excerpts a few days ago and this complete version (including the previous excerpt) adds a few interesting points but not a great deal. Stefan Kaltenbrunner, who interviewed the Baghdad blogger (they were roommates when he lived in Vienna some years ago) sent the complete text, auf Deutsch, to blogger Paul Boutin, who put it up. I translated the entirety below. (Click on the "more" to read the whole interview.) As before, my friends will, I'm sure, correct any mistakes I made (I've already emailed an appeal).

: Format: Your Internet diary from Baghdad made you tremendously popular in the West. When your website suddenly became inaccessible, many feared for the life of "Salam Pax." Now that the war is over, how's it going for you?
: Salam Pax: It goes well. Recently, I've been working for an NGO called the Campaign for Innocent Civilian Victims (CICV). Sometimes my friend Raed and I translate for journalists. But mostly I don't do much. I often simply wander through town, open my eyes, and watch the unbelievable things that happen in Baghdad today.free donlowd film sex

: Format: For sometime your diary was regarded as a fake. Shortly before the war began, there were rumors that -- depending on the version -- you alternately worked for the CIA or for the Iraqi secret service...
: Salam Pax: Well, clearly, that's all correct... No, honestly: It was all dangerous and I simply had good luck. I knew of other Iraqi Internet diaries that were blocked on the net. It was my good luck that in Iraq, no one in the regime or elsewhere seemed to care very much, which surprised me. On the other hand, there are not many Iraqis who have access to the Internet... In addition, I wrote in English. If I had written in Arabic, it probably would have been easier to find out who I am.


free donlowd film sex
: Format: Are you in danger? : Salam Pax: I believe at the moment that I'm not in direct danger for my life. But I can't be a hundred percent certain. Therefore, I do not want my last name written or my photo printed.

: Format: How many people knew the identity of Salam Pax during the war?
: Salam Pax: In Iraq, only my brother and my friend Raed, who returned to Baghdad shortly before the war. Out of the country, only a couple of friends in Austria, where I'd studied, and in the USA.free donlowd film sex

: Format: Your family knew nothing?
: Salam Pax: Oh, no! There's a difficult history with my parents... During the war, the Arab-language news program of the BBC had a story about my virtual diary. Coincidentally, my father was in the first floor of our house and heard the story on the radio. Then he came down the stairs and told everyone the strange story of this mysterious Internet blogger, who supplied the world with news from Baghdad. (Laughs). At that moment, I sought to keep my composure, but in reality I thought I was going to die... [Check my translation: In diesem Moment versuchte ich die Fassung zu wahren, aber in Wirklichkeit dachte ich, ich muß sterben...]free donlowd film sex

: Format: How did he react?
: Salam Pax: He was stunned, but in the end, he took it with humor.free donlowd film sex

: Format: In the West, you're considered a star. There are already Salam Pax t-shirts and coffee mugs with your logo. Have you already gotten invitations for American talk shows?
: Salam Pax: T-shirts? What? How? Coffee mugs? Are you kidding? I have no idea what they're talking about. Honestly, I know nothing about all that. I know second and third hand that my diary attracted a certain hype. But I haven't received invitations to talk shows; up to now, fortunately, almost no one knows who I really am and where I live.free donlowd film sex

: Format: Are you going abroad?
: Salam Pax: No. I want to stay here in any case. After everything we went through, we find ourselves at a turning point in Iraq and I want to be part of in that. It's a cliffhanger time; there are no laws; everyone does what they want. Everyone expected a civil war, but now that's not happening. Actually, the situation is much better than we imagined before the war... People who before the war sold tomatoes now suddenly offer satellite phones on the open street... One thing is sure: No one is relying on the Americans. No one expects
that they will do anything for us.free donlowd film sex

: Format: Will you continue your diary?
: Salam Pax: No matter what, I'll continue with the diary. Perhaps I'll change the tone. Since I started working for CIVIS, I've seen many terrible things... The worst is always the situation in the hospitals [check me: in den Spitälern]. Still, constantly, people come and go, seeking their children and relatives. During the war, many victims were buried immediately and so many have to be exhumed so they can be identified. It is frightful. free donlowd film sex

Interview: Stefan Kaltenbrunner, Klaus Stimeder

free donlowd film sex
May 17, 2003

Fame!
: The Sunday NY Times finally discovers Gawker and its "droll" editrix, Elizabeth Spiers. The story's good but the picture isn't (if you want to see what she really looks like, go here... Elizabeth: Tina Brown would have demanded photographer and photo approval).
Note that Elizabeth also became a figure in the New York Post's coverage of the "snotty private club" Soho House on Friday.
She's a star. She's a media fixture. As well she should be.free donlowd film sex

When you think about it, that's pretty amazing. It was only a few months ago now that Nick Denton, to his great credit, not only started Gawker but saw that Elizabeth's voice and view would be perfect for it and so she started snarking. Now big media is paying attention to her. She didn't start a magazine, didn't write a book, didn't star in a TV show or movie, didn't get arrested, didn't date a mayor. She blogs.free donlowd film sex

: Also in the Sunday Times: How to lose friends on your blog.free donlowd film sex

Iraqi blogs
: Real Women Online puts out a call to Iraqi women, offering to host their blogs.free donlowd film sex

Next stop?
: We've been hearing a lot about Iran lately. Pedram Maollemian fears it's a sales pitch for invading and he catalogues what we've been hearing. (Be warned: disturbing photos of recent public executions in Iran.) You can also see many of the same stories here at Iran Va-Jahan: reported Iranian weapons programs... al Qaeda in Iran... free donlowd film sex

Pedram also gives us this cartoon by Nikahang Kowsar:

iranonline.jpg
free donlowd film sex

Ann Coulter, symptom
: The Guardian goes into the lion's cage with Ann Coulter, "columnist, TV star, bestselling author, heroine for the ultra-right and hate figure for what remains of liberal America." Ouch.
They make the mistake of trying to see her as emblematic or symptomatic of the deeper American psyche. No. She's a sideshow: Morton Downey on good legs. She's entertainment.
I found one surprising observation in the story. It's accepted wisdom here that Europeans -- and, for that matter, much of the rest of the world -- cares about, talks about, and thinks about politics more than we do.
The Guardian says the opposite, using Coulter as its evidence:

Coulter's success represents a feature of US life that separates it starkly from most countries, including Britain. She benefits from, and is now a star player in, a polemical culture that has made political argument a mass activity. Scan the top-selling books in Britain and it's all gardening and cookery. Look at what America's buying and it's non-fiction books of argument. Every new Bob Woodward tome on the US government becomes a smash hit, while slash-and-burn polemic - whether it's Coulter on the right or Michael Moore on the left - sells by the crateload. Maybe it's to compensate for the cautious style of US newspapers or the bland, neutered language of mainstream US politicians. A gap has opened in American political culture and motor-mouths like Ann Coulter are filling it.
Maybe so.free donlowd film sex
May 16, 2003

You say tomatoes, I say Hezbollah
: An FAQ on Hezbollah ... or is that Hizbollah?
free donlowd film sex

Blogging in Iran - on radio
: The World on PRI (dial: NPR) has a story on blogging in Iran and the arrest of Sina Motallebi. [via Greg Allen]free donlowd film sex

Human bombs on the homefront
: Now that Saudi human bombs have come home to roost, Saudi Arabia's ArabNews speaks out against them:

So why, here in the Arab world, is there this absurd view that suicide bombers have achieved something, done something noble?...
There is nothing noble about killing innocent people. As for the notion that the bombers are martyrs, that too is a lie. They are not that. Martyrdom has to do with standing up and dying for something that is good. To kill innocent people as well as yourself is an act of sheer evil. In Riyadh, Westerners, Saudis, Filipinos, and many others died. If anyone is the martyr, it is them, certainly not their murderers....
We have had terror brought home to us here in Saudi Arabia. It is time to stand up against such terror, against those who organize them, against those who inspire them, against those who refuse to condemn them.
Well, yeah...free donlowd film sex

: The Lebanon Daily Star [via Harry Hatchet] also attacks the attackers. Its editorial goes through some painful gymnastics to separate terrorism -- defined as murder with a motive -- from plain murder, as if there is a difference. It then goes on to complain:

Win or lose, there is no greater shame in battle than to have behaved dishonorably.
Whichever group massacred all those innocents in Riyadh is no friend of Arabs and Muslims. The people who died were, though.... If the usual pattern holds, someone will eventually issue a tacit claim of responsibility for the outrage in Riyadh ­ and they will almost certainly sully Islam by falsely invoking the Koran. Before they do, it would be nice to hear a few pre-emptive pronouncements from leading Muslim scholars to the effect that while no one can stop a common criminal from debasing himself and his religion, depravity should find no support among decent people of any faith.
And it would have been very nice to hear these words on September 12, 2001.
free donlowd film sex

iloveny.GIFPut that on your bumpersticker and smoke it
: Nima was nice enough to send me a t-shirt with "I (Love) New York" on it with proper script -- unlike the t-shirt below, which my many new Persian-Gulf friends confirm doesn't really say what it's purported to say.
I think I'll make some t-shirts from this -- and charge a helluva lot less than $100 per.
Thanks, Nina.free donlowd film sex

Nonstory on a real story
: There's a little linkfest here and there today today on a reheated Guardian story that insinuates that the rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch wasn't real, that it was only staged for the cameras. The essential point is that the military wasn't there and so we didn't need all those soldiers and guns and helicopters and night vision -- and courage -- to get her.
Well, that's patent bull.
Remember back to that early stage in the war, when loyalists and snipers and soldiers were, of course, still everywhere.
Were we supposed to just walk in without soldiers and guns and helicopters -- and courage -- and check her out? Of course not. What we sent in was prudent and necessary and, yes, it was a rescue and, yes, it did take courage.
Don't believe it? Why don't you try to go to Baghdad even today and tell me how safe you feel.free donlowd film sex

They don't give receipts at McDonald's
: Today's straight-faced punchline comes from Joi Ito's blog, writing about his dinner -- one of many meals Joi writes about -- with John Dvorak of PC Magazine and John Markoff from the NYT:

We discussed the importance of lunches and dinners in the journalistic process...
Well, for you, Joi. But for salaryman journalists, the expense account is long-since dead.free donlowd film sex
May 15, 2003

Salam Pax interview
: There's an interview with Salam Pax, the Baghdad blogger, coming out in Austria tomorrow and I'll give you an excerpt below.free donlowd film sex

But first...
I haven't had anything to say on David Warren's efforts to paint Salam Pax as a Baathist fellow traveler because it's just so damned speculative and, thus, so potentially defamatory. Because we don't know his name we don't know (a) whether he really exists, but we all seem to accept that now, (b) whether he is really in Baghdad, though that seems to be accepted wisdom as well now, and (c) where he stood and stands in the pantheon of Iraqi politics -- and no matter what the answer to (c) is, we also don't know (d) the circumstances, extenuating or not, that put him there. If, as Warren speculates, he's the son of someone powerful, that doesn't negate what he has been reporting; it's a circumstance. His actions, however, could have an impact on how we see him -- but we don't know a thing about what he has or has not done. We just don't know enough.
It's so utterly predictable these days: First, you become famous. Then they tear you down.
This is the Jarvis corallary to the Warhol rule:
The day will come when everyone will be famous for 15 minutes.
And 15 minutes later, you will be infamous.
I've been rereading this and I want to be clear: I'm not saying whether Warren was right or whether Warren was wrong, I'm only saying that we don't know enough of the facts or the circumstances yet to judge.free donlowd film sex

Now, to the interview. In his blog, Salam Pax mentioned a former roommate in Austria who's now a journalist and who interviewed him. That interview, written by Stefan Kaltenbrunner and Klaus Stimeder, is appearing in the Austrian newsmagazine Format. This comes to me via bloggers IT&W and Scott Hanson; blogger Jacqueline Godany put up an excerpt of the printed interview in German on her blog. My German is bad (though every time I do this and mess something up, my friend Thomas Nephew is nice enough to correct me) but here are a few points from Godony's excerpt:

: Format: When your website suddenly became inaccessible, many feared for the life of "Salam Pax." Now that the war is over, how's it going for you?
: Salam Pax: It goes well. Recently, I've been working for an NGO called the Campaign for Innocent Civilian Victims (CICV). Sometimes my friend Raed and I translate for journalists. But mostly I don't do much. I often simply wander through town, open my eyes, and watch the unbelievable things that happen in Baghdad today... free donlowd film sex

: Format: Are you in danger?
: Salam Pax: I believe at the moment that I'm not in direct danger for my life. But I can't be a hundred percent certain. Therefore, I do not want my last name written or my photo printed.free donlowd film sex

: Format: How many people knew the identity of Salam Pax during the war?
: Salam Pax: In Iraq, only my brother and my friend Raed, who returned to Baghdad shortly before the war. Out of the country, only a couple of friends in Austria, where I'd studied, and in the USA...free donlowd film sex

: Format: In the West, you're considered a star. There are already Salam Pax t-shirts and coffee mugs with your logo. Have you already gotten invitations for American talk shows?
: Salam Pax: T-shirts? What? How? Coffee mugs? Are you kidding? I have no idea what they're talking about. Honestly, I know nothing about all that. I know second and third hand that my diary attracted a certain hype. But I haven't received invitations to talk shows; up to now, fortunately, almost no one knows who I really am and where I livefree donlowd film sex

: Format: Are you going abroad?
: Salam Pax: No. I want to stay here in any case. After everything we went through, we find ourselves at a turning point in Iraq and I want to be part of in that. It's a cliffhanger time; there are no laws; everyone does what they want. Everyone expected a civil war, but now that's not happening. Actually, the situation is much better than we imagined before the war... People who before the war sold tomatoes now suddenly offer satellite phones on the open street... One thing is sure: No one is relying on the Americans. No one expects
that they will do anything for us.free donlowd film sex

: Format: Will you continue your diary?
: Salam Pax: No matter what, I'll continue with the diary. Perhaps I'll change the tone. Since I started working for CIVIS, I've seen many terrible things... The worst is always the situation in the hospitals [check me: in den Spitälern]. Still, constantly, people come and go, seeking their children and relatives. During the war, many victims were buried immediately and so many have to be exhumed so they can be identified. It is frightful.

That last word is "schrecklich," which is a good description of my German, so take my translation with a grain of salt.
The full interview will be on newsstands in Austria Friday.free donlowd film sex

And as I reread this, it's not hard to pick up the tone of the interview that fits with Warren's chief argument: that this is the voice of someone who's probably privileged and rather coy and perhaps a bit disingenuous. Still, he has lived in a remarkable time and gave us a remarkable window on that. But all we know now are his words. As he himself says: We don't know who he really is.free donlowd film sex

cattelan.gifI (Love) NY
: Greg Allen gives us the latest in fashion (only 48 made, each for $100, one size only): The I (Love) NY
t-shirt (as opposed to the Salam Pax t-shirt... see next post) by Maurizio Cattelan at Chelsea's Printed Matter. free donlowd film sex

: To all my new-found Iranian blog friends -- is that what the shirt really says? Elizabeth Spiers (who actually knows something about this... she's impressive in many, many ways!) isn't sure.free donlowd film sex

The J stands for jerk
: Howard Owens says: "I had an idea today -- my dream SPJ [Society of Professional Journalists] Ethics panel: Janet Cooke, Steve Glass and Jayson Blair ... moderated by Geraldo Rivera." With questions from the floor by Bob Greene.free donlowd film sex

We know where you live... and work... and...
: When the one-armed rock-climber was in the news, I said that we should get implanted GPS chips so we don't have to pay to search for nature boys and so we don't lose children. I was mostly joking (though plenty of paranoid and thus humor-challenged commenters didn't get it).
This company isn't joking: It has a GPS implant. [via Relapsed Catholic]free donlowd film sex

Full disclosure
: I wonder whether it might have been wise for the NY Times to open up its Self-Flagellation Theater yesterday to outside media. In a typically Timesean convolution, the Times even kept its own media reporter out of the room so that he had to scrape up quotes like all the other reporters.
There was plenty of coverage with plenty of quotes anyway (what do you expect from a room filled with reporters?). Just look at Romenesko; it's all-Blair-all-the-time; it is the media-column equivalent of war in Iraq.
Allowing outside media in would have simply been good PR. It would have said, "We have nothing to hide. This is just the behavior we expect from government and others we cover: full disclosure." If they haven't hired a PR expert specializing in crisis stories, they should. As newsmen, they probably figure they know what to do when they become the news story. But I've always found that reporters give lousy interviews. Editors make rotten flacks. free donlowd film sex

When your boss blogs...
: ...you're safe to blog.
My colleague Joe Territo has started a new weblog syndicated on all the local sites where I work. Joe's going to cover the presidential race and other matters of national interest.
Keep an eye on Joe and his blog. He has some good ideas up his sleeve.free donlowd film sex

It was Joe, by the way, who set up the structure that allowed me to syndicate the war weblog I did during the liberation of Iraq and he set up the structure that let blogs bloom all over our company.
Now you might ask why it took me a few days to link to my own good friend and colleague on his blog.
Well, of course, that's because he didn't link to me until today. That's the way the world works: Forget about brown-nosing your boss for a raise. It's bloggers you want to brown-nose for links.free donlowd film sex

: And that's just what's happening over at Paradox1x, where Karl Martino links to his boss' blog.
OK, everybody, let's make Karl look really, really important in the world of blogs. Everybody: Click on his boss' blog now. Give his boss' blog lots of traffic. Make his boss indebted to Karl. Maybe that's a new way to get a raise.free donlowd film sex

None of your business
: I find it chilling that the U.S. Attorney's office is apparently getting involved in the case of the lying scribe, Jayson Blair, at the New York Times.
This is not a matter for government involvement.
And all you liberatarians and conservatives out there -- no matter how much you love to hate the Times -- should agree that this would be an abuse and over-extension of government authority and a violation of the First Amendment.
For if the government sticks its nose into even this clear case of lying, it sets a precedent that allows it to enter other, less clear cases. What's to stop a President or any government official -- down to my little town -- from siccing cops and prosecutors on a columnist or reporter or editor or producer for saying something they don't like and calling it a lie?
See: Richard Nixon enemies list. See: J. Edgar Hoover surveillance files. free donlowd film sex

First, let's kill the accountants
: New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority is just Enron with a government pension.
Yesterday, a judge rolled back a 25 33 [duh] percent fare increase on New York's subways and busses because the MTA used accounting tricks to hide a $500 million surplus while holding public hearings to beg for the fare increase.
They fudged the numbers.
They used accountants to fudge the numbers.
So now they're hiding surpluses. A few years ago, government officials everywhere were spending surpluses they knew could not last -- from the White House to Congress to every state down to my little town with its tax-and-spend oligarchy (Republican, since you ask) spending on unnecessary projects (let's widen that road... it has been wide enough for 40 years but let's make it wider) because, apparently, spending's fun and because power corrupts and there's no one to question the practice until it's too late.
That's not a bit different from Enron or Worldcom.
And what ties all these together is accounting tricks.
We thought the accountants and their rulebooks were there to keep everyone honest. Quite the contrary.
There is an accounting crisis in this country and it's going to cause incalculable damage. If we can't trust company's earnings reports, we can't trust its stock price, and if the stock price suffers, the economy suffers, and if the economy suffers, we suffer. If we can't trust a government budget, we can't trust the people who created it, we run them out of office and we don't end up doing the things a government should be doing.
I've talked with some smart, educated, experienced people lately who express shock at the fact that numbers lie, that financial books are works of creativity even when they're not tissues of lies. I got over that shock many years ago when I started working for a large, public company and a friend, an MBA, told me how the boss was calling him trying to get another $10 million on the bottom line for the quarter. How, I asked, you didn't sell the ads. He launched into a frightening explanation of deferred expenses and EBITDA and such. My business education had begun.
We know that this has been going on in some big companies and we know how the accountants (that means you, Anderson) didn't stop it.
But the case of the MTA is a sobering and clear example of the same problem of playing the numbers to suit your purpose in the public sector.
It all points to a lack of rules and standards in accounting.free donlowd film sex

May 14, 2003

We cannot let down our guard
: Al Queda makes noise just today in Saudi Arabia, Algeria and Bali. free donlowd film sex

I just have to ask
: In one day, mass graves were found in Iraq holding up to 15,000 victims.
Have the people who are still harping on WMD noticed?
What would they have said in 1942: Hitler hasn't created WMD (yet)? We haven't found mass graves (yet)? He didn't invade us (yet)?
Just today, we found reason enough to rid the world of Saddam Hussein. Just today.free donlowd film sex

I've never seen a picture of a priest do this
: Pedram at Eyeranian has an eye-popping photo.free donlowd film sex

Why they don't like us
: By "us" I mean my fellow reporters.
I was just watching a Baghdad military security update on FoxNews and heard a New York Times get downright hostile; couldn't see him but his voice was all snippy and obnoxious; bad rhetorical skills. The general -- who doesn't need botox; his face is already paralyzed in nonexpression -- then calls on some shmuck who goes through his lifestory; we can see the back of his head and on it is a target tattooed right on top; wackjob; he asks, "are you proud of what you've done." The general says he won't answer the question.
It's our job to get the facts and push those in power but being obnoxious is rarely a good tactic to accomplish that, especially when you're being televised. All reporters, even those not working for TV, need to start thinking like TV reporters, for cameras are everywhere. Smile, you're on cable-news camera!free donlowd film sex

: Reid Stott watched the same press conference. Had the same reaction. Kismet.free donlowd film sex

An op-ed

: Here's the op-ed piece about weblogs in Iran and Iraq that I wrote for the Star-Ledger, the largest paper in my company.
The Ledger's good headline: "The building blogs of democracy"
For those of you coming from the Ledger: Welcome. The links in the article are clickable, below. And here are some additional links here about this story.
On the arrest of Sina Motallebi and the Iranian weblog scene: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. On weblogs in Iraq, here.
To read the whole op-ed piece, click on the "more" link.free donlowd film sex

Weblogs are revolutionary

Weblogs are not just the hottest trend on the trend-addicted Internet, they are a powerful tool for free speech, a free press, and democracy. Because they are the cheapest, easiest publishing tools ever created – because anyone with a Web browser can now publish to the entire connected world – weblogs bring the force of media to the hands of the people. Weblogs are revolutionary.free donlowd film sex

I believe that these simple, online journals filled with links and commentary called weblogs could be a foundational building block of a new and free Iraq, giving voice to a people muted for generations, demonstrating the power of openness, and creating a free press faster than Uday Hussein’s newspaper presses can be cleaned of their blood and bile. free donlowd film sex

In neighboring Iran, weblogs have flourished among the young. In fact, they have had such a strong impact on Iranian society that, unfortunately, the ruling mullahs have taken notice. free donlowd film sex

On April 20 Iranian authorities arrested a weblogger, Sina Motallebi. His sin, according to the BBC, was using his weblog to defend a journalist and former colleague who published a cartoon that offended the regime. Motallebi’s weblog is now blank. After three weeks, he was released on bail, but the mullahs' message is clear: They will crack down on the Internet and on webloggers. But webloggers now have a court of appeal online.free donlowd film sex

Fellow Iranian webloggers in and out of the country rallied to Motallebi’s defense and started a petition campaign to free him (at petitiononline.com/sina). As I read their weblogs – those in English – I discovered a vibrant online culture in Iran.
An Iranian weblogger living in Toronto, Hossein Derakshan, is credited with starting the Persian weblog explosion almost single-handedly by simply posting instructions on his site at hoder.com/weblog.free donlowd film sex

In less than two years, more than 10,000 Persian weblogs have emerged (some using pseudonyms and many using the free American service Blogspot.com). Derakshan says these weblogs serve many purposes: Political bloggers express opinions that have no outlet. Witnesses have reported on student demonstrations. Another weblogger says that women used weblogs to start an online organization to track women’s rights violations. But they are not all political. Young people use weblogs to find dates. Some write poetry. Arrested weblogger Motallebi’s wife writes a weblog about raising their infant son.free donlowd film sex

In an article in London’s Guardian last October, Motallebi himself explained the appeal of weblogs in Iran: “There is a lack of freedom of speech in Iran, so weblogs are a good opportunity, especially for younger people, to explain their views and attitudes… so they are a way to freedom and democracy.” free donlowd film sex

In fact, Motallebi’s own weblog’s last posts before his arrest were hardly political. Fellow weblogger Pedram Moallemian says they were about a newscaster’s muffed pronunciations and Michael Jordan’s retirement. “What Sina represents to [authorities] however is far bigger,” Moallemian writes at eyeranian.net. “He is a symbol of all the young, intellectual, Internet and technology savvy new generation this regime has failed to suppress.” free donlowd film sex

Another weblogger calling himself Steppenwolf, who lives in Tehran, agrees: “I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble, stay away from politics,” he writes at steppenwolf.blogspot.com. But, he adds, the arrest of Motallebi is “jeopardizing my freedom of expression. Arresting this guy just because he expresses his ideas in his weblog is not reasonable in a modern world. This stupid act will lead to anonymous weblogs (like mine) which are much harder to control.”free donlowd film sex

Smell the fresh scent of free speech and democracy even in a nation ruled by political repression and fear!free donlowd film sex

And now imagine what these same tools could unleash in Iraq, a country just freed from its oppressor. free donlowd film sex

On my own weblog at buzzmachine.com, I suggested that weblogs could help with the democratization of Iraq. This being an interactive medium, some readers scoffed, pointing out that, of course, Iraq first needs power and water and order. But after publishing many quotes from Iranian weblogs, the tide of online opinion began to turn. Iran’s weblogs show the way for Iraq and, said one reader, offer “at least a faint hope that access to knowledge via blogs might be unstoppable.”free donlowd film sex

It would be easy and inexpensive to jump-start Iraq’s own weblog culture and, with it, the beginning of a free press and open media. The nation already has Internet access (that is how famed and pseudonymous Salam Pax published his weblog dear_raed.blogspot.com, purportedly from Baghdad and just resurfaced online). Iraq has even had Internet cafés since July 2000. free donlowd film sex

Today, with contributions of computers and connectivity and some how-tos, Internet cafes can spring up in every major city and at every university. With the cafes will come weblogging. And with the weblogging will come freedom of expression.free donlowd film sex

Says Iranian weblog pioneer Derskhahan: “I think weblogs are very powerful in the absence of free press. However, even free press cannot be as transparent and diverse as weblogs. So weblogs in Iraq will help the world know more about them, will help the government know about what exactly people think of them, and will help people to get used to the idea of tolerance and individuality.”free donlowd film sex

Vibrant weblogs will prove to the Iraqi people that we and they have nothing to fear from free speech. They will involve the youth of the nation in building their future. They will build bridges, in many languages, to people around the world. free donlowd film sex

They will demonstrate the power of freedom and democracy. free donlowd film sex

May 13, 2003

Useless
: Verizon announces today that has turned scores of NY phone booths into wi-fi hotspots.
But the bad news is that you have to be Verizon Online customer already to use them. Dumb.
But here's what's even dumber: Lots of them are inside subways. Oh, yes, I'm going to sit in a subway with my laptop out blogging. I'll add a webcam so you can watch me be robbed.
Take me to Starbucks.free donlowd film sex

Blog of America
: The U.S. State Department (like Iran's mullahs) has noticed that the Internet matters in Iran. So it just started Persian-language web site. Colin Powell sends a message to the people:

Our differences are not with the Iranian people. Instead, it is the
Iranian government's decisions to support terrorism, to pursue weapons
of mass destruction, and to deny human rights to the people of Iran
that are the obstacles to improved relations between our two
countries.
At the core of U.S. policy is the conviction that people everywhere
should enjoy freedom. The United States wants to see a democratic and
prosperous Iran, integrated into the global economy. I look forward to
the day that Iran takes its rightful place in the family of nations.
Our two cultures have so much to offer each other.
Wonder how long it will take the mullahs to block this site, too. [via Kaveh]free donlowd film sex

Funny, you don't sound Irish
: Can somebody explain to me how the Sopranos ended up in the civil war in Northern Ireland?free donlowd film sex

Politically correct bombs
: Strategy Page reports that because embedded reporters have eyes and cameras, sailors are no longer allowed to paint messages on bombs destined for the enemy.
Donald Sensing smells the irony: "They are about to drop high explosive on other human beings to kill them, but hey, let's not write anything that might offend someone!"free donlowd film sex

Macho, macho man
: So enough about Mideast news (see posts below). It's time for some show biz!
This dispatch from Australia amused me. I predict it'll be a sitcom over here in two shakes of a tail:

PAUL Hogan, star of the Crocodile Dundee movies, will return to Australia from the US to play the comic role of a "gay" straightman.
Hogan will appear alongside The Castle star Michael Caton in the comedy Strange Bedfellows to be shot in August in the small Victorian town of Yackandandah.
The film tells the story of two straight old-timers in a small country town, who declare themselves a gay couple on a tax return out of financial desperation. On announcement a tax inspector is coming to check their authenticity, the pair are forced to learn how to pose as a loving homosexual couple.
free donlowd film sex

The ratings are in
: Well, this could be the reason why we're not seeing more wood about the Saudi Arabian terrorist attacks. (Don't start leaving me nasty email. That's newspaper jargon for really big headlines that, once upon a time, were set in wood. It's not a Howard Stern expression. Though the play on words, given a less tragic story, would at least be ironic).
Anyway, as I was saying... This could be the reason we're not seeing more wood on this story:
I've never received less traffic on a day when I have received two sizable Instapundit links.
Both links were about Mideast stories.
Back when I worked on newspapers, we always knew that no matter how important the story, when a Mideast story was your lead/front page/wood/whatever, you were guaranteed really sucky newsstand sales.
But that was back in the days when what happened over there didn't seem to affect our lives over here.
Now it does. Oh boy, does it.free donlowd film sex

The terrorist scale
: Charles Johnson asks:

Is it just me, or is the media being incredibly blasé about this story? Shouldn’t this be major news? Why are the networks still dwelling on the Laci Peterson case?
I've been wondering the same thing. It could be that terrorism on other soil, even when directed against our citizens, doesn't goose up the news hormones. It could be news fatigue with terrorism and Mideast war. It could be bad news judgment. I think that terrorism remains a vital story and indications that bin Laden's boys are still at work remains Topic A.free donlowd film sex

: Glenn Reynolds disagrees that less news is bad news.

Actually, I think it's a good thing. Terrorists exist to terrorize; it's not working.
I think that this is a desperate effort by Al Qaeda to show that it can still do something. And the target audience is largely in Saudi Arabia and the Islamic world, not here. But the world has changed to their disadvantage. Against the backdrop of (false) security in the 1990s, stuff like this was big news. Now -- next to the war in Iraq -- this looks like small potatoes by skulking losers.
: I do think that al Queda is desperate in great measure because we are moving our troops out of Saudi Arabia, taking away one of their chief insane complaints.
Cults always needs enemies to survive. They feed on it.free donlowd film sex

UPDATE: See what Michele and Joe have to say.free donlowd film sex

Sina Motallebi update
: Pedram tells me that Sina Motallebi, just released form Iranian prison on $3,800 bail, posted a few minor notes on his wife's Persian weblog denying a quote attributed to him. free donlowd film sex

: Pedram also sent me this AP report:

TEHRAN, Iran - A reformist journalist who was jailed for giving interviews to foreign media has been released pending trial....
"I was released and will wait for the trial," Motallebi told The Associated Press on Monday from his home.
He declined to specify the charges. His wife, Farnaz Ghazizadeh, said Motallebi must remain silent.
"He was interrogated since his detention on April 20. He accepted some of the charges and rejected the others," his wife said. "I cannot disclose any more details."
Motallebi developed a Farsi Web site after the government banned the reformist daily newspaper where he worked.
The ban came after the newspaper published a cartoon showing the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's 1979 revolution, being crushed by a hand.
Since early 2000, Iran's hard-line judiciary has closed about 90 pro-democracy publications and jailed several dozen writers and activists on vague charges of insulting authorities.
The crackdown is seen as part of a power struggle between reformists who support President Mohammad Khatami (news - web sites) and hard-liners who oppose any dilution of clerical rule.
: Newsweek online has reported on the unity of bloggers supporting Sina.
: SO MOTALLEBI HAS become a symbol — to the Iranian government as well as to his supporters — of the Internet-savvy Iranian youth growing in numbers, of their need for a space for self-expression, and of a repressive government crackdown on any structure that creates such a space. Fellow members of the blogosphere are concerned that Motallebi is only the first scapegoat in what might become a new government preoccupation. “This is not about Sina,” says Pedram Moallemian, an Iranian blogger living in California. “The government has noticed this new area where free speech can flourish, and they want us to know that they’re watching us. Sina’s arrest is supposed to send a message.” Moallemian has responded with a message of his own: a 2,000-signature petition he wrote and circulated both within the Persian blogosphere and beyond. Top American bloggers like Buzz Machine’s Jeff Jarvis and the San Jose Mercury News’ Dan Gillmor, as well as Reporters Without Borders, have expressed support for Motallebi.
: My op-ed on weblogs in Iran and Iraq is scheduled to appear in the Star-Ledger tomorrow; I'll post it later.free donlowd film sex
May 12, 2003

Population explosion
: As a Dad, I do not endorse this commercial, of course. But I laughed. [via Adam Curry] free donlowd film sex

Sina Motallebi update: Freed
: Well, I hope this is good news: Sina Motallebi is being freed from prison.
But in the mirror-on-mirror world of Iran, I fear it's more complicated than that.
Hoder reports:

Sina's wife, farnaz, has written in her persian weblog that she was told in the court that Sina might be released tomorrow. She wrote that Sina had confrimed the news by a phone call later himself.
I am just hopeful that they don't make him deny his thoughts and activities before he got arrested. You know, this is a common hard-liner's method that after releasing prisoners, they force them to say things against themselves and their old friends and give them some advice. But I really hope that this woudn't happen again for Sina. If it does not happen, I'll be sure that international pressure on hard-liners has been fruitfull.
The mullah's main goal will be met in any case: Every weblogger is now on warning. But then again, the mullahs are on warning, too: The whole online world is watching.free donlowd film sex

: Pedram adds:

Needless to say, this is certainly good news but hardly the end of this episode. Iranian ISP's are being forced to "filter" hundreds of sites and bloggers may never feel as safe. Let's not forget the larger goal of establishing freedom of expression for all Iranians after Sina is free.
To Sina; we are all glad you'll be with your family after over 3 weeks of unwarranted detention and hope your confinement was spent with minimal "discomfort". If you choose to change your methods and approach, both in writing as well as your position, it will be a sad loss but understandable. We are all pre-programmed for self-preservation and with a young family, your responsibilities are intensified. So, no matter what you say or do after being released, even if it is to condemn our actions on your behalf, we will all take it with some cynisism and disdain but pledge to say what you can't say and do what you will not be able to do on behalf of you, all other writers in Iranian prisons, as well as the larger community in fighting tyrany and dictatorship.
: We'll never know exactly what led to Motallebi's freedom but I'm sure we should give credit to:
: Hossein Derakhshan at Hoder.com/weblog, who reported the news of Sina's arrest.
: Pedram Maolemmian at Eyranian.net, who started a petition to free Sina and drew attention to the cause with it.
: Many other courageous webloggers in Iran whom I can't read because they write in Persian but who risk their own freedom to speak freely online.
: The power of weblogs to spread news instantly. Because the two men above wrote their weblogs in English, other webloggers picked up the news and the cause and major media outlets (not enough) picked up the story.
I'll be the mullahs are surprised not only at the power of weblogs within Iran but also at their power to connect to the world outside their repressive cloud. I'll bet they're even more sobered at this phenomenon today than they were the day before they arrested Motallebi.free donlowd film sex

: Hoder confirms the word already reported in the comments here: He is out of prison after 29 days.free donlowd film sex

: Update: Just to clarify, from Hoder. He is out on bail.free donlowd film sex

May 11, 2003

I am a reporter
: I am a reporter; I have been a reporter for more than 30 years; I love reporting.
And I hate reporters who lie.
I hate them for robbing reporting of its one and only asset: credibility.
I hate Stephen Glass, who appeared on 60 Minutes tonight, all smug and obnoxious, to tell how he lied.
I hate Jayson Blair, who lied and lied and lied in the New York Times.
I don't buy the Kaus argument that Times management is at fault for for promoting Blair because of his race.
That is racist. That is racist bullshit. And it is Times-phobic bullshit.
Black, white, yellow, red, or f'ing purple, a liar is a liar. Anybody over the age of 5 from a halfway decent home without dependence on drugs for psychoses knows what a lie is.
And these people are liars. The responsibility is theirs.
I was down in my basement today, by chance, repacking boxes and boxes of my clips from my days as a reporter, back when I did useful things. I remember obsessing over my quotes and facts, making sure I got them right, because it mattered.
These liars ruin things for every other reporter and every reader.
They are to media what the scumbuckets who ruined Enron and Worldcom and Anderson are to business.
They are liars.free donlowd film sex

Herzlichen Glückwunsch, Jörg!
: Der Schockwellenreiter is 50. Enjoy his photo cavalcade.free donlowd film sex

Mona Lisa, made to order
: Give her your mood. [via Media Digest]free donlowd film sex

What goes around?
: The Taliban says it's getting funding from Russia.free donlowd film sex

Banned in Iran
: Steppenwolf, a blogger in Tehran, is keeping a list of weblogs banned by the authorities in Iran. Read the post about this and the one below. He is an angry man. Here's some of what he says:

I am tired of all the bullshit I spent the last 20 YEARS with.
I am tired of this regime.
I am tired of the stupid mullahs who belong to thousands of years ago.
I am tired of Ali Khamenei the one handed and his regime.
I am tired of all these bearded bastards.
I am tired of this country I live in.
I can't stand it anymore. It's over.
What else is going to happen?
You wake up and find all your favorite web pages banned.
What else is remaining for me?
You directed all my social activities into my home.
That was all that is remaining for me.
2 rooms, a TV set and a PC.
I was just READING it! Can you understand that?
I was just READING!
I'm talking to YOU! Yes you!
You stupid religious old man!
You mullah! You dumb fanatic!
: And here, my friends, are the authors banned and burned in Nazi Germany. You can't burn a pixel, but you can ban it and jail its creator. The tyranny is exactly the same.free donlowd film sex
May 10, 2003

Happy Mother's Day, you greedy capitalist, SUV-driving, eco-destroying, child-enslaving, bomb-dropping, heartless bitch, you.

: Is nothing sacred? No, nothing is on Alternet, not even Mother's Day, which comes under attack as unPC:

Forgive my cynicism about Mother's Day. After all, what kind of ungrateful mother wouldn't want to be honored with pesticide-laced flowers, chocolate that depends on children in slavery for its production and cards that deplete our forests and litter Mother Earth? Truly, it is the ultimate insult to honor life-giving with such toxic offerings.
Ferchrissake. free donlowd film sex

: Meanwhile, Anita Roddick says Mother's Day is really "a radical feminist statement against war and aggression."
She advises: "Forget squishy chocolates, flowers, and breakfast in bed.... So honor thy Mother and go march for peace this Sunday."
Jeesh.free donlowd film sex

: And over at Islam.com, they try to one-up our infadel, Western, modernist Mother's Day:

What Islam goes against is to imitate non-Muslims by marking a special occasion such as celebrating the Mother’s Day in a way that shows that mothers do not deserve due respect and care save on this very day. If we are going to make the whole year a Mother’s Day, then Islam welcomes celebrating the occasion with open arms.
Oy.free donlowd film sex

Fear speech
: The mullahs of Iran are succeeding in scaring webloggers and chilling their free speech after the arrest of fellow weblogger Sina Motallebi -- but they have not yet succeeded in shutting them down. Read Lady Sun, who tells of a meeting of women putting out an e-zine who debate shutting down because of the danger and who tells us about her own fears:

It seems the doom of this week is not going to end. Sina is still in prison. Nobody knows what's going on. They have summoned Alireza Alavi Tabar, journalist and university professor, for interrogations. In the interrogation paper they have mentioned Alavi Tabar's title as the editor of the electronic news site Emrooz (a radical political website). It seems arresting Sina has been their warm-up, and they have started paying attention to internet sites. My fears are growing, both for our e-zine and for our Women in Iran (Persian _ English) website. Of course we have been very much careful and conservative in our magazine, but Women in Iran is not a conservative site....
I've become tired of all this fear and worries. I've decided to start posting in my Persian weblog again. The bewilderment of these days is pressuring me too much. I thought and thought and thought and came to this conclusion that I haven't done anything wrong at all. I haven't crossed any political red lines to be worried about. I have to forget about those people who are trying to identify me. It takes a long time to find me. And in case they find me, they can't accuse me of anything....
Who would have thought that it would take courage to blog. There, it does.free donlowd film sex
May 09, 2003

And Janeane Garofalo will sue for not being funny
: The BBC reports, you decide:

Actor Sean Penn has been given the green light to sue producer Steve Bing for allegedly dropping him from a movie because of his anti-war stance....
He filed the lawsuit in February after accusing Bing of "borrowing a page from the dark era of Hollywood blacklisting".
But Bing has hit back, saying Penn had stepped over the line by being photographed in Iraq standing in front of pictures of Saddam Hussein as the US prepared to go to war.
The producer said he does not owe Penn "one cent" and that the actor's anti-war talk was not protected by state labour laws guaranteeing free speech.
"Penn crossed over a bright line into unprotected speech when he publicly advocated the violent overthrow of the United States Government" in a British newspaper article, the lawsuit said.
The motion also accuses Penn of violating "any standard of decency by posing with portraits of Saddam Hussein and meeting with Hussein's henchman (former Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz" during his visit to Iraq last December.
By any standard of intelligence, Penn's an idiot.free donlowd film sex

Anti-war cat skinners
: Cats and dogs are being farmed for their fur in Belgium.
PETA will soon call for a U.S. invasion.free donlowd film sex

Non
: Aaron Bailey says this will be right up our alley: A Time correspondent in the National Review as quoted in the Washington Times (gawd, it's exausting avoiding an Agonist) gives us this scene from Iraq:

"After a grueling fight, a company of infantrymen was resting and opening their first mail delivery of the war," Mr. Lacey says. "One of the young soldiers had received a care package and was sharing the home-baked cookies with his friends. A photographer with a heavy French accent asked if he could have one. The soldier looked him over and said there would be no cookies for Frenchmen.
"The photographer then protested that he was half Italian. Without missing a beat, the soldier broke a cookie in half and gave it to him."
free donlowd film sex

Nein
: Poland asks Germany to participate in managing its zone in Iraq. Germany says no.
I hope we don't hear any Germans complain about a lack of order in Iraq.
If you're not part of the solution, mein Freund...free donlowd film sex

The Baghdad report
: Salam Pax is back again today with another good report.
He also says that browsing is awfully expensive.
We have to get this guy a tip jar!free donlowd film sex

sarsies.gif

SARSies
: From BWG -- a great Hong Kong blog -- come these SARS-inspired masked smilies.
free donlowd film sex

Sina Motallebi update
: The case of arrested Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi gets stranger and more frightening. Thanks to Pedram Moallemian, here is the latest:

Iran based Noghteh.net (the point) quoted an unnamed judiciary source about the case against Sina Motallebi, Iranian journalist jailed for the content of his weblog. According to him, Sina is one of 5 members of a group involved in production and distribution of "depraved" videos (!).
They include videos of birthday parties, wedding receptions as well as womens swimming pools (!!). He is also charged with making videos of street prostitutes in Tehran, by order of a broadcaster abroad. Furthermore, this "source" has claimed that since some of the prostitutes were shamed by the videos into committing suicide, Sina could face manslaughter charges (!!!).
In what Hoder has labeled "Random Confession Generator", Sina has already confessed to some of his "crimes" but claimes he wasn't involved with the video about the street workers.
This is absured, bogus and degenerated enough to have only come out of a judiciary system known for immense corruption and biased resolutions.
Sina is a prisoner of conscience and no amount of rubbish charges, made up confessions or planted “leaks” will change that.
Absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The irony of this to Western eyes is that jailing someone for what he says on the Web is exactly as absurd and abhorent as jailing someone for what he says on film.
It's all oppression. It's all tyranny. free donlowd film sex

: I also note at The Iranian this from Mohammad Ala:

There are more than 3,000 Iranian university professors teaching a variety of subjects. Iranians have established more than 4,000 websites...
Iranians have the most access to mass media in comparison to other minorities in the U.S. For example, there are twenty-four television and four radio stations which are owned by Iranians.
OK, Iranian bloggers, it's time to organize these influential folks and have them speak out on behalf of our imprisoned weblogger.
: See also Pejman Yousefzadeh's call at Tech Central Station for Iranians to use the media influence -- here and in Iran.
Let's hope the Blogosphere, and Iranian bloggers in particular, have the power to influence meaningful and effective change in Iranian culture and society. Keep tabs on Iranian bloggers and reformist Iranian websites. They could very well serve as the cyber-shock troops of a new Iranian revolution.
: Glenn Reynolds weighs in:
Note to Iranian mullahs: you're utterly pathetic. You are neither feared, nor respected for your piety. You're just a joke, in the eyes of the world and, these days, your own people.
free donlowd film sex

Useless v. useful journalism
: William Powers is half right.
In the National Journal, he argues that it is time for journalists to make trouble again:

The best journalists are troublemakers, pot-stirrers, naysayers, dirt-eaters. When the whole culture is saying "Yes, yes, yes" to some sparkly idea or popular leader, we love nothing better than to be the ones who rush in screaming "No, no, no," brandishing the ugly evidence. To the noble hack, there is no smell sweeter than the skunk spray of a major political scandal.
Which is exactly what nobody wants right now. The perfume of patriotism is wafting from every direction, including the media itself, and the whole culture is high on it and weirdly checked out. After all those long months of anxiety and worry, it's clear that the public wants a break from all things troubling and downbeat. Iraq is liberated, and the president is a flying ace. Let's forget our worries and have a nice long party. Maybe the economy will even come back and foot the bill.
It's high time for journalists to start making trouble again...
Well, yes, but not trouble for trouble's sake: pot-stirring as a sport and an end in itself.
Powers gives as an example of such good troublemaking the tempest in a thimble this week over the cost of Bush's landing on the Abraham Lincoln.
That's not good reporting. That's just partisan pissing and network time-wasting that tires and disengages and pisses off the voters. IT HAS NO IMPACT ON OUR LIVES.
That, ladies and gentlemen, is the essential test of news: It has to have an impact on our lives. It has to matter. Or it's not news.
NEWS SHOULD BE USEFUL.
Sorry, I'll stop shouting now.
But I'm tired of partisan pissing -- whether the urinal is George Bush's flight or Bill Clinton's sex life; both are fun for a gossipy giggle but neither matters about our lives; neither is the result of real reporting.
I'm tired of the morning shows turning into a showcase for emotional voyeurism. Every time a child disappears or a soldier dies, we get Couric or, God help us, Curry asking, pianissimo, how the survivors feel.
I'm tired of overlong, underedited thumbsucking stories in the big national papers (damnit, I'm busy: find the nearest period!).
I'm tired of quoting stars as if we should listen to anything they have to say that isn't out of a script.
I tired of seeing politicians uselessly pissing at each other, egged on my media.
I want to see media demanding constructive work from leaders; I want to see them exposing issues involving not private parts but the public good. I want to see them do it with brevity, impact, and force.
Attack our desperate need for health insurance and the shameful cost of health care.... our continuing vulnerability in homeland security.... the ongoing accounting scandal not only in private industry but also in government (for example, New York authorities hiding revenue so they can get a fare increase)... the failures of education we can witness at any Burger King... the unspun need to get a grip on firearms and crime... the threats we face abroad even from some of our allies...
The list goes on and on.
That's the kind of troublemaking Powers should be yearning.
Everything else is just gossip.free donlowd film sex
May 08, 2003

If this is a monopoly, when do I pass 'go'?
: Unlike many others here in the Blogopolis -- take, for example, Prof. Lawrence Lessig -- I am not all hopped up and full of fret over media concentration.
I wonder whether Larry and his confederates had a problem with media because their parents thwopped them about the nose with a rolled-up newspaper when they were young. Whatever the cause, Lessig, for one, does have a thing for media. He wants copyrights to be limited. And he wants media companies' rights to own media properties to be limited by government regulation.
Now when discussion turns to media deregulation and concentration, I have a clear conflict of interest: I work in media; I've worked for some of the biggest.
But I also have been a victim of media concentration. When I started Entertainment Weekly, various Time Warner editors and executives (all long since gone) tried to lighten up my coverage of entertainment in an entertainment company (and I stood firm against them, as any self-respecting journalist would).
Having delivered all those caveats, I have to say that I do not fear media concentration.
Thanks to digital delivery of content and greater bandwidth on which to deliver it and thanks to new easy and inexpensive tools for making it, there are far more media choices today than there were 10 or 20 years ago; there is much more competition and more coming; and the barrier to entry into media is lowered to ground level, which will bring in an endless variety of new voices.
Yes, there are fewer newspapers (because of competition from new media). Sure, it's still hard to get a movie made. But there are many times more TV stations. There are many more opportunities to consume media that used to disappear (that is, you can watch the DVD).
And there is the Internet. It not only provides new ways to produce media and reach audience the world around. It is also disrupting existing media businesses. There's plenty of competition, plenty of choice, plenty of change.
Considering my conflict, I won't engage in a lengthy argument on the issue. I just want to make one point:
The opponents of deregulation, those paranoid about media ownership, are missing the big change in the media business that's right under their noses, right in front of their faces, right here where they argue it over: The Internet.free donlowd film sex

The courage of an engineer
: Just watched the press conference from the hiker who had to cut off his own arm to escape a bolder, Aron Ralston.
This guy is unbelievable.
He's an engineer, he explained, and so he reduces things to problems to solve -- even living, even dying.
He tried all kinds of engineering tricks to try to get the boulder off his arm (I never did do well with pulleys on those damned Iowa standardized tests).
He carefully got ready for cutting off his arm, putting everything out: "I got my surgical table ready."
His knife was so dull he couldn't even get through the skin at first. So he had to regroup and figure out how to get through the bone. He used strenth, torque, angles, and broke his own bones.
And he did it with the cold calculation of an engineer.free donlowd film sex

The first good reason I've seen to consider forgiving France
: Wi-Fi across all of Paris. [via Hammersley]free donlowd film sex

Now let's dance: Left, left left... left, left, left...
: Harry Hatchet fisks an event, a political/cultural event called "Left Field."

A separate tent will house a bar serving fairly-traded beer from the Workers Beer Company (happy hour is 6pm-8pm), but if you fancy something rather more exotic, there are radical cocktails available with names like Che Guevara and Lefthook.
Sorry, what decade are we living in? Che Guevara cocktails? I'm sure there will be one with strawberry and vodka called 'Red Revolution', and can you guess what ingredients you need to make a 'Gorgeous George'? And what is fairly-traded beer? Its one pound and forty pence a pint at my working mens club which I find very fair - I bet they can't beat that at Glastonbury and I doubt they will have pork scratchings either.
: Harry also welcomes a new blogmate, Marcus, who defines his liberalism. I'm still looking for a label for this post-9.11, pro-war, unPC, rhetoricless liberalism to which I adhere.
Like Harry my political roots are in the left though this does not stop me from despairing at the recent sheep-like state of thinking on the left which I intend to challenge on this site where neccessary.... At the risk of stating the obvious I consider the two most important events in recent political history are the collapse of the socialist regimes in Europe and the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Where the fall-out from these two events will lead us is still not clear. When asked, in the 1950's about the political consequences of the French Revolution, Zhou en Lai the Chinese Prime Minister said "It's too early to tell". I have some sympathy for his position but don't believe we have the luxury of such a delayed response. What I do know is that sizable sections of the British Left are acting as if neither event happened. This has to change or the Left will go the way of the great auk.
Barkeep: Buy that man a Workers Beer. Put it on my capitalist tab.
free donlowd film sex

Patriot Act
: The Christian Science Monitor blog asks whether the Patriot Act is in the citizen's crosshairs with many links to much protest.
But note the polls two posts down: It's Democrats who oppose this more than Republicans. That won't concern Ashcroft much.
Also note in light of those poll results Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham's view of civil liberties in the war on terrorism -- "it's impossible to secure our homeland without doing away with our liberties." Tough play in the party.free donlowd film sex

People's Mujahidin
: There was much discussion (below) on American negotiation with the MKO or People’s Mujahidin, a Saddam-backed Iranian resistance group based in Iraq that is on our list of terrorist organizations. Here's a backgrounder on the group -- including its cultish side -- from Radio Free Europe. free donlowd film sex

Arson
: Police in Norway have officially charged that comedian who burned an American flag on TV with a crime: insulting the flag of a foreign state.
As much as we may not like what he did, it's still free speech. free donlowd film sex

Vox Pop
: Lots of interesting poll nuggets from Gallup:
: Most Americans now believe we are winning the war on terrorism. As of April 22, after the war, 65 percent said we're winning; before the war, on March 3, only 37 percent said that. So most people bought the connection between Saddam and terrorism? Yup. See this:
: Most Americans say the war in Iraq made the country safer from terrorism. By a 58 to 33 percent margin.
: Americans are still worried about terrorism -- and terrorists spreading disease. The level of terror anxiety has not changed. About a third are fretting, roughly the same fret level as before the war -- and the same level worried about terrorists spreading a disease.
: Most Americans are no longer willing to give up civil liberties to fight terrorism. This tide shifts. Right after 9.11, it was evenly divided; now its' 64 to 33 against curtailing liberties. The position is most strongly held on the left. Among Democrats, 74 vs. 21 favor civil liberties (and liberals 80 to 16); among Republicans, it's 52 to 45.
: The job situation is getting worse. 60 percent know someone who just lost a job, up from 43 percent right before 9.11.
: The economy is not perceived as a disaster. In Bush I's reign, in 1991, 88 percent said we were in a recession; today, 56 percent say so. Bush I's disapproval rating on handling the economy was 57 percent; Bush II's is 45 percent.
So... Things look rosey for Bush and difficult for the democrats. He not only won the war in Iraq, he's now perceived as winning the war on terrorism (until, of course, the next attack). His father was defeated by the economy, but he's in better shape (unless, of course, the economy keeps tanking -- especially after the next attack). free donlowd film sex

May 07, 2003

The Trabbie drives again
: An effort to resurrect the East German Trabant as the affordable car of Africa.free donlowd film sex

For a good time, click me...
: Alireza Doostdar is performing an ethnographic study of Persian bloggers and has much interesting observation on his site, including this, on the similarities between blogs and toilet graffiti:

A friend of mine recently told my younger brother in Iran that he thought blogging among Iranians was an evolution of toilet graffiti. I laughed out loud when I first heard this... but upon some reflection, I realized that my friend had made a very profound and provocative statement.
During the six years that I worked as a newscaster in Iranian radio and television, one of my favorite pastimes was to read the graffiti behind several of the toilet doors, particularly one that featured works by some very interesting and colorful graffitists. The "posts" were updated almost daily, and with some careful observation, you could decipher the different handwritings to tell if one graffitist had written a new post. I remember one particular string of graffiti written with large blue markers on the tiles near the ceiling, with their content mostly being verbal assaults against people who smoked in the hallways. Another graffitist once wrote a long and hilarious post detailing what he considered to be the "standards" of toilet graffiti, including "writing concisely" and "avoiding spelling-mistakes". Other graffiti was directed against section and department managers in the organization, the pay-roll office, and government officials. The posts were usually highly inflammatory, often emotional, and always hilarious. Many times, there was "flaming" and counter-flaming around a particular graffiti. The posts would also get "hacked" every so often, with people scribbling over graffiti to render them unreadable. And once every month or so, the "administrators" had to step in, either washing the toilet walls and doors, or less frequently, painting over them.
He forgot one more: If you use blogspot, sometimes the whole thing just gets flushed down the pipe.free donlowd film sex

Flying Second Amendment
: "Good afternoon, thisis your captain speaking.... Our airpseed is 400 miles per hour... And I'm packing a Colt King Cobra, that's a 357 calibre firearm..."free donlowd film sex

WELCOME BACK, SALAM PAX!
: Every day since March, I checked Salam Pax's Baghdad blog. I'll bet you did, too. It was like having a missing relative, except you didn't appear on the Today Show to talk about it every day. Most times, there's an unhappy ending to that story. But now, it appears, we have our happy ending:
Salam Pax is back.
I was out in New York after a meeting, checking my email (Mobile Man!) and I got excited messages from Aaron Brown, Howard Sherman, and others announcing that Salam Pax is back.
Damn good news.
He wrote a helluva lot during the war and after. I'm just starting to read it. But like the messengers who brought me the news, I want to bring it to you:
Salam Pax is back.
And he says:

Let me tell you one thing first. War sucks big time. Don’t let yourself ever be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine guns at the end of your street you don’t think about your “imminent liberation” anymore.
But I am sounding now like the Taxi drivers I have fights with whenever I get into one.
Besides asking for outrageous fares (you can’t blame them gas prices have gone up 10 times, if you can get it) but they start grumbling and mumbling and at a point they would say something like “well it wasn’t like the mess it is now when we had saddam”. This is usually my cue for going into rage-mode. We Iraqis seem to have very short memories, or we simply block the bad times out. I ask them how long it took for us to get the electricity back again after he last war? 2 years until things got to what they are now, after 2 months of war. I ask them how was the water? Bad. Gas for car? None existent. Work? Lots of sitting in street tea shops. And how did everything get back? Hussain Kamel used to literally beat and whip people to do the impossible task of rebuilding. Then the question that would shut them up, so, dear Mr. Taxi driver would you like to have your saddam back? Aren’t we just really glad that we can now at least have hope for a new Iraq? Or are we Iraqis just a bunch of impatient fools who do nothing better than grumble and whine? Patience, you have waited for 35 years for days like these so get to working instead of whining. End of conversation.
He emailed a Word file full of writing to his friend, who posted it.
He also said he passed by some place offering email and he hopes to be able to afford to get online himself once every week or two.
Time for the Salam Pax tip jar! We should help pay for his online (or satellite phone) time.
We want Salam Pax back online.
He is, I firmly believe, the first of many, many Baghdad bloggers.
Welcome back, Salam.free donlowd film sex

Memorial
: I'm working away on my concept for a World Trade Center memorial. Not ready to talk about it (and not sure that I can, since the official rules make anonymity a requirement). I will be asking for help later.
Meanwhile, blogger Greg Allen has also decided to enter the competition and also to hold a small -- not sure what the right word is: seminar, atelier, klatch -- among other people who are working in memorial designs.
He also admits to some skepticism about the process and the democratization of design and I see his point.
But the Vietnam Veterans Memorial -- once controversial, now hailed universally -- came from someone who wasn't an architect yet (and she's now on the jury for this competition). What she had was an idea, a concept.
I think this memorial commission is sincere in wanting a concept that is new and unique; they want to break molds. That's why they have opened it up to all; that is why they have emphasized anonymity.
I'm very excited about my concept. I'm excited about looking at the others. I do believe that this event so touched our souls and psyches that something strong and new will come out of this. free donlowd film sex

Circulation problems
: Ken Layne finds significance in the 5.3 percent circ decline just reported for the New York Times in the last six months. He forgets one key factor: The Times increased its newsstand price in New York from 75 cents to $1 on Dec. 30. That always leads to a decline in circulation, especially such a big increase.
I find more significance in the steady 10-percent-plus increases the New York Post is getting (at the same time that the Post of the airwaves, FoxNews, climbs to the top).
News with attitude is what's winning.free donlowd film sex

Still hazy after all these years
: Gary Hart is such a twit. He drops out of the race because, says his mouthpiece, he "holds less enthusiasm for the mechanics of what politics has become, the emphasis on fund raising and polling." Uh, he's done this before; he knew what he was getting into. He can't even make up a decent excuse for quitting.
free donlowd film sex

New neighbors
: Ryan Pitts, who created one of the best newspaper blogs covering the war (for the Spokesman-Review), has created a new group blog called the Dead Parrot Society. It's very well done. (Metapop, take notice.)free donlowd film sex

Docupundit
: Glenn Reynolds goes to a nanotechnology conference and not only gives you blog posts and a Tech Central Station but, clearly having nothing to do with the fourth finger of his left hand and wanting to put it to good use, he even records video of Larry Lessig and other attendees and gives us an online Instamentary. (To save bandwidth, they cut down the quality of the stream; Glenn's video was higher quality; but the words don't change.)
What's neat is that seeing this on video makes it clear that this is reporting, not just punditry.free donlowd film sex

May 06, 2003

On the Baghdad newsstand
: Radio Free Europe reports that reporting is coming back to Iraq:

...news services are beginning to come back to fill the information vacuum. More and more Iraqis say they are tuning into Iran-based Al-Alam ("The World") TV, Qatar's Al-Jazeera, or the U.S.-based Radio Sawa, which is transmitted by coalition forces from the Baghdad airport.
Baghdad has more than a half-dozen newspapers published by a range of political, ethnic and religious groups. Capital residents can choose between "Future," published by the Iraqi National Accord; "Conference," put out by the Iraqi National Congress; the Iraqi communists' "Road to the People"; and the London-based "Al-Zaman" ("Times"). Some of the papers are distributed for free; others sell for between 250-750 dinars (approximately $0.07-$0.20).
The number of newspapers and other sources of news are increasing on a daily basis. But many Iraqis say they often leave a lot to be desired, in terms of content and quality. In particular, residents say they need better, more objective information about the unfolding developments in postwar Iraq. Some say they feel they are at the center of an ideological battle between the polarized pro-American and anti-American worlds.
I'm still hot on the idea of weblogs as part of this mix (and I'm writing an op-ed piece about that now). free donlowd film sex

The arrest of Sina Motallebi: Day 17
: An update from Hoder. Iran is now talking about trying to filter Internet sites. China has tried that, too, of course. But the Internet will remain one step ahead of the dictators.free donlowd film sex

The final word on Bill Bennett
: From Ken Layne:

Millions of dollars on machines, with no human company beyond the wandering cocktail waitress and the oxygen-tank guy honking quietly a few seats down? That ain't gambling. That's masturbation.
free donlowd film sex

Bill Bennett repents, reforms
: So all you knee-jerk Bill Bennett defenders just got the rug pulled out from under you by your man. Even he admits that he gambled too much. free donlowd film sex

Open space, open wallet
: Where I live, open space purchases by the town, county, and state are often a waste and often a scam.
They raise lots of taxes on a separate levy to support a cause everybody supports -- open space; I, too, love a meadow carpeted with waving grasses. But then they use it to buy property next to the interstate (who cares if that gets developed?) or property that's undevelopable anyway or property that just happens to back up to the house of a local government official. Almost none of this is turned into parkland the public and taxpayers can enjoy; it just sits there, sometimes derelict, often gathering trash, and never producing tax revenue. It's not all a crock but a helluva lot of it is. Two out of three purchases in my neighborhood were a waste of money.
And it's done in the service of a political truism that development is bad (the development that built the house you live in was fine but the development that brings in a new neighbor, well, that's a different matter).
This is a damned good story I've never seen done.free donlowd film sex

This morning, I read a good bit of reporting in the Washington Post story about the Nature Conservancy and a scam that uses yet more tax dollars to support the cause open space while also helping rich people build big houses.
Here's how it works: The Conservancy buys a juicy piece of property, purportedly to save it from devil developers, for $2.1 million. It then sells it to a rich donor -- with some restrictions on the use of the property but with no limits on building a huge, private home -- who pays only $500,000 for the property because the donor also contributes $1.6 million to the Conservancy -- which is a big tax deducation for the donor, which means that we the taxpayers subsidized this deal to the tune of almost $800,000 (and because there's a restriction on the use of the land, the assessment is reduced and with it the local property taxes: an ongoing subsidy). free donlowd film sex

The sacred cow of open space hides many a scam and many a good story.free donlowd film sex

May 05, 2003

Drama
: Chuck interviews me and all I do is blather. Chuck interviews Anil, and he ends up costarring with a costar of The Sopranos in a caffeinated police drama. I'm so damned jealous.free donlowd film sex

Ecumenism: When Muslims sound like Jesse Jackson
: From Memri, translating a Friday sermon in Iraq:

Hear, countries of the world: In our city there are no weapons. Do we have weapons of mass destruction?! We have weapons of mass construction: good deeds, the Koran, prayer. This is our weapon. We are people of mass construction and not of mass destruction.
Cheap rhetorical tricks are not the province of just one religion, one people, one language. They belong to clerics the world around! Praise to be to cheap rhetorical tricks!free donlowd film sex

The Muslim bloc
: Alt.Muslim argues that it was Muslim voters in Britain who ousted Tony Blair's Labour from Birmingham and lost him 700 seats in recent local elections. free donlowd film sex

Crazy underground
: I can't top my colleague's PATH train sighting: lesbian little people locked in passionate embrace on the train at midnight -- twice. Still, I keep trying. Today's crazy little bit of behavior: A lady comes on, methodically unfolds a black plastic bag, and lays it on a clean seat, with no compunctions about letting it overlap onto the legs of the men on either side of her, who do a very good job of acting as if this is not happening (I think I might have shouted, "Hey lady, what the hell do you think you're doing?" But I'm a hothead). The next stop, she gets up, folds her bag, and heads off to Jersey City (where, if one wants to keep clean, one should consider wearing a whole-body plastic bag).free donlowd film sex

Iran's weblog culture
: Pedram Moallemian writes about Iran's youth weblog culture for Ireland's The Blanket.free donlowd film sex

May 04, 2003

Bob Graham and homeland security
: The Washington Post magazine tries to portray presidential candidate Bob Graham as a bit of a Chicken Little regarding homeland security. They paint a picture of a dull, plodding guy who freaks out over the risk to us at home. Of course, this was a man who headed the Intelligence Committee; he knows things we don't; he could have reason to freak out; so could we.

He supported the first Gulf War, and only opposed the second one because he had a long list of countries he believed were more dangerous than Iraq, and didn't want to jack up the risk of terrorism for a low-priority target. He hints that he could support military action against known terrorists -- al Qaeda in Yemen, Hezbollah in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, and even Hamas in the West Bank and Gaza. His message is simple: There are many people with the ability and desire to kill Americans, so we'd better kill them first. "We've taken the pressure off al Qaeda," he complains. "We haven't done anything about Hezbollah. We need to take the fight to the terrorists."
In fact, few people who have followed Graham's career -- and few people who have seen the same classified material that he has -- think politics has much to do with his preachings. They say Bob Graham is no Jack Kennedy -- and the threat of terrorism is no made-up missile gap. "The thing is, he's a serious man, not a showboat, and he's absolutely right to be concerned," says Sen. Richard Shelby, an Alabama Republican who worked closely with Graham on the intelligence committee.
House intelligence committee Chairman Porter Goss of Florida, another Republican, says he can't understand why Graham's dire warnings haven't gotten more attention: "Bob Graham is not a grandstander. He's one of the most responsible people I know. He's sounding the alarm, loud and clear, and no one seems to be listening."
In this edgy era of duct tape, sleeper cells and Cipro, the alternative to the opportunist-demagogue theory of Bob Graham's transformation is much more disturbing: Maybe the former Senate intelligence chairman is genuinely convinced that something awful is going to happen.
"Bob is a responsible guy; if he says something, it's true," says Buddy Shorstein, his former chief of staff and one of his best friends. "I'll tell you, that's what scares the hell out of me." ...
I tell people: As you go about your day, look at all the vulnerabilities in your community, your workplace, your home," he says. "Drive under a bridge. Walk into a building . . . My point is it's impossible to secure our homeland without doing away with our liberties."
That's the cheery message Graham has been sharing with his friends. He's encouraged some of them to read The Age of Sacred Terror, a frightening book about the rise of militant Islam. "He's got me scared for my children and grandchildren," says his neighbor and former campaign manager Aaron Podhurst. Arva Moore Parks, a Miami historian and a close friend of the Grahams, says she's never seen Bob so worried. "I wonder: What's got him so frightened? What does he know that I don't know?"
If, God forbid, we suffer another terrible attack, the entire game called the presidential race will change again. The Demo doves will fade away. The hawks will fly.free donlowd film sex

What makes America great
: Bottomless coffee cups.free donlowd film sex

Iranian humor
: On Iranian.com, a very good site, they cleverly make a pitch for contributions when you click on a headline to see a story. One such pitch has a picture of Bush and these words: "You're either with iranian.com or you're with the terrrists." True in more ways than one.free donlowd film sex

The camel never forgets
: At The Iranian, Massud Alemi writes about the effect of time on the memory of Iranians regarding America:

Ever since the CIA-backed coup of 1953 against a popular government, which resulted in 25 years of dictatorship, Iranians held a long grudge against the U.S. for having ignored their democratic aspirations, a bitterness that translated itself into the American hostage crisis at the beginning of the Islamic Republic.
However, as the behavior of the revolutionary regime resulted in alienating America with its continuous export of terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), domestically it alienated the Iranian people with oppression so brutal that it makes the Shah's torture chambers look like a stupid mistake.
As a result of this ironic twist of fate, a quarter century after taking part in the most popular and vehement anti-American revolutions in the world, the Iranian people are feeling closer to America in their hearts and minds than most other nations on earth. Judging from the emails and faxes and telephone messages that are left on the answering machine of the Persian Service at the Voice of America, George Bush now enjoys more support in Iran than here at home.
Given the intensity of the anti-American fervor 25 years ago in Iran, one would never have imagined such a reversal of sentiments after just one generation. Can America afford to ignore such overflow of support and enthusiasm in what must be the most hostile region of the world?
From this side of the glass, it's also important to say that Americans have not forgotten the "hostage crisis" and so there is a similar fear and trepidation regarding Iran. But I do sense a warmth and openness to dialogue and friendship in my links to Iranian weblogs.
Alemi is right: This is a historic opportunity to wipe the slate and start again. What does that mean? He argues that Bush must press Tehran for democratic reform while the opportunity is ripe.free donlowd film sex

What goes around
: Hooman, an Iranian blogger, can't understand why folks are in a tizzy about us not having found Iraq's weapons of mass destruction yet: "Hey people what's the rush? Calm down. You have to give the weapon inspections more time ;)"free donlowd film sex

Polls closed
: Oliver Willis sends word that FX has decided not to go ahead with the American Candidate series, which promised to pick a presidential candidate a la American Idol. FX says it's too expensive. The producer says he's going to find a home. I still like the idea, populist that I am. free donlowd film sex

May 03, 2003

Birds of a feather stick together
: Andrew Sullivan is so frigging predictable. I stopped reading him through the war. Just tried starting again. But he's as precitable as Oprah. Boring.
When William Bennett, right-wing moralizer, is questioned for his $8-million gambling habit, Sullivan leaps to the defense of a fellow Republican:

He has done nothing hypocritical. Only in the minds of a few religious fanatics, has he done anything immoral.
Oh, come on. The guy was caught with his pants down and his wallet in them. He preaches moderation as a virtue. Immoderation would then be... oh, what?... a sin?
That wouldn't be newsworthy in the slightest, Andrew, except that this moralizer preached to all the rest of us what we should and shouldn't be doing.
Preach in glass houses....free donlowd film sex

Obviously, the U.S. should have protected the cafeteria
: U.N. diplomats loot their lunchroom.free donlowd film sex

I'm sick of Scott Peterson on cable news...
: ... it's enough to make me wish for another war.free donlowd film sex

Touchy designers
: I wish I could use Michele's excuse:

Obviously, I am working on the site, as I always do when I am PMS.
The blogroll is on hiatus for the day as I weed it out, fix it up and piss some people off.
Such is life.
And if you don't like the new logo or the tagline or the colors -
Bite Me.
free donlowd film sex

Political snobbery
: I've been searching and searching for the reason that the left has lost so much of its humanistic compassion, that it came to care more about "my name" (and not doing anything in my name) than about the freedom of the Iraqi people. And I fear I've found the reason:
The left has become a movement of snobs (taking that title away from the right). free donlowd film sex

This occurred to me today as I listened to one of my favorite radio shows, Kurt Andersen's Studio 360. I respect Andersen and usually agree with him but today, I say he overdid it when he said:

And what has been the first huge, terrible misstep of this American war intended to begin the restoration of civilized values in Iraq?
Our failure to protect the National Museum of Iraq in Baghdad. We all know what happened: looters stole thousands of precious and irreplaceable statuary and vases and cups and architectural fragments from the ancient Mesopotamian and Sumerian and Assyrian cultures.
That is, we failed to safeguard some of the most precious artifacts of civilization itself.
It would be hard to dream up an irony more tragic than this.
Oh, I could dream up a crueler irony quite easily: Imagine if more of our soldiers had died because they were spread thin covering the museum. Imagine if looters had been killed by coalition forces protecting the vaults. Imagine the outcry that, too, would have brought.
In fairness, I'll bet Andersen recorded his commentary before the NY Times admitted this week that the number of items known lost is 29, not 170,000 (and that some of the items lifted came from the gift shop). free donlowd film sex

Still this rallying cry over museum pieces, primarily from the left and antiwar Europe, reveals an attitude that, to me, clearly indicates the favoring of things -- and ideas -- over people. Given the choice of protecting our soldiers and others by not spreading them thin, I'll take people. Given the choice of invading Iraq and freeing its people or not, I'll take freedom. But not the left (and Old Europe).
The left got up-in-arms not about the lives and safety of our soldiers and not about the freedom of Iraqis but about a bunch of museum pieces. Things. I don't care how damned precious they are, they're still just things. Any single human life is more precious than the lot of them.
I would have expected just the opposite from my fellow liberals. I would have expected the utmost human compassion and defense.
But the sad fact is that liberals have become snobs.
When I grew up, conservatives were the snobs: They ran the companies. They were white. They were privileged. They were educated. They were members of the exclusive society. Country club culture.
But today, liberals are the snobbier lot. They control the academe. They scold or exclude people based on sins of offensiveness, saying the wrong thing, thinking the wrong thing: political incorrectness. When I was a TV critic, I had to suffer so many of my fellow travelers who insisted that they watched only public television, not the grungy popular TV the rest of America and I liked. PBS culture.
Their cultural snobbery extends even to Iraq's museums. free donlowd film sex

The sad fact of it is that the left has lost -- or abandoned -- the masses.
The left used to defend the people against the elite but now they are the elite.
The left used to speak with the voice of the people but now the people have FoxNews and the New York Post.
When they weren't looking, Rupert Murdoch came and stole the media masses away from the left. And if they're not careful, if they don't remember their roots and their raison d'etre, liberalism will lose its political legitimacy the same way.
Those roots should lead them -- no, us, my fellow liberals -- to fight for the rights of the Iraqi people and to put that above the value of museum pieces behind glass (not to mention rights to health insurance for Americans and quality education and ... well, you get the idea).
I'll be listening to tonight's Democratic debate to see whether I hear the words of liberalism, whether I hear a voice of the people again.free donlowd film sex

Rule by fanaticism
: This is why we cannot allow a religious tyranny to replace the secular tyranny in Iraq:

Preaching to tens of thousands worshippers at the Qadhimaya mosque in northern Baghdad, Sheikh Mohammed al-Tabatabi said: "The west calls for freedom and liberty. Islam is not calling for this. Islam rejects such liberty. True liberty is obedience to God and to be liberated from desires. The dangers we should anticipate in coming days is the danger to our religion from the west trying to spread pornographic magazines and channels."
Under Saddam, Iraq was a secular society. Women had equal rights with men and freedom to dress in western clothes. It was more lax than many of its neighbours about alcohol.
But Sheikh Tabatabi said: "We will not allow shops to sell alcohol and we ask for the closure of all such places and we ask you to use every available means to bring this about."
He added that women should not be allowed to wander unveiled around Qadhimaya City.
You heard the man: They reject liberty.
Democracy is synonymous with liberty. Human rights, too, are synonymous with liberty. The choice of leadership and law must remain at all times in the hands of the people. If the choice of leadership and law is in the hands of the leaders then that is not democracy or freedom or liberty, it is, by definition, tyranny. And you cannot convince me that any people will willingly choose tyranny. free donlowd film sex

: See, too, this interesting blog post by Iman. An Iranian, Iman argues that Iranians are racist (Persians v. Arabs) as Arabs are racist (Arabs v. Persians). It's a complicated neighborhood, that.
The post also touches on some jealousy and jousting that will occur between Shiite clerics in Iraq, which houses the most holy sites of that large slice of Islam, and the clerics of Iran, where Shia leadership migrated because of Saddam's persecution.
And then it observes:

...an important problem is that Shia clerics mostly are conservative and do not like to involve any political affairs....
They are suspicious about western style democratic governments. Maybe it has different meaning for them like sexual freedom, selling alcohol in shops and the like. History shows that they have had better relationship with dictator kings in compare to elected government.
free donlowd film sex

Lo-Jack for hikers
: I have a slightly different take on the story of the hiker who had to hack off his own arm with a pocketknife to free himself from a boulder.
Yes, of course, it's a story of amazing courage and fortitude and of the human will to live.
But I'm also getting tired of stories of hikers who get themselves in trouble in the wilderness and then expect that it is their right to be rescued at public expense and at the rescuers' risk. Remember the story of the rescue chopper that crashed on a mountain about a year ago.
So I have a humble proposal: Require hikers and natureboys and girls to carry human Lo-Jacks: If you get in trouble, you activate it and you can be found precisely. Otherwise, you're on your own.
It may not be a bad idea to implant them in all human beings. Then we wouldn't have to listen to the emotional voyeurism on Today about the tragedies of Laci Peterson and Tristen "Buddy" Meyers.free donlowd film sex

May 02, 2003

The arrest of blogger Sina Motallebi: Day 13
: Hoder has an update on the arrest of the Iranian blogger:

Sina's wife has finally spoken out in her weblog. She's said that Sina needs everybody to be calm so he get out earlier. She has denied all the things that LA-based satelite Persian TVs say about Sina, and has added that she hadn't talked to anyone except to ISNA on the first day. (God damn this indirect quoting!)
In other important developments, Iranian judiciary spokesperson (who is a radical Islamist and has just appointed to his new job) has said that there is no journalist in Iranian prisions! He said that a few people who call themselves journalists, are not arrested because of their writings.
This is their newest tactic. They arrest journalists and activists and throw them in jail, because of possesing alcoholic drinks, or "illegal" video or music tapes, etc. So this way they don'r pay any political price for these actions and make the charges more reasonable for the outside world. They have done the same thing for Alireza Jabbari, a writer and translator recently.
So I think they would announce that Sina's charges are not political at all and he is not there because he is a journalist. beware of their new tricks....
Journalists must embrace, protect, and report on Motallebi as one of their own, as a journalist who is under threat because of what all journalists do.
Why haven't I seen a story about this in the New York Times and the Washington Post and the Guardian and the Times of London and on FoxNews and CNN? I think I'll pitch it to someone I respect myself.
They all did stories about weblogging when it was new and interesting and fun.
Well, now it matters.free donlowd film sex

Big-brain blogs
: As blogs get hotter, more well-known people are taking them on.
I'm impressed with the new blog by Pierre Omidyar, founder of eBay. Technology maven Esther Dyson has a new blog as well (so far, Omidyar's has more to say).
Note that both of them don't mention their last names. I'm not sure whether that's humility or the opposite. Come on, folks, you're not Chers.
A couple of presidential candidates (or their agents) have blogs. Dave Barry has a blog.
I'm glad they're blogging, for I think this will open a new window on the brains of some big thinkers. Of course, they'll be more guarded than your average unemployed blogger. But still, the advantage of blogging is that you dash off your thoughts and thus, I think, a blog is a truer indication of someone's thinking than an over-edited essay.
I'm starting to make my list of other big thinkers (whether you like them or not) I want to see in our blogosphere: Jeff Bezos... Rupert Murdoch... Bill Clinton... Rudy Guliani... Howard Stern...
Who else?free donlowd film sex

: Clay Shirky was on my list of smart people I wanted to blog. I tried to argue him into it and failed. But somebody was clearly better at arguing than I am, for he's not part of Corante's newest group blog. free donlowd film sex

: Hoder points out that Omidyar is yet another Iranian blogger!free donlowd film sex

: Leave your nominations for other big-brainers who should be blogging in the comments...free donlowd film sex

Hit me
: So here's Josh Marshall's blind post: "William J. Bennett has made millions lecturing people on morality--and blown it on gambling," says the headline in Washington Monthly. Bennett has never hidden his taste for gambling but he does it a lot. The magazine says he has lost $8 million.
"I view it as drinking," Bennett says. "If you can't handle it, don't do it."
Pass the bottle, Bill.free donlowd film sex

The Howard Stern tivo
: At last, somebody invented just the gadget I've asked for: a radio Tivo so I can record the shows I miss because I have to do something silly, like work. I'll record Howard Stern and Kurt Andersen's Studio 360. Gizmodo reports. free donlowd film sex

A gadget too far
: Today, sitting home (because my kids' school schedules its parent-teacher conferences as inconveniently as possible, smack dab in the middle of the day) I've seen commecials for two new direct-to-garage-sale gadgets from Black & Decker. There's a gigantic contraption that just opens jars. (Yes, I know, if you have arthritis, it's welcome. But otherwise, it's an indication of the progressive weakening of American arms.) The other takes store-bought ice cream and smooshes it. That's it: It's a smoosher. When I was a kid, we had to smoosh our own ice cream, damnit. What kind of generation are we raising here?free donlowd film sex

Gossip
: Josh Marshall has a blind post.
: Make that Dr. Josh Marshall.free donlowd film sex


The world is watching
: The case of jailed Iranian blogger Sina Motallebi is getting more attention, now from the BBC. [via the Eyeranian]free donlowd film sex

Negotiating with terrorists?
: Two Iranian weblogs are complaining about America's negotiated truce with the MKO or People’s Mujahidin in Iraq. The AP explains:

The U.S. ceasefire with an Iranian exile group it considers a terrorist organization allows the Mujahedeen Khalq to defend itself from Iranian-sponsored attacks and keep its artillery and other weapons, U.S. military officials said today.
The ceasefire signed April 15 appears to be a way for the United States to increase pressure on Iran, which Washington has accused of meddling in Iraq after the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime.
But it represents a conundrum of sorts for the United States, which has classified the Iraq-based group as a terrorist organization. The United States went to war against Iraq in part to dismantle what it said were terrorist networks supported by Saddam's regime.
And the weblogs complain... Eyeranian says:
If you believe and have classified this or any other organization as a “terrorist organization” and are deeply involved in what you have labeled the “war on terror”, what message does allowing MKO to operate under your control send to the rest of the world?...
They should either remove MKO from their list of terrorist organizations and acknowledge them as a proper resistance movement battling to free their homeland or don’t allow terrorists to operate and carry out terror operations in their territory or territories currently under their control.
And Astigma supported the war in Iraq but also questions this move and now asks, "Can we trust America?"
My knowledge of these politics is about as deep as my knowledge of Bakersfield politics. But we do need to pay attention to how our actions speak. Negotiating with terrorists is troubling, as is keeping minors in Gitmo. We have to walk a tightrope.free donlowd film sex

: See the comments on this post; better-informed people, including an Iranian, explain what this is about.
free donlowd film sex

May 01, 2003

(in)Security
: The human Brit bomb who blew himself up in Israel worked at Heathrow for two years, says the Sun.free donlowd film sex

: Meanwhile, in Jordan, an idiot Japanese reporter's war souvenir turned out to be a bomb that exploded in the hands of an airport official, killing the man.
Imagine if it had gone off on the plane in flight.free donlowd film sex

: Update: Witnesses now say the airport official was the one with the grenade that exploded. free donlowd film sex

Tina the obscure
: Drudge says that Tina Brown's CNBC show got a tiny rating and only 65,000 households in the audience. Compare that with Glenn Reynolds' stats: an average of well over 100,000 visits a day (almost double that at a peak).
OK, his accent's not as cool; neither is his haircut; ditto his wardrobe.
But Glenn Reynolds is a bigger media beast than Tina Brown.free donlowd film sex

Bush
: I didn't care for George Bush and it was so obvious my kids could tell. I didn't vote for him and likely won't again. I disagree with him about most of his agenda.
I also was not sure about this war some months ago; I fretted about it.
But I have to say that Bush and his team executed this war brilliantly. I have no problem saying that this was a right war to fight for a right cause and they fought it well.
So I was impressed with Bush's speech tonight on the deck of the Abraham Lincoln (more impressed, by the way, than Glenn Reynolds, who's not as far right as many think but who's surely to the right of me).
It was the speech of a leader. He did not gloat but he did show a firm and clear direction.
There will be controversy over some things he said, of course. Yes, he all but linked Iraq to 9.11 but, you know, it's not a far stretch in the minds of most Americans and for a reason: Looney fanatics from over there who hate us are birds of a feather. And there was a time in my life when I would have found the idea of smarter bombs to be distasteful, but now that I see the necessity of a war like this, even as I mourn the lives that are lost, I'm thankful for those that are not.
I'm still a liberal. I'm still not a Bushy. But give the man his due: He won the war against Iraq; right won the war against wrong. Well done.free donlowd film sex

I was right
: Ken Layne does have an Australian accent, but only when he sings.free donlowd film sex

Fame
: I had a convivial (been helping my kid with his vocabulary) interview yesterday with Chuck Olsen, who's working on his Blogumentary. Can't wait to see the show.free donlowd film sex

More's a crowd
: So Popdex started a new group weblog called Metapop. Sorry, but I'm unimpressed.
It's a bit of a mess with no organizing principle and no apparent quality control.
So you get posts like this:

Z39.50 OCLC has, in the PowerPoint presentation Non-Member Use of Cataloging Records called Z39.50 users rogues. The tone is much like the RIAA going after KaZar. Z39.50 the next P2P?
Arrrgh. It reminds me of the old, bad days of Usenet: Clutter clatter.
This is so old net. We've advanced past this. Slashdot and Plastic added technology to organize things. Metafilter and especially BoingBoing have a collective voice.
To me, the state of the art in collaborative blogging is unquestionably Command Post. That's because (1) it has a theme, a raison d'etre that gives the posters a clear reason to post and the readers a clear reason to read (read: it's more than just blather) and (2) it had a self-correcting means of editing itself (that is, in the first days, there were repetitive posts but the community created its own editing standards).
Command Post has true value. Beat that.free donlowd film sex

: Update: Metapop blogs the blog on the blog (this being our habit, here among the blogs). I'm impressed that they take the criticism well. My suggestion: Decide what the hell Metapop is about; give it a mission; give it a tagline and live up to it. What separates Metapop from Metafilter and BoingBoing? Decide and do that and you'll be much better.free donlowd film sex

Sina Motallebi update
: Eyeranian gives us the update on the jailed Iranian blogger:

Emrooz (Today) Newspaper in Tehran reported yesterday that Sina had appeared at a special court division in Tehran's Mehrabad international airport(!!). He told Judge Zafarghandi that he would prefer not to answer to his charges at this point. He also confirmed that he has accepted some charges and would like to present his case about others. Sina is then quoted to say he may need a lawyer at the trial stage but in this primary investigative phases he does not need one. He then asked everyone concerned with his case to not judge him until he clears any misunderstandings and verified that he has been allowed to meet with his family.
Sina's wife Farnaz has also been vocal about him. In her blog manioman (Mani & I, Mani being her young son) complained of people attributing certain quotes to her. She states that she has not had done interviews with any radio stations broadcasting to Iran from abroad or even local newspapers. She then asks friends to remain silent on the matter and let things be.
My 2 cents: don't be surprised if Sina is forced to accepting any charges or even confesses to certain misdeeds. This is unfortunately the norm for Iranian prisoners. Remember this, for Sina and his family, the priority right now is to get the most lenient sentence for him. Remaining silent and/or accepting some misdemeanors is the easiest way to achieve that. I can completely understand their rationale too. Getting a 5 year sentence or a 10 year one for a 30 year old with a baby in waiting is a huge difference.
Good God, think about that, fellow free people: Someone has to consider a five-year-sentence good or better than the alternatives on this relative scale just for the crime of free speech!
We take it too much for granted in this country -- and thank God we can -- that you can't be sent to prison and thus silenced just for saying something. Oh, yes, you can be argued with and attacked with words or, unfortunately, sued and attacked with lawyers.
But in this country, you have the right to speak. It's so fundamental. It's such a basic right, the most basic human right of all.
But here is a man who merely wrote on his blog -- just what so many of us do without a second thought every day -- and he's at risk of becoming a victim and a martyr.
free donlowd film sex

Democracy
: On the one hand, it's good news that Qatar went to the polls yesterday to vote on a constitution. On the other hand, it's a sad commentary for the nation and the region that holding an election is unique news. free donlowd film sex

What is it with...
: Malcolm Gladwell's hair (on Tina Brown's show)? There's just so much of it. You'd think it would all tip over. But it doesn't. It hasn't reached that point yet.free donlowd film sex

SARS scoop
: I should have linked to this scoop on BWG's blog from China a few days ago. He noted that there apparent relapses of SARS -- which was reported here just today -- but he also wondered whether this was just because the Chinese hospitals were releasing people too soon.free donlowd film sex

Dumb and dumber
: I'm of the mind that it's dumb to run boycotts for all the reasons you already know. But it's even dumber, much dumber, to react to a threatened boycott with big legal muscle. As Glenn Reynolds reports, that's what has happened: Boycott-Hollywood.us is shutting down because of a threat from William Morris, who would have been far smarter just to let this fade and let free speech flourish. But, hey, that's Hollywood. I spent many years covering the fools and control freaks there. As my mentor said to me often as we sat up late rewriting stories about those fools, "We hate the stars, Jeff." free donlowd film sex

Uh, nevermind
: So the NY Times reports today that the plunder of Iraqi museums was nowhere near as severe as we've heard in all the wailing:

Col. Matthew F. Bogdanos, a Marine reservist who is investigating the looting and is stationed at the museum, said museum officials had given him a list of 29 artifacts that were definitely missing. But since then, 4 items — ivory objects from the eighth century B.C. — had been traced.
"Twenty-five pieces is not the same as 170,000," said Colonel Bogdanos, who in civilian life is an assistant Manhattan district attorney.
Other items are still being handed in, though some of them came from the gift shop.free donlowd film sex
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9.11: My story
: My audio narrative of Sept. 11
: My story of Sept. 11

Recent posts of note
: The me in media
: We won't have to explain when...
: Super-duper reporting machine
: Weblogs and big media
: A new Iraqi blogger
: Link to a story on hyperlocal blogs
: Interview with a dinosaur
: Fisking Andy Rooney
: Blogs as buzzmachines
: Jay Rosen, Part I
: Jay Rosen, Part II
: The post-Internet newspaper
: 9.11 registry
: Online News Association
: 9.11 2003 morning ... afternoon
: PBSification of 9.11
... NY Post column
: Free content

Stuff
: Hyperlocal blog on Bernards NJ
: Confess ions of a warblogger

Video weblogs:
: Vlogs - video weblogs: State of the art.
: The start of vlogs
: Watch vlogs
: VLOG showcase

B-Roll: Hourly
: Glenn Reynolds' Instapundit
: Cory Doctorow: BoingBoing
: Gawker

B-Roll: Daily
: Glenn Reynolds.com on MSNBC.com
: James Lileks
: Jay Rosen's PressThink
: Elizabeth Spiers/NY Mag's Kicker
: A Small Victory
: Nick Denton
: Dan Gillmor
: Josh Marshall
: Atrios
: Matt Welch
: Dave Winer
: Doc Searls
: Richard Bennett
: Metafilter
: MSNBC Weblog Central

B-Roll: New
: David Isenberg
: Jay Rosen's PressThink
: Zeyad's Healing Iraq
: Om Malik
: Daniel Drezner
: Winds of Change
: Dead Parrots Society
: Fred Wilson's A VC
: Adam Curry
: Everything in Moderation
: Venture Blog
: Ed Sim's Beyond VC
: Pejman
: AKMA Adam
: Halley's Comment
: Au Currant
: Begging to Differ
: Ben Hammersley
: Chuck Olsen's Blogumentary
: John Scalzi on AOL
: Scalzi off AOL
: Daily Kos
: Dean Esmay
: Greg Allen
: Harry Hatchett et al
: Marketing Wonk
: Joi Ito
: Michael Totten
: Donald Sensing
: Outside the Beltway
: Radio Free Blogistan
: Scobelizer
: Kaye Trammell
: Norman Geras
: Dong Resin

B-Roll: Presidential
: Howard Dean
: Wesley Clark
: Unofficial Clark
: John Edwards
: Bush
: DNC's Kicking Ass

B-Roll: Middle East
: Zeyad's Healing Iraq
: Hoder's Editor: Myself
: Hoder: Persian
: The Eyeranian
: View From Iran
: Blue Bird Escape
: Persian Version
: Salam Pax
: Iranian.com
: Iranian Girl
: Astigma
: Steppenwolf
: Kaveh
: Me and Sassan
: Kandahar Chronicles
: Baghdad Burning
: Tehran Avenue
: Baghdad Bulletin

B-Roll: Frequently
: Command Post
: Steven Johnson
: Textism
: Aaron Bailey's 601AM
: Quarlo photos
: Howard Sherman
: Misanthropyst
: Joi Ito
: Reason's Hit & Run
: Paul Frankenstein
: David Galbraith
: Clay Shirky
: Fimoculous
: Howard Rheingold
: Henry Copeland
: Shifted Librarian"
: The Presurfer
: Ross Mayfield
: Jimmy Guterman
: Sebastian Paquet
: City Cynic
: Chris Pirillo
: Justin Katz
: Dean Allen: Textism
: Elizabeth Spiers
: Rossi Rant
: Lawrence Lessig
: Ken Layne
: Mickey Kaus
: David Weinberger
: Solly Ezekiel
: Meg Hourihan
: Jason Kottke
: Tony Pierce
: Dan Hon
: Karl Martino
: Law Meme
: Matt Webb
: Matthew Yglesias
: Morning News
: Scott Rosenberg
: Saltire
: Matt Haughey
: Evan Williams
: Little Green Footballs
: Patio Pundit
: Oliver Willis
: Tim Blair
: Andrea Harris
: John Ellis
: Moxie
: Phil Wolff
: Marc Weisblott
: Truth Laid Bear
: Patrick Nielsen Hayden: Electrolite
: The Fat Guy
: Shiloh Bucher
: Bjørn Stærk
: Emmanuelle Richard
: Reductio ad Absurdum
: Kevin Whited
: Rantburg
: Eugene Volokh et al
: Photodude
: ReadJacobs
: Amy Langfield
: Relapsed Catholic
: Holy Weblog
: Moira Breen
: Tom Coates
: Blogs of War
: Natalie Solent
: Kathy Kinsley
: Greg Beato
: Fritz Schranck
: Justin Slotman
: Libertarian Samizdata
: Follow Me Here
: Hypergene
: Ken Goldstein
: Rand Simberg
: William Quick
: Damian Penny
: Brian Linse
: Jay Zilber
: Sgt. Stryker
: Ted Barlow
: Megan McArdle
: Charles Dodgson
: Amygdala
: Dane Carlson
: Tom Tomorrow
: Stephen Green Vodkapundit
: Daniel Taylor
: Asparagirl
: Jim Treacher
: Frederik Norman
: Oxblog
: Anil Dash
: Woods Lot
: Virginia Postrel

B-Roll: Media/Tech
: Jim Romenesko
: I Want Media
: New Media Tidbits
: Corante
: Ad Rants
: Guardian Online Blog
: Lost Remote
: Marketing Fix
: Olivier Travers
: JD Lasica
: Rick Bruner I
: Marketing Wonk
: Tim Porter
: Always On nonblog
: Fast Company
: JD on MX
: Mike Wendland
: Kevin Werbach's Werblog
: Ed Cone
: Media Life
: WSJ Marketing & Media
: Media Guardian
: Chris Gulker

B-Roll: Blogs
: Movable Type's Six Apart
: Blogroots
: Corante on Blogging
: My Social Network explorer
: My Technorati Link Cosmos

B-Roll: Deutsch
: Schockwellenreiter
: Thomas Burg's Randgaenge
: Industrial Technology & Witchcraft
: David Kaspar's Medienkritik
: Ein Blog
: Heiko Hebig>
: Haiko Hebig>
: Papa Scott
: World Wide Klein
: Now Europe
: Martin Roell
: Monoklon
: Stefan Smalla
: Blog Haus
: Generation NeXt
: Tzwaen's Brain
: Le Sofa Blogger
: Kunstspaziergänge
: Meine Kleine Stadt (photos)
: eDings
: Netzeitung (web-only paper auf Deutsch)
: A ja!
: Sofia Sideshow (OK, it's Bulgarian)
: Netzeitung on this blog

Family
: My son's!
: My sister

JEFF JARVIS is former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday editor and associate publisher of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner. He was until recently president & creative director of Advance.net, the online arm of Advance Publications. Now he is working with The New York Times Company at About.com on content development and strategy and consulting for Advance, Fairchild, and the City University of New York's new Graduate School of Journalism, where he lead the creation of the curriculum for the new media program. He says he is at work on a book.
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