BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

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...sex serial download

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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. sex serial download

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. sex serial download

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.sex serial download

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. sex serial download

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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.sex serial download

: 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.sex serial download

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Blogopoly
: Aaron Brown reports it first: FCC to restrict blog ownership.sex serial download

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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. sex serial download

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

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