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June 21, 2003

Meanwhile, in the Congo
: A compelling presentation of the CBC's reporting on the Congo. [via Die Zeit]

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Aw, shucks
: I'm honored to be included in a list of a-list bloggers. Except I think I'm a poseur on that list. And, in fact, I doubt that there is an A-list. There are a hundred A-lists: one for tech, one for politics, one for sports, one for Cleveland, one for Iran, one just for guys named Hebig, and so on, and so on. The power of blogs is the power of the total, not the power of the powerful few. I didn't include my own blog on my list of most-influential lists (and, again, I was flattered just to be asked).

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Another life
: Blue Bird Escape -- the weblog of a teenager Iranian-American girl who has just returned to visit Iran -- continues to amaze me with its clear, heartfelt insight. Today's entry:

Coming back home has made me look at things differently. It has given me a brighter and stronger view. I now understand why people want to get away. I now understand how different my life would have been if I had stayed. I can see that people have problems. I can see that they are not happy but they try to make the best out of it.

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Dear Kofi Annan
: Ali sends an open letter to Kofi Annan urging help for Iran:

...If the world community does not take an urgent and timely action it is feared that the Iranian regime may observe no limits in its suppression of the demonstrators.
With regard to the above, we the undersigned request your urgent help so that another human tragedy can be prevented before the Islamic Republic's regime causes a bloodbath in Iran. Protests and demonstrations are a democratic right of the Iranian people and it is a duty of the world democrats to defend this right. We ask you as a responsible authority to respond to this appeal:
1)Condemn the inhumane crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran and demand that it stops the suppression and use of violence against the demonstrators.
2)Send immediately an international team to observe the situation in Iran.
3)Support the general demand of the Iranian people for a referendum and free elections observed by international organisations.
Please act urgently so that another human tragedy can be prevented in time.

The letter also gives us good background on the significance of July 9 and the ongoing demonstrations for democracy.
UPDATE: Here's where you can sign this letter as a petition.

Dear President Bush
: Iranian.com offers three letters to send to President Bush. One tells him to support the student demonstrations. Another tells him to offer only moral support. The third says the U.S. should do nothing. Take your pick.

Dear Ayatollah Khamenei
: And here's Human Rights Watch's letter to the supreme leader.

: You can see this ying-yang of opinion in my comments below: One Iranian commenter thanking bloggers for support, another warning that such support can put people in danger.
And you see this exact debate at Iranian.com, where Setareh Sabety lectures Iranian exiles and emigres:

Iranians abroad must unite under one cause: the protection of the human rights of those protesting in Iran. It is the duty of those Iranians who live in democracies to try their best to do what they can to protect the Iranians that have mustered enough courage to take to the streets in Iran and demand a regime change....
But this very right, that Iranians abroad possess, to differ with one another, is exactly what is needed in Iran. The right to speak ones mind without fear of being imprisoned or beaten up is the most basic first step to achieving democracy....
I asked friends who live in France and have French nationality why they did nothing to protest the comment made by their foreign minister that Iran was a democratic nation. They looked stunned as if they, in fact, as French who cared for their motherland, had a duty to voice their anger about France's repeated appeasement of the theocratic regime....
[We should] unite and demand our respective host nations and the international community as a whole to put pressure on the regime to avoid imprisonment and bloodshed? Is that not the best that Iranians abroad can do for the youth within our borders?

: Andrew Sullivan wonders why Iran is still page-three news in the Times.

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Movable Type PR crisis
: Movable Type has a PR crisis brewing. Anil joined in the comments at Site-Essential but if you want my PR advice, when something starts brewing in the blog world, the best thing to do is go to your own site and explain things clearly: Open source the info.

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Beeb dweebs II
: Giles Ward says there was even more wrong with the BBC's What the World Thinks of America (below) than meets the eye and ear.
Giles says that the BBC's international mission as a taxpayer-supported service is to report the facts.

However, the “What the World Thinks of America” beebate is a prime illustration of how the BBC is going wrong; instead of reporting facts, it is reporting its opinion of other people’s opinions. And this is wrong for a number of reasons. Firstly it is simply self indulgent – the actions of a bunch of grads trying to carry on student debates into their adult working lives as opposed to doing their jobs. Secondly, the results are normally entirely vacuous, you get sort of discussion you get with a bar full of students. But more importantly it runs against the rationale for BBC... it undermines the communication framework that simple news reporting provides. By broadcasting to the world the view that it is opinions that matter more than the news, they create a world where is shouting loudest that matters more than actions, events and consequences. This not only encourages irresponsibility, but also extremism as each side in a debate adopts a more extreme position in order to shift the centre ground.

And I thought it was just a crappy show. I did watch much of the show and it was an offense. In retaliation, I was going to suggest that an American network should create What the World Thinks of Europe but the truth is, the world couldn't care less.

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Potted
: In all the hyperactive hype over Harry Potter, it is accepted media wisdom that these long books are a good thing because they're getting kids to read them.
Pardon me, but that's like saying that Mary Higgins Clark is good because it's getting middle-aged bon-bon eaters to read.
They're not dissimilar. As narrative drama goes, Harry Potter sometimes displays the story-telling skill of a 6-year-old recounting a movie: This happened, then that happened, then this, then that. Resolution comes deus ex machina -- when J.K. Rowling intervenes to solve the crisis with a magic spell or medieval gizmo rather than through the dramatic conflict and examination of conscience of the characters.
But my criticism isn't with Harry Potter. If you like the books and movies, wonderful: enjoy. I'm the greatest fan of popular culture; being popular is the best review.
My criticism is with the media assumption that Harry Potter -- just because it's a book and more just because it's a long book -- is high culture. It's an oddly snobby assumption. In my view, Buffy the Vampire Slayer is better dramatic fiction; so is Star Trek. They depend on human conflict to resolve dramatic tension rather than the sudden entrance of a monster. Yet they don't get nearly the respect -- or certainly the hype -- of Harry Potter because they're not thick books.
Just because it's on paper, that doesn't make it smart. Just because it's long, that doesn't make it smarter.

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