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June 02, 2004

Wiki wish

: I wish someone would put up a wiki for the collective blogosphere to fact-check, fisk, confirm -- whatever -- Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 now that it's set to be released this month.

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Assvertising

: Rent your rear.

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Vote Al Jazeera

: Blogging from the World Editors Forum quotes Hazem Saghieh, editor of Al Hayat in London:

Al Jazeera "has partly replaced and taken over the role of political parties in the Middle East. Al Jazeera is the most influential party in the Arabic World", he said. This development has been helped by technological advances and the decline of traditional political parties in the region, Saghieh explained. "Al Jazeera claims that US military destroyed its offices in Kabul and Baghdad and an Al Jazeera correspondent in Madrid was accused of having helped Arabic terrorists. That is typical for a political party", Saghieh said.

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Revenge of the youth

: A letter writer in my town's local, fuddy-duddy, weekly newspaper went onto Xanga to see what these kids today are up to and came back shouting there's trouble, right here in River City! It starts with B and ends with G and rhymes with, uh, agog!

But thanks to the wonders of online interactivity, the kids fought back. [Link via my son; I'm not including names of kids, schools, or towns in this.] First, the letter writer:

What is wrong with today’s youth? I just went on a website called zanga.com [sic] where local teens keep an on-line “personal” journal that is open for the public to read....
Every entry I’ve read by our B----- teens was full of foul language, sexual references some disgusting and the constant theme of “boredom.” This is more than teen-aged angst. This was very disturbing reading.
Are all teens today obsessed with using every four-letter word they can think of? Do they all feel life is just a bore?
And the girls seem to have no modesty at all - they throw around sexual terms and body parts/functions as if they were sailors on leave.
Parents out there: wake up. Something is wrong with our teen-agers.

I read most of the local Xanga blogs and, sure, I found some no-no words, which hardly shocks me. I also saw a few kids openly saying, in those quizzes they take, that some of them did things that are against the law and I do hope they're only bragging fictionally.

This is a hot issue around here because kids in a neighboring town were just charged with "terroristic threats and harassment" because of what they said on their web sites. Again, one can only hope that this is the fictional innanity of youth but, after Columbine, no one knows and it's right and proper that local authorities play it safe and sure. These days, parents do need to tell their kids not only not to talk to strangers and not to contemplate or do illegal acts but also not to say stupid things online.

Most of what I found on the blogs was not frightening; it was alternately charming or boring about boredom. This lady assumes all kids are bad because she doesn't like what a few of them say. Man, some things never change, eh?

But what's really entertaining are the comments attached to that letter on the paper's own site, with teens in town giving her what for. A few excerpts:

: This new medium for children to express their opinions, the Internet, may open their words up to others, but it is no different than any other diary. I'm sorry that you feel that teenagers today are appalling in their behavior, but maybe one day you will realize that we are not troubled; we are simply growing up.

: No matter how hard you try, there will be lots of anger and frustration in teens. It's called puberty. I don't know about everyone else, but all I've ever heard is how you can't keep your feelings locked up inside of you, and how you have to let them out somehow. Well, if you tell your parents they will get upset. So much for that. You can tell your friends, they'll understand. But where can you tell something to your close friends and other been-there-done-that teens that no one else will have to hear things that you rather keep to your circle of friends?
Thus, the xanga was discovered.
Stop sending mixed signals. We have to let our feelings out. ALL of them. For some people, that means cursing. You could have them get that curse out of them to a responce of sympathy and soothing help, or let that anger burn inside until it bubbles out into rage like a volcano.

: Yes, we are bored, and that is because in B-------, there is NOTHING TO DO!! Our township is filled to the brim with fake rich people, who spend money on new parks, not movie theaters and such. Its our parents fault. If they actually cared about what went on our xangas (which they dont) they wouldnt do something by building another park, where land will just get wasted.

I agree with that. In my town, they're spending a fortune on the small portion of the population that plays soccer and we're not doing enough for the rest. It's the holy grail of open space that's paved and lit and littered and sweaty. Don't get me started...

: And, just to tell you, our life is quite boring. We get up early every day, go to school for 6 hours, come home, do homework until we have some special activity to do, eat dinner, do more homework, and go to bed. On weekends we have the choice of sitting at home and doing nothing, or going to the very few places where we can be with our friends. Our town has nothing that us kids can do, so we have to travel to, say the Mall in B------- to watch movies or go shopping.
Nothing is wrong with teen-agers. They just need something to do, and our town certainly doesnt help this.

Can't say my teen years were much different, were yours?

: I understand that you may be shocked that teenagers in B------- do curse, and go through the same feelings that other people "outside the bubble" may feel. Xangas, if anything, bring people together. People who may not talk that much in school might get to know each other because they subscribe to the other's xanga. Would you really want to break those new friendships because a few feel that they are unsuitable? I know I sure wouldn't.

: Xanga is our way of expressing ourselves, obviously you see no harm in expressing yourself by writing an editorial for the newspaper, so how is that any different?

: About the sailor talk...Parents say it in front of us...If they can cuss in front of us and not see anything wrong with it...why can't kids say the same things...except in text. Our parents are to blame for our foul Mouths.

: My mother occasionally reads my xanga and my friends, but she never comments or attacks any of us. she respects my privacy and right to express how I feel as long as I am not hurting others. You are attacking people. And personally I think you are a little too old to be involved in xanga.

Most amusing: One commenter pointed to the letter-writer's own son's blog, where he writes:

HAHAHAHAH finally my mom got rid of her xanga and will leave mine alone

Puberty is hard. Parenting is hard. Always has been, always will be. I hope -- hope -- that kids writing what they think and interacting with each other helps, most of the time. Time will tell. But judging by the articulate, passionate posts I just quoted, the kids win.

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New Kurdish blog

: Here's a new Kurdish blog from Iran by Medya Ghazizadeh and, best of all, lots of photos.

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Help

: For some reason, no one can post comments. Not my doing. Anybody know what the heck could have happened???? Here's the story:
Suddenly, my blog is accepting no comments. When someone tries to submit a comment, they get this message:
"Your comment submission failed for the following reasons: You are not allowed to post comments. Please correct the error in the form below, then press POST to post your comment."
Comments are OPEN in default and in each post I try. This is happening only in my main Buzzmachine blog; tested in another blog and it works.
Made a small change in comment configuration and rebuilt to try to fix it; didn't work.
I changed nothing on the server.
However, last night, my host (Hosting Matters) went down and I believe that happened just as I was closing comments on ONE POST (a very old one) to deal with a comment spammer.
Help! What can I do?

: UPDATE: Just fixed it. When banning a comment spammer last night, I managed to submit a blank line to the banned IP list -- thus, everyone was banned. Thus, the silence.
They should all be so easy.

Comments open again. But all of you who thought, "Oh, man, I guess I went too far and he's banned me" ...

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