Sunday, July 9. 2006

March Wardens of the Blogosphere

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 15:12
I read political blogs. Some are interesting, some are juvenile and some are better than anything you can read in the newspapers. Image talk-radio without a call screener...no ditto-heads and you get an idea of what poly blogs are like. Anyone can write a blog anonymously and anyone can comment to a blog anonymously. Sometimes (a lot of times) tempers get nasty in political blogland. Comments often seem to be expressions of hebephrenic schizophrenia rather than plain spoken opinion.

But too much pixel-ink is being wasted on these left-right blog wars. I have commented on several...(Ben Domush...Kos and the MSM). I have also not mentioned quite a few others that have happened since I began writing Isn't It Obvious. You can really waste a lot of time reading about these petty quarrels and never come up a novel insight. You just learn bad language and bad grammar.

The latest left-right blog fights now have demands for a blog police...a leader of the pack that enforces decorum and is the official groveling apologizer for bloggers and commenters of "their side" that go overboard. It doesn't matter that bloggers are independent, that blogging is anarchy. Each side must have a leader....a leader who enforces discipline.

So what is needed is a March Warden for the Left and the Right. The March Warden was the law in the lawless border lands between England and Scotland before James I.  Thieving, rustling, kidnapping, blackmail, arson, looting, murder...a way of life for the borderlands. The blogosphere...full of bad characters also. We need order and discipline.

I nominate Shields and Brooks.
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Saturday, June 10. 2006

Six Months

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 14:40
Today is the six month anniversary of isnitobvious and Six Months is my 60th post.

Vloggercon is taking place this weekend in SF and it's a sold-out convention. It's a foggy day for a convention and I hope all are staying warm.

Vlogging is video-based weblogging.. a great media for those who have dreamed of being cable public-access tv stars. For an introduction to the international world of vlogging, click through the many links at the VlogMap community site. Vlog viewing takes a lot of bandwidth, needs a fast connection and requires a whole lot of patience from you. Be Warned.

Isntitobvious will stay a weblog. With occasional pictures.
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Wednesday, June 7. 2006

Don't Stay in Vegas

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 20:12
Some of my favorite bloggers are headed to Las Vegas for the YearlyKos Convention. I hope they have lots of fun and find a way to bring some of their enthusiasm for politics out of the pixelated world and into the real one.
Watch the Promo Video for YearlyKos 06. It will make you smile.
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Saturday, April 22. 2006

Don't Need Prozac...Got My Blog

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 18:33
The article "Disinhibition Nation" in the Wall Street Journal is another bloggers are evil story that newspaper journalists love to write. This particular example begs for pixelated evisceration. Atrios has already given it a shot and now it's my turn.

The author states that most blogs are a kind of public couch where bloggers reveal their innermost thoughts. Any reader can comment on these thoughts, unlike Freud who kept his mouth shut. Most of these thoughts and comments are stupid, trivial, or at best disgusting. This is very very bad for civilization. 

And most people might say that sounds like television...why should I care?

Why should you care? Because blogging is spreading disinhibition....like avian flu but worse. Disinhibition is a lack of personal restraint...as in posting pictures of yourself in your underwear. Or writing I HATE **** or *** is AN ASSHOLE.
(Has the author ever been in a public men's room?) This disinhibition is spreading outward from the darkened rooms of lonely bloggers to the public square. If you read the important blogs, the political ones, people are using that same disinhibited language to talk about politics. And this is something new, a new social phenomena. We should worry.

Americans calling their politicians @#!&, politicians calling their opponents @#!&...is this something new? I guess I don't know the author's age but does anyone remember "expletive deleted".

I would suggest to the author that Americans have always thought of politics in this manner. The words may be different but the intent is still the same.
I think the word disinhibition is the ruin of civilization. I hope I never have to type it again.
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Monday, April 3. 2006

Koufax Awards

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 13:17
The Koufax winners for 2005 have been announced.
The name Koufax comes from Sandy...the lefty pitcher for the Dodgers.

The Koufax Awards for 2005

If you have not read the Most Humorous Post "The Wizard of Oil", click and read. It's extremely funny and you can sing along too. I know you know the words.

Liberals, and liars, and gays! Oh my!  Liberals, and liars, and gays! Oh my!

Tip thanks to that humble man of science P.Z. Myers and congrats for the win of Best Expert Blog.

       
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Sunday, March 26. 2006

Technorati Fun

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 17:58
Isn't rather strange that today's top search over at Technorati is UNHINGED ( synonyms...crazy, loony, bug-eyed, cracked-up, insane) and the most popular book (determined by Amazon links) is Prayer Steps to Serenity: The Twelve Step Version

Just checking the pulse of the world.
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Friday, March 24. 2006

Banality of Blogging

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 17:03
Short synopsis of the story:

The Washington Post decides it would be a great idea to have a conservative blogger to write a blog for the on-line edition. The paper needs balance. They pick Ben Domenech, a founder of RedState.org  for blogging duty. RedState's left counterpart is Daily Kos. No one at the Kos gets picked for providing lefty balance. Or any other blogger on the Bush-bash blogroll.

So they get mad...they get even.

Fortunately for them, Ben has left a bird's crumb trail of plagiarism...Kos readers and other left blogs post examples one after the other...WaPo folds and Ben resigns in disgrace. Ben goes into martyr mode and says "I take enormous solace in the fact that you spent this week bashing me, instead of America."

Kos and Atrios cackle into their soy milk lattes.
I don't read Kos or RedState. There are more interesting sites to read on the web (see my bookmarks) but I do like a good flame war. What caught my eye in the war was on RedState..one of the posters mentioned philosopher Hannah Arendt and her concept "the banality of evil". The left flame war against his friend Ben is an example of the banality of evil.


Continue reading "Banality of Blogging"

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Monday, February 20. 2006

Survival of the Fittest Blogger

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 18:31

In keeping with todays blogger theme, Blogs to Riches from New York Metro magazine looks at why some blogs make money and fame for their creators and why most bloggers will blog in obscurity. The main target of the story, Nick Denton of Gawker Media is quite "pissed off" about blogging about blogging...insisting this subject is SO over. If you have time to waste and like scraping the bottom of America's cultural barrels... take a look at Nick's stable...niche gossip sites.


The article and post is full of New York snobbery and attitude...this is a warning! However I think one of my blog post questions has been answered..What do you need to compete in the global economy..?


NY 'TUDE

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Bloggers of the World Unite

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 08:05

Or some bloggers are more equal than others!


From Arts and Letters Daily:Time for the Last Post


The article from the Financial Times asks "If the medium had been available...would Marx or Orwell have written a blog? Or would these influential journalists/authors of their time considered it a waste of time.


At the end of the article is a link to the author's blog where readers can post their confessions of wasting time and creativity with blogging.


Hey Trevor...isn't it a waste of time to write about wasting time?

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Sunday, January 22. 2006

Never Mind the Name

Posted by Diane C. in Blogs at 14:40

I might need to add this blog to my list of timewasters. It certainly has taken generous amounts of time to learn the mysterious inner working of the Serendipity blog system. Gerard and I have spent our Sunday afternoon looking for the perfect web editor that works well with Internet Explorer and Mozilla. We have chosen FCKeditor…it has spell check, find and replace and other goodies that we the hopeless spellers and typists of the world require.


Now someone tell us to go take a walk on the beach.

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