Collective Intelligence

2006-01-24T20:10:00.000-05:00

I, at some point far away a while ago, renamed my blog 'Collective Intelligence'. I'm sure, too, that I had all sorts of plans to post entries that somehow tied into that scheme of things. They seem to have slipped my mind, however, in a fit of fickle fury.

And so now I am reconsidering renaming my blog, yet again. Except that I can't seem to think of any clever or witty titles at the moment. Here's where Colin could be helpful - instead of offering movie reviews... he could come up with some clever idea for a blog title... I love Colin, I do... but I'm still upset with him for NOT giving me an 'A'... call it ego, if you will, but it's true and I admit it. BECAUSE this is my blog, I CAN say that. The only difinitive thing I've decided is that I can say whatever I want on MY blog (courtesy of RenReb). I've been told I need to be more selfish - yes, you heard me right 'more selfish' - and so this is one way I can be more selfish without possibly dire consequences. I have also been told that I need to stand up for myself and stop letting people step all over me. Okay, then, passivity gets me nowhere. I can see that. But isn't there a certain wisdom in the saying "choosing our battles?" Always seemed like an economically viable (emotionally speaking, that is) manner of dealing with life and its precarious situations. I'm still torn between the new (potential) me and the old one... I mean, who the hell wants to want around angry all the time? I don't usually have the energy for that... nor the desire. And really... I don't know about you, but MY time is often worth more than the effort I would have to exert to fight every little thing that struck me the wrong way. A lot of the time, it simply isn't worth the time. I have other things to do; people to see; place to go; and a world of things to learn... why become paralyzed over trivial things or people?

And I am a firm believer in 'choices', not 'submission' or subjugation or persuasion by force. I'm perfectly at ease with someone who disagrees with my point of view. In fact, it fascinates me, for whatever strange reasons that be, that people view things so differently from each other. It's the key to what makes us all tick... tick... tick.

Now that's a deep discussion. For another time, I'm afraid. Just wanted to touch base with everybody (like anyone really reads this - haha). Seriously, though, any clever or witty suggestions for a new blog title welcome!!

2006-01-02T06:35:00.000-05:00

Diligence

While many of you have continued to blog... I, for my part, have continued to read your posts. That must account for something, no? Well, suffice it to say that this holiday season has been tunultuous for me, given the present circumstances, and it's about all I could muster in order to try to stay connected with your stories, anecdotes, tidbits of info, humor, insight, and life on the outside of emotional turmoil.

I don't often share your keen abilities to see and write about the issues in life that you all find humor in - though I do so enjoy commenting upon them when you bring these issues my attention. See the problem is, my posts seldom open up that particular brand of dialogue, and mostly, I'm way out there, entirely too damned serious, and often dig beneath the surface to the point of losing my audience thereby rendering them either speechless... or more probably so, uniterested.

I guess that makes me guilty - yes, guilty... of trying to speak to or for a particular audience... waiting for commentary (as Brett once admitted, and others followed suit) that is all part of the blogging phenomenon. So what does blogging mean to me?

Blogging is bottomline, the keeping of a personal journal and creating communities of like-minded, or interest-sharing individuals who keep in touch via the Internet. One thing that I have remained steadfast in is the fact that blogs, blogging, and the blogoshphere all remain a world of ideas - some great and interesting and thought-provoking - creating links in our own minds just as technically as they create links on the Internet.

But the human mind still fascinates me as one of those secret places whose ticking keeps on going like the Energizer Bunny...

01/06/06 - Con'd

As you can see, I never finished my other post. I have followed my other faves, though, and enjoyed the ride. One thing I cannot understand is the movie-review phenomenon that seems either 1.) to be a filler when the author has nothing else to write about, or 2.) possibly real interest. Hell, I watch plenty of movies, but few of them move me to real emotion, and even fewer of them seem worthy of my time to write about. I suppose if I got paid to write about them, I would and then there would be some point. Most of the films out today seem so artificial and far-fetched that they seldom draw me in. I want characters built solidly enough to be able to empathize or sympathize with, to feel as if I might know them and share in the glimpses of their lives. I want plots that are believable and possible in the realm of reality - not in the sphere of shock and stupification. I don't know, call me weird, but the world is full of fascinating real stuff, real people, real problems. If an author or character can exclaim to me: TAKE MY HAND AND FOLLOW ME - SEE WHAT I SEE, HEAR WHAT I HEAR, FEEL WHAT I FEEL... then I'll be a willing participant. Not till then, though. Sorry guys. And especially Colin, who often has some thought-provoking, very sensitive posts, followed by such things as 'movie reviews' and commentary... I don't know, it just doesn't do it for ME. That's not to knock those who enjoy it, mind you, I'm just venting... and this is MY blog, and I can say whatever I want. (I borrowed that line from the RenReb - hope you don't mind, Renreb - ;-o ).

And that's how I see it.

2005-12-18T15:39:00.000-05:00

Creativity and Communication

“In America it’s taken for granted that a community
left to its own devices will spontaneously organize,
without waiting for higher authorities to do it…”

-Passage from Made in USA

Human thought processes are largely metaphorical, a fundamental mechanism that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experiences to provide understanding of countless other subjects. It is only in the detail that these processes differ, but biologically, humans are structured the same. They diverge only when it comes to comprehension and reason. This metaphorical concept, according to Clotaire Rapaille, is a code – a mental highway that every word has meaning and is usually unconscious in the brain. It is “the permanent, unconscious structure of a topic.” (Rapaille).

Unconscious or hidden forces tend to pre-organize the way people behave towards a specific concept or idea. Rapaille’s technique is known as archetype research, and is a revival of the psychoanalytic methods that were popular in the 1950s and 1960s, in which the technique was not to ask what, but to ask why. It attempts to dig down to our deepest associations in order to discover the best way(s) to influence the collective cultural mind of any given group of people.

As an accepted linguistic theory, emotion is understood to be the ‘linguistic glue’ that keeps meaning alive in our minds and sinks into our unconscious. Rapaille’s word association digs beneath the surface by recognizing that straightforward questions are aimed at the cortex of the brain – the seat of our intellect. Therefore, by directing queries to what he calls the reptilian part of the brain, or the home of primal emotion, he decodes the very fundamental imprints that answer what unstated needs and wants are satisfied through a particular medium. By appealing to the logic of emotion and not to the logic of our intellect is what drives most people and causes them to behave the way they do. In order to truly influence people with an idea you have to dig deep beneath the surface to where their mind-sets began. In other words, a metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of the mind. It shapes our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing.

Decoding the Blogosphere

With blogging, like the act of learning to read, the whole world suddenly opens up with a single key. Its success lies not so much within the message itself, but within the framework or structure of the source:

“You have all the potential connections of a telephone
communication network, but don’t have the telephone
number. The first imprint is pre-organized by the culture.
Emotion is the energy that is necessary to
create the imprint and produce the neurotransmitters
in the brain. Language, by far, is the first level of
crystallization of the imprint.”

-Interview with Clotaire Rapaille, Frontline

This does not mean, however, that the message is always a good one. It simply means that we are able to recognize the real message.

The blogosphere is made up of millions of different communities that have congregated because of common interests.

If ‘X’ writes a short post that links to my blog, he uses key words in the title and again in the body of the text where it is bolded. This is attractive to search engines, like Google, for example. So whomever searches for this topic will likely find his post (since he is hypothetically higher in the hierarchy than I initially am) and will follow the link to my blog.After some time and after I have written several posts containing the key terms, both in the title and in the body (perhaps a couple of times each, sometimes bold, sometimes italics), Google and other engines will begin to pick up my blog whenever people search for this particular topic. If there are enough people interested in this topic, they will, sooner or later, all show up on my blog. Again, hypothetically, I can become the hub for this topic. After a few months, if there are a couple of dozen of blogs writing frequently on this topic, I can start a carnival. Another year and I may be hosting a complex website that contains a blog, a list of all related blogs, an aggregator of all related blogs, a homepage/archives of the carnival, calls to action, and links to important websites that track this particular subject.Give it another year, and I could be hosting physical meetings of interested bloggers. And the possibilities are endless. Blogging and linking are intertwined in a complex maze of networks from people unrelated far and wide that come together for the mutual benefit or interest of the subject.

And it all stems from the structure that becomes the very nature of the message because the message is an integral part of the structure, and at times, they seem inseparable from one another.

The Associated Code

By relying on code as defined by Rapaille, and allow for retrieval along natural axes, we overlap associations. On the web, this initiates a sort of "viral marketing," or recommendations proliferated directly from one user to another. A blog is a live web page and its dynamic is driven by its links. These links become the architecture of participation - an open source community - whereby the users add immeasurable value to the delivery of information. The delivery system becomes the structure and within it, the message.The blogosphere is equivalent to a global brain, which is contained by what Rapaille has coined the 'Cultural Code.' Every culture has a set of beliefs - a mental category - which is basically the first set of mental connections we make. They are the first imprints we gain into our social worlds. Eventually, this system becomes unconscious, and is employed throughout our lives. So the information that spreads - that we spread - has gravitational cores of set principles and practices that, tied together, form a sort of solar system that represents in some way some or all of those principles at varying degrees from that core system.

Emotional Whippets

Whether we talk about advertisements or blogs, a large part of their appeal relies heavily on emotion – appealing to the reptilian part of our brains.

Here are some of the websites we’ve looked at that illustrate this point:

Dooce.com

Dooce.com - the answer to every housewife's dream of fame and fortune... This site reads like a personal journal on the petty trials and tribulations of a woman who relies strongly on appealing to other women through the common problems they face daily. It’s not a matter of experiencing unique problems; it’s just that Dooce is well-worded and funny to read. What matters here is that a good many other women return to Dooce, day after day, to follow this epic yet endless novel. It doesn't matter if what she purports is part and parcel of her daily life is real or not because she tells it in such a way that so many other woman can relate to.

Seemingly unimportant events are like soap opera episodes not to be missed because they're too clever, witty, gutsy, and satisfying. She appeals to the ‘reptilian’ part of our brain – to the emotional aspect of our daily lives. She's the woman we all want to be... sometimes. Sometimes we want to be her, or just like her, most of the time. And sometimes, most of the time, we want to be like her all of the time.

Whatever Dooce may or may not be, she has created the perfect, flaw-filled, bored, American housewife that so many women can relate to.

Coffee Rhetoric

Yet another blogsite whose appeal lies in the fact that its author does nothing more extraordinary than the average young, single American woman. She shares the trials and tribulations of such common problems of dating losers and the bar scene, good or not-so-good hair days, being verbally accosted by a lesbian on the bus ride home from work, and other non-descript but the oh-so-common trials of daily life, again, that so many of us can relate to. And she does so with clever story-telling aptitude in language we all use and understand. It is appealing to a particular sub-culture on a wide-spread basis.

Renegade Rebbetzin

And the last of my examples, a little narrower sub-culture that nonetheless has an interesting appeal is the site of the Renegade Rebbetzin.

RenReb’s ability to richly express the tribulations of being an Orthodox Rabbi’s wife, with all its responsibilities and pitfalls, while also being a mother and a housewife, an upstanding citizen in the community, a friend, a daughter, and countless other roles results in an easy-to-read and relate- to experience, narrowly based on a sub-culture that is part of a much larger culture. It has a definite appeal to the Jewish community as a whole, but it also has a certain appeal to the community of women, Jewish or not. She may not realize it, or certainly intend it to be this way, but its general appeal shows through writing and with the topics on which she remarks.

Blogs, by the very structure they assume, extend the massive appeal of self-expression to dynamic, almost continually prolific linking and commentary about life and any kind of information on the Web. It weaves a dense network of links throughout with one's own personal perspectives and preferences as one hub.

Therefore, the style of blogging is arguably more effective than the words themselves. The idea of wandering as a writing and reading practice is appealing to many people, and the message contained in the blog is inherent in its structure. And it is our cultural codes that tie them all together.

Blogging appeals more to the emotional, or reptilian, part of human nature than it does to the intellect. Rapaille calls this “the logic of emotion,” whereby a connection is made deep within our subconscious minds and is directly related to the first imprint we have of words or things and to that with which we associate them. By digging deep beneath surface, begging at the core of what makes us behave the way we do, these codes become the structure and emotion of the way we communicate.

“I don’t care what you’re going to tell me intellectually,” Rapaille says, “I don’t care. Give me the reptilian. Why? Because the reptilian always wins.”
Emotion before logic? Yes. The logic of emotion. Absolutely.

2005-12-17T01:39:00.000-05:00

Twice in one evening???

I found that I could not sleep... I dozed; I tossed; I turned; and then, I got up and sat down to write. Something happened today that touched me deeply and is replaying itself in my mind over and over again...

As we sat watching TV together after school, my ten-year-old daughter, Serena, who has Down's Syndrome said suddenly to me, quite out of the blue: "Poppy not nice... he far away and Afif and Tristan he keep away." She looked straight into my eyes as she said these words, choking on every one. As she finished tears were rolling down her precious, little cheeks. She got up from her chair, walked over to me and put her arms around my shoulders... and with her head resting upon my chest, she said, "I love you." And we both cried.

I never realized before just how profoundly she has been affected by the actions of her father (I cringe because he doesn't deserve the title...) I guess I figured because she was mentally retarded that she didn't really understand what was going on; maybe part of me also thought that she couldn't possibly feel the pain and separation like I do... or my parents do... her her uncle or cousins do. It's always seemed natural for me to assume that her slow reactions were not just slow, but somehow dulled, too. I was wrong.

At that moment, my pain seemed inconsequential compared to hers. It's one thing when our hearts break... it is an entirely different matter when our children's hearts break, and even worse when we can do nothing to make it better. There are no words to ease the pain or to mask the ugliness of what her father's done.

At that moment, I felt like a failure. I've finally come upon a situation in life that is bigger than I am - one that makes me helpless and vulnerable and weak... One over which I have no control. One over which the law of this great country has no (immediate) control. It seems that even God has no control over this.

Funny thing... words have always been my savior - always and without exception. I've always been able to get through anything with words - either writing or talking my way in, out, or through anything or anyone I've ever come across or up against. But even they me fail now. They pale in comparison to the pain.

So in my moment of great failure, I witnessed my little girl's greatest moment of triumph - so perfectly imperfect... so naturally tender... and so surprisingly profound ... that it rendered me speechless and filled my heart with awe.

2005-12-16T23:48:00.000-05:00

Oh, the guilt...

... of not blogging - it's overwhelming! You're all so efficient at continuing to blog... all I manage to do is comment, which to me is half the fun, anyway.

But seriously, I think it's time I came up with some clever, witty, and original stuff of my own, I just can't seem to find the time. Right now, it's nearing midnight and my mind is sort of mushy, so original is not exactly in my repertoire at the moment. It's just that, after reading Patty's post, and Brett's and Bill's and Elin's and Eric's, and... and... and Colin's being lost somewhere in cyberspace... I felt this twinge that I should at least be 'in the social sphere of things.' Guess I'm feeling left out... :-(... and a bit lonely.

Of course, I could always turn to my cyber-friend, the Renegade Rebbetzin I suppose. But I must admit, a lot of her lingo - and that of all of her commentors (except for me) - quite escapes me most of the time. Guess that would mean that I'm not truly a part of that community, huh? Damn... does that also mean I'm a social misfit?

Oh... the possibilities - they're greater than the guilt.

2005-12-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

To Think or to Feel...

It is a question that each one of us can ask ourselves, but I don't think it's quite so easy to answer. Part of that might be due to our memories - or lack of memories prior to age five.

According to Myers & Briggs, by the time we are three years old, the core of our cognitive organization is well-fixed. Seems to me that if that's the case, we surely are born with certain tendencies and the environments into which we are cast help only in shaping how we use the way we perceive.

Can we unlearn one way and relearn another? That's food for thought, certainly. I would suspect that one could incorporate aspects of the other without ever changing his or her intrinsic design.

The question I am left with after reading about personality types and the benefits of knowing your own, for example, is now that I've confirmed what I already suspected, what do I do with it now? Does having this knowledge benefit me in any way in my daily dealings with colleagues, family, friends, even mere acquaintances?

If your job somehow relies on communication with people - more than your ordinary line of communication, I mean - I suppose it could be beneficial to know your own strengths and weaknesses... but what about the other persons strengths and weaknesses? What if they collide with yours?

I suppose for self-help reasons such knowledge might be beneficial (considering it is legitimate knowledge to begin with). One could use that knowledge to try to make informed decisions by considering other avenues of action - different than the one(s) he or she would ordinarily and most naturally choose, thereby trying to perceive things differently.

It's certainly fascinating stuff, especially for a writer. We always want to know what makes people tick... what makes some people think and feel one way, and someone else another way... we muse at trying to figure out how people think and why they feel the things and ways they do.

It can be very beneficial socially, for the same reasons. Improved communication; better self-understanding, and better understanding of others. In a well-rounded sort of way, this type of knowledge can be great. In more specific ways, I think someone would have to delve pretty deep into the psychology of it all to better grasp what it's potential really is.

Perhaps ideally, though, an even mixture of feeling and logical thought - linguistic and numerical logic even, could be combined for the most productive personality type.

And now that I have confirmed and learned all about my 'introverted' self, if someone could please tell me HOW I can learn to be, at least temporarily, more extroverted so that I could learn effective public speaking... I'd be most obliged!!

2005-12-05T07:10:00.000-05:00

Last Class Blues...

It may seem as though I sort of skipped over - or traveled a path outside the realm of those of my classmates - but I did not. I read with delight and great interest all they had to say; I marvelled at their candor and humor and took many notes on their outlooks and opinions. But for this blogging class, I tried, pretty much, to stay on course with the subject at hand. (Well... except for the three posts in which I made feeble attempts at joining their worlds of living emotion by delving into the personal...)

Okay, so I failed spectacularly in comparison. Not only that, but I've actually reverted to that good old tried and true medium of communication - the printed one - to air my 'dirty laundry' (I use these words in strictly humorous terms...) But there are motivations for this... I am currently working closely with the editor-at-large of the Middle East's largest English daily newspaper on the whole (sordid) story of the subject of parental kidnapping. It is in my best interest this way. The world of blogging is wonderful and potentially far-reaching, in its own ways, it is or can be immediate - but all of this is dependent upon having an audience... and the right audience... and the time to earn one. Standing alone, I do not.

Initially, I thought that perhaps blogging about it would invite others to blog about it, too. I thought it might start a community of sorts. But it did not. It is a complex and highly charged subject; a subject most people don't know anything about - and why should they,really? (Now, if I had an audience like Colin does - one, yes, that he's built up over the years and through diligence and hard work - then perhaps the blogging thing would have worked - and there's nothing to say it still won't... it's just that my needs are more immediate than I have time to build connections and a following. In fact, that isn't my motivation (at least not in this realm), and therefore, that particular type of blogging won't serve the purpose I need it to.

But blogging has been therapeutic... and has fertilized creativity at a time when I've felt anything but... and a lot of self-discovery... an incredible amount of thought... it's opened up a whole new world of interest and the opportunity to meet some wonderful people - both in class and through some of the blogs we've studied (a few I've opened up dialogue with).

Blogging is for reasons personal to each individual... it provides satisfaction through interaction; it provides validation for some - perhaps for all in one way or another... it builds communities where people can meet and discuss and share ideas... ideas... the flow of ideas - what a wonderful place filled with ideas, this blogosphere is!

2005-12-03T06:23:00.000-05:00

A Struggle for the Personal

After having read all the entries on the 'personal' in blogging, and their accompanying comments, I have come to conclude that personal takes on a different meaning for everyone. There is a common thread, however, and no matter how each individual struggles to obtain the definition of personal, each post is a personal journey towards that goal. Each demonstates, in its own way, a personal aspect / voice of its author.

The nature of blogging is personal... the adaptive voice spoken is a personal one, and the outcome reveals a personal aspect of the author, whether intended or not. Even if the author takes on a different character for his or her blog, that very bit of information reveals something personal about its creator. Seems there's no getting away from it being personal.

I wonder if print journalism is the same if even in a round-about way. Is it impossible for the human being to completely and objectively remain impersonal and wholly outside the realm of even remote attachment to some aspect of his own writing?

The human being is a social being; even those with social dysfunction are reacting to social circumstances that have surrounded or do still surround them in some way. The human brain works in strange ways, and its wiring is perhaps, the key.

If you study a group of children (sorry, Brett), you will find that all, to varying degrees, of course, are social creatures. Positively or negatively doesn't matter so much as the act of interaction itself. They all interact... and react... and act again in an endless cycle of social behavior. Sometimes, it's verbal, other times it is not, but almost always it is an interplay of personal forces - with some outpowering others, but all always existing anyway.

However, if you take an autistic child and just observe his or her lack of interaction... indeed, their lack of comprehension of interaction, you almost immediately recognize that the literal 'wiring' of his/her brain is in "disconnect.' Sometimes, and no one knows exactly at what times, the wiring is merely shorted, so social interaction is possible - and natural in that state of connect - for brief interludes.

Of course, there are many other things going on in the brains of people with autism that may indeed affect that 'connection' and interaction. But it shows that with all things functioning in 'normal mode', the personal need for interaction exists naturally in the human condition. Sometimes, it's through violence, but still, it is social interaction - though we may be tempted to call it anti-social behavior. And what is anti-social behavior, anyway? It still is interaction - or perhaps a reaction - to or with the social forces around us.

So we think we cannot be personal, yet we write as we do, for this blogging class, for example. The act itself is an attempt at being personal, if only to complain about how much disdain we have for it, or how we struggle with each word we place upon the paper/screen - we agree or disagree, we are comfortable or not, we may continue or we may not with this particular medium of communication - but always through the discourse, we are communicating from the inside out, for that is the nature of communication.

2005-11-17T09:50:00.000-05:00

Is Writing a Curiosity of the Past?

The written word has survived over thousands of years, having come about from the basic human needs for communication, creating order, and preserving knowledge.

Writing is culture's shining achievment. From the actual beginnings of the written word somewhere around 3100 BCE with the Sumerians, the Canaanites, and the creation of the first alphabet; the need for law and order, the 'discovery' of a universal god; the advent of the Torah and other sacred texts; archeology and the Bible - all of these things constitute and include the major characteristics of civilization.

But with the more modern advent of the phonograh, telephone, television, video, instant text messaging, etc., are language arts in writing only one stage of our evolution? Five thousand plus years of evidence would prove a formidable foe, without question, but that doesn't mean the visual arts are no less powerful.

Vlogs, born out of the written blog, might be the next logical step in a sort of evolutionary process of methods of communicational technology. Video representation tends to appeal more to people's emotions than to logical reasoning, and therein lies its own inherent problem. A society that runs on sheer emotion is terribly easy to manipulate. Emotion can be a very good thing, but there must be a balance between emotion and logic.

With vlogging, and video, viewers don't need to make an effort to pose critical questions while they watch. And later reflection might not be forthcoming because once something is out of sight, it is often also out of mind. Media moguls and big business take advantage of this by pounding out the same brief message repetitively - whatever it is that they want the viewer to believe is what is communicated and all the thinking has already been done for you. Studies show that video representation comes at a cost of less comprehension when they are not supplemented by written text. Understanding is diminished and decisions based on knowledge absorbed via video is often not good enough when it comes to making vital decisions.

Children, however, embrace the video format culture. It is immediate, requires a short attention span, and allows for the open-and-shut comprehension and thought process that accompanies traditional learning, reading, and writing.

Used together, though, both can do certain things very well and learning can advance with the help of each one as long as people create time to think. As adults we know this. As children, we do not. Children today don't have the advantage of experiencing both and learning critical thinking because it's all being done for them. We are creating an "arcade-experience society," and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.

With all of that said and done, I think vlogging is something that requires little perfection and even less thinking. It seems to me that vlogging is spontaneous - perhaps even impulsive. Many of the vlogs I looked at for class were downright silly. As entertainment they're fine. As detailed sources of legitimate information they are sorely lacking.

2005-11-14T09:33:00.000-05:00

Religion on Tap, Anyone?

I'm afraid my evening at The Tap wasn't as eventful (outside of class) as some of my classmates... Bill admring the young flocks; my poor, dear Brett getting stood up by his Lady Vader (Brett will make a great husband and father some day - with that sense of humor, how could he fail?!?); and (apparently) Colin's better half joinging in the afterclass activities - I missed the whole thing (a day late and a dollar short? - naw... just the hubby and kids calling... and my exhausted six-and-a-half-month pregnant body screaming for rest!!)

(I have to tell you, Brett, don't give up. I don't know about meeting 'nice' women at bars... but I met my husband at a dance club in Hartford some three years ago - which means he met me (duh...) and although it was a wild night, so to speak, and those that followed were no less tame - we're both pretty nice people. I do admit, with a silent chuckle of course, who would ever have guessed?!? It often happens when you're not looking - and believe me when I tell you, I wasn't looking. It just sort of happened. There's definately something to be said for spontaniety!)

And with all that said and done... I actually made it to The Tap without getting lost - I hate cities, and parking, and parking problems, and oodles of people, and loud, crowded rooms (I'm pregnant, remember?), so after finally finding a parking place across the street at the little mini-mart, I entered the place bitching up a storm - whose brilliant idea was this anyway?!?

Fighting my way, literally, through the crowded frontal lobe, I made it to the saftey of the back room where classmates had already 'congregated.'

The discussion surrounding religious blogs/blogging was frank, interesting, and at times began to take off on alternate routes to the deeper parts of religious beliefs.

I found most of the Christian blogs a bit preachy - nothing unusual, after all, that's how it has spread and lasted some 2,000 plus years (in fact, all three great montheistic religions share this common trait). Will blogging become a successful medium for religion? Possibly, though I tend to think that special interest blogs - religious or not - tend to gather together people of like minds. Sites will get the occassional drifter or lost soul, but for the most part, like-minded people are magnatized to each other and do tend to congregate.

The world of religious blogging offers an on/off switch that people have full control over. Turn on the sermon; turn it off - all at the flip of a switch. An intersting phenomenon perhaps, but its perserverance remains questionable.

I tend to think that people need something more concrete in religion than logging onto a computer. It's human nature, for seeing is believing. I'm not sure that blogging words down will necessarily satisfy this need.

I will say, though, that I, like Colin, have been won over by our 'Renegade Rebbetzin.' Not only does she have a way with words, a natural inclination for humor (not an easy voice to portray with the written word), but you a world of knowledge about (a world) unfamiliar to many Americans. She portrays it so lightly and unoffensively, that I think she could write a book under a pseudonym easily... well, the hub(s) may have a hard time with it... but it's definately 'food for thought'! (And even if I don't always understand all the terminology (that can be remedied...), her entries are great... and they make me smile).

As a place to foster discussions such as these, I think the blogosphere may very well be a great niche. As a place to 'spread the word,' perhaps not. So there is a place for everything, and everything falls into place - it's what makes the world go 'round!

2005-11-08T09:09:00.000-05:00

Living in Times of Revelation

This is an extension to the comment I left on Colin's latest entry - along with a few corrections. Corrections first - the name of John Michell's lecture at the AUB (back in 2002) was: Ancient Units of Measure in Architecture, their Definition and Universal Relationships. The subject was as I stated earlier, and included detailed discussion on Stonehenge in southern England, and most importantly, The Temple of Jerusalem, built along what he calls the 'Messianic Axis.'

Michell was educated at Eton College and Trinity College in Cambridge and graduated in modern languages. He served in the Royal Navy as a Qualified Russian Interpreter from 1951 - 1953. He found his niche in number and science and culture and ritual, and in 1982, Michell published the first scientific definitions of the ancient units of measure - Egyptian, Greek, Roman, etc. - showing the precise ratios between them and their common origin in a unified code of number.
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The second lecture was given by Professor Helen Sader, who took her Ph.D. in Assyriology in 1984 from Tubingen University. Her lecture, more than anything, claimed that the decisive role played by archaeology in retrieving and understanding the past has been largely constructed to be used in service of the present.

Much of the lecture presents cold, hard facts that I rather think wouldn't sit well with people - no matter how true they might prove to be. I for one was quite 'disturbed' (for want of a better word - I'm writing off-the-cuff here) after leaving the lecture - especially since I was the one hired to cover the lecture for the university's Archaeology Magazine.

They do not currently exist online (to the best of my knowledge), but I'd be happy to insert them into a blog entry if there's any interest.

There's plenty of information and opinion in the blogosphere regarding archaeology and history and the Bible. If nothing else, it provides some food for thought.

2005-11-08T06:01:00.000-05:00

A Dialogue in History

This article appeared in the November 6 edition of The Washington Post. I thought it was interesting given the state of this week's discussion. The article was reprinted in Religionnewsblog.com, along with a slew of other interesting articles and topics. The site, geared towards cults, sects, world religions, and related issues (in that order) seems to serve as an informational site for scholars and others interested in religious subjects.

Personally, I find this site more intersting than those trying to preach or spread the word. Organized religion, as it were, lacks much of the objectivity that accompanies critical thinking. Organized religion is condescending when it comes to its own faith in the human race. I often feel it fears that people will 'lose faith' if left to their own decisive devices. So, instead of trying to take the bull by the horns, so to speak, I think I'd rather take a look at a much more interesting aspect of religion - its archaelogical history.

The layers of history found beneath the ground in areas around the Middle East are fascinating places. The stories they tell are, although often open to interpretation, often very telling of the times and lifestyles of the local peoples who once lived there - not only of religious rituals, but of cultural and social practices, as well.

Whatever has been written in stone to some extent survives the ravages of time... This is always the case in that part of the world. And if only we could stop fighting over who came first, perhaps then we'd be able to piece together different parts of a whole story.

Israeli Archaeologists Discover Roman-Era Christian Building

MEGIDDO, Israel, Nov. 6 -- Israeli state archaeologists have discovered on the grounds of a high-security prison here mosaics, pottery and other remains of a Roman-era Christian building, which they say could be the oldest public place of Christian worship ever uncovered in Israel and perhaps one of the earliest such sites in the world.
The mosaic floor of the structure, buried beneath rock, soil and asphalt, was discovered Oct. 30 by an Israeli prisoner working on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority. The agency had been excavating the compound for more than a year to ensure that nothing of historic value is lost during an ongoing renovation project.
Yardena Alexandre, a spokeswoman for the authority, called it "one of the most important finds for the history of early Christianity" at a news conference here Sunday.
Judging by the age of broken pottery discovered on the floor, the distinctive mosaic style, inscriptions citing Jesus Christ, and the apparent pre-Byzantine design of the building, state archaeologists say the structure was most likely a public place of Christian worship that dates to the mid-3rd or early 4th Century.
If true, the find here would join the early 3rd-Century Christian gathering place at Dura-Europas in Syria as one of the oldest of its kind.At that time, near the end of the Roman Empire, Christianity was an outlawed religion practiced here mostly in clandestine chapels inside private homes.
Archaeologists involved in the excavation are reluctant to describe the remains as a church because the term was not used during that period.But they say its inscribed dedications to community figures, mosaics of fish, and specific mention of "the God Jesus Christ" are proof it was a public building used in Christian worship. Archeologists here had read about such structures in historical texts but never uncovered one on the ground."The most important thing about this is that it is the oldest Christian building we have found in archaeological form," said Yotam Tepper, the archaeologist in charge of the excavation. "The problem is that we didn't have churches at that time.
"Some archaeologists not involved in the project say the conclusions, while tantalizing, may be premature given that only 10 percent of the site has been excavated. Workers have yet to turn up a dated inscription or other evidence that firmly establishes the year the structure was built, although Tepper says they are hoping to do so.
Zeev Weiss, an archaeology professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem who runs the largest excavation project here in the Galilee area, said "there is no question that what they have found is connected to Christianity.
The only questions concern the design of the structure, the use of the structure, and the date.""To my mind, they don't really know what they have," said Weiss, who nonetheless called the discovery "very interesting."

"That's probably why they are hesitating to call it a church."Here on the cypress-studded plain of Megiddo, the Biblical site of the Battle of Armageddon, a Jewish village thrived during the 1st Century. On fields that stretch northeast toward Nazareth, a smudge of white frosting on distant hills, Roman soldiers made camp over centuries and swelled the village population. By the 4th Century, it was a city of some size known as Maximianopolis.
Before the Roman Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in the year 313, Christians were persecuted here in sporadic waves of violence. But archaeologists say the second half of the 3rd Century, when the building here might have been erected, was likely a relatively open time to be Christian.
The Byzantine period that followed Christianity's legalization featured a boom in church construction, following the basilica floor plan still in use today.

The Israeli army built the Megiddo prison in 1982 at the start of the Lebanon war as a holding place for prisoners. Earlier this year, the army turned over the makeshift collection of tent encampments surrounded by metal fences, guard towers and razor wire to the national prison authority, which has been replacing them with hardened cell blocks.
Israeli Archaeologists Discover Roman-Era Christian BuildingPrison officials say 1,200 high-security Palestinian prisoners are inmates.
In one fenced enclave less than 100 yards from the excavation site, dozens of prisoners gathered Sunday morning on a basketball court outside several army tents to pray.

Because the area is known for its rich history, archaeological excavation of the grounds has preceded each phase of the prison's expansion. Israeli prisoners -- the only ones allowed to work inside the grounds -- began surveying the area where the mosaic floor was found about six weeks ago. It was scheduled to be cleared for construction two days after the discovery was made.

2005-11-07T15:36:00.000-05:00

A Utpian Future?

Thursday's class had some pretty good dialogue going. It seems we are all settling into our own opinions about blogging and the blogosphere - and they're all interesting and valuable in their own ways.

The point that peaked my interest most was that blogging somehow draws us into the desire to share personal information about ourselves. I think in a way that's true. I also think that it is easier for some people than it is for others, however.

Brett, Elin, Patty, and Bill, for example, seem to easily be able to sit down and write as if they were engaged in conversation with friends. Subject matter almost doesn't matter - they just write and the words flow smoothly. As I've said before (in a previous blog), I so admire that.

I made a feeble attempt, in several entries, to shed the cloak of self-consciousness and open up some of the more personal issues touching my life right now, but I must say, I didn't feel very comfortable. Perhaps it is because people I know - my classmates - are reading what I write... I'm not sure if I feel more uncomfortable writing for an audience I cannot see and do not know, or if it is those who I do know that I feel self-conscious in front of after talking about things that are very much outside of class - and very emotional for me. But perhaps I am getting better at it, after all, I am at this very moment writing to you all about my discomfort... so, as Bora said, one little baby step at a time...
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On another note, one of the most fascinating aspects of this whole blogging thing is that information and personal communition seems hardly limited by geographical locations. The web, both metaphorically and technically, becomes the force that mediates the transfer of data and personal communications.

Blogging extends the massive appeal of self-expression to dynamic, almost continually prolific linking and commentary about life and any kind of information on the Web. It seems to weave a dense network of links throughout with one's own personal perspective and preferences as one hub. This sounds good in theory, but on the other hand, I find myself wondering first of all, how effective it ends up being considering how disorderly a lot of it becomes through massive linking. I also question how honest it is - after all, much of what we read is unsubstantiated opinion or regurgitated information - with perhaps a bit of allspice added in for good measure.

Is this the utopian future - blogs as living information? Certainly, blogging communities are vibrant and not restricted to the technical elite, by any means. At what point, however, do blogs become so bogged down in networks of unrelated issues and create massive confusion?

I'm not sure I necessarily have the answers to this and similiar questions, but I think the mass appeal of blogging today may very well out-trend itself tomorrow. Certainly a lot of weeding out will take place over the coming months and years until it all settles into its own niche.

2005-10-31T09:50:00.000-05:00

The Present Limits of Blog Power

Peter Daou in his multi-part Daou Report, questions if the Internet creates or alters conventional wisdom. There are pros and cons to the immediacy and interactivity of information from the live page - blogs, that is. Information can spread like wildfire on the web because of the ease which the medium is intrinsically a part. That's not to say that it actually 'creates' knowledge, however, but succeeds more in drawing attention to particular issues. Given the half-lilfe of an online buzz, as Daou calls it, it's longevity is quite easily measured by days or weeks - hardly enough time to leave much of a lasting impression on most people. Even if it does have enough momentum to float around the blogdom for a couple of months, it tends to have little effect on the wider public discourse as a stand-alone medium.

It needs to be part of Dauo's "necessary triangle" - Media, political establishment, and netroots. Netroots being sort of like grassroots (organizations), except that they are strictly web-oriented and web-driven. The three together have the potential to reshape wisdom, but not necessarily to create it.

A lot of energy is spilled on using the net as a source of income - an untapped resource that hadn't previously existed. The fundraising capabilities of the Internet, however, seems to take precedence over its being an efficient research and communications tool.

Leave it to the politicians and their 'batboys' to taint the positive potential of resources - human, mechanical, technological, or otherwise.

2005-10-30T18:00:00.000-05:00

The Wisdom of Crowds

In what has been called "a radical experiment in trust," Wikipedia, Flickr, and sites like these apply the notion that entries can be added by any web user, edited by any other, and so collectively produce a most efficient method of checks and balances. This represents a profound change in content creation. It has been termed folksonomy and is described as "a style of collaborative categorization of sites using freely chosen associations that the brain itself uses."

By relying on code as defined by Clotaire Rapaille, if we allow for retrieval along natural axes, we overlap associations. On the web, this initiates a sort of "viral marketing," or recommendations proliferated directly from one user to another. And according to Tim O'Reilly of O'Reilly Media, Inc., network effects from user contributions are the key to market domination.

A blog is a live web page and its dynamic is driven by its links. These links become the architecture of participation - an open source community - whereby the users add immeasurable value to the delivery of information.

The blogosphere is equivalent to a global brain. So the question becomes "What makes some ideas and thoughts proliferate, and not others?" Well, to answer at least part of that question, we can again refer to Rapaille's 'Cultural Code.' Every culture has a set of beliefs - a mental category - which is basically the first set of mental connections we make. They are the first imprints we gain into our social worlds. Eventually, this system becomes unconscious, and is employed throughout our lives. So the information that spreads - that we spread - has gravitational cores of set principles and practices that, tied together, form a sort of solar system that represents in some way some or all of those principles at varying degrees from that core system.

Are blogs transforming society by making it more 'open source?' I would surmise that yes, bloggers now constitute a world in which those who were once only part of the audience have now become part of the people who decide what's important. The interactivity of the blogosphere has its own filtering system, too, and this now becomes a two-fold problem for the mainstream media. There now exists more competition for immediate information, editing it, and reporting it. It's almost as if no hard boundaries exist - and that opens up a whole lot of 'source' and a whole lot of 'freedom'... definately a potentially frightening proposition.

2005-10-26T09:57:00.000-04:00

Through the Looking Glass we see footprints left behind us in the sands of time we cannot retract...

Parental Kidnapping & the Other Parent's Suffering

It's like living the same nightmare repeatedly - you wake up and the realization that your children are suddenly gone one day hits you like a Mack truck over again and again without mercy.

There's nothing worse than waking up suddenly in the stark, still middle of the night and not being able to get back to sleep. A wandering mind, a whole lot of I should haves - I should have known... I should have seen it coming... I SHOULD JUST HAVE SAID NO! - a two letter word in any language as far as I know - and how we rake up the past, beat ourselves up for not stopping it or for being so blind.

So I tossed and turned for at least two hours - it was 4:37 a.m. when I last glanced at the clock... Two full hours spent in a self-destructive tirade of grand proportion. And when my mind had finally exhausted all avenues of what could've-should've-but wasn't-can't-and-won't, I must have drifted into a restless sleep till morning - until that damned Mack truck struck me again.

At least by this time the darkness began to give way to daylight and the quiet of midnight was broken by the cooing of the doves that built their nests in the pine trees behind our house. It's funny how the daylight washes away promises we make in the dark.

With daylight comes reprieve from the monsters of guilt and shame that haunt me in my lonely hours. My boys have been gone since the beginning of July and I haven't spoken with them since the middle of August. I never knew time could pass so slowly - an eternity in every minute.

Part of a dream I had last night was that I received a phone call from a friend of mine in Beirut, and she had information for me about the boys. It was information that I needed... either my dream failed in specificity, or my recollection of it failed to give me the details. I think I'll e-mail my friend in Lebanon...

2005-10-25T09:38:00.000-04:00

International Parental Child Abduction

Child abduction is a tragedy. It is a parent's worst nightmare - or one of them. It is an often daunting experience - one where the 'left-behind parent' is confused and the difficulties compounded when the child is abducted across international borders.

According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, when children are abducted by one parent, that parent often belittles the other. Under the Convention, all children have the right to maintain regular personal relations with both parents. Abduction by a parent is a denial of this right.

When children are deprived of one of their parents and their wider family for a long time, sometimes permanently, their sense of security is threatened. These children are forced to accept a change of country, culture, and family relations. They often lose their mother tongue and have to learn another language, change schools, etc. This constitutes a denial of children's rights and is a form of violence, which reduces the child to the status of an object and is tantamount to ill treatment.

To read the text of the Convention in full, click here www.cirp.org/library/ethics/UN-convention/.

The Department of State's Office of Children's Issues (CA/OCS/CI) provides assistance to left-behind parents. This part of their website www.travel.state.gov/family/abduction/abduction_580.html, discusses what the State Department can and cannot do to help you.

These are two places to begin the journey of trying to get your child(ren) back. You should know from the onset that it is a long and painful process, and I don't know what the outcome will be. I am still going through it. It's always comforting and even helpful to know that you're not alone in your struggles.

Feel free to comment or share advice or experience. Perhaps we can create a comprehensive site that offers information that can save the next victim some of the confusion, uncertainty, and endless search for anwers that often clouds the attempt to navigate through this issue. We don't have to go through this alone. It is tough - believe me, I know.

But also, it's hope that keeps us going...

2005-10-24T09:15:00.000-04:00

A Blog on Parental Kidnapping?

I like the idea of community - I think there's an endearing quality about it - on the Internet or otherwise. Aside from the freedom the Internet seems to offer, the immediacy of information, the anonymity of it (sometimes), it often creates a community of common interests, and I think people find comfort in that. That's a good thing - I suspect there's an awful lot of lonely people out there...

I'm thinking, too, that it can be used as a way to get ideas and knowledge on subjects we sometimes know little about. Which leads right into an idea that came to me while I was reading a comment from Coturnix - to whom I am grateful for his suggestions.

This is kind of a loaded gun - perhaps I am reaching a bit too far - but for reasons of my own, which I fully intend on sharing with anyone who opens an ear (or eye, in this case), I am very interested in the subject of "Parental Kidnapping." I'd like to hear from anyone who has gone through this nightmare, is presently going through it, knows someone who went through it, etc.

Let this be a platform for those who'd like to share their stories, their experiences, their pain and suffering, air feelings/frustrations, offer advice to those who might need it - whatever seems to grab you at the moment. You never know what or who you might meet on the Internet...

Never know which god is listening, eh?

2005-10-23T09:57:00.000-04:00

I think I've missed the ferry...

My classmates, colleagues, compatriots, fellow writers, etc. all seem to be blogging till their hearts are content. They blog about a whole lot of things. They're clever, witty, and they always have something to say. Boy, do I admire them for their lack of self-consciousness; in some cases, their sheer audacity... Mostly, though, I admire their fearlessness in speaking their minds.

Even our 'guest' bloggers have been candid, talking about pubescent teen blog sites, masturbation, partying, sordid sex lives, etc. What chains have bound me that I cannot speak so openly about seemingly private - at the very least - subjects?

For some reason, I haven't been able to 'jump right in' and share my thoughts like they have. Yeah, I do all right at the direct-assignment-blogging for class, but the creative part of it all seems to escape me.

This brief blog is my confession... my first step in sharing (God, do I feel like one of those corny mothers who dote over their spoiled children when they actually do share...).

I considered beginning another blog for this purpose, then decided against it. Maybe this is good therapy... maybe it'll be nice to have a small, cozy audience willing to share some advice with this pathetically lost soul...

And maybe it's the first step in joining the living, as it were.

Cheers to all of you!

2005-10-19T11:34:00.000-04:00

Life's Little Pieces

Catchy, little phrase, isn't it? Alas, I can take no credit for this resonant combination of words, but I thought it would make a good title for a blog...

According to Matt Miller in his New York Times article entitled: Is Persuasion Dead? , the signs are not good. He asserts that ninety percent of political conversation amounts to dueling "talking points"; best-selling books serve mainly to reinforce what most people already believe when they bought them; and talk radio and opinion journalists preach to the already-converted.

So it seems untrue that words can be shaped to accomplish any desired result. Rhetoric and rhetorical figures of speech therefore only serve to reinforce prior beliefs, while struggling to actually persuade. Someone, somewhere, figured out that to appeal to people's emotions is much mightier than providing factual information, no matter how pleasing to the ear. The language used to accomplish this is pretty staight-across-the-board, perhaps more so in the blogosphere than in other media: Talk to the audience as if they're your friends, your allies... let them relate to you, or you to them, on a human level. Be authoritative without condescention, and they will never know the difference.

Blogs, being 'network literacies,' are often self-serving and not a little pompous as they have become platforms - with a sort of predefined generic form - for a whole lot of political chatterboxes to spew their unedited and random opinions onto the page, as it were. Highly self-contained, highly chunked posts make sense in and of themselves. That's their point.

In many ways, we are written by our blogs. The boundaries that work in common writing do not work in the blogosphere primarily because of the links in and out of the blog. Hence the end of a blog is not really the end, and the blog has also been written by the links, and from there, too, the next set of links, and so on.

I think the style of blogging is more effective than the words themselves. The idea of wandering as a writing and reading practice is appealing to many people - reinforces short attention spans, contains relatively few rules, and it lends a voice to those who would not otherwise have one. It also probably results in a whole lot more people writing (speaking) than reading.

We speak; we do not listen. We want to be heard, though we do not hear. Where's the critical thinking in all this?

2005-10-10T00:45:00.000-04:00

Like a state with no capital...

The only thing, as far as I can tell, that Connecticut blogs have in common with each other is the fact that the authors probably (operative word here) reside somewhere within the state's boundaries. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the state's blogs because a good many of them actually have nothing to do with CT. Others of them deal with local and state politics - many which seem to be nothing more than bulletin boards, but most are relatively tame, which, I rather suspect, reflects Ct's conservative nature. I'm not a political sort of person, at least not so much on the local level. I'm more interested in things on a global level, which often leaves me a bit short-sighted on many things state/national. So I'll leave the political blogging and commenting to those of you who really get into that type of thing.

There are a few sites that I thought reflected the state's sense of place, however. Journey Into History, Connecticut Windows on the Natural World, and my favorite, Almost Connecticut are all prime examples of Connecticut blogs in the true sense of the word. They're interactive, they smell and taste like CT (for all its good and bad), and each in its own way covers some aspect of life in CT.

Almost Connecticut actually begins with a blog that talks about it being 'Adopt-a-Dog Month,' something that doesn't particularly turn me on, as my one 'pet peeve' (pardon the pun) is how so many Americans care more about animals than they do their neighbors or other human beings in general. It irks me to no end. But as I read through the entries, I found one on the Naragansett Indian Tribe, two book reviews, one on The Connecticut and the other on The Housatonic: Puritan River. There was even a humorous little entry on an ad from Dimensions in Marketing, which reads: Deceased - Do Not Contact List... for only $1, the family of the deceased can request that the name be place on the 'do not contact list.' As if dying weren't hard enough...

For whatever its ramblings are, most pertain to Connecticut in one way or another. I found it refreshing.

There are plenty of personal diaries in the list of CT blogs, for better or for worse - it's entertainment if nothing else.

Sometimes we all need direction in order to find our true calling - I suppose it's the same way with blogs and blogging.

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Another thought on memes...

This appeared in the Arizona Chronicle on October 9, 2005. Apparently, we're not the only ones asking this question:

What is a meme?

Do you know who asked this fascinating and complex question? I did.

Somebody used the word meme in a note they sent me the other day, and it's been bugging me ever since. I need a more up-to-date dictionary.

Meme, it rhymes with seem, was coined in 1976 by Richard Dawkins in his book The Selfish Gene.

Dawkins' idea was that in the big scope of things, humans are successful because they can pass their ideas and cultural standards. their memes, from one generation to another, which is something a frog or a kangaroo, for example, cannot do.

This gives us adaptive abilities other species lack.

It's like the genes we pass from generation to generation, only it's cultural or intellectual and not physical.

And a meme works faster than genetic selection in bringing about change.

Take God for instance. We have been passing the idea of some kind of god from one generation to another for ages.

Again, I'd like to see a frog do that.

Reach Clay Thompson at clay.thompson@arizonarepublic.com or (602) 444-8612.

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2005-10-04T09:26:00.000-04:00

Clusterfuck Nation

I can't take credit for this catchy, little title even though the language is generic enough to, probably. Truth is, I came across it on Wolcott's blogroll - among the listed blogsites, this is one by James Howard Kunstler. The site lists humorous and ridiculous things that Americans do and say, with a special emphasis on 'the powers that be.'

But since Wolcott's site is the site of review - yes, it's entirely too easy to get lost among the links, if you will - we'll try to stay on course... and that's exactly what blogs DO NOT do... the miles and miles of links are what make up the nature of most blogs; the communal sharing of information and ideas and opinions and, and, and... So, James Wolcott's site seems to be more of a short, but frequent column posted on the web, instead of in print.

One of the main links on his homepage is to Vanity Fair - a major magazine that employs him as an editor of some sort or the other. Of course, there are links to his articles and books and to his wife's book(s). This seems inconsequential at first, but a closer examination might indicate that Wolcott (and other already-famous people) establish and use blogsites to foster their own political and personal viewpoints on any number of issues. Issues, indcidentally, is a pretty versatile, heavy word these days. In fact, one might go so far as to call it a buzzword of sorts because, after all, WE ALL have issues. The experts tell us we do; so we do. And anyone who reaches the age of 30 or so then decidedly declares that he (or she) has issues reaching far back into childhood. And they (the issues, I mean) only rear their ugly heads in one's thirties. Strange things, these issues.

But back to the point that previous celebrity often attracts a large audience - much larger than a mere unknown. Celebrities begin with an advantage, in fact, more than one. Not only do they have automatic access to more people actually paying attention, they are already versed in what makes people tick - that emotional trip-wire that each person's psyche has been imbedded with. Anyone who entertains in some way for a living knows how to work people's belief patterns and fundamental appeal.

Since Wolcott is himself an editor (in addition to being a writer), he knows full well how to edit what he writes; how to word his ideas; how to subtley suggest things that creep their way into our unconscious often without our ever knowing it - by perpetuating the fashionable myth du jour.

It would seem that previously credentialed people can blog better than most amateurs, mostly because they can write better. If they can't write better, they know where to go to find someone who does. So they communicate effectively to the layman audience - at least for a time. I think perhaps in the long run, they suffer from an inability to hear their audience. So what worked for them initially could also work to their disadvantage if they're not carefully watching and listening to their audience. One could, however, say that about any writer - blogger or not. It's just that blogging is usually more interactive and people count on that.

Wolcott, Ailes, Alterman, and Sullivan are astutuely aware of their audience - they know their audience and they allow their audience to respond. And however adolescent their vocal blurbs may at times be, these liberal democrats all include articles, blogs, etc. that in some way reflect their particular viewpoints. I guess you could say that they use their celebrity for unfair advantage.

A Daily Dish Of...

Blogging is a chaotic medium where one never has to do any reporting. A blogger, in essence, does little or no research and therefore might be playing air guitar with the truth. Of course, this makes for an interesting relationship with the truth - does this make blogs irresponsible next to journalism - notwithstanding how fantastically fast and funny some of them can be?

Fact, fiction, opinion, conjecture, whole truth and nothing but - or part truth, part fabrication... doesn't really seem to matter in the blogosphere. I find this particularly true with the megablog sites. Boingboing, DailyKos, Plastic, Metafilter - one thing they all do is make reference to something and set up links to its explanations. I refer to this as a sort of 'short-hand noveling.' How easy to make a point and then POINT (click the mouse) to an explanation in someone else's words, for which you claim nothing other than mere association, not individual creation thereof.

The Daily Dish has become a Buffet...

2005-09-28T11:21:00.000-04:00

Bad Attitudes

Jerome Doolittle's blog site is fantastic! It consists of miles and miles of links to all sorts of different sites on every imaginable subject you might consider. From culture to politics / government to religion to quotes, sound advice, poems... it's all there - linked from here to there and from there to the next place. Amazing how much information can be had from a single site!

This site epitomizes, in my humble opinion, exactly what a blog should be - a little taste of everything and a whole lot more for the taking. And many of the blurbs of information that is lost in a magazine or newspaper is given its chance to run headline. Talk about Democracy...

Which brings me to a quote I find most appropriate: The United States is almost always the most dysfunctional of the developing democracies, sometimes spectacularly so, and almost always scores poorly.

In fact, speaking of failing spectacularly, it wasn't too long ago that the year 2001 was described as the year democracy failed spectacularly... seems the U.S. fails at quite a bit but at least they do it spectacularly. Perhaps there's comfort to be taken in that. We could fail miserably and end up as nothing but a side bar in the history books. But we fail, and we fail in a grand manner. I'd say there's no better way to do it if you're going to do it at all.

Sorry, I got sidetracked...

Sites like Doolittle's are actually healthy for the American psyche. The reason being that someone has to watch the head honchos and at least attempt to keep them in line by making their follies publicly heard and available to the searcher. It's true that American society has become a "watch dog" society - to the extreme of what was never intended. For example, when I watch the evening news and there's a report about a crime of some sort, there's always an announcement to call such-and-such police department at 666-666-6666 (at the number listed) with any information that might lead to the apprehension of said criminal. It's like sicking the dogs on our own society, holding our breath, and hoping we're not at the end of one of those phone calls because our dear, bored neighbor thought she saw something of questionable merit.

Not so, these blog sites! They reveal the real bad deeds done to us in the name of democracy, in our name, by our "elected leaders" - how they manipulate the masses by telling us what they deem we want and need to hear, or don't; thereby freeing themselves of responsibility to answer to the public. But blogging, good blogging at least, brings these issues together so that we can begin to form a picture in our minds and the ability to see beyond the metaphors... if we want to. Making people want to is an art in and of itself, in fact, it's not just an art, it's a science, as well. There are blogs for that, too.

See, everybody wins. One of the great things about America is if you really want to find out just about anything, you can. You might have to dig under mounds of misinformation (bad memes), through years of deception, and often several worlds away. But there's an answer for all of that, too. The U.S. State Department actually has a website (perhaps it's a blog site...) called: Identifying Misinformation, and it offers several ingenius suggestions when trying to demystify confusing and questionable information:

Does the story fit the pattern of a conspiracy theory?
Does the story fit the pattern of an “urban legend?”
Does the story contain a shocking revelation about a highly controversial issue?
Is the source trustworthy?
What does further research tell you?

So there you have it - blogs, blogging, and the blogosphere all rolled into one big, happy family on the Internet! "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step..."

2005-09-25T10:30:00.000-04:00

It's All in the Language

Frontline's interview with Clotaire Rapaille was an intriguing, fascinating blog of information on how the human brain works, and by default answers, or attempts to answer with some success, why some memes (ideas, etc.) proliferate and others do not.

According to Rapaille, there exists an order to how people understand information they are given, and it is different across cultures because people have different mind-sets.

Culture and the mind is an anthropological study of intellectual concepts based on metaphors that have a physical and/or cultural basis. It studies the question: Are people the same across cultures or are they different? One theory is that human thought processes are largely metaphorical and so by mechanism are alike. It is in the detail that they differ.

Rapaille essentially says the same thing. He calls it a "code" - a mental highway that every word has and is usually unconscious in the brain. Biologically humans share common structures, but then diverge on comprehension and reason.

Rapaille is a kind of anthropologist in psychology. He looks at consumers first in their cultural environment, then brings them back to why they behave the way they do - what basic code has been imprinted in their brains. He eventually discovers what he calls the "code", and therein lies the secret to persuading people to buy certain products - appealing to their most basic emotions, and putting logic further down on the list. We make mental connections when we first understand a word, and we use those connections for the rest of our lives, however subconsciously. This is appeal to the reptilian part of the brain.

Perhaps "memes" work the same way. Maybe this explains why some memes rise to the top and why others just fall by the wayside. It all depends on basic mental connections, which are largely derived from the culture into which we are born and become a part.

Appeal to the logic of emotion and not to the logic of our intellect is what drives most people and causes them to behave the way they do. In order to truly influence people with a meme or an idea - whatever you want to call it - you have to dig deep beneath the surface to where their mind-sets began. In other words, a metaphor is a fundamental mechanism of the mind, one that allows us to use what we know about our physical and social experiences to provide understanding of countless other subjects. They can shape our perceptions and actions without our ever noticing them.

Just think how we are shaped - our opinions, our behaviors, what we want, what we don't want. There's no "free will" about it if you really consider the implications. How possible it is for the "think tanks" to persuade us on a plethora of issues. It's a sort of mind control of the masses. Kind of reminds me of another time and place, don't you think?

If we can be that easily manipulated, then control of the masses is rarely a real threat. It's no wonder that the rich really do get richer, and the poor get poorer - some cliches are true no matter how worn-out.

2005-09-22T05:54:00.000-04:00

George Bush wants to privatize Social Security. He needs to privatize FEMA and hand it over to Wal Mart - thought of the day.

I received an e-mail yesterday from Google Alert. Actually, it was a meme alert - it took a few days, but finally, it responded to my request. The linked article / blog is titled: Blame Bush - It's better than 100 jumping jacks by Russ Smith. The meme in question is Clinton's 1995 MIA reaction to the heatwave, as compared to GW Bush's reaction to Katrina.

The "Heat Wave" Meme
There's a meme running through the conservative blogosphere -- and by extension, through the USP Forum -- that asks, in effect, 'Where was President Clinton during the 1995 heat wave that killed 1,000?" I have tried to track the origin of the meme: it appears to be a blog post from New Yorker Thomas Galvin on 8 September:

Hillary Clinton has called for a "Katrina Commission." How come she never called for a commission to investigate why at least 1,000 Americans died in a 1995 heat wave when her husband was president?

I am interested both in the spread of the meme and its content. What is fascinating is that many of those who repeat this meme generally oppose federal government intervention, yet the meme criticizes President Clinton for not intervening... or suggests that the federal government (ie, President Bush) should not be held accountable for any post-Katrina fall-out because Clinton wasn't criticized in 1995.

Moreover, many perpetuating the meme have suggested those who were left behind in New Orleans were responsible for their own fate. Yet, in this narrative, similarly marginalized (poor, elderly, urban) citizens are considered victims, (even though it is easier to deal with heat than flee a hurricane -- and the warnings come sooner, although how many of us really believe weather forecasts?). Finally, there is the ever-present need to "blame" Clinton -- a meme that has been with us since 1992 and which only slightly abated after Bush was elected President.

Blogs spreading this meme can be seen here, here, here, here, and here.

Fascinating sociological activity (and demonstration of "logic"). What do you think?

Technorati Tags:
Clinton, Heat Wave, Politics

I'm not quite sure what the difference between a blog meme and a rumor or idea perpetuated through the mainstream media is, except perhaps that its immediacy is spread much more quickly via the web, but also that it is replaced much more quickly by newer "news of the day."

I suppose, too, that Internet archives are much easier to search through and are more readily avialable to the average lay person.

I tend to agree with Ross on one point, at least: The spreading of memes a fascinating social activity.

2005-09-20T13:30:00.000-04:00

Cabinet of Curiosities

I just finished reading a blog by Julian Dibble called: Portrait of the Blogger as a Young Man. I did not write down each link I followed before I landed on the site, and now that I am reviewing the notes I took, I cannot recall the mental notes I must've made, and so I'm not sure whether it was through the Archives of Jason Kottke or CT Business Blogging under CT Weblogs. And perhaps I should take a lesson from this: keep track of the path you travel - you never know when you'll need to recall it...

The article/blog was first published in FEED online magazine in May 2000. In it, Dibbell defines a blogger as a "collector of sorts," Internet surfers gathering and sharing their favorite finds. A blog itself, or many of them, contain links, miles and miles of them stacked one on top of the other all the way down to the main page and off into years worth of monthly archives.

These days, we surely should recognize that indexes and search engines are barely adequate to tame the data storm of the Internet - which grows faster than their ability to filter it. So we really should learn to live in the blogosphere and take it for what it's worth: a random collection of odd, compelling, and sometimes chaotic bits of information and ideas - both literary and scientific, with wit and wisdom.

As dibble says: Accept that the web overwhelms all attempts to order it, as for now it seems we must, and you accept that the delicate thread of a personal point of view is often as not your most reliable guide through the chaos.

In other words, when all else has been exhausted, only the discriminating force of sensibility will do. And the more richly expressed the sensibility, the better. Ultimately, blogs belong quite a lot, in a round-a-bout sort of way, to literature. Perhaps more to modern literature than the classics, but literature nonetheless. Arriving at robust, plausible characters from the quotidian flow of perception is one of literature's most admirable traits to which all writers strive.

Bloggers, writes Dibbell, make the chaos of the web into a cabinet of wonders. And bloggers follow their links and their emotions, and facts and stories, information and gossip, and all sorts of different venues to provide content and character. They do so interactively on and on a personal level. Could this be the future of journalism? Probably not. But it can give journalists fresh perspectives on often mundane subjects. Is it literature, in the true sense of the word? Well, no, not really, because most bloggers are not designers; they're not writers; and they're not editors. But herein lies the beauty of it all. Few restrictions, few rules, anything goes, and no one's wrong.

Blogging provides a connection between people who otherwise might never meet. Blogging gives us a daily dose of other people's lives and/or opinions. Some worth the time and effort to read, and others not. But at least they all have the right to be out there - in the blogosphere.

2005-09-17T07:50:00.000-04:00

The Structure of Daily Kos

For your own sanity, being a Democrat would help - 79 percent of the site's visitors are, according to the site's Demographic Survey of Visitors. Interestingly enough, 74.3 percent of visitors are male, while only 25.7 percent are female. These numbers can be misleading, however, when you take into account that out of a total of 935 responses, 695 were men and only 240 were female. Since the total number of men asked vs. the total number of women asked is not divulged, we really don't know how accurate the numbers are.

Although Markos Zuniga, the site's 'commander-in-chief", claims that he doesn't use his blogroll as a marketing tool, he nevertheless has a whole section alloted for advertising under the 'About' menu in the right column. He estimates there to be 12 million 'unique' visitors per month. I'm not sure what is meant by 'unique' (perhaps marketing language itself), but 12 million is nothing to sneeze at. How many are repeat visitors?? That's a valid question...

So the advertising is broken down into three (unique?!?) levels - the Premium Slot, the Second Slot, and the Regular (old) A Strip (where an advertiser shares space with six others and their ads are randomly shuffled around). If you want to know how much it actually costs (ya think?) you have to click on prices for different advertising slots. I suppose it's good business in any event, even if Markos doesn't use his blogroll as a marketing tool... He's smart enough to realize that regardless of your political affiliation, money still makes the world go 'round.

One more interesting tidbit before I end this entry. If one wishes to post a comment, he (or she) has to register with the site and wait a full 24 hours before posting. This is designed to discourage the abuse of diaries by trolls. To post actual diaries, the waiting period is one week.

Comments are rated based on what the site has termed the 'Mojo System.' It rates users' comments from 1 to 4, with four reflecting more trust in the commenter's integrity, and one reflecting the least. A weighted average is then taken and, based on the average, the most 'trusted' commenters - i.e. those with the highest scores - are allowed to rate others from 0 to 4, instead of only 1 to 4. They're the 'chosen ones.'

It is noted that the site discourages downrating users simply on the basis of disagreement. However, the message must not be offensive (? What constitutes and offense and who decides?) nor must it be intended merely to annoy others (now here's a good one... to annoy others). Well, I guess if enough people write in to say they find a post annoying, then that would fall under this category.

There are also a few caveats to posting: It has been opined that one should put an hour's worth of time into a post, and it should be worth the effort. Out of 200 diaries per day, most are "judged" to not be worth the effort. Well now, I'm insulted, I think. Or I potentially could be. Who says my writing is 'not worth the effort'??? Perhaps, I'll beg to differ... And, too, I'm female, so I'm in the minority anyway. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...

Maybe we'll touch upon the content of Daily Kos next time. Till then, it's food for thought.

2005-09-16T15:25:00.000-04:00

A Bored Woman's Epic Novel

Dooce.com - the answer to every housewife's dream of fame and fortune... well, maybe not fortune per se, but a sort of anonymous fame that one can take great, private comfort in; where one can complain about anything or anyone in the evilest, most vile ways, and no one will be the wiser... unless she's stupid enough to actually divulge that this is her website, er, blog site.

This site reads like a personal journal on the petty trials and tribulations of a woman whose name, she claims, is Heather B. Armstrong. Whether or not it really is doesn't matter. What matters is that a good many other woman return to Heather day after day to follow this epic yet endless novel. It doesn't even matter if what she purports is part and parcel of her daily life's real or not because she tells it in such a way that so many other woman can relate to. How many times have you (if you're a woman, wife, mother...) thought about saying something so crass and gutsy to the spouse, the in-laws, the neighbor? Wouldn't it be great to say exactly the most clever of comebacks with a smile on your face, yet an "I'm twisting the knife just a bit more in your back" grimace in your heart?!? Perhaps it is a bit of non-fiction with a good dose of fiction thrown in, or vice-versa. Doesn't matter. This is Heather's epic novel.
Seems to me that's what Heather B. Armstrong often does. She makes seemingly unimportant events like episodes not to be missed because they're too clever, witty, gutsy, and satisfying. She's the woman we all want to be... sometimes. Sometimes we want to be her, or just like her, most of the time. And sometimes, most of the time, we want to be like her all of the time.

Her structure is a lack thereof, except that she's the one who controls her own story - from day to day, event to event. It is not an interactive site, though you can e-mail Heather from the site. She controls her own destiny - at least in her own continuing saga.

I've noticed many entries include her dog, Chuck. In one of the entries I read, she talks about her sister's Beagle, Bo. Well, I'm not particularly a "dog person," at least not to the extent that I would equate my pet to one of my children. Personifying animals is something I could never quite understand unless it was aimed specifically at young children. There are, however, a number of 'doggie advertisements' throughout the site: Easy Dog Training Methods; Dog Obedience Training; (here's a good one...) Indoor Dog Potty; (here's an even better one...) Natural Dog Anti-Anxiety. Like owner; like mutt, perhaps???

Seriously, though, I think it is entirely possible that this cleverest of women, Heather B. Armstrong, could very possibly have created Chuck's character in order to draw in the advertisers. What could be more American than 'man's best friend," except perhaps apple pie?!?

Whatever they may or may not be, dooce.com and its creator, Heather B. Armstrong, have created the perfect, flaw-filled, bored, American housewife that so many women can relate to. And you know what they say: Don't fix it if it ain't broke...

2005-09-15T06:52:00.000-04:00

The WalMart -ers

I've just finished touring a few blog sites, and what I've surmised thus far is that blogs generally follow one of two styles - either informal and personal or article-like and factual. Some have pictures, some don't. Some have pictures mixed with text. I suppose that blogging lends everyone or anyone a voice. People need to feel that they are being heard and that they make a difference, and blogging gives them this opportunity.

It was recently brought to my attention that WalMart has set up not only a blog for victims of Katrina, but also a 'gift-registry". Victims of Katrina can register at any WalMart Superstore, kiosk, or online for items they need. Family, friends, and others can order items and ship or have them shipped to the victims. Now we can poke fun at WalMart for its many shortcomings, and even go so far as to say, publicity-wise, this move is economically sound and will, in the future, bring in two-fold the business. WalMart is the largest retailer in North America, and big-business, especially American, will do anything for a buck. Seriously though, WalMart should be commended on this act of generosity, despite the fact that it will benefit monetarily in the end.

I think something like this pulls people together and gives them a sense of community. That can only be good. The sad thing, of course, is that it always takes a disaster to bring people together for a common cause. I think stressing individuality as we do results in identity problems and separation of people by race, ethnicity, religion, class, etc. We forget that we all feel and hope and dream. We have forgotten how to empathize. And it takes a national disaster right in front of our faces to remind us how.

2005-09-13T14:50:00.000-04:00

TrustTheAbyss

Blogging is a sort of abyss, if you think about it. It is a bottomless, endless repository of unedited information to which we are all privy. I think eventually one learns to navigate around blogs and blog sites, differentiating between good ones and bad ones; truth and untruth; educated opinion and mere conjecture. From the very language itself, it is easily discernable as to its merits.

Take, for example, Sarah Green's therewegoagain blog site. It reads like a teenager's diary - and perhaps that's exactly what it is... I don't know. I have to tell you honestly that I was directed there by the professor of the course on blogging I am taking in school. I'm not proud to have stumbled onto that site, I feel as if I've invaded the poor girl's privacy... however, it serves my purpose well, as it is my duty to visit all kinds of blog sites and assess the plethora of reasons that people keep blogs and try to discern what type of people they, in fact, are. Poor Sarah; seems she's had her heart continually broken, her spirit crushed, and her sanity all but wiped away by this guy. If I were Sarah, I'd dump the schmuck! Alas, I am not, and as Tennyson once wrote: "that loss which is common would not make my own bitter."

But onto other sites... Here's one I fell onto while looking at some of technorati.com's "Top 100 Blog Sites". The title is: Arts & Letters Daily: A Service of the Chronicle of Higher Education. This site seems to cover everything including, but certainly not limited to: philosophy, aesthetics, literature, language, ideas, criticism, culture, history, music, art, disputes, and gossip. There are links to articles in newspapers, magazines, and other printed media, and some of them are quite educational. There's plenty of opinion, too. And first-hand accounts of events. And articles with an international twist. And, and, and...

Ah yes, humor is a subtitle that should have been included on that list. I read one article called Why I'm Divorced, from The Hartford Advocate. com. The author begins with a few lines from "Song of Welcome" by Joseph Brodsky: "Here's your marriage and here's your divorce. Now that's the order you can't reverse. Welcome to it. Up yours," and she concludes that "marriage causes divorce." And all the stuff in between is sure to make you chuckle and even empathize, perhaps sympathize, and certainly relate to some of the issues that arise in a marriage and that often lead to divorce. It's funny. Take a read.

And that's my take for the day. Till next time... chow.

2005-09-12T09:45:00.000-04:00

Balance of Power

There's a new (well, sort of) force in town, and it's not going away anytime soon. The latest site for my intense observations was PressThink by Jay Rosen. This site covers a plethora of blogging / journalism issues, and it covers them completely.

As I understand it, blogging is an extension of the press to the people who constitute the public - it is a form of citizen media. Are bloggers really journalists, though? It's a valid question, and one I'm sure has many different answers depending on which viewpoint you're looking in from.

Blogging, according to Rosen, is threatening to journalists because they now share the influence that once was theirs alone. Blogging is the next press in America - online. The Internet is changing the function of broadcast media like television changed the function of radio. It is not, however, making it obsolete because there will, at least for the foreseeable future, be room for both forms of media. Only now it is a shared space. Centralized media power is gone.

I think one of the main differences between bloggers and journalists is that while journalists generally 'lecture' the news, bloggers can be in direct dialogue with a whole array of newsmakers, reporters (amateur and professional) witnesses and opinion-makers (amateur and professional).

Blogging has its disadvantages, as well. So many of the postings lack shape and structure and a level of trust earned by the established media moguls. There is no one appointed to investigate complaints of error or bias.

The blogosphere has created "re-voicing" of journalism. And the one thing I've surmised from PressThink is that although one may not replace the other, the two together are good for each other.

Participatory media... not a bad idea. In fact, it is a good balance of power and a medium that gives a voice to everyone and not just a select few.

2005-09-11T11:25:00.000-04:00

What kind of people keep blogs? Are they self-righteous idiots? Are they frustrated folks who need to vent and have found an avenue on which to do so? I've always thought that living in such a big country had its advantages... just think, anyone can say whatever they want and no one has to listen. They just won't be interrogated, tortured, and/or shot for speaking their mind or for trying to spread ideas - however threatening those ideas might have been had someone actually been listening. In this country, you're only in trouble IF someone is listening. One of the greatest pitfalls of living in such a huge country is that regular folks get lost somewhere between the mainstream and individuality. In fact, we are not individuals as much as 'they' claim we are. No individual status actually exists. I like to think of us more like sheep being led to the slaughter...

So I've set out to search as many blogsites as I can to see what all the fuss is about... and what people are talking about. The first site I visited was called chatterbean.com and it tested me for my 'Blogging IQ'. Apparently, I am versed enough in blogging to be considered to be doing quite well but with a lot still to learn. Whatever that means...

I then visited another site called hamshs.blogspot.com. Now this site had all sorts of rantings - from reviews of the series Lost, which I'm hooked on and airs Wednesdays nights at 9 p.m., to rantings on creationism. And here's a random observation for you: According to a poll conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life and the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press, 42 percent of Americans believe in strict creationism - that is, that living things have existed in their present form since the beginning of time. (This might be considered blind faith...); 26 percent believe in evolution via natural selection (must be that 26 percent are anthropologists and anthropologists wanna-be's...); and 18 percent believe in evolution via a supremem being (these folks must be middle-of-the-roaders...).

How many of these sites are vaults of useless information? Does this trend represent an unhealthy obsession with wanting to be somewhere else? Or does this blogging phenomenon offer too many options, just not enough time?

Word of my blog is spreading like wildfire; pretty soon I'll have more dialy readers than I can count... on my fingers.

So I ask again: What kind of people keep blogs? Take myself, for instance. I'm a student enrolled in this class called (not surprisingly) Blogging On. For this class, we are basically required to keep blogs with general instructions on checking out other blog sites and recording our reactions, opinions, etc. to those sites. Seems pretty simple, no? That's what frightens me... nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

My main hope right now is that I won't lose interest in this. I do love writing and would like to do more of it (particularly for money, but...) if it doesn't involve methodologies and research papers, I'm all for it. Of course, my ulterior motive is that I'll achieve god-like status with a loyal entourage of fans. Fueled by their unwavering devotion to my writings, their grass roots movement to propel me into the mainstream will ultimately result in book and movie deals, television shows and unbridled fame. Nothing being that simple, some horrible tragety will befall me and be the direct cause of my downward spiral. But when I'm in rehab, I'll spend days reading all the supportive fanmail I've received and develope a renewed sense of life, starting to write in this very blog that started it all. The rest, as they say, will be history. Or something like that.

Tune in next time to see which blogs peak my interest. Suggestions are welcome. Toodles!