Posted on Saturday, 16 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Why I hate the luxury cruise industry: Overfed white people from a nearby Royal Caribbean Cruise Liner lounge like beached whales at a fenced and guarded coastal retreat in Haiti within easy view of survivors of a humanitarian crisis in which tens of thousands have died and many more are starving. Photograph: Daniel Morel/AP
So, perhaps this post is a little derivative to the main argument at hand: That Haiti needs donations for earthquake relief. But it seems that Haiti’s financial situation, which keeps it in dire straits, basically stems from the fact that they freed themselves from western slavery a few hundred years ago and the world is still sore about it.
The record of debt certainly can certainly be followed to the Slave Revolt and resulting battles in the early 1800s, and you could look at the ancestry of western concepts about Haiti as originally stemming from French and America’s tantrums at not being able to bring the island nation back under direct control.
Posted on Monday, 11 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Wordia.com is helping assisting the Committee to Protect Bloggers kick off the new year with a celebration of its successful (and ever developing) relaunch with Blogging Nation Week. Each day this week the Committee and Wordia.com are showcasing a word relevant to online expression. Today I’m proud (as a Committee geek) to have the talented Joel Veitch on the CPB website. Joel is is one of those multi-talented wunderkind types: He’s a web animator, singer-songwriter, member of the humour website B3ta and blogger of one of my favourite bookmarked sites, RatherGood.com. He offers us his definition of the word Blazon.
“1. [with adverbial of place ] display prominently or vividly.”
the Oxford American Dictionary tells me, aside, from the above definition that blazon also means to “report (news), esp. in a sensational manner : accounts of their ordeal blazoned to the entire nation.” In archaic terms, it meant a coat of arms. It’s a cool word to start the week off because for better or worse, this is what the Web is used for anymore: billions of people promoting, sharing, creating and advocating their points of view. Bigging up who they are or what they’re about or getting out an unheard or under-reported piece of news.
In online terms, the coat of arms would be the favicon. That little ubiquitous icon that sits to the left of the URL in your browser. Help blazon the word Blazon for the Committee to Protect bloggers this week. Send the Committee and @cpb message with the word on Twitter or blog your own definition or head over to Wordia.com and upload your own video definition, or visit the Committee blog and ad your take on the word in comments.
Posted on Monday, 11 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Watch the skies.
I’m donating today’s post to Orsen Welles (or, to be exact, Orsen Welles as he was in 1955). The Januarist posted a segment of a transcrips from Welles’ BBC programme from back in the day, called Sketchbook.
You can read the transcripts here or (because of DRM restrictions) if you’re in the UK, you can watch it on BBC iPlayer. Anyone finding a worldwide-available recording of this, please send it on and I’ll sub out the BBC link.
In the National ID chip-and-pin age when governments and commercial interests compete for who can keep the best tabs on citizens/consumers, this is an amazing reminder on the importance of the rights of the individual. I’d say it tops War of the Worlds.
With the power of the internet modern communication has been harnessed on a global level like never before.
Blogging on the net has now become the speakers’ corner for a new generation and gives individuals the chance to make a difference and spread their weird and wonderful messages. The Wordia.com team is helping us celebrate the Committee to Protect Bloggers‘ recent relaunch and expansion, and will be bringing forward a selection of great words throughout the week.
Posted on Monday, 4 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
IE is Being Mean to Me is an original song written and performed by web programmer Scott Ward. I originally stumbled across it at the blogWhy IE Sucks. There sure seem to be a lot of websites expressing hatred of that browser these days.
Posted on Monday, 4 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
To Shoot an elephant is a new documentary by Mohammed Rujailah and my pal Alberto Arce, and they’re holding a January 18 worldwide screening which you can take part in by downloading the entire film and showing it on the day. The film covers emergency workers, human rights activist and other internationals who were in Gaza during last year’s December-January attack by the Israeli military. The footage is a mashup of edits culled from footage for another film, Erased: Wiped off the Map, which is about the attacks on Gaza. Visit www.toshootanelephant.com, where you can also see the English trailer. Download the film and hold your own screening in your living room or share it with others for screenings elsewhere.
So, perhaps this post is a little derivative to the main argument at hand: That Haiti needs donations for earthquake relief. But it seems that Haiti’s financial situation, which keeps it in dire straits, basically stems from the fact that they freed themselves from western slavery a few hundred years ago and the world is still sore about it.
With the power of the internet modern communication has been harnessed on a global level like never before.
So that’s the dissenter’s hope: that they are writing not for today but for tomorrow.