Accidental Blogger

When Blogs Die

I haven't posted here for a while - probably the longest time since the inception of the blog. I don't know how that has affected regular readership. Although A.B. is not a personal blog, this article about slow and moribund blogs or those whose contents change abruptly resulting in the loss of readership, caught my eye.

Back in 2004, the blogger known as “Mister Bachelor” was swinging at the top of his middle-aged game — collecting women and readers (nearly 8,000) — with salacious tales of his Lothario lifestyle.

He was revered and reviled and loving every minute of it.

Then he fell in love, and with that it was all downhill — for the blog, that is.

Earlier this year, the once frolicking Mister Bachelor of heavy Web traffic and outraged comments was laid to rest. In its place, The Blog and Chain was born, snarky and sardonic but devoid of sex and drama. At last count, it had fewer than 150 readers, according to the reformed Mister Bachelor, who now goes by the alias Daedalus.

Personal blogs are like child stars. Some soar too quickly and die too young. Others drop out, lay low for a while and come back stronger than ever. More often, they return reinvented, uninspired and lackluster, missing that special something that used to leave audiences wanting more.

Blogs are born, blogs die — it’s a cycle as old as blogging itself, said Scott Rosenberg, author of Say Everything: How Blogging Began, What It’s Becoming and Why It Matters.

“Things grow and mature, and then they reach their end,” he said. “That’s the shape of our lives.”

Blogs end up in the virtual graveyard for as many reasons as they came into being in the first place. Sometimes, the bloggers get out of their system whatever they wanted to say. Or they reach the fame they were after. Other times, they just give up.

“In some cases people stop because they achieve their goal,” Rosenberg said. “Others stop because they’ll never achieve their goal.”

.....

Jessica Cutler has birthed and buried four blogs and is authoring a fifth. But she’s never matched the fame of her 2003 effort, Washingtonienne, which lasted just 13 days but scandalized the nation’s capital by chronicling her liaisons with Washington power brokers. The notoriety led to what she termed a “mini-career” of writing about herself. She penned pieces for high-profile media outlets, usually about sex or scandal, posed for Playboy and wrote a book, Washingtonienne, that is being made into an HBO series.

Now happily married and pregnant, Cutler seems ambivalent toward her blog-earned fame. When the URL on JessicaCutlerOnline expired, she just let it die. Her latest blog is a hodgepodge of domestic fare and profane but witty observation. Blogs, Cutler has concluded, are “like trees falling in a forest.

“If no one read them, it’s like they never really existed.”

NCBI ROFL (Joe)

Bringing new meaning to navel gazing and much, much more, is NCBI ROFL. Am I just giving a shout out to a friend's blog? No -- I'm giving a shout out to a friend's blog that posts abstracts from real scientific research articles that are often hilarious enough to have you rolling on the floor laughing. So check it out!

Bloggers Under Scrutiny

Bloggers can continue to rave and rant about anything that suits their fancy. But now the Federal  Trade Commission plans to monitor their claims, especially if money or freebies are changing hands.

Savvy consumers often go online for independent consumer reviews of products and services, scouring through comments from everyday Joes and Janes to help them find a gem or shun a lemon.

What some fail to realize, though, is that such reviews can be tainted: Many bloggers have accepted perks such as free laptops, trips to Europe, $500 gift cards or even thousands of dollars for a 200-word post. Bloggers vary in how they disclose such freebies, if they do so at all.

The practice has grown to the degree that the Federal Trade Commission is paying attention. New guidelines, expected to be approved late this summer with possible modifications, would clarify that the agency can go after bloggers - as well as the companies that compensate them - for any false claims or failure to disclose conflicts

It would be the first time the FTC tries to patrol systematically what bloggers say and do online. The common practice of posting a graphical ad or a link to an online retailer - and getting commissions for any sales from it - would be enough to trigger oversight.

"If you walk into a department store, you know the (sales) clerk is a clerk," said Rich Cleland, assistant director in the FTC's division of advertising practices. "Online, if you think that somebody is providing you with independent advice and ... they have an economic motive for what they're saying, that's information a consumer should know."

The guidelines also would bring uniformity to a community that has shunned that.

As blogging rises in importance and sophistication, it has taken on characteristics of community journalism - but without consensus on the types of ethical practices typically found in traditional media.

Journalists who work for newspapers and broadcasters are held accountable by their employers, and they generally cannot receive payments from marketers and must return free products after they finish reviewing them.

The blogosphere is quite different.

More here from the Associated Press Report.

Hand - Eye Coordination

If only the problems of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Israel-Palestine, N. Korea and the Republican right were as easy to swat away! (Link via a friend's e-mail)

Publius (Joe)

Some snippy conservative twit outed Publius, of Obsidian Wings fame (measured relative to the blogosphere, of course, which still puts him WAY behind that guy in his mother's basement who suggested some baseball player in Philadelphia might be using PEDs, let alone people anyone actually cares about). He's some law professor, not that it matters (although it matters to him, obviously, since he blogs/blogged pseudonymously).

Anyhow, I'm saddened over the loss of Publius's pseudonymity. Not because of the larger debate about pseudonymity and outing pseudonymous bloggers (Leiter goes off here, for example, making points about consequentialism, fairness, etc. Typical of a law or philosophy professor, of course, Brian fails to mention that the only reason Whelan outed Publius is that Whelan is -- and was particularly being -- a snippy twit. An annoyed child acting out of spite. I think this is also a deontological fail for Whelan, but again, the petulant child/brat angle is what actually stands out to me).

Instead, I'm sad because that's one fewer blogger I can claim to be. Thank goodness there's still Giblets. And, in a pinch, Michael Bérubé.

Summer Hiatus

I will be posting very infrequently in the month of June. Unless my co-bloggers find the time to write, there will be little new material on the blog until the middle of July.

I should be a sports columnist. (Joe)

Vince Young, the (currently backup) quarterback for the Tennessee Titans, recently said in a radio interview that he wants to start, and if he's not going to remain on the bench for the Titans, maybe it would be best for his career to move on to a team that wants him to play. Paul Kuharsky, an ESPN.com NFL blogger, had this to say:

I'm guessing he doesn't realize that recent comments to a Baltimore TV station will cause a big stir, or maybe he intended for them to. Either way, it's already under way.

Yes, those are the two options: he either knew, or did not know, that his comments would cause some sort of local media controversy. Quite the guess there, Paul. Way to really go out on a limb and guess that it was either one or the other, when it had to be one or the other. (To be fair, though, it's not clear exactly what is supposed to now be underway. "It." The "big stir," which Kuharsky seems to be in the process of creating?)

Seriously, ESPN (and Sports Illustrated; I don't discriminate), I'm pretty sure I can do a better job for you -- and at a lower salary -- than some of the people you're currently employing. You know where to find me when you want to start negotiating.

Who's Up For The Top Quark?

3 Quarks Daily, a blog that I read regularly and where I have made many friends, has announced an  exiciting event - recognizing bloggers with cash prizes for the best writing. Please follow the link and find out the details. If you can remember a blog post in any of the four categories that you feel deserves the recognition, this may be a good opportunity to show your support. The first category to be judged is science and the deadline is approaching fast.  

Congrats, Joe!

Dear readers, there is one more legal eagle on the A.B. roster. Our own Joe graduated from law school last weekend.

Joe was one of the two earliest co-bloggers (the other being Anna) to join me on this blog. In late 2005 he was at home waiting to get into law school for the second time. He had been admitted once before but met with an unexpected roadblock. He was to begin school at Tulane University in the fall of 2005. However, mother nature had a plan of her own that summer in the form of Katrina! Joe's law school plans were washed away like much of New Orleans. He returned home to wait for another academic term to begin his legal education. During that idle period, with time on his hands, Joe read a lot of blogs, among them, Accidental Blogger. I came to know him through his comments and recruited him to write when I needed to go on a vacation. It seems like only yesterday. But more than three years have passed since then and Joe is now a full fledged lawyer. Congratulations, Joe!  

This is the second time we are celebrating a formal landmark event in the life of one of our authors. The first time was a wedding.

New Blogger On Board

Accidental Blogger is happy to announce the addition of a new author to the current stable of six. Our roster now includes a seventh blogger who prefers for now to go by the name of "D."  Please see his profile here. I invited D to join us after reading his many incisive and interesting comments on another blog. D hasn't told me what he will be writing about. Like all the other authors here, it will be whatever suits his fancy. (I have requested him to spare us the minutiae of particle physics though) We are looking forward to his debut on our pages. Welcome D!  

The Most Influential Person of 2009 Is .... Moot!

Who is the most influential person of 2009?  Instead of relying on assorted "experts" Time magazine decided to open this year's annual polling on this topic to the "general public." And just as democracy is messy, so are on-line public polls. Totally unexpectedly, the top position has gone to someone named "moot." (There is more to moot than meets the eye. Read the story). The following nine positions are equally stunning. According to the "public" the ten most influential people of 2009 are:

1. Moot

2. Anwar Ibrahim

3. Rick Warren

4. Baitullah Mehsud

5. Larry Brilliant

6. Eric Holder

7. Carlos Slim

8. Angela Markel

9. Kobe Bryant

10. Evo Morales

How many of these have you heard of? Okay, at least some I am sure. A couple are leaders of their countries (Morales, Markel), one is the newly appointed AG of the US Justice Dept who beat out his widely popular, better known and vastly more influential boss in the White House. Then there is also a Christian pastor (#3), a wanted terrorist (#4) and a basketball player (#9). # 2 is someone I have never heard of. What gives? I guess this will teach Time (and other media outlets involved in list making and wishing to influence public opinions) a lesson in at last figuring out that the "public" is not only quite often ignorant but sometimes, as in this case, also mischievous. NASA learnt the same lesson when it opened up the naming of the International Space Station to public voting and was mortified when it ended up with Stephen Colbert. I suspect that this result too was skewed by the parochial partiality of the voting public.

Barack Obama does figure among the top 100 most influential persons of 2009.  He is at a hopelessly feeble # 37 ... well below Britney Spears, Jon Stewart, Ron Paul, Tina Fey and some other knowns and unknowns.  

This Should Be Fun!

Can't wait to see this happen. But given the physical and moral cowardice of right wing blowhards, it probably won't.

Carnival of the Liberals # 89

CotL #89 is up at Johnny Pez's blog.

But Seidel, and My Seidel? (Dean)

Rarely is a poet given the level of coverage devoted two weeks ago to Frederick Seidel in the New York Times. It takes more than merely exquisite poesy to ascend to that particular Parnassus. Seidel has more. As the article explains, he is an independently wealthy, finely suited older white man whose works address wealth and age, exercise his obsessions for motorcycles and airplanes, and explore his taste for sex. What? That's news?

It's nice to see Seidel so prominently featured, and I aim to buy the new volume of collected works, even though I have nearly all of his individual books. But the article gets so much wrong. Yes, Seidel's topics are often unsettling, the images surreal. Consider "Chartres," from My Tokyo:

The takeoff of the Concorde in a cathedral.
Ninety seconds into it they cut
The afterburners and the deathly silence
Was like a large breast as we banked steeply left.

This is indeed a disturbing little verse. Yet Wyatt Mason, who wrote the Time's profile of Seidel--rather, who wrote the profile of Wyatt Mason rubbing elbows with Seidel--seems to have missed the point about "poetry's power to disturb" with his opening account of the threatening phone message left for Seidel. Clearly, the woman who left the eerie message was disturbed, but not by poetry. The article's point seems to be to promote the new volume by scandalizing the poet, a fair enough marketing ploy. Ron Silliman gets it right when he refers to it as a "fetish piece."

Any publicity is good publicity, a cliché Seidel might admire as a topos, but he'll leave the dirty work to his publisher and the NYT. So, sprinkled among Mason's inventory of poetic improprieties are blurby superlatives: “the best American poet writing today,” "the most frightening American poet ever." (For the latter, I would have guessed Edgar Guest.) And then there's Billy Collins' petty misreading, "When he mentions East Hampton or the Carlyle or Le Cirque or Ducati, it doesn’t even seem like name-dropping." No, former poet laureate Collins, it does seem like name-dropping--call it allusion, if you prefer academic jargon--because it is name-dropping. It's a Seidel trademark, lyric punctuated with trademarks!

Most revealing to me in Mason's work is the early connection of Seidel with Ezra Pound's Cantos. I wasn't aware that Seidel had been so inspired, but with hindsight, of course! As poets go, they both often render lines palpable--compare the gutturals in the first line from "Chartres" with the sibilants in a line like "So-shu churned in the sea" from Pound--to provoke in the reader a physical engagement with the text, in the service of aesthetic qualities such as mimesis, percussive rhythm, or sonic ties from line to line that fall short of rhyme. Notice how the L in "cathedral" appears four times in the last line, where it further brackets a chiasmus of Ls and Bs: "like a large breast" X "banked steeply left"? At this level, it hardly matters that he writes lines that seem uncomplicatedly cruel, whatever that means.

The NPRization of Newspapers (Andrew)

Amid all of the print-is-dead triumphalism, Senator Benjamin Cardin of Maryland has taken the very encouraging step of introducing legislation that would allow newspapers to operate as not-for-profits.  This would mean that advertising and subscription revenue would be tax-exempt, and one could make tax-deductible donations to newspaper as educational entities.  I'm pretty sure this would also mean that any profits that the newspapers might make would need to be re-invested in the newspaper, rather than paid out to shareholders.

As someone who  got his his start in media in public radio, I am enthusiastic that this can work.  The traditional cash cow of classified advertising, which sustained large newsrooms for so many years is gone.  But we still need large newsrooms, and this looks like a realistic way to fund them -- and newspapers have NPR and public radio stations as models for how one can fundraise for high-quality reporting as a non-profit entity. 

I asked one of my friends, an editor at a large (for-profit) magazine for his thoughts on the issue.  He argues persuasively that a non-profit model will actually provide better quality news than for-profit newspapers that are driven ultimately by the bottom line:

I’ve always believed that news media as a for-profit venture was a flawed business model. It’s the fiduciary duty of an executive to make the most money possible for his company’s shareholders. Call it a Machiavellian instinct, but successful CEOs run a business with dispassion. They’re swayed by concerns outside profit margins only to the extent that customers or clients might find fault in their perceived callousness. That’s why a company will donate $10,000 to a worthy cause and spend several million trumpeting its good deed.

I’m not trying to judge them, just provide some context when I say that the for-profit business model is an anathema to anything requiring the public trust. Their true objective is not good journalism, per se. It’s simply the product of customer demand. That’s not to say that journalists are tainted—many believe they’re doing the public’s work—but the product will change to meet customer demands. Great journalism is the result of a commitment to the truth, whether or not the intended audience wants it.

A not-for-profit business model shows that a news entity is not restrained by profit motives. It can run stories that companies, that might have been advertisers under the for-profit model, may not like. For example, Consumer Reports regularly runs critical stories about vehicle safety to the chagrin of Detroit’s Big Three. There’s always risk of a lawsuit, but the editors at CR don’t have to worry about offending advertisers. Ditto for the Associated Press and the St. Petersburg Times.

I like the St. Petersburg Times model because it’s run by a university, where ideas are encouraged to flourish. I see the paper as one giant academic experiment. Now, more than ever, with the proliferation of bad information floating on the web, the public needs news sources it can trust.

Carnival of the Liberals # 86

The new CotL # 86 is up at The Greenbelt. With the economy on spindly legs, many of the posts are about money, naturally.

Carnival of the Liberals # 84

CotL #84, the Stimulus Edition is up at Submitted to a Candid World. Please check out who is to be bailed out by Obama's nearly trillion dollar stimulus package.

South Asian Philanthropy Project

Archana Sridhar of the South Asian Philanthropy Project invites our readers to check out and participate in a discussion on charitable giving among south Asian Americans. The blog forum, hosted by  Sudhir Venkatesh, professor of sociology at Columbia University, will take place throughout the coming week.

The Magnes Zionist

The Magnes Zionist, a blog by a pseudonymous orthodox Jewish professor is worth checking out, especially for his views on the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza. (link via Brian Leiter in Leiter Reports)

Carnival of the Liberals # 82: The New Year Edition

Welcome to CotL # 82. Accidental Blogger is pleased to host the very first Carnival of the Liberals of 2009. At this time, this year, liberals are in a mental flux. The curtain is about to come down on the eight nightmarish years of Bush-Cheney -  surely a time to rejoice. A new guard is poised to take over but the fate of liberalism under the coming administration is uncertain.Therefore it's premature to celebrate too exuberantly. The economy has gone Humpty Dumpty, wars are raging and people are nervous. After a bruising Democratic primary and a nasty general election campaign, I am not surprised that the minutiae of domestic politics are not on the minds of many bloggers. They are probably exhausted and are in a "wait and see" mode. The majority of the posts featured here dwell on broad liberal issues, mostly independent of who is in power. A couple of bloggers have a bit of fun with fantasy and one presents us with a slice of political history.

Paul was only a blogger! Allen at The Whited Sepulchre is irritated that conservatives adamantly cling to a notion of marriage as defined by a now defunct society and ancient men who didn't think too highly of marriage. 

Here's the Apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians, Chapter 7, verse 1: "Now for the matters you wrote about: It is good for a man not to marry."

Paul goes on to write about how marriage is no better than a necessary evil, and how he has chosen to remain celibate. In verse 6, he says "I say this as a concession, not as a command. I wish that all men were as I am. But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that."

Is her bite worse than her bark? Angry Max at Pterodactyl Puke reviews a book that has not yet been written - It Was Nice to be Out of Alaska by Sarah Palin.

You might think the Barracuda’s memoir is filled with a mix of cute little folk-isms and divisive rednecky slogans, but you’d be wrong. On the whole it’s a scathing indictment on our political system and a biting critique of our national character.

The limits of naturalism: Science Blogger Greg Laden argues that when it comes to our ethics and morals, nature does not dictate what should be.  It may only tell us what can reasonably be.

Naturalism is a potential source of guidance for our behavior, morals, ethics, and other more mundane decisions such as how to build an airplane and what to eat for breakfast.¹ When it comes to airplanes, you'd better be a servant to the rules of nature or the airplane will go splat. When it comes to breakfast, it has been shown that knowing about our evolutionary history can be a more efficacious guide to good nutrition than the research employed by the FDA, but you can live without this approach. Naturalism works when it comes to behavior too, but there are consequences. You probably would not like the consequences.

Florida - where the nightmare began in 2000: Joshua Lee at Politically Orange delves into the history of Florida's politics. The post is Part I of a twenty part series. I expect Josh has posts for the next nineteen CotL editions lined up already!

Besides knowing the structure of the Florida political system (discussed earlier here), knowing it’s history is equally as important.  Without learning from the mistakes of the past, we can never move forward and learn from them, so without further ado, my series on the history of Florida politics from 1920 to today.  This guide should be easily understandable to anyone with a basic understanding of United States history.

Obama, the crypto-Muslim: Zeno at Halfway There gives us a taste of Conservapedia where shameless partisanship always triumphs over intellectual honesty.

The well-known liberal bias of reality seriously irks conservatives. They have responded by declaring that they make their own reality, but that didn't pan out too well. They have worked to build an alternative universe where Fox News is the voice of truth and the GOP is God's Own Party. Conservapedia is part of that alternative universe, the conservative counterpart to Wikipedia.

Finding common ground: Greta Christina advises atheists to seek alliances with progressive non-atheists to further the atheist cause. 

How can atheists be good allies? I think it behooves the atheist movement to make alliances with other groups that we have affinities with: groups that aren't atheist- specific and that are made up of both believers and non-believers, but that have goals we support... and in some cases, progressive ecumenical religious groups who recognize the validity of atheism.

Ann Coulter - as ubiquitous (and equally useless) as a bad penny: Doctor Biobrain is convinced that television news is not really news but a clever ruse aimed at addling our brains.

If you watch television news, I hate you.  Now, I suppose if you only watch it for ironic value, I won't hold it against you; though I would recommend that you seek professional help (and I say that as someone who has literally spent hours reading the ramblings at RedState...and enjoyed it).  But television news is really just the pits when it comes to covering actual reality and anyone who supports it is the enemy.

When the big boys meet: Steve fantasizes, comic book style, what may have really happened when all five living presidents met recently in the Oval Office. 

“No, Mr. Obama — I Expect You to Die!”

Yesterday at the White House the three living former presidents of the United States answered an invitation to tea, along with the president-elect, from the outgoing President George W. Bush. The guests arrived individually and were directed to the Oval Office to await their host. Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton each came alone, and each made the same joke as they were escorted down the corridor. All three turned to the page accompanying them and quipped, “You’d think I would know the way!”

 

Editor's Note: Steve's post above got me wondering how this meeting yesterday at the White House may have unfolded.

 

The Carnival post has been put together by the joint efforts and opinions of all six authors of Accidental Blogger. My thanks to them for pitching in and to Leo Lincourt, the organizer of  CotL, for trusting me with the duties of hosting the Carnival.

CotL # 81

The last Carnival of the Liberals of 2008 (published on December 31^st) is up at Rust Belt Philosophy.   Please check it out. The next carnival will be featured here on Accidental Blogger on January 14^th, 2009. Be sure to visit then.

Whatcha Googling?

Internet search engines like Google and Yahoo have gathered the data on what web surfers were looking for in 2008 - a compendium of collective curiosity. In fact Goolgle calls its rankings "Zeitgeist"- a window into the public mind, at least the public that had access to the Internet. Not surprisingly, politics and pop culture scored high on the list, as did spellings and web based social networks. Barack Obama and Britney Spears did well with Americans and Palin was a hit with the international crowd.

Pop diva Britney Spears and President-elect Barack Obama captivated Americans in 2008, judging from their top rankings in the annual lists of the top 10 search terms from Yahoo and Google.

The findings show a public simultaneously obsessed with frivolity and politics.

But they also leave the door open to debate. Both companies used tracking methods that virtually guaranteed the lists would be packed with pop culture.

Reflecting the importance of this year's presidential campaign, Obama led Google's U.S. top 10 list. In an act of bipartisanship, the Republican Party also made the rankings, with conservative favorite Fox News at No. 6 and Sarah Palin, the former vice presidential candidate, at No. 7.

Internationally, Palin, who was showered with attention during the campaign and skewered weekly on "Saturday Night Live," was an even bigger superstar. She placed No. 1 on Google's global list, compared with Obama's No. 6 - no doubt a minor consolation prize to the Republican ticket losing the election....

Year-end lists are a way for search companies to showcase the data they collect every day about the billions of queries they field. In some cases, they share the information - dissected by day, week or month - with marketers to help them gauge how much buzz a product is getting online.

Search engines are quick to emphasize that queries they analyze are anonymous.

Over the years that I have spent watching the stat counter, I too have found it fascinating to ponder the subject matters readers are looking for when they stumble upon our blog.  I have no accurate data on the most popular Google, Yahoo or Ask.com searches for our blog but some stand out more than others. Our regular readers (who have not bothered to bookmark us or put A.B. on feeds like Google Reader or Bloglines) usually search for Accidental Blogger, Ruchira Paul or a combination of the two. Some also search by the names of the other authors. The most popular random searches appear to be for the following words in different categories linked to the posts that turn up as a result.

Food and Drink:

Ghost Pepper
Kosher Coke
Schmaltz
Belly Stuffing

Authors and Artists:

Sinclair Lewis
South Asian writers
Edward Hopper
Paul Klee

Personalities:

Benazir Bhutto (one post among others)
Dianna Abdala or Bla Bla Bla (yes, she is still on the minds of people)
Barbara Forrest
Swami V (this post also shows up in the search, "Evolutionary Pressure," which would fall in the science category) 
Vandana Shiva 

Health, Medicine, Science & Technology:

Autism
Gardasil
HIV Research
Melamine
The most important moments in science

Cultural trends and ideas:

Jewish IQ (this one goes either here or here)
Masculinity
Different Hair cuts
Family Pictures

Sex and Nudity:

Eros
Babes
Bad Sex
Sujatha nude photos(I have no idea which posts show up in response to this query. Probably the entire archive of Sujatha's posts :-)

Many searches leading to our blog begin with the word "accidental" which is followed by several different words, taking the readers to random posts containing the second word.

The article in the SF Chronicle linked above also has this to say for Google and Yahoo's tracking methods that favor pop culture over other curiosities.

For an unadulterated window into the American psyche, Ask.com's list is probably the best bet. Called the "real deal," it's touted as an unedited ranking of the most popular search terms, minus the massaging done by others.

"Dictionary" led Ask.com's rankings, highlighting the frequent struggles many of us have with spelling and definitions. MySpace was No. 2 while Google was No. 3, showing that people are simply using the search box as a de facto address bar.

I fully agree. If my own search patterns are any indication, people probably search far more often for spellings and minor pieces of information to merely discover or confirm, than they do following the life styles of media idols and celebrities. But then, I am a mature woman and my ears are not exactly attuned to the latest buzz in popular culture.

And now a question: why does the spell check tool on Type Pad which is a blogging service, point to blog, blogger and blogging as misspelt words? A bit of a contradiction, isn't it? 

Carnival of the Liberals #79

The 79^th Carnival of the Liberals (Kicking Around George W. Bush & Evolution) is at the Capitol Annex.

My Bleeding City

Author Suketu Mehta in the New York Times on the Mumbai terrorist mayhem.

MY bleeding city. My poor great bleeding heart of a city. Why do they go after Mumbai? There’s something about this island-state that appalls religious extremists, Hindus and Muslims alike. Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness.

Mumbai is all about dhandha, or transaction. From the street food vendor squatting on a sidewalk, fiercely guarding his little business, to the tycoons and their dreams of acquiring Hollywood, this city understands money and has no guilt about the getting and spending of it. I once asked a Muslim man living in a shack without indoor plumbing what kept him in the city. “Mumbai is a golden songbird,” he said. It flies quick and sly, and you’ll have to work hard to catch it, but if you do, a fabulous fortune will open up for you. The executives who congregated in the Taj Mahal hotel were chasing this golden songbird. The terrorists want to kill the songbird.

The rest of the article here.  (Mehta is a bit over the top with his sentimentality, just as many New Yorkers were after 9/11. But what he says about the religious tolerance of big, diverse Indian megapolises used to be true only a decade or so ago - that's the India in which I grew up.)

WTF?

What the fluff is happening? (link)

The Iraq war has ended, troops are coming home and Thomas Friedman has decided to stop scattering his pearls of wisdom.

If you are scratching your head, see here. (link: Dean)