I used to despise the word “blogging.” I suppose one tiny particle in my brain still winces at the word (I’ve been known to avoid “fads” or anything with a lot of hype, like Harry Potter… don’t ask), but I’ve succumbed to doing it, anyway. Let’s face it, it’s the writer in me, and it allows me to write plotless things because I’m not good at plot.
So right now I’m not enjoying the phrase “Second Life.” Be it a craze, something I roll my eyes at, or something I’m maybe afraid of, it’s got that edge that just irks me. I’d compare it to MySpace or YouTube, although I signed up for MySpace just over a year ago. It brought me something wonderful that changed my life (call it luck or fate), which I won’t discuss here, but I’ve sort of dropped off the face of the MySpace non-planet since — I do have a first life, and it’s called SCHOOL.
I’m taking a social sciences/studies course about blogging, confession, user-generated content and YouTube. Our discussions cover a wide variety of interesting things, and it seems we tend to agree. Then again, we’re all around the same age, we go to a smallish school with a specific range of creative types, and we all live in Vancouver. Not everyone is from Vancouver, or even Canada for that matter, but somehow our ideas seem to fit. Either that, or the people who disagree aren’t speaking up.
Continue reading Second Life? »
There’s a blogging tag meme going around called “Five Things You May Not Know About Me”. My mother posted an open invitation, so I’ll just go ahead and do it. I haven’t talked too much about details of myself on here in the 5 months or so I’ve been blogging, but here goes.
1. From age 9 to 11 I worked on a story called The Secret of the Hollow Tree, which was 54 hand-written pages.
2. An obsession with a band I won’t name got me simultaneously interested in web design and in becoming a musician… the latter of which didn’t work out. 🙂
3. At 13, I started a website before getting my parents’ permission (how naughty of me!), and 8 years later, it’s my career.
4. I’m a pack-rat that loves IKEA organization products.
5. My old bedroom looks like outer space at night thanks to hundreds or thousands of glow-in-the-dark stars I collected from age 7 onward. (Some of them came with me when I moved out!)
Now I’m supposed to tag 5 people, so I’m going to have to search my list to find 5 people, and then I’ll report back here…
“Children ‘deserve a childhood'” from BBC.co.uk
Shadow education secretary David Willetts told the party’s conference that “more and more, we treat children as though they are adults”.
…
He told the conference: “Teachers tell me that they now have children coming to their class who have never held a crayon, who have never seen a book, who have never had an adult read them a story.
Wait a sec… NEVER seen a book? Is that even possible? Do these particular children never go to libraries or on the bus or public spaces or what?
I find the article somewhat conflicted, because later it talks about kids needing to be taught “real subjects.” It brings it into an adult perspective again, because I would have expected the subjects to be more along the lines of music, painting, poetry, crafts, and the animal world.
Continue reading Children of the UK »
Andrew V. Uroskie, Assistant Professor of Film and Contemporary Art at Georgia Tech’s School of Literature, Communication and Culture, wrote his own post accompanied by some great letters-to-the-editor.
“Who Knew International Police Cooperation Would Work Better than Big Armies Against Terror? Oh yeah- the ENTIRE PROGRESSIVE COMMUNITY SINCE SEPT 12th!”
Let me quote U2’s Sunday, Bloody Sunday here: “There’s many lost but tell me who has won?”
Recently, Canadians mourned 23 dead soldiers. Only 23, no problem, keep fighting, boys! Next thing you know it’s, what, 34? And how many children now have no father? And how many Americans, British, Iraqi, Afghan, and other people have died in near-futile causes?
Continue reading How to defeat terrorism »
From The Vancouver Sun on Canada.com
Bell’s move to monitor us an ominous portent
Fears of corporate information fishing arise as Internet providers take steps to monitor users’ online activity
Ian Mulgrew, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, July 10, 2006
We should be concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties in the post-9/11 world and the very real Big Brother-style monitoring of our Internet activities.
The Canadian Bar Association has long argued lawmakers went too far in the wake of the World Trade Centre strikes and did not build in enough checks when they gave law-enforcement agencies greater powers ostensibly to combat terrorism.
Still, when Canada’s largest Internet service provider, Bell Sympatico, amends its service agreement with customers to create an environment of institutionalized cyberspying on behalf of the government, we’re entering a whole other realm.
Bell three weeks ago told its customers it’s reserving the right to monitor, collect and on request provide to police a list of every site you visit and every keystroke you type while connected.
Other ISPs have or are expected to follow suit.
Please read the rest. It will only take you a few minutes.
This afternoon whilst confined to lying on the floor with my feet up so my swollen toes don’t fall off (if you didn’t catch my post about my bee sting), I turned on the TV and started flipping channels. There’s rarely anything good on at noon on a Saturday, but today is CANADA DAY (where’s my temporary tattoo???) and CBC Newsworld had a special documentary on called The Canadian Guitar.
The one-hour documentary includes interviews with various Canadians — stories of our heritage, our First Nations and our immigrants, and our families. The final masterpiece, debuted today for celebrations in Ottawa, features pieces of Canada’s story: the Golden Spruce of Haida Gwaii, Wayne Gretzky’s hockey stick, an old seat from Toronto’s Massey Hall, Trudeau’s canoe paddle, Winnipeg’s St. Boniface Museum, and Pier 21, among others. The luthier is Hungarian-Canadian George Rizsanyi, whose own history, too, contributed to the beautiful guitar.
The documentary airs again at 7 & 11pm ET today on CBC Newsworld. That’s 4 and 8pm PT on cable 26 for those in Greater Vancouver. I suggest you watch it — tape it, PVR it if you’re out celebrating tonight — and have a Happy Canada Day!
Here’s one more for ya, Canadian Mysteries. Old or ancient mysteries always seem more exciting than current ones, and people seemed to be more strange, like the man climbing mountains to the Yukon in 1931. Yes, indeed, folks… the Holy Grail is buried in CANADA.
I’ve discovered that in Movable Type one can set their preferences to allow images in comments. So that means it could be a viable medium for doing a community magnetic poetry site. The problem is I can’t seem to make it so that comments automatically appear on the index page.
That also got me thinking about how it would work. People post their poetry… to one single entry? Multiple entries in different categories? How do the categories work? By subject is too broad, and not everyone uses a poetry form like a haiku. Do we make a new entry every day or every week? (I guess that would depend on its popularity.)
Just to reiterate, this would be a blog/site for people to share their magnetic poetry, either by image or by text.
Any ideas?
The 3rd World Urban Forum just ended in Vancouver yesterday.
Bloggers may be interested in earthblog.ca, which is “a two-week discussion about the future of our region.” It runs until June 30.
(If you’re on a Mac, use Firefox as Safari is not entirely supported. Commenting doesn’t quite work in Safari.)
Description from their website:
“From June 15 to June 30, 2006, Earthblog features the daily writings of four opinionated bloggers, two provocative moderators, dozens of passionate community groups and thousands of local residents and visitors from around the world.
Earthblog.ca takes its inspiration from the 1976 UN Habitat Conference, an event that sparked discussion and debate on the state and form of cities. The occasion of the 30th anniversary of the UN Habitat Conference, the World Urban Forum, propels this discussion forward. Earthblog.ca is intended to provide a local perspective on the issues discussed at the WUF and includes themes brought to the fore by parallel events, such as the World Planners Congress, the World Peace Forum, EARTH: The World Urban Festival, and the World Youth Forum. Earthblog brings forward the perspectives of multiple voices on the social, cultural, environmental and economic issues that are relevant to the development of the region.”
I wish it were running indefinitely!
On their Sustainable Vision Wiki, I responded to this question:
Is “sustainability” anything more than just a buzz word?
My response:
“To sustain” has many relevant definitions. “Sustainability,” though tossed around until it seems like a fad, is a meaningful direction and goal for any city to prolong the health and lives of its citizens, infrastructure, economies, ecologies, etc. It is also about reducing a city’ and a city’s people’s ecological footprint, globally. Vancouver has an enormous global impact, and is never independent of the rest of the world for survival. Its ability to maintain itself with the least global impact, such as growing its own food and producing its own products with local materials, is what sustainability is all about.
Lately I’ve gotten back into doing magnetic poetry compositions on our fridge. I FINALLY got around to putting the rest of them up there (we moved in a month and a half ago and I had only put up a fraction of it), and the two of us here are enjoying making weird, funny, and perverted phrases. We have the Original Magnetic Poetry kit.
I found interesting but older article about a writer’s fest where the little magnets were invovled, San Francisco’s Litquake Festival. (This year’s is in October for those of you in or near SF, which I am definitely not.)
Anyway I got thinking… what about starting a blog or website (maybe a Flickr thing would be more appropriate) specifically for the public to post their magnetic poems? I think images are the best way because it translates the thinking and the physicality of the poetry. Not everyone has a digital camera though, or a webcam, so making text-only available is smart as well. Is anyone interested in helping me with this? What do you think is the best format?
Alternative to comments would be to email me.
I would like to invite you all to an online forum hosted by The Society for Community Development. The forum is a great opportunity to discuss community issues and events, post your community events and resources, and just have a good time being involved in the online and local community. Topics include community development, responsible citizenship, environmental issues, and local happenings. Please do join us.*
The Society for Community Development is a non-profit organization working towards building healthy communities and responsible citizens in Coquitlam, Port Coquitlam, Port Moody, Belcarra, and Anmore. This fall they will be holding the 10th Annual Spirit of Community Awards and Taste of the Tri-Cities.
*I am planning on reducing the number of forum categories so as to make it easier for users to find, post, and respond to topics. Any suggestions on improving the forum are welcome! Hope to see you there.
