Blogging Books

Joi Ito: “reading a book while thinking about what to blog is a slow, but interesting way to read a book.” I've done that before (see here, here, and here), and blogging stuff in print is a little odd, because bloggers and weblog readers are used to being

Weblogs And Gender: A Roundup

Richard at Peking Duck has some thoughts on the reaction to some female Asian bloggers: “There are so few young Asian bloggers writing in English about political and social issues, and I want to encourage them, not intimidate them. Even if they are wrong, maybe we should try to let them know in a way that won't injure their pride. A double standard? Yes. But we all know that communicating with a native Chinese person is not the same as communicating with a native New Yorker.

Filtering and Freedom

Jay: “perfect filtering is too perfect a form of censorship. It is potentially transparent to the would-be viewer and inflicts no burden, and because of this is virtually untraceable. This like Papa Stalin replacing every book with a Stalinist friendly book, rather than blacking out all the anti-Stalin parts of other books. The ability to know when we are wronged is essential to our freedom.”

Significant Handicap

Kelefa Sanneh: “Compared with hip-hop heroes like these, Jay-Z has a significant handicap: he's alive and well. He is also one of the shrewdest rappers of all time and one of the most creative, so he found a clever way to overcome this liability: he decided to stage his own death, or at least disappearance.”

Our Brothers and Sisters to the South

From a letter by the founder of the Annexation Party of British Columbia, R. Gordon Brosseuk [PDF]:

It is imminent that one day we the people of Canada will in one form or another become joined together with our brothers and sisters to the south, the United States of America.

It is my belief that the time has come for British Columbians to seek acquisition of this Province by the United States.

Happens All The Time

Hank Stuever: “The Foo Fighters, fronted by the ever-ironic Dave Grohl (a former member of Nirvana), seem to have known that "Darling Nikki" could hardly cause a blush amid the latest fare from Limp Bizkit, Jay-Z, Korn and Missy Elliott. (Self-pleasuring girls-gone-wild who hang out in hotel lobbies? Yawn. Happens all the time.)”

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