Fighting clinical depression is inevitably a lonely struggle. What could be less conducive to compassion than a disease that make you whine? Laymen and loved ones tell you to get a grip. They make you feel ashamed to be sick. Even if they’re more enlightened about the disease, they can’t help but harbor a secret, naturally human, belief that you are suffering a failure of will rather than biochemistry. Meanwhile, the doctors consider little but the neuro-soup and turn you into a shambling medical experiment, testing pharmaceutical nostrums on you that are as blunt as the mind is subtle, though just as unpredictable. But, for you, life just trudges on. It remains, despite whatever visible signs of well-being - wonderful spouse, great kids, well-located house, etc. - a purgatory of uselessness, barren of joy and meaning. Love, incoming or out-going, becomes something you think, not feel.
– John Perry Barlow

It annoys me from a compositional perspective. It’s not like I’m taking credit for Sonnet 29. I’m taking credit for the post. And I suspect there are places like TechMeme that hook into that author function, and if I suppress it in WordPress’s “Loop” then it is removed from all posts, so I can’t make Sonnet 29 look good without stripping the attribution I value from other posts, all of which are driven by that loop template.

What to do?

I think I need a non-attribution category that I can use for stylistic porpoises exclusively. Where’s my web clark? get your sleeve garters on and get in here and update the template, damn-it!

Buddhism, she explained, “has no self built into it.You don’t have independently existing selves or objects. They’re codependent.”

When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries
And look upon myself and curse my fate.
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur’d like him, like him with friends possessed,
Desiring this man’s art and that man’s scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least,
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee, and then my state,
(Like to the Lark at break of day arising)
From sullen earth sings hymns at Heaven’s gate,
For thy sweet love remembered such wealth brings,
That then I scorn to change my state with Kings.

— William Shakespeare, 1690

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The never ending massacre in Palestine. Link to slides courtesy of YblogZA.

Steve Rubel (a PR guy who works for Edelman, another PR guy doing, presumably, PR) shares the following regarding the Pew Internet Project study released today:

As Reuters correctly notes, the research demonstrates that blogging is moving more mainstream, thanks to the surging interest in social network/blog hybrid sites such as MySpace and LiveJournal (MySpace is an Edelman client).

My question is, when is disclosure appropriate, and when is it mere self aggrandizement and name placement? I think the latter obtains in this case, since (first) a careful reading of the Reuters piece does not show them saying anything like what Steve says they said, and (second) neither Reuters nor the Pew study characterize MySpace and LiveJournal as social network/blog hybrid sites. These are Steve Rubel’s words. So it looks like Steve took this opportunity to flog his client’s brand, which would make disclosure appropriate, but the inherent dishonesty in implying that there is movement represented by these static data and the movement is toward Steve’s client should be an embarrassment to everyone. If I managed MySpace I’d pull the account. Who needs that kind of gratuitous misrepresentation?

Update: It has been pointed out to me that this would be a lot clearer if I just said Steve Rubel is full of hooie. Actually, “hooie” was not the word.

Update-update: It has been further pointed out to me that disclosure is not really what I am on about. Rather, it is the relentless floggery.

David Weinberger, eating vegetarian although he doesn’t much like vegetables, describes his anniversary dinner at Susur.

“The paler one is a comfit of Brazilian pear puree, run twice through the small fingers of a boy who sings alto, topped by a black olive puree marinated in the juice of two pomegranite seeds blessed by the Dalai Lama, ringed by a wreath of mint leaves plucked from the side of an imaginary mountain.”

There are now about twelve million American bloggers, ninety percent of whom read other people’s blogs and forty-nine percent of whom have been blogging for more than a year. There are also fifty-seven million blog readers (including over ten million bloggers) according to a Pew report released today.

Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Internet and American Life Project writes:

I thought you’d be interested to know that we are releasing today a report built around a national survey of bloggers. It covers things like: who bloggers are, why they got into blogging, the subjects they blog about, the features they use on their blogs, their sense of their audience, the time they spend on their blogs, and their sense of the impact of their blogs.

The survey methodology¹ is described and the results, while generally unsurprising, seem valid because they are not biased by the louder voices in the blogosphere.

PDF versions of the report and the survey are available from the Pew site.

__________________________________________
¹ The Blogger Callback Survey, sponsored by the Pew Internet and American Life Project (PIALP), conducted telephone interviews with 233 self-identified bloggers from previous surveys conducted for PIALP. The interviews were conducted in English by Princeton Data Source, LLC, from July 5, 2024 to February 17, 2024. Statistical results are weighted to correct known demographic discrepancies. The margin of sampling error for the complete set of weighted data is ±6.7%.

A promise of wondrous chickens to come…

More than cautious whining about Net Neutrality, we’re talking about a giant rip-off of money you already paid the phone company. Ouraged? Attend the July 25th hearing. It ain’t over ’til it’s over, Ma and Pa Bell.

Out of the dark and rainy wintry realms down-under, ARJ is re-emerging with more bloggalicious goodness. And hey, like so many others, she’s working with Odeo!

If you’re on Cape Cod or Martha’s Vineyard this weekend, then you will want to listen on WCAI or WNAN to Jenny Attiyeh’s interview with Robert Pinsky. It’s about David, a guy who lived maybe 3000 years ago, was beloved of God, and as a result, he got away with more than his share. He was a seductive, wily politician, a doting father, a bitter old man. What’s not to love about this archetype? (If you’re not on the island, you can just fire up the audio from Jenny’s thoughtcast site!)

This just in from the mysterious Mme. L.: typepad, livejournal (and i imagine whatever hell else they own) have been down since 9am here in france. to add injury, the six apart status site is also inaccessible. i don’t see anything online about it. Maybe it’s a psy-war communication disruption. Or wait. Maybe it’s sunspots. No, no. I know. The entire euronet has crumbled under the intense pressure of people listening to Bush mumble Texanisms about Hezbollah and watching him put the moves of the German Chancellor. The six apart status page doesn’t mention the disruption.