I missed the Facebook movie, The Social Network, mainly because of disrespect. (I’ll catch it sometime.) But yeah, I’ll definitely go and see this one.
– P
Public versus private forgiveness. And unforgiveness.
graphic: Forgiveness: Breaking the Chain of Hate by Michael Henderson
Last night I read of journalist/blogger/writer Andrew Sullivan’s need to distinguish between extending his own forgiveness to those who have hurt him personally through stumbles or failures, and the role his ‘mission’ as a public writer to, effectively, hold grudges. (It’s what I refer to here at The Paepae as ‘having an attention span’.)
Sullivan quotes a reader saying (read in context here)
Forgive, Andrew. Forgive. Either that or stop talking about faith, grace, mercy, the whole shooting match. Because it seems, in this instance, you don’t get it.
To which Sullivan says…
The trouble here is the distinction between public officials and their public acts and private human beings in your actual life who fail or stumble or hurt you. I truly do try and forgive those who have done me wrong (it isn’t always easy) in the warp and woof of living. But in assessing public affairs – like, say president Bush authorizing torture or backing the Federal Marriage Amendment – it seems to me to be a different case. As a public writer, it is my job to criticize, to judge when someone’s public statements in public office are defensible or wrong. I play a role as a blogger which requires me to be much tougher and harsher than in real life – when I am dealing with public figures, public statements and public records. I have met Bill Clinton only once. I am dealing with the public, not the private, man.
As I said, it’s worth reading the discussion in context at Sullivan’s website The Dish: Clinton and forgiveness. I rate this guy very highly. He’s one of my favourite writers and thinkers alive today, who happens to be a Catholic.
I agree with Andrew Sullivan that making public criticisms — of the sort that I blunder my way through here at The Paepae — sometimes thinking out loud, working out what I think as I go — is different from (or ‘different to’) the sort of let-it-go-for-your-own-good forgiveness I seek in my personal life.
Journalists, bloggers and other public writers* have a duty to their readers to not swallow the carefully-manicured talking points, photo-ops, and spin-driven agendas of those in public power.
That’s partly why I felt uneasy about news that emerged over the weekend about a cabinet minister’s staff sanitising Wikipedia. (Whoa!) The archivist in me (and the taxpayer) is offended by that behaviour, which, Justice minister Judith Collins, through a spokeswoman, has confirmed did take place.
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Samsung Galaxy S III explodes in girl’s pocket, burns her leg badly
Back in the 1990s, like today, I was the proud owner of a procession of Apple laptops including, for a while, a PowerBook 5300ce — the model that was dubbed ‘the FireBook’ after a widely reported incident where one of them burst into flames on a desk when its battery (manufactured by Sony?) overheated.
My 5300 never gave me any such trouble, but they were dark days for Apple’s industrial design. I think they’d outsourced their laptop manufacture to Acer or some such (bits fell off!), before righting the ship with the virtually bullet-proof PowerBook 1400 which preceded the PowerBook G3s (Wall Street etc), then the Titaniums, then lollipop iBooks, white iBooks, MacBooks, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, Retinas…
Since then, there have been worldwide recalls of laptop batteries by a number of companies (including Apple and Dell, and others) citing the risk of similar malfunctions.
While any unintended incendiary effect is a very bad thing, a laptop isn’t in your pocket. Look at this:
Yoswer! Click to read at Android Beat
And here’s the poor girl’s injured leg:
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Really sorry to read this about biased coverage
It was a real shame to read this about Al Jazeera …
Gulf News: Al Jazeera staff resign after ‘biased coverage’
Cairo: The news channel Al Jazeera Mubasher Misr saw 22 members of staff resign on Monday in Egypt over what they alleged was coverage that was out of sync with real events in Egypt.
Anchor Karem Mahmoud announced that the staff had resigned in protest against what he called “biased coverage” of the events in Egypt by the Qatari broadcaster.
Mahmoud said that the resignations had been brought about by a perceived lack of commitment and Al Jazeera professionalism in media coverage, adding that “the management in Doha provokes sedition among the Egyptian people and has an agenda against Egypt and other Arab countries.”
Mahmoud added that the management used to instruct each staff member to favour the Muslim Brotherhood. …
Read on at GulfNews.com
Hopefully, that kind of thing does’t happen here in New Zealand news and current affairs, eh? Well, not much.
-P
Sights and SOUNDS of coffee being made
Yeah, I’m a coffee addict. I’ve also worked in broadcast engineering, and specifically, acoustics. So this video from Diego Stocco appeals to me on all sorts of levels …
Diego Stocco – Huge Coffee from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.
Yum. Of course, for many of us, the aroma is the best part of coffee. So, I’m imagining it.
– P
My fellow geeks: click through for some of the technical specs.
Suppressing free speech and editing Wikipedia. Is that why we pay taxes, Mrs Collins?
Justice Minister Judith Collins. Photo: Mark Mitchell, NZ Herald. Digital effects Peter Aranyi.
This blog post (below) from Roger Brooking gives me the creeps.
Go and have a read and see what you think. Judith Collins’ staff editing wikipedia articles on justice issues in NZ? I’ll wait.
Interesting, huh? Not so much for the [alleged] revelation that someone from Justice minister Judith Collins’ office tried to influence who Radio NZ National’s Nine to Noon current affairs programme would interview (or not) on a public issue.
Mrs Collins, through her spokesperson, is perfectly entitled to try on that distasteful, boundary-crossing little tactic. And Kathryn Ryan’s producer is also perfectly within privilege to ignore it, as I would fully expect she would. Resisting power-plays and overreaching like that is part of the job. (I know that from five years producing Paul Holmes.)
Also, like the poor, sock-puppets editing Wikipedia pages will be with us always. In a way, if it’s true, I think it’s admirable that Mrs Collins’ PR flack should use such a clear pseudonym as JC press sec.
No doubt Mr Brooking is aggrieved at the ‘shredding’ of his articles about the NZ Justice system on Wikipedia after being mysteriously banned as an editor. For whatever reason. Yeah, I would be too.
I can understand his alarm reaction too, especially *if* it is being done, as he suggests [not proven] on Mrs Collins’ behalf and, thus at the taxpayer’s expense. Such actions by a public servant would demonstrate an intolerance of criticism of the government of the day which seems quite alien to the New Zealand way of life, in my view.
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On Bain rifle fingerprints
Earlier this week I saw Frank Mackasy described as an ‘another activist’ making submissions on the proposed GCSB bill at the Intelligence & Security committee….
Earlier, another activist Frank Macskasy told the committee the existing oversight of intelligence agencies hadn’t worked.
Mr Macskasy said he was concerned that within a few years the GCSB and other intelligence agencies would be seeking additional powers.
He warned the expanding powers of intelligence agencies spy on New Zealanders was creating a society similar to those in Soviet era Eastern Europe.
“There’s no just reason for spying on New Zealanders it should be taken off the books, it’s as simple as that.”
I don’t know Frank, but I enjoy reading what he communicates now and then. ‘Activist’ or not (how does one get a label like that attached to one, when spin doctor David Farrar is merely called a ‘right-leaning blogger’?) I agree with Frank’s expressions of concern about the GCSB power grab.
A while ago I subscribed to the RSS feed of his blog Frankly Speaking … so, saw this post Dueling Bainjoes (heh!) this morning. The Bain case is interesting, as we’ve discussed here before.
If you care, have a read.
– P
PS While I mention RSS feeds, here’s a great post on Google’s duplicitous reasoning for their sudden abandonment of their dominant Reader service from one of my favourite Internet thinkers, Marco Arment. Discussing the bully-boy tactics of the ‘big three’ (Google, Facebook, Twitter) Marco links to another very good article with the lovely title of Battle for the planet of the APIs by Jeremy Keith. Whether you have a whisker of geek in you or not, these are worth a read.
Good ol’ fashioned values …
Here’s how ReadWriteWeb promoted the awareness campaigns of StopWatching.Us and Restore The Fourth …
Yeah. Nice. Read all about it.
– P
Not a bad looking logo
I like good graphic design. I pay for it on the books and other projects we publish because I think it adds something valuable. See the communication tag here at The Paepae for a few random examples of graphics that have taken my fancy.
This logo (below) an Android Twitter app called Falcon Pro, appeals to me…
via the Android Police website.
For my money, the trusty Tweetbot app logo still takes a lot of beating:
I use the excellent Tweetbot apps on OSX and iOS (iPad, iPhone). It’s deliberately ‘mannered’ in how it looks/feels/works — quite heavy-handed design and self-confidently so.
It’ll be interesting to see how the guys at Tapbots respond to the new, far lighter graphics environment of iOS 7 when it’s launched.
– P
John Key’s resignation? Pretty bold prediction, John.
In violation of the inverted pyramid model of news writing (most important factoids & points at the top) NZ Herald political writer John Armstrong buried his strongest line in the third-to-last paragraph of his narrative of Kim Dotcom’s appearance at the NZ Parliament’s Intelligence and Security committee last night:
Outside the hearing, Dotcom accused Key of lying to all New Zealanders when he had said he did not know about him. Proof of that would be presented at Dotcom’s extradition hearing. If it stands up, Key’s resignation might well be in order. It is as simple as that.
Oh, the ignominy, if those baleful events were to transpire!
Click to read at NZHerald.co.nz
Whatever’s become of Barbecue John?
– P
Sports mascots as racial stereotyping? (Or is that being ‘precious’?)
There’s a fascinating discussion — on Andrew Sullivan’s The Dish website — with input from all sides about the use of Native Americans and other groups as sports mascots. Have a read of it, if that subject interests you.
I was struck by the National Congress of American Indians‘ effective use of substitution and juxtaposition to make their point. Would anyone seriously expect to find a sports team called The New York Jews or The San Francisco Chinamen? No. Why not?
Uh, huh. So, why …?
Fine print: “No race, creed or religion should endure the ridicule faced by Native Americans today. Please help is put an end to this mockery and racism by visiting www.ncia.org or calling (202) 466 7767”
Worth considering. How do we do that here in New Zealand? The Warriors? The Chiefs? … ?
Is it just ‘being PC’ to ask these questions? Or is it more?
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“In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers … It is afraid of an informed, angry public …”
via the WikiLeaks website:
Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
Seriously folks, try using the DuckDuckGo search engine instead of Google
At the risk of sounding like a gushing fanboy, I want to encourage you to at least give a trial to the DuckDuckGo search engine. It’s here: https://duckduckgo.com
I blogged about it last year here: (Default search engines, privacy … and trying alternatives to Google) and all that’s happened is that it’s gotten better and better.
One of the coolest things about it, for me, is avoiding ‘the bubble effect’ … where Google, in an effort to ‘help’ users with more ‘relevant’ search results, tracks their previous searches and website visits, and serves up results that it thinks will please them better. (Spot the possible privacy issues in that sentence.)
As a general principle I don’t like being tracked on the web, although it seems to me it’s nigh-on impossible to avoid it completely.*
An example of that bubble effect going wrong is this: When people search for their own name (come on, admit it) they can get a very misleading impression of what ‘rates’ on that search term when other people search the internet.
So, say I’ve mentioned you by name here at The Paepae, and you’ve navigated to this site to read those mentions a few times, maybe even replied (or not) … then, later, when you Google (as a verb) yourself it’s likely the results here at The Paepae will be hooked out and emphasised by Google, supposing them to be ‘relevant’ to you.
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Miss Tibet
Now this was a surprise …
Beauty pageant as political statement? (And spot the inner beauty/outer beauty point.)
What do you think?
– P
Of logs, eyes, and attributing motives
I got talking over lunch with a friend of mine, Graeme (who comments here at The Paepae as ‘Graeme’). 🙂 Afterwards, I asked him to send me his thoughts about an aspect of that discussion, and he sent me this. I found it good … and share it with you.
– P
—
Peter, I’m really disturbed by some comments made after your recent post, “Is this what we want? Internet ‘take down’ and indefinite gagging orders?”, especially as some seem to come from professing Christians. I don’t know anyone involved besides you and I don’t want to point the finger at anyone but can I contribute the following, in hope that we may all self-correct?
A Log in MY Eye?
Someone once asked, why do you focus on the speck in another’s eye, but ignore the log in your own? Someone else said, the unexamined life is not worth living, so isn’t it worth us asking, What log? What’s obscuring my vision?
As I see it, it’s the worst flaw in our judgment, and the commonest cause of communication break-downs and verbal conflicts in our society – we simply misjudge each other.
It’s tricky, judgment. You often hear people say, “We mustn’t judge”, seemingly about anything or anyone. And we know that if we judge everything and everyone, we’re just asking to be condemned ourselves. No-one likes the overly-opiniated or overly-critical.
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