Infrequent but insightful?

I am a terrible blogger. I just want to spout off from time to time. This is one of those times though. I just read a 10 page…omg…article on a woman trying to improve her “not so bad” marriage (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/06/magazine/06marriage-t.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&em). She and her husband were cruising along after 9 years of marriage and she was afraid of a rut and so she … and her weirdly willing husband started going through what can only be described as A LOT of marriage counseling.

When I was 19 I was in college and I took psych 101. Now I r a smart girl, on some Wednesdays, and I started talking to my teacher about some of my thoughts on how to track and document emotional responses to certain situations that seemed to appeal to him…and so he began to talk. He talked like a person to me…about his own emotional experiences and what tracking them might mean. THAT is when I decided that the art of psychology is one in which you spend too much time in your own head.

This relationship article was like that. Diving into water people told you not to swim in. This sort of thing is relative. The woman writing the article seems honest and genuine, she described a situation in which two people who love each other came together to make a life, skated over the deeper stuff for a good while but eventually it starts to become like an itchy scab…so you start to pick.

I know everyone has to walk their walk, but however hard your walk is, someone else is walking barefoot over rougher terrain. I read how her husband cooked compulsively and worked out while she took care of their kids…they both work successfully from home. He’s got an S&M bent and didn’t want to taint their marriage so he never fully brought game to the bedroom and she felt it and she focused on the kids and he felt neglected so he … cooked.

While I appreciate the pitfalls of poor communication and secrets kept to make the relationship work…part of me wants to tell this chick to shut up and sit the fuck down. Lamenting overly loving parents on his side, and her white bread upbringing and subsequent rejection of affection on the other, omfg…shuuuuut up.

Not that I don’t sympathize with her boredom with a man who…cooks…  There are women who can’t get educated in this world, who’s gender marks them for sexual slavery, mutilation and earmarks them for persecution for showing their hair or holding a thought in their head. There are women and men, who…as loving as they are..have been beaten up, raped and emotionally ravaged. Within the confines of “working it out” men and women both will endure mountains of crap.

I totally understand the apathy that builds between people over time…but holy crap pull your head out. If it took you until 40 to realize that the Cinderella story was a FAIRY TALE…then count your blessings.

Be grateful for every moment of every day…and sort your crap…and suck it up. Screw therapy…deal. Seriously…if you get to live to 40 and think that the dream is real…then you have lived a truly charmed life…and apparently don’t ever look up from it. You don’t see the horrors in the world…you write for the NYT and you don’t watch any news reports done by Christiane Amanpour??

…Takes a deep breath… I sincerely hope this somewhat lost woman works out the almost serious issues in her relationship and I look forward to her blazing insights in preserving WASPiness as we know it (she’s helping to write a book on marriage counseling)…but honestly, know when it’s ok to be..okay.

Remember the curse, “May you live in interesting times”.

Jaycee Lee Dugard…all the news that’s fit to buy.

I just read a story in the LA Times about how reporters are paying people for any information they may have on Jaycee Lee Dugard. (Media Outlets Paying for Information).  Really????

To begin with…even before pay-to-dish was on the table….I had mixed feelings about how this story should be covered. There’s no question that finding Ms Dugard is a story, but really, isn’t that end of it?  I have been thinking all week about how this poor woman has gone through this intense, horrible ordeal…only to be saved and fed directly into a media circus. So far the family has actually done a good job of keeping the curtains closed but you know their phone is ringing off the hook and camera people are hiding in the bushes. This family must be left time to heal. Can you imagine going through this terrible thing and then have the world descend upon you to ask stupid questions “can you tell us what it was like?” (um, no you have to frame of reference) or “did they hurt you?” (um, yes I was held for 18 years by a couple of lunatics)?

When did all of this become everyone’s business?

I mean honestly. People will say things like “well we want to understand how this guy thinks”. He’s  nut, so unless you are a nut too, you aren’t going to understand how he thinks. “We want to know where the flaws in the system are”. We do know, our public services are underfunded, the staff are overworked and people who work with felons and the mentally ill see warning signs in every person they deal with, so overlooking the obvious happens…a lot.

There are solid stories that news agencies could pursue as a result of this woman’s ordeal. Stories on local communities and groups are working with the mentally ill and in particular sex offenders (is castration really cruel and unusual given what these guys do to girls, boys and women?). Maybe examining different programs to see what works and what doesn’t. Stories that go over missing person’s cases to bring a fresh eye and our current sense of collective awareness together to maybe see if a few other missing people can’t be found. These aren’t the stories of earth shaking headlines but they are the stories of the communities we live in.

I also have an issue with accidental fame. Something happens to you in your life and all of a sudden you are on the CNNMSNBCABCCBSBBCAP network. I have a degree in Journalism. I am a huge fan of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and honestly believe the good things that come from exposing dark secrets are important. Freedom of the press is tantamount to keeping the government honest (yeah I know it’s an oxymoron but we’ll save that for another post). But when did freedom of the press surpass all other tenets of a civilized society? The intention of including freedom of the press in the Constitution was to ensure the press could freely report on what the government was up to. So that things like water-boarding in Guantanamo could NEVER happen, at least not without public scrutiny. It certainly wasn’t intended to set the private lives of individuals who have never done anything except be a victim, be stupid, have too many kids or not wear their underpants up in headlines for all the world to see.

Presently the press is abusing their right to print at the expense of all other freedoms and rights that people have and it’s created an era of media insanity. It seems to me that by abusing their power, they are putting it at risk. Many media people are willing to break the law to get their news and it’s likely to result in regulation of how news is gotten. Even if it doesn’t people are getting hurt by what these folks are willing to do to get the story. The lady who had Dugard’s girls over for a birthday party had her facebook hacked so reporters could grab the pictures no one is willing to give them. A couple of months ago two reporters checked Brooke Shields’ grandmother out of her nursing home to get a story from her. They are lucky they didn’t get put in jail for kidnapping. That kind of behavior is unacceptable. I fully support freedom of the press and am thinking that there need to be some guidelines, at least on how news is gathered.

I understand the bind media outlets are in, if they don’t scoop a story someone else will. The scoop drives viewership which is what gets advertisers on board to pay the bills. Whatever news we are getting is put into what is called “the news hole”. That’s the space left over after all the ads have been sold. Stories of psycho kidnappers fit nicely into the hole.

What doesn’t fit so nicely are stories of the girls all over the world who are held captive or simply sold by their families into the sex trade as slaves or worse…and no one is looking for them. I know of a guy who won’t go to Vegas anymore for his whores because it’s cheaper to take a whoring trip to Taiwan…three whores for the price of one in Vegas…and age isn’t an issue. The girls around the world who are sold into the sex trade suffer as horrible an ordeal as Ms. Dugard has endured, but it’s not a story we like. There’s no “happy ending”. There’s no single bad guy. With the Dugard story we can remain above it somehow…looking in on these unfortunate souls, tsking the system for failing while gathering all the sordid details…but we put our own psychological spin on it so we don’t feel quite so voyeuristic and once we had our fill of the story, we can all move on, fat and happy with being “in the know”, and content knowing the Dugard’s will sort it out. We can talk about it like it’s rare…not really part of “our” lives. Whoring-in-Taiwan guy is more systemic…he represents the darkness within everyday people. He’s not some psycho, he’s nice, he has a job and a house, he’s got friends and has BBQs. He’s one of “us”. That isn’t a story we like to read.

But I digress…back to why paying for the scoop is a bad idea. Okay, not that I am cynical or anything but, given the current state of the economy and the hunger of news agencies to fill their holes, it seems to me that there’s more incentive to give the news people what they want regardless of it’s basis in reality. I know it’s hard to believe, but people will lie for money. People will also lie for fame…and with news agencies buying stories, they are giving people both. We aren’t talking grand scale, “get my own reality show so I can meet the girl of my murderous dreams” kind of fame, but maybe two to seven of the allotted 15 minutes kind of fame. For some people flashfame and the money to pay a looming mortgage, or even a buy a new xbox is enough to say anything to the “news” agency that is willing to pay.

Maybe journalists just don’t give a crap about the truth anymore. They certainly don’t seem to give a crap about the people they report on. I grew up believing in the higher standard. Not really expecting people to always achieve it but to always reach for it. Sometimes I feel like people have stopped reaching. The Preamble of the Constitution starts out with “We the People…” we are the people, this is our world and our society. We create it by how we act in it. If news standards are set by the best practices of the National Enquirer, then maybe it’s time to just turn it off. We can choose a higher standard for ourselves, and not because we have to or our mom told us to, but because we want to.

The Michael Jackson Post Production

I watched bits and pieces of Michael Jackson’s funeral today. It makes me wonder if it’s possible for humans to ever be happy or feel good about themselves. Michael Jackson is like the over the top, larger than life version of “superstars” everywhere. From the stories surrounding his life, his family, Michael Jackson didn’t have an easy time of it growing up. But his talent transcended those issues. He was truly an entertainer who touched the whole world.

What is remarkable is that even with all of that adoration and ability, Michael Jackson seemed like someone always looking for something else. He had voids to fill. He changed everything about himself. He reconstructed his entire being. Even if he did have a skin condition, he had his entire face rebuilt. For his home he created a land outside of time and place where the  real world could be the land that was far far away. He had everything…everything….talent, money, love in abundance….regardless of what his family may have done to him he was clearly loved by so many people. Not just adoring fans, but he obviously had people close to him who loved him very much. But so much of his story seems tragic. Going broke, addicted to drugs, botched surgeries, being devoured by media, questions about his mental state through much of his adult life, and of course the allegations of inappropriate relationships with kids. For all of the amazing things Michael Jackson did, most people see the sadness that drove so much of his life.

Michael Jackson’s “bittersweet” tale is one we hear again and again. People who have “everything” and they are still so unhappy. Look at the Hollywood Girls Gone Wild set, or Marilyn Monroe and Elvis. The list of the tragic and hip is a mile long.

So it begs the question, what will make people happy?

I have a few possible answers, but I am not sure that people can be genuinely happy over distance. So for what it’s worth, here are my thoughts on the subject:

First I think you have to really like yourself and accept yourself for who you are…and then do the same thing for other people. You don’t have to like everything everyone does or not have standards for yourself and others but you do have to accept the humanity of falling short. We all do it….but in acceptance there’s Grace.

I think we need to really forgive people who hurt us…and let go of those hurts. You know when you are playing a video game and you get hit with something like poison and your player gets sicker and sicker…I think that’s what holding onto the past does to people. It’s poison. Living in what was doesn’t let you experience what you have right now, it’s like allowing yourself to be robbed.

I also think people need to get real. No more Never-Never Land…it’s called Never Land because it’s never going to happen. Don’t live in  KeepDeludingYourself Land and hope it somehow is going to start to look like the fantasy in your mind. Keep the princes and princesses in the fairy tales where they belong. Get real with yourself and what your expectations are from other people. This goes back to the first thing I typed…like yourself. You have to be ok in your own head before you can share the space with anyone else.

Have faith. You have to have something to give it up to. God, Jesus, Mohammed, the Spirit of the Trees, the rock you found at the beach….trust that there’s something in the universe that’s functioning out of your control and that you can lean on it. Some people might say that’s not keeping it real, but the case could be made that assuming we know everything isn’t realistic at all. In terms of being happy, being able to turn to your faith is a great way to lighten the load when things get hard. Helps keep balance when everything seems off balance.

I don’t know that doing all of these things will make a person happy…or even content. I think we are more dynamic than that. I don’t think there’s a perfect state. People talk about zen as the ideal for that. Having read some of Buddha’s writings it seems to me that it was more about controlling your emotions and then restricting your environment to the point where you don’t get riled. Christianity has a similar flavor, avoidance as a means of self control. It’s not a bad model…I mean if you don’t want to be tempted, don’t go into the whorehouse. But that’s not the same as choosing how you want things to be.

Deciding what you want your world to look like is the final piece, then make it happen to the best of your ability. I think part of the appeal of MMOPRGs is that it’s a do over in a way. Especially SL, where you get to make the world you “want” instead of the one you live in. Without those other bits in place though, most people just make a mess that looks very much like their real world. It’s the old “no matter where you go, there you are”. So find a way to be happy with yourself and you’ll be happy where ever you are.

I hope that Michael Jackson is finally happy where ever he is and that the love people are pouring out to him can spill over onto the people he leaves behind. Seems like that would be the best gift all of that talent could bring the world.

Is SL a dying fad?

“Is SL a fad that is on the way out?” is the conversation I had with a friend today. He’s one of the growing number of people I have talked to who liked SL at first but then found it kind of meh over distance. In all honesty SL isn’t like some of the big online games like WoW where you go on quests and attend festivals, and sure there’s a lot of mayhem, but you can be something like a mage or a healer so your hack-factor is less. But for a lot of people creating a second life has a certain appeal…at least until you mess it up to the point where it looks a lot like RL.

The thing that prompted the conversation is that the sim my club is on is closing. The owners are leaving SL. They are a real world  software development company who created an inworld university to teach people about SL, teach them to build and script, there’s even a sandbox. They marketed their software…antivirus software…inworld to everyone who dropped in.

The sim is very popular, it’s listed in Hot Spots almost constantly and they have been in SL for nearly three years. Why are they leaving? Because SL’s population isn’t growing or changing. From a marketing stand point, it’s a stagnant marketplace. Which may explain why the Gossip Girls Sim that was sponsored by Warner Brothers closed as of July 1. There’s still a fan sim for GG but it’s not funded by a marketing machine like WB. At present Linden Lab’s great plan to fix this is making a largely PG virtual world that’s more conducive to luring businesses in.

I was reading a blog today that was saying that SL’s business model doesn’t rely on making money off of their premium accounts (that is accounts that residents pay for). They are in the business of selling servers, sims…islands within SL that individuals and businesses “own” while they are in SL to do use for personal or business uses…all according to the TOS, of course. SL servers are spendy so LL’s best bet is to sell servers to businesses, the government and educational facilities. Which is fine but there’s not much in it for residents. In order to support their model there’s discussion about pulling the plug on the stipend they offer residents (300L or around $1 a week).

From where I stand, we are looking at SL becoming a 3D online advertising platform…so kinda like TV except there won’t be any of those pesky television shows to break up the ads. Sure there will be some art and some educational stuff but…going back to PGSL, only so long as LL approves…wooohooo.

So…I am curious to know what other people think. Do you think that SL is a fad that is going the way of big sunglasses and skinny jeans? Or is SL growing into itself and finding it’s marketshare in the ever changing world of MMORPGs, social networks and online media advertisers?

Life, Death and the Internet…

I have a few things that have been rolling around in my head since all of the famous people are dying. First off my condolences go out to the family and friends left behind for Ed McMahon, Farrah Faucet and Michael Jackson. But also, remember that everywhere people are going through losses, not just the famous ones. Cancer and heart disease are theives that steal people away far too soon.

Not to mention the ongoing unrest in Iran, an entire newspaper staff has been arrested today http://tr.im/pTqU. @persiankiwi has been missing for days off Twitter and no one knows for sure why, but the rumors aren’t good. I also saw “how to throw tear gas canisters back at police” tips today for the protesters who are still brave enough to take to the streets.

Turning back to the events of yesterday…in addition to reading that MJ’s dr is missing and there are concerns about overmedication as a possible cause of his premature death, I caught a “Do you know where you were when MJ died?” headline. I can actually tell you where I was when Michael Jackson died. I was editing this video that is just making me nuts. It’s all stills and so it’s edit, render, edit, render….which means I have time to peek at Twitter.

Now, I am really falling for Twitter. I didn’t at first, seriously, I don’t care that you spilled coffee on yourself getting out the car. BUT yesterday Michael Jackson started trending and TMZ was first on the scene…so I went to TMZ and the LA Times websites…clicked on CNN…got the live video feed. Then it got a little surreal….

TMZ scooped CNN and the LA Times by a good half hour. I kept refreshing TMZ and when they announced MJ was dead I was one of the first to tweet “TMZ reports Michael Jackson has died”.  So I am watching the CNN video and have TMZ up and the LA times CNN starts sourcing the LA Times for their confirmation of what’s going on. So I am where CNN is to get their info. The LA Times then updated their headline. Michael Jackson Arrives at Hospital in a Deep Coma, and just below that it says he was pronounced dead upon arrival to the hospital. CNN reported only the headline, not the text under it. Next the LA Times site went blank and then the headline came up that MJ had in fact died….and then CNN reported it.

It was really bizarre, like being in the middle of the news gathering process. It was actually very exciting to be so there for the events as they unfolded. I feel like I need to appologize to the Twitter God’s because I didn’t get it at first…now I may need to enter a 12 step program to tear myself away.

I also can see how this whole intertwining of news, info, regular people, and the net can become a beast running blind through the streets. CNN held back the news of MJ’s death until they got independent verification, but you know they were looking at the same TMZ page I was. It would have been very easy and it must have been very tempting to just report the news as TMZ had it. Even without CNN reporting, Twitter exploded with TMZ’s headline…they got overloaded in fact.

I wonder how news reporting is going to change over time with the up to the second experience. I also wonder how people will manage to keep there distance from some of this stuff. It’s like getting on a ride and you don’t want to get off…but just because you are up to the second with breaking news doesn’t mean that the information you are getting is accurate. How do we debrief…and where do we find out if what we are wittnessing is real or true. Oh wait, I know…Fox News…hahaha! In any case, it will be interesting to see how we manage all of this information over time. All of that being said…it’s time to edit, render, edit, render…and wait for more breaking news.

Happy Friday and be sure that you put whatever stupid stuff you do over the weekend on YouTube so we can Twitter about it on Monday ;D.

All the rage: Marriage

CNN is conducting a survey asking if the S Carolina Governer should resign over his affair. I wonder where this idea came from that who you have sex with determines your ability to function in your job. I mean unless you are a prostitute the two things seem pretty unrelated.

I know there’s this hope that people have that marriage is a sacred vow and that two people can live together happily for decades and decades. It’s just not panning out that way. I mean when you look at the statistics there’s infidelity in an estimated 80% of marriages….80%. That is full on failure of an institution. Imagine a school where 80% of all students failed or an organization where 80% of employees failed to do their jobs. The doors would be closed.

There is value in marriage. Kids, they just need two parents. Creating a home requires two people at least. But to have this completely unrealistic expectation that people are 2gether4ever doesn’t account for how dynamic we are as human beings. We do change over time. If you are very very lucky you can find someone who will change with you. But what if you can’t?

In Elizabethan times it was considered foolish to marry for love. Marriage was viewed as a function of life rather than a sacred union. Maybe a little pragmatism is in order for us as well. It seems to me in this country we build up so much hope around “finding the perfect mate” and having a great love that it’s almost impossible for the actual day to day of living with someone to meet the expectation.  If we took off the rose colored glasses around relationships then we might all get along better over distance.

As to whether or not Sanford should resign, well he did vote to impeach Bill Clinton over the Monica Lewinsky hoohaw. Nothing is quite as much fun as having your moral high ground come back around to bite you in the bum.

On a lighter note…..

On May 21, a judge of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California dismissed a complaint filed by a woman who said she had purchased (again and again and again…over the course of four years) “Cap’n Crunch with Crunch Berries” because she believed it contained real fruit.  The plaintiff, Janine Sugawara, alleged that she had only recently learned to her SHOCK AND HORROR that said “berries” were in fact simply brightly-colored cereal balls, and that although the product did contain some strawberry fruit concentrate, it was not otherwise fruity (she was on the you are what you eat diet and this really messed her up).

Happily, sanity prevailed and the court ruled:

In this case . . . while the challenged packaging contains the word “berries” it does so only in conjunction with the descriptive term “crunch.” This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a “crunchberry.” Furthermore, the “Crunchberries” depicted on the [box] are round, crunchy, brightly-colored cereal balls, and the [box] clearly states both that the Product contains “sweetened corn & oat cereal” and that the cereal is “enlarged to show texture.” Thus, a reasonable consumer would not be deceived into believing that the Product in the instant case contained a fruit that does not exist. . . . So far as this Court has been made aware, there is no such fruit growing in the wild or occurring naturally in any part of the world.

And furthermore….

In this case, . . . it is simply impossible for Plaintiff to file an amended complaint stating a claim based upon these facts. The survival of the instant claim would require this Court to ignore all concepts of personal responsibility and common sense.  The Court has no intention of allowing that to happen.

Ms. Sugawara’s lawyers had previously tried sue Kellogg’s because Froot Loops didn’t contain real Froot. Next thing you are going to tell me is that Tucan Sam isn’t a real tucan…what is this world coming to????

…Catz wonder’s if these lawyer’s got their degrees out of a Crackerjacks box…..

PGification of SL

Second Life is a virtual world where people are able to create an online reality for themselves, express their creativity and meet other people who spend far too much time in front of their computers. Linden Labs promotes it as an adventure in self expression, education and a great way to get your business into the growing metaverse…well kinda.

With the implementation of the new PG guidelines LL had decided to define for all of us what it is to be creative in the metaverse. They say they want the virtual world to be pleasant for everyone…none if the messiness associated with people here. They are using a “common sense” approach…if you wouldn’t say it in front of your grandma, don’t say it in PGSL. My grandma is a real bitch, so we’ll use your grandma as the litmus test for that one.

Using the Grandma Rule, in pg areas, artists can’t post images of nudes…because grandmas don’t like art. Shops can’t sell bras and thongs because grandmas don’t like underwear. There will be no swearing, because grandmas only say darn (deferring again to your grandma). In search there will be nothing inappropriate. What’s inappropriate? LL can’t really tell us that, because inappropriateness is dynamic…which I am guessing means it’s an ever growing list of no-nos as defined by other people’s grandmothers. I wonder if LL is hauling grandma’s in off the street, conducting grandmaness interviews. What if your grandma is that lady on HBO who runs the whore house? It’s probably only the “good” grandmas LL will talk to….

Beyond the grandma test, LL has created restrictions on what kind of messages can be sent in SL. I am not sure how this is playing out for the rest of SL, but I know that music venue owners are having their IMs bounced presumably for inappropriateness. No more “lovers of live music come out on a hot hump day for some fun with your friends”. As a venue owner I have spent a lot of time, energy and money on my venue. It’s not offensive…except for on some Mondays…and it’s a great place for musicians and residents to come and have a great time…if only I were able to tell people about it. I haven’t been able to post to group IMs in two weeks.

LL isn’t really worried with my petty concerns though, or anyone elses for that matter. They are ignoring the frustration of venue owners and others who are mystified by the new rules. On the SL official blog the front page is full of cheery messages about SL’s birthday and the new German sim, there are one or two nice comments posted under these wonderful newsy bits. If you want to try to figure out what’s going on with the new browser and the new rules you have search for it…and then wait for the hundreds of posts to load. Seems that minority of adult users are a little vocal, and the silence of LL on the matter is deafening.

I understand that SL is a business and it wants to appeal to a broad audience but instead of touting itself as an environment welcoming creativity and innovation…which can very often be offensive…it should just own up to wanting to be a whitewashed version of the human experience much like Disney Land that promotes only “right kind” of creativity as defined by LL.

Standing in the Garden of Good and Evil

I am back out on Twitter again today. It’s so interesting how the collective consciousness seems to ebb and flow like the tide. Today it seems that the government is firming up it’s stand on the protesters and affirming the election results. The protesters are running out of steam and what was almost universal support now is showing more criticism out in the Twitterverse. The cycle is predictable. People are predictable. It’s why writer’s can spin yarns we believe, we all know how we are.

Even though the likely outcome here is no change on the surface in Iran, I do think that what’s happened with how we communicate with one another has changed fundamentally. That which was hidden will now be revealed. This is the time for it…a really amazing time. There’s a Polly Anna part of me that keeps saying things like “the revolution will be televised” and “power to the people”. There’s also a nagging little voice saying “rut roh”.  That part of me is just envisioning how this powerful tool is going to be used to ensure that we all feel included but never really know what’s going on. I mean if I were the head of a totalitarian state, I would be out rounding up every tech-savvy person I could lay my hands on and make sure I was pimping my version of the truth out there long before the shit hit the fan with something as trivial as election fraud. Obama, not totalitarian, but a head of state has been on that bandwagon from day one and it’s been hugely successful.

My sister refuses to “Twitterface”. She only watches funny animal videos on youtube, she won’t text on her phone. I asked her why and she said it’s because she doesn’t want her world to change. She likes how she thinks things are and if she sees too much of people, knows too much about them, it will make her unhappy.

I wonder if in some ways my sister isn’t on to something. Writer’s know the power of words to shape perception. Images: worth a thousand words. The Internet = words and images on crack. In this world we are creating for ourselves truth and lies are shades rather than absolutes. When Eve bit into the apple, her punishment was the knowledge good and evil. I think we are back in the garden again…oh look my computer is an Apple….

The world as seen through plasma

I work on the computer for a lot of my day and like so many people I know I have the attention span of a two year old (I would like to thank my mom for pointing that out to me daily growing up). The project I am working on has a lot of “down time” where I am waiting for video to render. So while I am waiting for one computer I play Second Life or write, like now, with the other. But since the elections in Iran I have been hanging out on Twitter.

I wasn’t a fan of Twitter. I thought it was really meaningless…the way the streaming consciousness generally is. Tweets like “am eating tacos” or “wow the sun is hot”. I am like omg….why why why would I care if you are eating tacos or just newly discovered the sun is hot. There’s this idea that all of this “sharing” is going to somehow bring us closer. LOL…really it just tells you your friends are dorks.

That being said, I have been parking my browser on #iranelections. It’s been one of the most extraordinary things I have ever seen and it’s given me a whole new appreciation for the socialblogosphericnetworkification of the internet. The experts are all running around doing their thing and people are, of course, spamming about new iphones and Perez Hilton. But there are also some genuinely amazing first hand accounts of what is happening in Iran, the power of which cannot be denied. Neda is the larger than life example but early on I started following a college student in Tehran. I watched his Tweets as he and his friends felt their outrage, and started to venture outside. Watched and waited for the posts of people gathering and the shock of the students at the violence leveled at them. His friend was injured on the second or third day of protests and has finally gotten medical attention. He posted pictures of their dorms riddled with bullet holes and images of all the injuries they sustained at the hands of the police. He told us about tear gas and being afraid. Hearing noises and not knowing what’s happening, waiting til morning to see what the night had wrought.

His story and the story of his friends has meaning. I fear for their safety and I hope his friend is okay. What’s happening in Iran isn’t a far away uprising but a very personal story of people in the middle of chaos looking for footing. Everyone who’s taken a high school lit class has read the diary of Anne Frank, the thoughts of a frightened girl hiding in the dark leaving behind an accounting of a horrible time in human history from a first hand perspective.

With the internet…for all of it’s drawbacks…these people aren’t locked away leaving behind notes for some archeologist to decifer after the dust has settled and blood has been spilled. No matter what happens in Iran, these stories have been told. These people who are marching for something they believe in, who in another time would have been well hidden behind a veil of well constructed truths put forth by official sources, are having their stories told.

I am jaded enough to believe that even before the situation in Iran is resolved, governments everywhere are looking for ways to control internet access to the masses in times of crisis, but for this moment…well, it’s quite extraordinary.