Friday, February 15, 2002

It's Gotta Be A "Guy" Thing
Violence is what comes to Gary Turner's mind when he thinks about the web. Guys just seem to like pissing contests. Set 'em up; knock 'em down. I don't seem to see much affinity for violent metaphors from Meg Hourihan, or Anita Bora or Jeneane Sessum or any number of other female bloggers' sites that I discover in my energetic linkings. Back in the 80s there were all kinds of studies being done about the difference between the way the two genders communicate and work. Guys tend to compete; gals tend to cooperate. Guys prefer to line up the pieces; gals want to see the configurations, the relationship of one piece to the others. So for many of those of my gender, the web is this immense cooperative venture, this mother of all networks, this amazing set of sticky threads worthy of Arachne herself. So piss away, you guys. We'll just keep spinning.

Actually, I'm knitting -- this amazing sherbet-colored striped bunting for my soon-to-be grandson. No violence there.
Fear of Blogging
I’ve mentioned several times that I keep looking for bloggers in the more senior generation, and I’m not finding any/many. Earlier this evening I was telling one of my friends about the joys of blogging, and she expressed great concern that I am letting my name get out onto the web. She won’t even order anything online for fear of having her credit card – and her identity – stolen. She believes that everyone online out there is lying about who they are and that I am putting myself at great risk. I couldn’t convince her otherwise. So now I’m wondering if older folk tend to believe all of the negative hype and are convinced that it’s all porno-freaks and potential rapists and that’s why they’re not blogging. (Actually, it’s probably because they just aren’t geeky enough.) So, my goal is to become the oldest living blogger in bloggerland. That is unless there is no such person as Mike Golby and he's not really across the globe somewhere, and whoever he is is outside my building right now preparing to take my credit cards and sell me into white slavery.
Awake After A Wake
I just got home from attending the wake of the mother of one of my best friends. The woman is dead at 73 from ALS and dementia. I’m only a dozen years younger.
It's a Bird! It's a Butterfly! It's CYBERMOM!
Hee hee. My fantasy come true!

(Except that I feel that I've ridden out of obscurity on my son's coat-tails. He's the real blog-king in this family! Ya' know when someone gets an award, they thank their Mom etc.? Well, I owe it all to b!X, bless his too-often-broken heart!)
Here Kitty, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.....
So now we're cloning kittens. (b!X beat me to posting this story)

Whaddya think of that, Anita?
From Enron to Piper
As far as I'm concerned, the story in Piper Kansas about student plagiarism just shows how far we've come in this country from having any sense of ethics, any concern for what's fair and right.

Now, what would have happened if the kids in Piper had the tools to be able to do their projects on a weblog. They would have understood how to hyperlink and easily give credit to the source of their information. While it's easy to steal others' ideas and text via the Internet, it's also easy to hyperlink/credit the source. Every kid should be schoolblogging and learning the ethics of information sharing.