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14. januar 2007
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Old and new media clashes, again.
Potomac Video store clerk Charles Williamson, 28, posted a message on his blog, Freelance Genius, Dec. 23 that described how he set up a movie rental account for MSNBC host Tucker Carlson at the MacArthur Boulevard store the day before.
"I could tell you what he and his ridiculously wasped-out female companion (wife?) rented if you really want to know," he wrote. "I won't tell you where he lives, though. That would be wrong and stupid." Williamson also joked that he wouldn't send 10,000 copies of Jon Stewart's best-selling political satire, "America (The Book)," to Carlson's home; Stewart ridiculed Carlson on "Crossfire" before the 2004 election.
Some time later, obviously having read the blog entry, Carlson came in and very angrily demanded that the blog entry be removed. The blogger complied. The end of the story, so far, is that Williamson lost his job after his employer found out about it. There may be some consolation that the blog, Freelance Genius, got a lot of referrals and traffic over this story.
Now, bloggers tend to stick together, especially when they are in conflict with big media types. But acknowledging that there are many facts about this I don't know, my opinion is that Williamson did wrong (whether it was harsh to fire him I can't really know).
A blog posting is not water-cooler gossip, it is potentially a message that can go around the world and stay visible for years to come to everybody on this planet. Bloggers should be extremely careful about what they write about their job, their employer and especially their customers.
You may note that you have never read anything on this blog about where I work. It is certainly no secret, but I don't want anyone googling for my employer, my colleagues, clients, students or customers, and then reading something controversial I write about something else (say, politics) and having this backfire on the people who send me my paycheck. If they google my name, that's fine, I stand for what I write.
Neither do I write about what happens at work. If something comes up I just have to mention in a blog posting, I would not include any details that would identify who I am writing about. I realise I am more cautious than many other bloggers, and I don't try to dictate what other bloggers should do, but I will certainly advise everyone to be very, very careful.
11:07:58 PM 
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Being bilingual is good for your brain:
People who are fully bilingual and speak both languages every day for most of their lives can delay the onset of dementia by up to four years compared with those who only know one language, Canadian scientists said on Friday.
Researchers said the extra effort involved in using more than one language appeared to boost blood supply to the brain and ensure nerve connections remained healthy -- two factors thought to help fight off dementia.
"We are pretty dazzled by the results," Professor Ellen Bialystok of Toronto's York University said in a statement.
"In the process of using ... two languages, you are engaging parts of your brain, parts of your mind that are active and need that kind of constant exercise and activity, and with that experience (it) stays more robust," she later told CTV television.
There is this old joke that came to mind:
Q: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
A: Trilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A: British.
I've heard it applied to our friends across the pond, too.
2:58:23 PM
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Is the Iraqi army totally infiltrated by Shia militias? For what it is worth, WaPo's Nancy Trejos has an article with the expected bias.
U.S. military officers say that the Iraqi police force is deeply infiltrated by militiamen and predict that the army will be quicker to operate independently. But a four-day visit to the base known as Old MOD, for the former Ministry of Defense complex, showed that the army is not immune to the militias' influence. According to the Americans, most of the Iraqi soldiers are Shiites, and some come from Sadr City, a sprawling Baghdad slum that is a Mahdi Army stronghold. Some carry pictures of Sadr.
"Does it mean that they're Jaish al-Mahdi? No," said Lt. Col. Edward Taylor, head of the U.S. military transition team, which is attached to the 2nd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade, based at Fort Carson, Colo.
The U.S. military would not let a reporter interview the Iraqi soldiers. But during a meeting with Taylor, the Iraqi brigade commander responded to a question about the presence of militias in his unit. "It's just rumor," he said.
Taylor said that despite sectarianism in the army, many of the soldiers are making progress. They no longer show up in mismatched uniforms or turn to the Americans to make every decision, he said. Now they plan their own missions.
The article gives a quite mixed message about the possibility to win in Iraq. If I could see it was crucial to take out Moqtada al-Sadr some three years ago, obviously the troops knew that even earlier. Yet it did not happen, and now it appears to be way too late.
PS: The Sunnis begin to realise that provoking a war with the Shia was not a good idea.
It's a bit late for that realisation.
4:47:07 AM
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© Copyright 2007 Jan Haugland.
Last update: 01.02.2007; 06:23:01.
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