Original Writings

Google, is best understood as a bi-polor goddess who dresses up like a dandy fancy lad fop. I've watched her for sometime, and I have a feeling I'm beginning to understand her pet peaves, her bizarre rituals, and her seemingly unpredictable behavior. If this entry strikes the reader as confusing, understand that google is by-her-nature very confusing. Forgive me for the male-ness of my viewpoint, however, there are many similarities between my experiences dating(the more materialistic women in particular...), and my experiences with courting google.

Why Google is Female

My professional forte is Drupal. For the uninitiated, drupal is an open source platform at making the lives of content producers easier by improving the process of

• creating new content
• organizing content
• ensuring that as few variables as possible will interfere with future improvement of the site

This blog is one example of how drupal can be used. However, today, I built the beginnings of what will end up being an entirely new use of drupal: modular design and development of websites by calling libraries of modular CSS and XHTML code through drupal's taxonomy system.

A few weeks ago, it was widely reported that blogs have failed to replaced radio, TV, and print as the public’s primary source of information. Though the news was hardly a shock, suddenly herds of self-assured pundits used the revelation as proof that blogs were an overblown“fad". With certainty, the pundits proclaimed the it to be the new pet rock. Nevermind that their reports had seriously misinterpreted the data. The media had spoken, and a truth was born.

The arguments (if that's what you call them) of these self-proclaimed soothsayers of technology deserve little to no attention. Anyone who bothers to think beyond the conventional wisdom of the week will see that the forces fueling the rise of the weblog are anything but fashion trends. The nourishing roots of the blogosphere are -- in fact -- older than the very cave paintings which signified the birth of media.

To understand America’s two parties, you must first understand what they are not. They are not, as is often believed, bound by a common ideology. Neither the Democrats, nor the Republicans have a manifesto, or 10-point agenda for America. Even the Republican’s Contract with America, as history so eloquently proved, was hardly the holy writ of Republican ideology.

America’s two main parties are best understood as massive, dynamic power blocks. Though these blocks go by the names “republicans” and “democrats”; their names are hardly relevant.

These blocks are comprised of various business, social, and ideological interests that flow freely between the two parties over the course of decades. For example, Republicans often claim they are “the party of Lincoln”. Yet, the party of Lincoln, the “Republicans” was largely a pro-abolition coalition centered in the north. Where as today’s Republican party is largely supported by evangelical southerners who’ve united around the advancement of regressive social policy[1]. Though the abolitionists may be the great grand cousins of the abolitionists, I’d argue they are the grand children of the prohibitionists. In addition, the “yellow dog” Democrats, which defected to the Republican party during the great social movements of the 50s and 60s, represent a blatant pro-KKK demography. To put it another way, the very Democrats whose political roots are the opposition of abolition are now Republicans. “Party of Lincoln” my ass.

Over the course of the last month, I've had the unique privilege of making enemies with Otto Z. Stern, a columnist from the UK Register.

Stern once noted to his readers, “Your precious letters kept me from the brink of total disaster - that being the moment when I call my mother Greta to hear how superior I am than the rest of you in most ways. Okay, every way.”  How sweet of Otto to let us know how much he appreciates us… Since I’m bored, I’ve decided Otto Z. Stern deserves his own blog post here.

Stern is quite an interesting character. According to his blurb at the register, he lives in a solar powered compound in the Great American South West and is the director of “The Institute of Technological Values” - a think tank dedicated to the advancement of morality in our digital age. Of course, that’s all bullshit. Stern actually lives in Chicago, and his institute is nothing more than very funny satirical joke.  Most people are too dense to get it…

Anyhow, my conflict with the distinguished Dr. Stern[2] began a month ago when I wrote a blog post that was critical of one of his colleagues, Ashlee Vance. At the time, I was covering SXSW as the only blogger with press credentials (which basically just meant that strangers would occasionally see that I was wearing a press badge and decide they needed to sell themselves to me… and what else… oh, I got free coffee, and donuts too…)

Kathy at Citizen’s Rent read over my earlier post on Women, Geeks, and the Blogosphere, and challenged my argument on why the female bloggers I know wouldn’t make it to the a-list (I would expect nothing less from a fellow ENTP). In response to her points, I’m concede that I incorrectly limited the argument to only applying to females. (see notes 1&2 at bottom)

This post expands upon my earlier claim that rising to the blogosphere’s a-list requires the blogger to publish content that is purposefully intended to appeal to the audience’s reptilian brain (what is the reptilian brain? think sex, survival, and digestion).Kathy, rightfully challenges my claim, “While appealing to the reptilian brain might be an easier path to a large readership, I don't think the a-listers are guilty of this. A few might be, sure, but not most.”

Admittedly, I had absolutely no evidence behind my argument. So I decided I would take a random sampling of bloggers I considered a-list. All of the headlines and leads that I sampled were the top posts at the time of the sample. This data, is of course, not scientifically valid. However, I think it will at least give us a better idea of which side the evidence points.

In response to my earlier post, Katharine from Cut to the Chase brings up some very compelling theories on what causes the stark inequality of press attention for female bloggers.

We seem to basically agree about the no-girls-allowed-in-the-AV-club-effect. However, after reading over Katharine’s points, I realized that I had grossly oversimplified the matter. Anyhow, I wanted to highlight and discuss these points in detail. (note: bold text denotes Katharine’s words)

a) politics especially is seen as "dirty" business and there's still a certain stereotype about women in "dirty" discussions, projects, businesses, etc.

- I’d mostly agree that this is a significant factor. However, I think that this “don’t curse around the lady…” quasi-paternal attitude is perhaps irreversibly ingrained the majority of men born before 1950ish; and these days, is only perpetuated by those who fall under the labels, “traditionalist”, and “conservative”.

David Weinberger informs us that the first BlogHer Conference will occur this July, in Santa Clara, CA. This "first of its kind" conference hopes to provide an opportunity for the female blogging community to meet in person.

Fox News, as a commercial broadcasting station, is far easier to defend than CNN. (hooked you) But, before I go too far into this rant, I did want to say a few kind words to about what CNN has done for me.

As a recovering masochists, I know all to well the difficulty of suppressing the daily temptation of a nice, sizzling, self-inflicted chemical burn on the back of my thigh. In the past, I would control my masochistic ways by subjecting myself to 4 hours of Microsoft Minesweeper, while listening to marathons of Weather Report, the Rippingtons, and the “best of” Lawrence Welk. Thankfully, though, I have now come to realize there is a better way…

I’ve come to bring you the good news – and I am speaking directly too you fellow recovering masochist brothers and sisters – you too can suppress ‘the urge’.  All you have to do is watch CNN for an hour. After the hour is up, you will ask yourself: “why am I doing this to myself?” And at that point, a chemical burn seems very disagreeable. Thank you CNN.

So, now that we’ve wrapped up that rather lengthy and unnecessary introduction, lets get to the controversial point that was this essay’s hook. CNN is a horrible station, and though Fox is horrible too… at least it is mildly entertaining.

Now, you might be saying to yourself, “But Nick, CNN is on our side! Fox is on their side!” And to that, you silly talk-to-yourself-er hypothetical reader, I say: “It is my contention that the majority of CNN defenders reasoning goes no deeper than that.”