April 2007 Archives

Schilling was injured in Game 1 of the 2004 American League Champio nship Series against the New York Yankees. Team doctors stitched a tendon in hi s right ankle to keep it from flopping around, and he returned to lead the Red Sox to a remarkable win in Game 6 to tie the series at 3-3. The Red Sox went on to win that series, and won the World Series for their first title since 1918.

The saddest part in all of this is the following. Yesterday, as I w as warming up for the game, I got to see a young kid, could not have been more than 20, who had served in Iraq. He was being honored by the Orioles and threw out the first pitch. He was a double amputee whoâd lost the lower portion of bo th of his legs serving his country. He refused to use his cane and getting to s ee him do that was incredible. Instead of finding this kid and writing a story that truly matters, something t hat would and could truly inspire people, the media chose to focus on a story t hat was over two years old and a completely fabricated lie. What a job. Someone gave me a great idea to end this once and for all. No one will ever nee d to bring it up again. Iâll wager 1 million dollars to the charity of anyones choice, versus the same amount to ALS. If the blood on the sock is fake, Iâll d onate a million dollars to that persons charity, if not they donate that amount to ALS. Any takers?

A lot of bloggers have discovered what writers have known for quit e a while. Writing requires effort. Anyone who thinks mercenaries care a lot ab out money hasn't met a professional writer. It's the carrot to the deadline sti ck. Heather Green's look at Technora ti's numbers on blogging isn't real surprising. Although the number of blogs co ntinues to rise, David Sifry's State of the Live Web shows a rela tive flatline in active blogging. Green cited Gartner analyst Adam Sarner on why this is really a good thing:

Sarner argues that, since the audience reading blogs continues to grow, this classic tech cycle of hype and maturity is good news for the rema ining blogs. Those left standing are the influencers that attract audiences and advertisers.

Blogging has been around for a few years, and advice abounds on the Internet on how to blog well. Someone who's firing up Wordpress or Movable Type for the fi rst time, for whatever reason, should take away this lesson: blog fame isn't a sprint, but a marathon. Not everyone is in shape to run one.

Millions of people in Asia have taken to blogging in recent years, creating personal Web sites that often take the form of an online diary. The wo rd blog derives from Web log. China alone is estimated to have up to 30 million bloggers. As elsewhere in the world, the region's collection of blogs on the Internet is diverse and amorphous. But in Asia, a survey by the U.S. software company Micro soft estimates that nearly half of those who are online have a blog, compared t o just eight percent of U.S. Internet users. Most people create blogs to share their lives and interests with friends, famil y and a few strangers. Many use text and photos, but also sound and video. Othe rs blog to exchange information, create networks or express opinions about a wi de range of issues.

TEMPE, ARIZ.--Three-fourths of the nation's largest newspapers now offer blogs on business-related topics, according to a study released today by the Donald W. Reynolds National Center for Business Journalism at Arizona State University. These popular online Web journals written by reporters get breaking news to rea ders more quickly, according to 60 percent of the business bloggers who respond ed to the study. However, more than half of respondents also said this also takes away from thei r regular reporting time. "Newspapers, reporters and businesses are grappling with the pros and cons of b logging," said Andrew Leckey, Director of the Reynolds Center, which funded the study. "Our practical research was designed to see how widespread blogging on business topics actually is, what's propelling it and how it affects the overal l news process."

Around midnight on April 14, security forces at the Cairo airport d etained `Abd al-Monim Mahmud, a 27-year-old journalist for the London-based satellite channel Al-Hiwar and prominent blogger affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, as he attempted to travel to Sudan to do reporting for an Al-Hiwar segment on human rights in the Arab world.

The next day, a prosecutor charged Mahmud with "membership in a ban ned organization," with "being an administrator of a banned organization," and with funding an armed group. According to Islam Lutfi, one of Mahmud's lawyers present at his interrogation, the State Security bureau's preliminary investigation (mahdar al-tahamiyyat) also cited Mahmud's public criticisms of the government's human rights record and specifically its use of torture. The prosecutor ordered Mahmud detained for 15 days, after which time the prosecutor must review the order. "Once again, the Egyptian government is prosecuting a journalist because he has reported on human rights abuses in the country," said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should focus its energies on ending the abuses, not silencing those who expose them." Â

It will likely come as quite a surprise to the English-speaking wor ld that the number one language of bloggers worldwide, in terms of number of po sts, is not the âlanguage of international communicationâ, as English is typica lly regarded. Nor, before the Chinese chime in, is it the language of the most populous state on the globe. According to the 2006 fourth quarter results of th e State of the Live Web report issued quarterly by Technorati, a blog search en gine which at last count tracks over 70 million weblogs, in terms of blog posts by language, English and Chinese in fact rank second and third, at 36% and 8%, respectively. Edging out English for first place this quarter was Japanese, with over one-thi rd of all blog posts â 37% â written in this language. This is not, in fact, th e first time that Japanese has been rated as the number one blogging language b y Technorati; back in November 2005, in an earlier State of the Live Web report , Japanese was also took top place with 31%, although the total was much more e venly split with English and Chinese at that time. Judging by the reaction of bloggers themselves, it would seem that the Japanese are as surprised as anyone else at the results of the report.

"Blog," of course, is a term that can apply to anything from compan y home pages to serious muckraking to photos of a new pet kitten. There is seem ingly a blog for every human experience. Most blogs have gone up in the past tw o years, with thousands of new ones added everyday. Blogging even serves as a p lot device in films and TV dramas. Yet, why are Japanese in particular so inter ested in expressing their opinions online? Of course, Japan has a highly literate population with a fascination for new gi zmos and techie games of all kinds. Digital cameras, easy-to-use software and t eensy keyboards, in short, all the tools and techniques for blogging, are now p art of tech-loving daily life. Yet, what does it say about Japanese culture and life that so many people express their thoughts, record their activities and f ind friends by blogging? Freedom and anonymity are surely a large part of the appeal. Workers can compla in about bosses, wives about husbands, citizens about politicians and otaku abo ut anime characters. In a culture of polite language, proper body gestures and strict intonation, blogs "speak" with amazing casualness and candor. In a high- pressure society, blowing off steam is healthy.