THANK YOU!

I feel like Stéphane Dion.

Thanks to all my faithful readers, friends, colleagues and cousins who voted over at the Canadian Blog Awards.

Congrats also to my pals Tod Maffin (Inside the CBC) as well as my guys at the Galloping Beaver, Matthew Good, Peace, Order and Good Government, Eh? ... and nominee Sheenavision who shoulda won dammit.

Unfortunately, for this blog, this may well be a posthumous award. Until that decision is made, my treeware columns are here.

I know. I know. Paper. Ewwwwwwwww.

P.S. Note that comments were closed only on that last post. The comments had once again drifted far off topic.

Lost at the post

Sorry guys. Typepad ate about a dozen comments very early this morning when I attempted to approve them. I got an error message and couldn't get back at them. 

POOF! They are gone. It wasn't because I intentionally deleted them.

If you can recall what you wrote, please resubmit. Sooey had some really funny ones and it is she who pointed out they are MIA. I can't find them in the system.

Going post-al

Sorry I haven't put up any new posts.

And no, I am not in a puddle weeping over Syd. I am in Oakville -- yes, I made it this far! -- at Sheridan College supposedly giving a seminar on blogging to Metroland newspaper worker bees who hate their empoyers at Torstar and we're really talking about bringing down the company.

KIDDING!

No, I am really talking about blogs. And I am showing them how I do a post.

Pay no attention this one. It doesn't count.

I'll have stuff up soon.

Be sure to register

EDITED TO ADD A LINK:

Well, you can be sure that Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won't be asked to join Pajamas Media or the Blogging Tories. Or any blogglomeration, for that matter. Fresh off his feel-good 60 Minutes appearance last night with Mike Wallace, the notorious Iranian leader kicks off his little blogging enterprise with a three-hankie tale of his poor childhood. (For English-language posts, click on the Anglo-American flag on the top right.)

My family was also suffered in the village as others. After my birth -the fourth one in the family- my family was under more pressures. My father had finished 6 grade of elementary school. He was a hard-bitten toiler blacksmith, a pious man who regularly participated in different religious programs. Even though never the dazzling look of the world was appealing to him, but the pressure of the life caused that he decided to migrate to Tehran when I was one year old. We chose to live in south central part of Tehran where is called Pamenar.

Scintillating stuff. Oh and he takes questions too.

At least 50 bloggers there have been "detained'' over the past few years. Sp I am sure citizens of Iran will be happy to fire off their heart-felt comments on Ahmadinejad's blog.

Suggestion box

Somebody whom I consider to be a media guru emailed me the other day with this advice.

Trying desperately hard not to throw kerosene upon passengers fleeing a downed aircraft, it seems to me that your commentary - and the comments thereby engendered - on the current war between Israel and Hezbollah is becoming a tad inflammatory. (Apologies for the odd metaphor and bad pun.) I understand and respect your point of view on the issue itself. I don't necessarily agree with it, but that's beside the point.

It might be more useful in your unique position as media observer and commentator to attempt to understand your own cognitive environment, and through that understanding, construct an anti-environment that will enable you to better comment on the issues of the hot media war that parallels the shooting and bombing war. The Middle East conflicts (and now I'm including the wider region) are unique in contemporary history for being as much (or more) about the media war as they are about the actual military action. At the risk of being a scold (again, my apologies) that should be your beat, not the question of Israel's wrongness, rightness, or otherwiseness. (Besides, the back and forth between Jay/Steve on one side and Arthur/Jim/etc. on the other is getting tiresome, I think).

For example, this conflict might be seen as a turning point in the ongoing media war from Israel's perspective because it is the first in which Israel is on top of managing the U.S. mass media (European is another matter). In past conflicts, those opposing Israel (eg. Palestinian spokespeople, with a certain few exceptions - Aaron Brown getting the boot comes to mind) have typically been given sympathetic hearings. Now, my perception is that Israel is getting a lot better coverage than perhaps they deserve. Why this is, is an interesting question, perhaps relating to how the American media has been systematically softened up by the Bush Administration. Among those non- U.S., non-Middle-Eastern media outlets that have played heavily to the anti- terrorism theme, it would be interesting to see if they are following the same hymnal, so to speak.

And so forth. Much more interesting digging and thinking on these themes, I think.

My friend prefers to remain anonymous but said it was okay to post this advice.

I agree with most of it.

What do you think?

IP on my paranaoia

Arik is a commenter who recently popped up on this blog. A staunch supporter of Israel's incursion into Israel Lebanon, s/he has a number of IPs, perhaps half a dozen. So many that I have stopped tracking them.

At one point, I even suspected that Arik was more than one person, perhaps even a lobbyist for the pro-Israel side. But I quickly dismissed that notion because, really, I have better things to think about. Besides, I welcome all commentary, as long as people are reasonably reasonable.

Then reader H.S. tipped me to this, from the conservative Times online (I added the link):

WHILE Israel fights Hezbollah with tanks and aircraft, its supporters are campaigning on the internet.

Israel’s Government has thrown its weight behind efforts by supporters to counter what it believes to be negative bias and a tide of pro-Arab propaganda. The Foreign Ministry has ordered trainee diplomats to track websites and chatrooms so that networks of US and European groups with hundreds of thousands of Jewish activists can place supportive messages.

In the past week nearly 5,000 members of the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS) have downloaded special “megaphone” software that alerts them to anti-Israeli chatrooms or internet polls to enable them to post contrary viewpoints. A student team in Jerusalem combs the web in a host of different languages to flag the sites so that those who have signed up can influence an opinion survey or the course of a debate.

Jonny Cline, of the international student group, said that Jewish students and youth groups with their understanding of the web environment were ideally placed to present another side to the debate.

“We’re saying to these people that if Israel is being bashed, don’t ignore it, change it,” Mr Cline said. “A poll like CNN’s takes just a few seconds to vote in, but if thousands take part the outcome will be changed. What’s vital is that the international face of the conflict is balanced.”

Which is why you must never trust Internet polls.

In fact, last week, I received a ''bulk'' email friom an activist for the Palestinian side in this debate, asking that I rush over to the Globe and Mail's website to vote no to whether Prime Minister Stephen was handling the crisis well. The no's won.

But this is the first time I have ever heard of an organized state-supported effort to troll through blogs and post comments, to propagandize and to fight back, online. It's quite brilliant really, a new form of viral idea marketing.

So maybe Arik is not really Arik? (Interestingly, the name means lion in Hebrew, and it is Ariel Sharon's nickname.) Not that I care mind you, but I am the type of person who believe in standing up for your convictions, with your real name and IP number.

UPDATE: CJR Online has more here.

The result: Deeply entrenched partisans yelling at each other in a sort of orgy of catharsis long overdue in a region where people literally could not speak directly to each other while remaining in their countries. Now, with chat-rooms and the like, a space that transcends borders has been created, where dialogue can bloom. Sure, right now it doesn't sound like dialogue, but there is some evidence in these discussions that there is room to hear The Other -- once partisans get over the initial shock of being confronted with positions that hate had until now shielded them from hearing before.

That dialogue is perhaps a far better chance for lasting and viable resolution in the region than any military campaign or ceasefire.

And here's the software being employed for this propaganda action.

Take debate

THIS POST HAS BEEN UPDATED & CLEANED UP TO FIX A FUNKY FONT:

The National Post's Adam Radwanski was, like me, appalled at that offensive post last week on the Western Standard's Shotgun. Here's what he wrote about it last week on his own  blog.

I normally find it easy to ignore the yahoos at the Western Standard's site, who pretty much represent the worst tendencies of the blogosphere (ideologues with nothing fresh to say sitting around stroking each others’ egos and paranoia until they’re convinced they’re in the mainstream). And I’m not generally in the habit of following Antonia Zerbisias’ lead. But two of their recent discussions, here and here, are truly jaw-dropping – at least to those of us who don’t spend a lot of time reading hate literature.

In sum, we’ve got a frequent poster (and blogger in her own right) ranting about “the devil that they call Allah,” labeling Islam “a death cult” and calling for the entire religion to be banned in Canada…and when she slightly clarifies her position (without backing down) after Chris Selley calls her on her bigotry, the rest of the Western Standard community turns on her for being too moderate.

If I were Ezra Levant or Kevin Libin, both of whom frequently post on there, I’d either get this hatred the hell down or clearly and unequivocally distance myself and my magazine from it. The fact that they’ve done neither is a much better reason to avoid the Western Standard than any reprinted cartoons.

To date, there has been no repudiation of that post -- at least none that I can find -- from the publishers of Western Standard or its blog overseers.

Anyway ...

Radwanski columnizes on the matter today for the paper's ''Issues'' page. (sub. req'd.) He argues that political blogs are about two warring sides dug deep into their opposing trenches from where they lob their verbal fireballs.

If Right Girl had stood on a street corner calling for Islam to be banned, passers-by would either have shouted her down or dismissed her as a kook. Any newspaper that published her views would have been deluged with disgusted letters to the editor. But in this forum, the comments that followed her post lauded her for taking such a brave stand -- and, in some cases, went even further in their attacks on Muslims.

The blog in question was The Shotgun, found on the Western Standard's Web site. But the issue wasn't the conservative magazine, which of course can't be held responsible for the messages that wing nuts post on its blog. The issue was the broader blog medium that's having a nasty effect on public discourse.

The blogosphere is good for music and trading notes on pop culture. It can be great for sports commentary. It's a way to pass time for those interested in reading the mundane details of strangers' personal lives.

But what it is absolutely lousy for is political debate -- mostly because what it encourages is not debate at all, so much as support groups in which the converted preach to one another about the evils of some dark and mysterious enemy. Those frequenting blogs don't learn much and their views are rarely challenged. What they get out of the experience is having their own views reinforced over and over again, until even relative moderates are converted into hard-liners.

Frankly, I think he's wrong. Just look at my comments threads although, admittedly, since July 12, the ones relating to the Middle East smell of burning flesh. My blog is not the only one that has contributions from both sides of the political spectrum. Radwanski, who has no comments on his blog, has some nerve knocking other blogs that do.

This is not to say that he's completely wrong. For example, I agree with him completely here, although it's not a new idea:

Go to right-wing political blogs, forums and online magazines, from the big names -- National Review Online, Instapundit, Little Green Footballs -- to an army of smaller ones, and you'll read only of the joyous success of U.S. foreign policy and the evils of Democrats, the "mainstream media," Hollywood and all things "liberal." Go to their equivalents on the other side of the spectrum, notably the enormously popular Daily Kos, and you'll find left-wing types working themselves into a lather over the evils of the Bush administration, the right-wing media and all things conservative.

Both sides would have you believe they're engaged in a righteous war with one another for the soul of America. But because they never actually engage each other, it's not a war at all -- it's just two sides endlessly rallying the troops.

<SNIP>

This would be a relatively minor concern if such fulminating was limited to the Internet. But conditioned by their online reading, as well as listening to Fox and talk radio, consumers are demanding the same stuff elsewhere.

The rise of an (she-who-will-nevermore-be-named-on-this blog) on the right or an Al Franken on the left -- commentators who spend most of their time attacking cartoon versions of liberals and conservatives, respectively -- suggests where this culture is taking us.

<SNIP>

In Canada, we're moving slower. But there's little doubt we're headed in the same direction.

Here, the right is a little more organized than the left -- the "Blogging Tories" group creating a community of hundreds of like-minded blogs with similar obsessions (the liberal media, pacifists, etc.) to the ones found south of the border. But it's the Canadian left that has actually shown the biggest crossover into mainstream media, courtesy of Antonia Zerbisias -- a media columnist and blogger for the Toronto Star whose main job appears to be attacking conservative commentators on both sides of the border.

Uh, did he just make me out to be the lefty Canadian version of that right-wing she-who-nevermore-etc. in the U.S.? Doesn't he read my stuff about CBC??

But Radwanski is correct: So far in Canada, we have avoided that all-heat-no-light partisan political punditry that ''informs'' Americans.  And we should strive to make sure it doesn't happen here.

But with commentators increasingly emulating the zealous partisanship of the online crowd in the hope of eliciting similarly strong reactions, it might not be long. It's a trend that should remind us to hold ourselves to a higher standard, to seek out dissenting views and think critically about the perspectives being sold to us -- because the last thing we need is a nation of Right Girls and their sycophants.

But you, my sycophants on either side of the debate, you get the thumbs up.

Just do me a favour will you? Keep it down to a low roar. I am now being bloody ruthless about deleting or editing comments. No appeal.

UPPITY DATE: Robert McClelland in the comments below found this response posted today by Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant.

I think it is a better approach to let the marketplace of ideas sort these things out. Artificially censoring what can and can't be written -- like Zerbisias does -- or not permitting feedback at all -- like Radwanski does -- are old media calling cards. In the new media, if you don't allow people to react and respond, they'll go elsewhere where they can. It's quite democratic, and like other aspects of democracy, it can be grubby.

In the end, I believe that by maintaining a balance of views on the blog -- libertarians, conservatives, hawks, isolationists, people from different countries and different religions -- we will get a great debate. I acknowledge that some of the comments have been less than smart, or even vulgar. But that, too, is the nature of democracy, and it is far more interesting reading than the bowdlerized letters to the editor of the MSM.

Give Zerbisias and Radwanski some credit: At least they know what a blog is, and have one themselves. But I'm loathe to accept criticism about our rough and tumble free comments threads from writers whose own newspapers don't allow them to have free comments threads. It's like when Zerbisias came out against the Danish cartoons -- the fact that her employer had ordered her to comply with their censorship undermined her claim to independently having come to that journalistic conclusion on her own, and she knew it.

The Western Standard will continue to have the freest blog of any in Canada affiliated with a corporate media organ. That will ruffle the feathers of politically correct enforcers, but it will also continue to make us a center of the debate, and give us 2-million page views a month and growing. In fact, the very idea of an MSM enforcer shaking a finger at too-rough bloggers sums things up pretty well -- an impotent scold who can't get the public to obey their politically correct line. That's the MSM in a nutshell.

Two things.

One, I wonder, had RightGirl had said "Judaism" instead of Islam, if Levant would have been so unperturbed.

Two, I am hurt Ezra! HURT! That it took a column in the National Post for you to finally pay attention to this matter.

UPBRAID DATE: J. Kelly Nestruck, bless him, calls Ezra Levant out in the comments below. Seems that Levant has indeed edited Shotgun, to protect his friend Prime Minister Stephen Harper or, more specifically, Laureen Harper. Wonkitties has the details.

Blogjam

Woo-hoo! The mainstream media and the Liberal party leadership contendahs discover blogs. First, the Star's Susan Delacourt had this on Saturday:

The Liberal leadership race, like no other political contest before it, is being waged in the "blogosphere" — the rollicking, unpredictable world of online diarists and self-made political pundits.

Would-be Liberal leaders are seeking interviews with bloggers; there are blog endorsements, campaign blogs and bloggers who are doing double duty as leadership organizers.

The development signals several important political shifts: the rising credibility of the online dialogues, the parties' increasing use of the Internet, as well as the need for this Liberal race to be waged in creative new ways because of limited money and a large field of candidates.

The bloggers haven't replaced the mainstream media — or MSM as it's called on the blogs — but they are gaining a currency in the political market that they haven't had to date.

Today, the Globe and Mail's Campbell Clark weighs in with this:

Should dissident Liberals start a new party if Joe Volpe wins the leadership? Should Ottawa impose a carbon tax? Are Scott Brison and Homer Simpson's neighbour, Ned Flanders, twins separated at birth? These are some of the questions floating through the Liberal blogosphere.

But many of the 11 Liberal leadership campaigns have their own question about the legion of Internet blogs dealing with party matters: Can they win delegates there?

The exploding phenomenon of individuals creating weblogs, more commonly called blogs, has echoed in Liberal Party politics. There are more than 150 blogs devoted in whole or part to things Liberal, about 50 of them updated regularly.

Among the blogs named are, of course, Cerberus, Calgary Grit and Jason Cherniak, the biggest and best -- in my book, anyway -- Liberal bloggers. There are more Liberal bloggers here.

As for the candidates, only two of them -- Dr. Carolyn Bennett and Ken Dryden -- have blogs on their campaign websites.

The revolution has yet to be blogged.

Mute button

The indefatigable Joe Clark, campaigner for all things close-captioned, has launched a blog to track the shortcomings of Canada's public TV network on this score.

Seasoned readers will be aware that I am engaged in a Sisyphean battle with feudal management at CBC and antagonistic petits fonctionnaires at the Canadian Human Rights Commission. The topic? CBC’s proven, and in fact uncontested, noncompliance with a human-rights ruling requiring 100% captioning on CBC Television and Newsworld ...

Here's the running joke tally of CBC cc boo-boos, with goofs such as this:

Olympic men’s hockey game between USA and Finland has apparently no player names, not even Chelios, in the dictionary (exception: Hatcher), misspells Finns as “Fins” consistently, and never captions play-by-play, only colour. Caption left margin is also more than halfway across the screen even though the score bug is at most two tab stops wide.

As the public broadcaster -- for which everybody pays -- CBC has a special obligation to get it right. Mind you, it doesn't have the help that the private nets have, since most of their programming is pre-captioned in the United States, where the shows originate.

Paved over

My friend and colleague Marc Weisblott's Paved signs off for the summer with ruminations on how weblogging has affected life in the big stink, thoughts on the meaning of local celebrity and, last but not least, observations on some of the self-obsessed bloggers among us, including Warren Kinsella, Maria of Naked Knit Girl (she and I are going out for tapas next week) and moi.

And yes, that is my tongue hanging out: The original fish tale is here.