Blogular updates

Great graphic comes courtesy YELLOWDOG GRANNY.



Blogger has unexpectedly monkeyed with the process of posting photos. Again. As stuffy Evelyn Waugh (disgusted with Vatican II and Mass in English) famously remarked: The same again, please. Those of you who have had your favorite soap or frozen burrito or bra discontinued, never to be found again, can totally relate... as can middle-aged bloggers who finally mastered something, only to find it CHANGED AGAIN, and NOT for the better.

So, now I must copy and paste my old photo-format and insert the new URL of the photo in its place, to get it to look the way I want. Growf.

The same again, please!

Which reminds me. Ratzinger, I mean, Pope Benedict XVI, is abdicating at the end of the month, which we discussed on the radio show. On Gregg's Friday podcast, he went into more detail. (Specifically: What type of crimes is the Pope allegedly seeking immunity from? Is it for protecting pedophile priests or Vatican bank-laundering dirty money?) I am personally hoping for an African or South American pope this go-round, although I am unsure if that would have any appreciable effect on doctrine. Still, we see that an Eastern Bloc pope had the undeniable effect of helping to take down the Soviets; Vatican funds were funneled directly to the Solidarity union in Poland. Might an African pope get some of that Vatican cash for a similar fight against tyranny? Certainly, the possibilities are endless.

And speaking of religion: I have started reading an intense, smart fella named Dan Fincke, who is my kind of atheist. His blog is named "Camels with Hammers"... apparently, Dan has not read my smug young critic of last summer, who confidently assured me that Nietzsche is totally YESTERDAY, man. Direct quote: "You do know that he was discredited ages ago, right? Only alienated teens take him seriously any more."--just like the Beatles, one assumes. Is that a bummer or what?

You are hopelessly OUT OF IT, Mr Fincke! (But a very entertaining writer.) If I EVER get around to fixing the broken blogroll (something else Blogger supposedly "made better" and instead, made horribly worse)--I will be including you posthaste. Please accept this friendly mention in the meantime!

~*~

I forgot to re-post THIS on February 17th: my account of the lynching of Willie Earle, which took place here in upstate South Carolina, 66 years ago. I DID remember the date (rather late in the day) and posted a link on Twitter and at the South Carolina Progressive Network page on Facebook.

Please pass it on... its my own small contribution to Black History Month.

Tumblr sucks

I got a number of hits from Tumblr this week. One link was for the sake of "discussion"--which I find patently peculiar since Tumblr does not allow discussion.

So, you can discuss, but just don't share it with US. Keep your discussion to yourselves, bitches! (Now, I ask you, WHAT kind of discussion is that?)

I find Tumblr strange and do not understand how it works. This is by design; I was not at all surprised to learn that the founder/CEO of Tumblr is younger than my daughter. It is obviously and proudly age-segregated. Wikipedia informs us, "The service is most popular with the teen and college-aged user segments with half of Tumblr's visitor base being under the age of 25." I didn't need anyone to tell me that. This is one of the big attractions, keeping out the nasty old people. Ageism is highly marketable, you know.

FINALLY, a place where your awful mom can't follow you.

I have had a lot of mixed feelings as my various (young) blogger-friends have deserted Wordpress, Blogger and Livejournal, joining the trendy stampede to Tumblr. This is terribly disappointing, since I know this means I can no longer participate on their blogs. Tumblr allows "likes" (as Facebook does) but no comments. No brawling. You like it, or you hit the bricks. They have rejected the possibility of any dissent. NO uppity types daring to pipe up! It is deliberately not permitted--it has actually been planned that way. (Another big attraction: you can pretend everyone agrees with you, since nobody is permitted to say otherwise.)

I find this fascinating, that Tumblr has the necessary razzle-dazzle craved by the young, yet pointedly doesn't allow disagreement or comments. Is this the new culture of the young: like it or shut up? (Dissent? What's THAT?) Rather disturbing.

I have been blogging for five years, doing html code, and I still can't decipher the Tumblr layout. I can only imagine how difficult this must be for people even more unfamiliar with the internet than I am (and I have been online since 1998.) The odd page-layout and nested re-postings (difficult to follow or read, especially if you have any vision issues) effectively exacerbates the existing division between the trendy-youthful Tumblr crowd and everyone else on the net. I have some online friends who don't even know how to FOLLOW Tumblr, and I admit, I find it very confusing and (personally) hard to read. And that's how they like it, since it keeps out the riff-raff. After all, only us old-fogies try to make ourselves understood and/or worry about accessibility. Tumblr does not allow questions (no comments, remember?), so if you don't understand something or seek clarification, well, you must be an idiot. The trendy Tumblrites DON'T WANT the kind of person who needs any sort of clarification.

In short, fuck you.

Thus, we see the ongoing class/age/education divide online (also known as the Digital Divide) growing by leaps and bounds, nicely aided by Tumblr. (As a lefty, I find it bleakly hilarious to read social-justice fulminating on a blogging-platform that is so deliberately inaccessible to so many.)

And the Tumblr kids like it that way, or they would use an interactive forum that is user-friendly to everyone. But why should they do that? They prefer to interact with the people who already agree with them.

However, if they don't, they can correct me. They can argue with me. They can tell me I am full of shit. Because Blogger allows comments.

Unfortunately, even when they link me, I can't tell THEM a damn thing.

And they like it that way.

Blogger gets fancy

Techies and other blog-geeks may have heard: Blogger/Google has rolled out the fancy new "perspective changes" for Blogspot blogs. The official PR says these new and nifty layouts are "stunning examples of CSS3 and HTML5 Technologies"--whatever that is!

Here are the five new perspectives, and an example of my blog in each one. Which one do you like best?

Flipcard

Mosaic

Sidebar

Snapshot

Timeslide

I am somewhat partial to Mosaic, but Snapshot is also kinda cool. (However, it must be admitted that Sidebar is easiest to read.)

Would you prefer reading blogs in these formats?