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66 items tagged "Bloggers"

Pro-Iranian Blogger Arrested By Iran For Blogging [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: November 20th, 2008, 2:22am CST by Ryan Tate

Tags: Bloggers in peril

This would be ironically funny as an Onion article, but in real life it's just awful: Hossein Derakhshan, pictured, is a Toronto-based Iranian blogger who has grown more pro-Iran over the past two years, supporting the country's nuclear program and its three-decade-old Islamic revolution in the press. The dual Iranian-Canadian citizen blogs in both English and Farsi and generally tries to help people understand his home country. PR win for Iran and its blogger-in-chief Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, right? Actually no, because Derakhshan visited Israel last year for a blogging conference, and bogged there to "show the Iranians a more realistic image of this country," so he's been thrown in jail during a visit home, as a spy, reports The Media Line:

Jahan News, an Iranian website affiliated with Iran’s intelligence community, reported on Monday that he admitted to spying for Israel [presumably in jail under some kind of awful interrogation] ...
Two years ago, Derakhshan did not express any concern about being arrested.
“Blogging in Iran is not something that gets you into trouble now. It's a mainstream thing, because religious people, pro-government people have blogs and secular, totally rationalistic people also have blogs,” he said.

Yes, it's the hallmark of a good spy: A really active blog, where he reports his location, thoughts and meetings to the entire world. Where do we go to apply for a part in the next 007 flick??

(Photo from The Media Line)

A Restaurateur's Revenge? Food Critic Beaten Up [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: October 20th, 2008, 12:34pm CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers in peril

Steve Barnes (pictured), the restaurant critic for the Albany Times-Union, was coming out of a restaurant with a friend last Friday night when, with no warning, two young men walked up nonchalantly and beat them up. "They said nothing, just punched us both repeatedly in the face." Barnes doesn't think he was targeted because he was gay, and he doesn't think he was targeted by the restaurant he just left—but he does think he was targeted:

The bald one swung at me, connecting on the side of my left eye. The other one hit Josh. I remember at least one of them adjusting fingerless gloves, like bicycle or weighlifting gloves. I remember thinking they’d done this before, or at least had thought this out.

Josh moved one way, I ran the other, between cars. The bald one chased me, tripped me expertly by kicking my trailing foot so it would clip my other ankle on the next step. He fell on me, his right fist striking repeatedly on the back of my head, his left struggling to detach itself from my grip. Stunned at first, I know I started shouting “F— you! Stop! F— you!” within a couple of punches as I contained his arm with one hand and tried to protect the back of my head with the other.

Eventually the attackers just strolled off and the police came, although they don't have any suspects yet. Barnes and his fried are busted up, but okay. He says that witnesses later said that two guys matching the attackers' descriptions had been seen hanging around the parking lot for hours. That, and the weird circumstances of the attack, and the fact that he had blogged that he was going to be there that night, makes him think somebody sent out goons to get him. Blogging is once again proved to be dangerous. But he concludes bravely:

So yo, attackers: If I’m supposed to be nicer to somebody in the future, drop me an e-mail. Otherwise you’re just a coward. Black eyes fade, but cowardice and thuggery are permanent character flaws.

True, but also maybe pick up a Taser. [TU via Romenesko]

"The Idea Of Bloggers In Their Pajamas In Basements Has Just Sort Of Collapsed" [Bloggers On Tv]

Posted: September 17th, 2008, 3:06pm CDT by Moe

Tags: Bloggers On tv

newVideoPlayer("/Marthablog.flv", 506, 423,""); So says Politico blogger Ben Smith, who wore a suit to appear — looking nothing like his illustration, albeit kind of cute! — on Martha this morning.* The lifestyle queen invited political bloggers to her show today because she thinks it's scary the nation might elect a president who doesn't know how to read them and also probably because the more topical subject of complex financial shenanigans is not her specialty, oh wait just kidding. Personally I have always thought not being addicted to the internet was John McCain's most attractive quality since being tortured, but it raises a good point: I do not want presiding over this perilous economy one of those people who asks "You actually get paid to do that?"

Like, for god sakes, yes motherfucker I majored in personal electronics assembly but there just weren't a lot of opportunities in that.

*But isn't this just because bloggers do not wear pajamas, being as they pass out in their clothes?

Mediabistro Scared Of Competition [Bloggers]

Posted: August 12th, 2008, 4:48pm CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers

Once upon a time, media bulletin board site Mediabistro had a talented, anonymous ad blogger called Agency Spy, who got good dirt and the occasional undeserved murder rap. The original Agency Spy left to start her own blog a couple months ago, but earlier today she put up a post saying the site was grinding to a temporary halt. Why? Because, Mediabistro multimillionaire founder Laurel Touby said, MB was enforcing a noncompete agreement against her! Seems pretty petty, Laurel, considering you're the second-richest internet media woman in New York now. The $23 million Mediabistro machine can't compete with one little alumnus? Tisk tisk. [Adscam, The Brief]

Blogger Headed To Trial For Insulting Powers-That-Be [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: August 5th, 2008, 9:14am CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers in peril

Back in June we told you about Gopalan Nair (pictured), a US citizen living in Singapore who was arrested for writing mean things about a judge on his blog. He accused the judge of "prostituting herself," and goaded the police by posting his address and phone number. His arrest was international news, but it appears that Singapore's authorities didn't learn their lesson: Nair now says he'll be going to trial next month, facing up to two years in jail. Who is this brave man standing up for free online speech in the face of an unyielding corrupt power structure? He's kind of a crank! But the charming, revolutionary type:

Nair is a Singapore-born lawyer who became a US citizen in 2005. He says the he left Singapore because he was "harassed and persecuted" for his political beliefs.

Nair has been posting long entries on his blog about his ongoing case. He strikes you as the type of person you see at City Council meetings throughout America, waiting to get up and harangue the politicians about their corruption and failure to fix stoplights. But in Nair's case, he's talking about the cane-you-for-chewing-gum culture of Singapore, so you have to believe he's on the side of the angels. This little excerpt gives you an idea of his personality:

Again and to bring you back to reality, the accusation here is merely that I misbehaved and yelled at police officers. I am sure you will agree that all over the world, people sometimes misbehave and out of frustration or otherwise, call a policeman a pig or a donkey. And sometimes, I am sure you will agree that some policeman; not all; deserve such a scolding.

We support this man!

[Breitbart]

Don't Test The Best [Bloggers]

Posted: July 17th, 2008, 11:02am CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers

The ultimate fighting champ Quentin "Rampage" Jackson got arrested last night for the second time this week! He was reportedly "acting weird," just a day after his "insane chase" with cops in LA. Probable explanation: the massive head injuries Rampage sustained being beaten up by blogger Alex Blagg. [Previously: Blogger Wrestles World Champion Fighter: Find Out What Happens!]

DA Sues to Learn Blogger's Identity [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: July 15th, 2008, 8:47am CDT by Pareene

Tags: Bloggers in peril

So this is fun. Back in January, Bronx District Attorney Robert Johnson sent a subpoena to Room Eight, a local politics blog. The subpoena demanded "identifying details of a Room Eight blogger who wrote under the name 'Republican Dissident,' as well as the authors of a dozen comments on his posts." Are you alarmed yet? Here's the kicker: the subpoena was sealed, with an all-caps warning threatening prosecution if the contents of it were revealed. Now, six months later, the DA's finally given up. And we can all read about how a random functionary on the Bronx Board of Elections got the DA's office—without the DA's knowledge, according to Johnson!—to threaten to expose and prosecute an anonymous blogger and a dozen anonymous commenters, just for criticizing her. So yes the forces of good and anonymous online criticism won out this time. But here's why it's still scary:

More broadly, the scary reality is that here in the free speech capital of the world, a prosecutor tried both to demand confidential information about an anonymous critic and insisted, under penalty of law, that his request for the information be kept secret. We’re glad he backed down, and confident that the courts would have rebuffed his demands.

But not every blogger will be lucky enough to find pro bono counsel like ours, and few can afford to pay for lawyers. In the meantime, we hope District Attorney Johnson will be able to provide more detailed answers to the unanswered questions in this case: Who ordered this investigation of a political critic to be opened? Did it proceed through the usual channels – a complaint filed with the New York Police Department, for instance – or through the D.A.’s political operatives? The chilling threat to an important new form of speech demands that the D.A. take these questions seriously, or if he doesn’t, that a credible outside

Once again, we're dangerously close to becoming the UK.

Slim Pickings [Bloggers]

Posted: July 11th, 2008, 2:45pm CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers

In the inevitable reaction to Playboy.com's list of the hottest female bloggers, a lady has now launched a poll to find the hottest male bloggers. See what she did there? None of the guys from Gawker Media are on the list. It's all just nerds and man-whores. [Mom Generations via PRN]

Blogger Shot in DC [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: July 3rd, 2008, 11:52am CDT by Pareene

Tags: Bloggers in peril

Yikes. Media Consortium blogger Brian Beutler was shot in Washington DC last night, a block away from my old apartment. Or pretty much directly in front of Andrew Sullivan's apartment. He is expected to make a full recovery. And next time, thanks to the Supreme Court, he will be able to shoot back. [DCist, Photo]

How Bloggers Defy Despots [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: June 30th, 2008, 11:47am CDT by Michael Weiss

Tags: Bloggers in peril

One unmitigated good that's come of the lawlessness of the Internet is that it's allowed daring bloggers in third world countries to flout their authoritarian regimes (Kos and HuffPo just like to think they do the same). Egypt, China, Iran, and Pakistan have all jailed online diarists and tried to block the rest of the population from even accessing international media. All have failed for the same reason samizdat entered the lexicon in the cold war: dissidents are more enterprising than their persecutors. (At left, activists demanding the release of Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer, who was sentenced to four years in prison and then became a cause celebre).

Case in point: In November 2007, Tunisia tried to bar its citizens' access to YouTube and DailyMotion, fearing (correctly) that these sites carried devastating information about Tunisian political prisoners that would stoke popular protest. The result, according to the Economist, was that "Tunisian activists and their allies organised a 'digital sit-in', linking dozens of videos about civil liberties to the image of the presidential palace in Google Earth. That turned a low-key human-rights story into a fashionable global campaign."

It's called the "Streisand effect" after Babs tried suing websites that posted pics of her Malibu beach house, which no one cared about until she asked for $50 million to have them removed. See how that works. The Uzbek billionaire Alisher Usmanov (pictured at right) tried the same gambit with Britain's notoriously plaintiff-friendly and border-hopping libel laws when he threatened former British ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray for blogging not-nice things about him after Usmanov made a pitch to acquire a larger stake of the Arsenal football club last year. The mere hint of a civil suit so terrified Murray's service provider that it pulled the plug on not just his blog but on a whole slew of other blogs hosted on the same server (newly elected London Mayor Boris Johnson was one of the victims). The tactic, again, backfired deliciously. Whereas no one had ever heard of Usmanov before, now his name and puddy visage bombinated throughout the blogosphere, which declared immediate and unwavering solidarity with Murray. Dictators, take note:

Some countries still think that the benefits of censorship are worth the opprobrium. China unabashedly blocks foreign news sites, with state-financed digital censors playing an elaborate game of cat and mouse with those trying to elude them. Saudi Arabia makes a positive virtue of the practice, warning those trying to access prohibited websites of the dangers of pornography: sources cited include the Koran and Cass Sunstein, an American scholar who argues that porn does not automatically deserve First Amendment protection.

Sunstein's currently dating the once and future Obama adviser Samantha Power, who probably doesn't need the further aggro of being even two degrees of separation removed from a Wahhabist Koran. But the more urgent point is that a hacker in Beijing can share his new software to skirt the censors with a fellow hacker in Riyadh, whose government has just purchased the already outmoded censoring technology from China. (What will become of the Potemkin Communist country once the global media spotlight of the Olympics is trained on it?)

The digital underground remains ahead of the curve.

[The Economist]

The Story of Robert Cox, World's Most Important Blogger [Media Bloggers Association]

Posted: June 19th, 2008, 11:46am CDT by Pareene

Tags: Media Bloggers association

The email reprinted above is the founding document of the beloved Media Bloggers Association, that venerable organization that bloggers across the world recognize as the leading bullshit pretend front for one self-aggrandizing tool to get on TV all the time and pretend to represent citizen journalists. That they recognize now, anyway, because until the MBA inserted itself into the Associated Press blog dispute, no one had heard of the four-year-old organization. Though Robert Cox, the guy behind the MBA, was perhaps more well-known as the notorious right-wing crank and annoying tool behind Olbermann Watch, the blog that disagrees with everything MSNBC host Keith Olbermann says. Come read the email that started it all, and learn so much more about Robert Cox.

Amusing that a dude so obsessed with the right-wing canard of the liberal media would found a "non-partisan" blogging organization that exists solely to suck up to the established press, right? Anyway, back in 2004, Cox sent this email to 9 TOP BLOGGERS inviting them to become members of his new club. The new club's purpose was "to promote its members." That was really about it. It was also about a little logo you could display on your site.

I envision three types of memberships..."FOUNDING MEMBER", "MEMBER", "HONRARY MEMBER". The MBAA Logo will indicate one of the three types. Obviously this is your only chance to get what I expect will be a coveted FOUNDING MEMBER logo.

Man, we are so disappointed that we missed that boat. We all know how much cred a FOUNDING MEMBER OF THE MBA badge gets you these days.

And now, over the years, as those founding members accidentally let their memberships lapse, the MBA has grown into Robert Cox's personal publicity organ. Mainstream media need someone to show up on TV and represent bloggers? Call Cox! He's got a prestigious title from a real-sounding organization, and that looks way better on an identifying chyron than some weird U.R.L.. Cox has made the most of it, as an investigation by Teresa at Making Light reveals. He doesn't blog very much or very well, but he shows up at every single conference foolish enough to invite him. And he's turned his right-leaning advocacy group into a money-maker!

He began charging dues shortly after he got some big dogs to sign up for free (see? we're legitimate!).

And so his group, initially founded to professionalize and legitimize bloggers, now exits to enrich Robert Cox and make him the Official Face of Mainstream Blogging for old media. And he's using his friendship with the print press to put together a list of guidelines we must follow if we wish to quote the Associated Press without getting sued.

Oh, and Cox also guards his Wikipedia entry as if it was his child. So go have fun!

AP to negotiate with sham “Media Bloggers Association” [Making Light]

Campaign Scoop Maven Also Secretly Owns, Promotes Yacht [Bloggers With Secrets]

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 3:56pm CDT by MichaelWeiss

Tags: Bloggers with Secrets

In this week's New Yorker, Ben McGrath profiles Mayhill Fowler, the woman who became famous for fifteen minutes after crashing the private party at which Obama let slip his infamous "bitter" comment about angry white proles with guns (but she supports him!). She then doubled-down for a full half hour after she stealthily taped Bill Clinton calling Vanity Fair's Todd Purdum a "scumbag." All in a day's work for a plucky citizen journalist, "who is sixty-one, with frosted gray hair and gold jewelry, spent the previous three decades as an aspiring writer and the stay-at-home mother of two daughters." Three decades as an aspiring writer, you don't say. Well, tenacity's a dying virtue, as is full disclosure in business practices. A reader at TPM Cafe muckrakes the muckraker:

When Mrs Fowler isn't sneaking into private fundraisers with recording devices, and writing provocatively negative blogs about candidates she supposedly supports, she busies herself with a little operation called "Odysseus Cruising", a company owned by five private investors in the U.S. and E.U. The owners of Odysseus Cruising share a 75 foot yacht which they rent out to wealthy travelers who want to cruise the Greek Isles and Turkish Coast.

Mrs. Fowler owns the domain name Odysseus Cruising and lists them as her employer. So it's rather odd that Mayhill Fowler appears in the website's "guest book" where she raves about her cruise experiences and promises to "be back next year!". Her daughter, Caroline, also lists her praise in the guest book comments. Evidently, pretending to be someone you're not runs in the family.

That's one fewer name left in the list for Drudge's boat.

[New Yorker]

International Blogger Arrests Skyrocketing [Bloggers In Peril]

Posted: June 16th, 2008, 11:06am CDT by Pareene

Tags: Bloggers in peril

Good news for the Associated Press! "In 2007 three times as many people were arrested for blogging about political issues than in 2006," an annual report from the University of Washington reveals. The majority of arrests since 2003 have taken place in Iran, China, and Egypt, though the US of A gets a mention: "The report predicted that the number of blogger arrests in 2008 would exceed the 36 seen in 2007 thanks to greater popularity of blogging as a medium, greater enforcement of net restrictions, and elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US." Thats fine, fine company we're in, isn't it? Of course, the reported number could be deceptively low.

In some nations, like China, there are restrictions on blogging in general. Burma has arrested hundreds of people who may be bloggers. Sometimes no one knows if someone has been arrested or not. Also the report doesn't even mention Sheila!

We've covered blogger-arrests (despite the total lack of interest from American blog-readers!) rather extensively recently. Be careful where you tumble log, people.

Permalink for 'Gawker/2008/05/30/Hey__Sleeping_Bloggers_mdash_Wake_Up___Overshares_'

Hey, Sleeping Bloggers—Wake Up! [Overshares]

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 1:50pm CDT by Sheila

Tags: Bloggers

Here's an exercise in the Way We Live Now: visit some of our friends, the compulsive oversharers of the internet, and see how long it takes you to find a photo that they've snapped of themselves sleeping. Creepy, right? Click for the gallery!

From left to right: the fameball trio of an upcoming reality show: Star talking head Julia Allison, Meghan Asha, and Mary Rambin. Bottom: Glamour's fired dudeblogger Mike Cherico, Vimeo & CollegeHumor founder Jakob Lodwick, and musician Ryan Adams.

Hey, Sleeping Bloggers—Wake Up! [Overshares]

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 1:50pm CDT by Sheila

Tags: Bloggers

Emily Brill's Blog Has a Strategist [Blogs]

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 12:47pm CDT by Sheila

Tags: Bloggers

Socialite and beginning blogger Emily Brill has "media strategist" representation for her blog chronicling the misadventures of a "Fifth Avenue Misfit." Who knew? It's DolceGoldin, who we reported on earlier re: their dealings with author James Frey. And "she's had one for a while now, surprisingly," we're informed. May we suggest the next strategy for Brill: earning actual monies from said bloggings! [Daily Intel]

Emily Brill's Blog Has a Strategist [Blogs]

Posted: May 30th, 2008, 12:47pm CDT by Sheila

Tags: Bloggers

Blog Those Cancer Blues Away [Science]

Posted: May 29th, 2008, 3:58pm CDT by Sheila

Tags: Bloggers

We've heard all about the negative effects of blogging: there was the NYT-induced blogger-death panic, in which blogging created an unhealthy lifestyle, resulting in two heart attacks that would have happened anyway. And there are the people who have had relationships destroyed by compulsive blogging. Blogging also exacerbates narcissistic tendencies! But expressing your feelings might actually be good for your health, Scientific American finds: "Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery." Whoa. Four reasons why blogging is good for your health:

1. Bitching and moaning alleviates stress! "As social creatures, humans have a range of pain-related behaviors, such as complaining, which acts as a 'placebo for getting satisfied.'"

2. It gets you high. "Blogging might trigger dopamine release, similar to stimulants like music, running and looking at art." (Meta-blogger Emily Gould said as much in the NYT Magazine.)

3. If nothing else, there's the placebo effect: "Cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not."

4. Instant feedback, unlike your diary: "Unlike a bedside journal, blogging offers the added benefit of receptive readers in similar situations." Sharing is caring!

Blogging—It's Good for You! [Scientific American]

The Last Word On That Emily Gould Story? [The Emily Chronicles]

Posted: May 24th, 2008, 9:31am CDT by ian spiegelman

Tags: Bloggers

Thumb300X B1303723Caea8Bbf0060A30D2Dc85C7F It's a long holiday weekend, so perhaps by Tuesday there'll be nothing left to say about former Gawker editor Emily Gould's extensive New York Times Magazine cover story about sleeping with people and blogging about it and having panic attacks on bathroom floors? No? Well, in any case, The Huffington Post's Rachel Sklar, a Canadian, provides a tasty summary of the essay and the ensuing media cluster-fuck. "This was an extended blog post, an overlong 'Modern Love' essay, 7,937 words that did not venture beyond the author's own experience; for some perspective, the NYT's investigative expose on the Pentagon's purported ties to on-air military analysts had 7,486). And for what?"

"To attract reader comments that will be so overwhelmingly negative that they will close after less than 24 hours? The chance for Gould to settle a score and for the NYT to play catch-up to Page Six magazine, which had the 'he-said' version of this story back in February? To shine a light on the strange and mysterious world of blogging? (If so, mission not accomplished: NYO writer (and former Gawker editor himself) Matt Haber notes that the piece is 'light in sociology or cultural grasping,' and New York's Daily Intel notes acidly that 'Some bloggers are able to write about things other than themselves. Seriously.')

"You don't need to have heard of Emily Gould previously to judge her harshly (Wonders NYT commenter Mark Kasen of St. Louis, MO: 'Don't you have important things to do? Don't you have real issues to write about that might affect your generation and the country generally?'), but it helps — it provides the context of having heard the story before, of knowing by the second page that you've hit the sentence that pretty much sums it all up:

'I walked down the hall of my high school passing out copies of a comic-book zine I drew, featuring a mock superhero called SuperEmily, who battled thinly veiled versions of my grade's reigning mean girls. In college, I sent out an all-student e-mail message revealing that an ex-boyfriend shaved his chest hair.'

"But for those unfamiliar with the saga of Emily Gould (which, I should note, was never so much an internet pastime than something that occurred as a result of reading Gawker and starting to notice her posts becoming more and more self-referential, her barbs more careless, herself in a metallic-toned bathing suit (two, if you saw her Facebook page). There was the time she summarily 'executed' a number of Gawker commenters for criticizing her, castigating male commenters for mocking her looks even as she dissed four other women in the process ('Gawker is a safe space for women. Any by 'women,' of course, I mostly mean 'me'). That was around the time she did something similar on her personal blog, striking back at mean commenters by publishing their email addresses.

"What else? The sudden cultivation of friendship with Julia Allison, with whom she seemed all too happy to appear in photographs (though she certainly doesn't treat her like a friend in this piece); the public commentary on Gawker about former beau and current co-worker Josh Stein; the New York magazine cover story last fall in which she expressed angst about her job, yet still managed to reveal more details of her love life; the revelations in Stein's Page Six piece — all combine to provide the backstory to Gould's newly-minted version, which may be one of the reasons it has so far been received with cynicism." [HuffPo]

Psychological Complaints Of Bloggers And Social Media Addicts [Bloggers]

Posted: May 23rd, 2008, 4:35am CDT by Nick Douglas

Tags: Bloggers

"RSS Reader Sisyphus Complex: These patients are cursed to spend a morning checking their RSS reader, only to find there are still '8,978 posts unread.'" [Online Journalism Blog 1 and 2]

"Hip Hop is more gay than it is dead." [Hiding In Hip Hop]

Posted: May 20th, 2008, 3:26pm CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers

In the wake of former entertainment industry exec Terrance Dean's gay-blind-item-filled book Hiding In Hip Hop, the hip hop community was split. Some reacted by saying, essentially, "Ew. That is so gay." But others basically yawned, and pointed out that of course there have always been gays in hip hop. Have you looked at some of these album covers lately?

NEWS FLASH! HIP HOP IS GAY AND BEEN GAY FOR A WHILE NOW!
I say that in the same context that Killer Mike said "Rap Is Dead" years before Nas copied and said "Hip Hop Is Dead." We all know that there is still some good shit out there, so we can't say ALL of Hip Hop is dead or gay. But, I will say, Hip Hop is more gay than it is dead...

Say if I had all of these CDs in my CD book. Wouldn't that shit look more like a wall in a teenage girls bedroom? If you was to go over to one of your homeboy's house and see wall to wall pictures of dudes with their shirts off, wouldn't that raise some eyebrows?

I ain't saying that every person who walks around shirtless is homo, but damn though. Sometimes when I go to the grocery store to flip through new magazines or go to the record store to see whats new, it feels like I'm at a male revue or someshit because all I see is male nipples.

That's from XXL blogger Maurice G. Garland. And for an eminently level-headed take on it, here's Ill Doctrine blogger and DJ Jay Smooth: "Because as we all know, being the gay rapper is like being the Highlander, and there can only be one on earth."

Karaoke Becomes Instant Blog World Meme [Fameballs]

Posted: May 19th, 2008, 4:29pm CDT by Hamilton Nolan

Tags: Bloggers

When the Daily News needed to illustrate a story on karaoke bars, guess who appeared in the photo? Julia Allison, omnipresent media figure and karaoke aficionado! Her face is the mandated illustration for at least one-third of all breaking lifestyle stories within the confines of Manhattan. And her singing partner is none other than Tumblr founder David Karp, no doubt belting out "Ride of the Valkyries" as undercover PepsiCo advertising operatives furiously scribble notes. Though this song lasted but a moment, the blog debate over the song will surely consume hundreds of hours. Julia Allison's Tumblr'd question that night: "What are the top Geek songs of all time?" Oh, the synchronicity. [via NYDN]

The Five Most Dangerous Countries for Bloggers [Psa]

Posted: May 8th, 2008, 3:19pm CDT by Pareene

Tags: Bloggers

Internet nerds became terribly excited recently when Twitter sprung a man from jail, but it's worth noting that in most of the world, blogging is much, much more likely to send you to to clink. While there are a number of bloggers whose eternal imprisonment—possibly in the Phantom Zone—we fantasize about daily, we grudgingly admit that throwing bloggers in jail for blogging is probably bad. So as a public service, we're here to tell you where not to blog if you value your freedom. China and Iran probably get the most press for their blogger crack-downs, and Malaysia just arrested a blogger this week, but if there's anything we learned from skimming the site of the Committee to Protect Bloggers, it's this: don't Tumblr in Egypt.

Egypt

Egypt really takes the cake, arresting, detaining, harassing, and beating bloggers that span the entire ideological spectrum, from the ultra-conservative Muslim Brotherhood to Coptic Christian minorities to socialists.

Kareem Amer. Site: Karam903.blogspot.com. Result of arrest? Not good. "The trial was adjourned to February 22, 2007 where the judge said Nabil was guilty and would serve three years for insulting Islam and inciting sedition, and one year for insulting Mr Mubarak."
Esraa Abdel Fattah Ahmed Site: A now-deleted Facebook group urging protests against food price hikes. Result of arrest? Released!
Another blogger/protester, Mahamed El Sharkawi, was also released.
Not so lucky: fellow protester Kareem El Beheiri. Site: egyworkers.blogspot.com. Still in custody after reported beatings and electric shocks.
Back in November of 2007, Egyptian authorities arrested blogger El-Hendy (Site: Eshreen) for a protest. He too was eventually released.
A month before that, they detained human rights blogger Hala El-Masry. Her site: Deleted.
Muslim Brotherhood member Abd El-Rahman Faras was arrested in 2007 for anti-government threats on his site. He was released on the condition that he'd erase the offending post.

Saudi Arabia

Fouad al Farhan is known as the Father of Saudi Blogging—sort of the Instapundit of Saudi Arabia except actually dedicated to reforming and improving his nation. He was arrested in December for an anti-government listicle and finally released in April.

China

Jamyang Kyi is a Tibetan blogger who was arrested just a month ago by the Chinese. The charges are unknown, though an arrest basically guarantees a conviction. We probably won't be hearing from her again for a little while. But hey, who's got Olympic Fever!

Probably not Chinese dissident Hu Jia, who was sentenced to 3-and-a-half years in prison for blogging dissident-y things.

They don't always jail bloggers in China, of course. Sometimes they throw them in mental hospitals! He Weihua was guilty of blogging about human rights, which you probably could've guessed.

Iran
Reza Valizadeh was arrested last November for, uh, revealing that Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's guard dogs were overpriced. Seriously. Ahmadinejad is a blogger himself, but that hasn't stopped his nation from arrested dozens of web scribblers. Including:

Soheil Asafy

Sina Motellebi

Arah Sigarchi

Mojtabal Saminejad

Omid Sheikhan

Nadme Omid-Parvar—who was pregnant at the time of her arrest.

Syria

Tarek Baiadi was arrested for "undermining national sentiment" and "publishing false information." He's been due to be tried for some time, but there have been no updates. In his case.

Poet Firas Saad got four years in prison for similar charges, btw.

But those five nations aren't all! Other bad eggs include:

Kuwait (arrested for a comment!)

Vietnam

Turkey

Burma

Tunisia

Thailand

And, of course, the US of A.

I writed it one post at a tiem If everyone's getting a book deal for their blog, why aren't you? Mostly because your writing hasn't gone anywhere better than a Gawker comment thread, but also because you haven't followed these three steps (note: not a joke article! Real advice inside) to getting a blog book deal. Short version: Start a blog that's short and sweet and high-concept, spread it on Tumblr and LiveJournal, send it to Gawker, and call Kate Lee.

1. Start the right kind of blog.

Your personal blog isn't good enough. Book deals for personal, story-telling blogs fizzled out a few years ago. There's just too much research for the publisher and no guarantee of mass appeal. The latest book deals look more like movie deals: A conceptual hook will draw people in even if some of the jokes fall flat. There are three kinds of blogs that recently got deals:

A. Whimsical Recognizable Aspects Of Everyday Life
Examples: Stuff White People Like, Postcards From Yo Momma
Likable, easy-to-understand blogs with a regular format. The title explains the whole concept. Make an idea you can explain in one short sentence. It's easy to market, easy to remember, easy to get blogged.
Suggestions: Ideas I Had In The Shower; Things My Kids Said

B. Unique Life Story That's Actually Many Short Stories
Example: The Secret Diary Of Steve Jobs
This is very tough, and I don't personally recommend it. You must either be a famous or extraordinary person or impersonate one. But you have to be a great writer too — there are two sites full of terrible spoof blogs.
Suggestions: Fake Obama; How I Was Actually Raised By Wolves

C. Tiny Works Of Art
Examples: Indexed, Barack Obama Is Your New Bicycle, I Can Has Cheezburger
The perfect grist for a coffee-table or "tiny" book. "Indexed" is just little jokes in the form of graphs, "Cheezburger" is of course photos with captions, and "Obama" is simply random slogans about how much the presidential candidate is a cool guy, kind of like "Chuck Norris Facts" (which also got a book deal). Again, stick to one format and fully explore it. If doing the same thing over and over wasn't a path to success, you'd never hear of Jackson Pollock or Dilbert.
Suggestions:

2. Discover yourself.
After a couple of weeks, you should have enough material to start spreading your blog around. Don't just wait to get discovered, but don't overmarket yourself. Put a copy of your blog on Tumblr and LiveJournal for readers that wouldn't otherwise follow you. (Since I started reading Tumblr blogs I find myself checking other blogs less.) Start following other people on those sites, which is less crass than commenting on normal blogs and putting your URL in your signature.
If your blog catches on there, you can start submitting to bigger blogs. But you might want to have a friend do it. I have a few regular tipsters who point me to good blogs by their friends. I'm more likely to follow their leads than someone self-promoting. Still, a well-written e-mail to Gawker's tipline might get you a mention. Same goes for Boing Boing. By that point linkbloggers like Jason Kottke and Rex Sorgatz will notice you if you're worthy.
If you do self-promote and no one picks it up, start over. (If you're reading this article, you're not in it for the love.)
Meanwhile back on your blog, don't stop writing. I stupidly gave up on my blog Bad Idea A Day just when people started to notice it. Now I'm restarting and I have to earn my readership from scratch. Also, have an about page so you're ready for Step 3.

3. Ask to meet an agent.
If your idea is wildly successful but no agent has called, find Kate Lee. The agent (who doesn't have an easily googleable home page) was profiled in the New Yorker in 2004 when blog book deals were still novel. Though Gawker didn't think the trend would stick, Lee kept selling blogger books. Last year she sold blogger Rachel Sklar's Jew-ish; this week she sold Postcards From Yo Momma, written by Jessica Grose of Jezebel and Gawker alum Doree Shafrir.
Of course you could talk to other agents; White People was sold by William Morris's Erin Malone.

So did it work? If not, try again. If so, go to hell you lucky bastard. I'll be spitting at you during your reading, next to the guy from White Whine.

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