rashundatramble.com

A brilliant idea from Dave Winer:

I was drinking coffee, watching the morning news when a story about Virginia Tech came on MSNBC. I really wanted to begin this week without more stories about how they’re coping. I know this makes me an ogre, but after listening to On The Media yesterday, my cynicism is validated. And after watching 60 Minutes about life in Baghdad, the first report I’ve seen to actually go in to get the story, I was aware that people are dying in places outside Blacksburg (and truthfully, the dying is probably over in Blacksburg).

I had a flash, I want a checkbox that tells MSNBC that I don’t want any more Virginia Tech stories.
Then came breaking news that Boris Yeltsin had died. In my ideal news system, the screen would refresh and a checkbox entitled Yeltsin would be added, checked by default. If, after hearing the first report, I didn’t want to hear more, I could uncheck it. No doubt a biography is coming, and testimonials, and interviews with Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski. I am interested in this stuff, Yeltsin is history, but there may come a time when I’d prefer more news about Alberto Gonzales, and I definitely want to hear anything they have on the Internet or Macintosh, or the impeachment of President Bush.

Here’s the mock up. I can’t believe no one has done this yet.

Speaking of Virginia Tech, nooooooo, we have no problem showing blood and guts on the photos from the Virginia Tech shooting, but…

(clutch the pearls)

…we think we see a penis! Via mediabistro.

For those of us who are blessed with the luxury of blogging at will, take note of Mona Eltahawy’s article in Arab Media & Society:

No matter how many eyes and ears the blogs have, who can doubt the power of the Internet?

Whenever I think of Tunisia and the Internet I always think of 10 minutes. That’s how much time journalist and human rights campaigner Sihem Bensedrine (interviewed by Arab Media & Society) has to type out her latest news before security apparatus track down the Internet café she is filing from. Then she slips out to another café to begin another round of 10 minutes. I’ll never forget hearing her describe this at a conference in Copenhagen we spoke at last year that was organized by the Danish chapter of the writers’ organization PEN on freedom of expression in the Arab world.

How many rounds of 10 minutes do we spend surfing the net, mindlessly? She has 10 minutes to tell the world about the latest horrors of the police state otherwise known as the torture fiefdom of Zine El Abidine Ben Ali aka Tunisia.