Eclectic Collections: The Googling, Citizen Journalism and Thou

Above the fold, two surreal videos. Below, a quick mention of some of the past week’s pieces on ePluribus Media that you may not have seen and will probably find very interesting.  Opening volley: Surreal Videos — “The Googling” Part 1 and Part III:

After the flip, a brief preview of some of the great pieces currently on ePluribus Media.

Every so often, I like to post to let folks know about some of the pieces that appear on ePluribus Media that aren’t cross-posted over here.  While a lot of pieces are crossposted to several locations, there are some really great articles appearing on the Community Site and the Journal that don’t appear anywhere else: it would be a shame to miss them.

Here’s a few from this past week:

I posted a surprisingly popular piece called War Crimes Trials: The natives are getting restless… [Video-heavy, Updated] over on ePluribus Media in the wee hours of the morning today. From the Buzz:

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Apparently losing both faith and patience in any government — foreign or domestic — to act against the flagrant, ongoing war crimes committed by the Bush Administration, more and more private citizens are beginning to target various players with aims of citizen’s arrest. In the meantime, the discussion of whether or not the Bush Administration committed and/or caused others to commit War Crimes has been picking up. I provide some links and videos as a representative sample…

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I didn’t think folks would find it that interesting as I made little added commentary — nothing below the fold, essentially — yet it got a bunch of buzzes and reads.  

Two from Aaron Barlow touch upon the internet, freedom, education and neteracy in one way or another.  Convergence? touches upon whether online reading can be merged with more traditional forms and methods to develop a new, culturally and technologically appropriate form, where his Babbling to Babel discusses the importance of the chaotic cacophony that comprises the internet and how attempts to tame and control it should be challenged.  From the opening:

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I was standing on the sidewalk, had a noise in my head.

There were loudspeakers babbling, but nothing was said. – Richard Farina

See, here’s what “they” don’t get: It’s not that we of the great unwashed are unruly, rude, and unlettered-but that “they,” the people who (in their own minds) have earned the right to speak to us, do nothing but babble.

No, “babble” doesn’t seem to have originated with “Babel” in Genesis 11, but a connection exists nonetheless.  It’s worth looking at the relevant passage in relation to the current state of information and its communication:

4 And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.

5 And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded.

6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

Why?  Because these are the “they” I’m talking about above.

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McClatchy Washington Bureau Wins Another Award for Iraq Pre-War Coverage by standingup informs us of how McClatchy Bureau Chief John Walcott is the inaugural recipient of the I.F. Stone Medal for Journalistic Independence.  Good for them, eh?

If you are wondering about the number of contractors, casualties and missing in Iraq, you’re not alone.  Susie Dow reports about the inherent Catch-22 she’s uncovered in her search for some real numbers to crunch in her piece Standard Forms and Missing Persons in Iraq.

From the buzz:

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Susie Dow has a doubt. She’s trying to track down missing persons — such as contractors and civilians — in Iraq. But she’s uncovered a “disconnect” in the Government’s own paperwork… a Catch-22 that makes it impossible to report missing persons, if they are contractors or civilians. As she writes: “In fact, the form [for reporting missing persons under the Missing Persons Act] as it currently exists makes it impossible to report a missing civilian or contractor. The only option available is “Pending.” And that bodes ill for recovering missing persons.”

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Over on the Journal, Letters from Herat: The Burqa, the Heat, and the Call to Prayers give an interesting insight into the culture over at Afghanistan by a woman who was there as part of an educational exchange program, while John Michael Spinelli tells how a Rove Threat to Blackmail GOP IT Mastermind Triggers Immunity Request to Ohio AG by Election Lawyers.

Have you checked out ePluribus Media lately?  Remember, in addition to the Community site, there’s a Journal for fact-checked and vetted articles and some great Timelines.