January 2010

  • The Grounding of Tess: Is it Fair?

    By becksta on 1/18/10 3:56pm
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    Tess Under House ArrestTess Under House ArrestFacebook has been used by possibly nefarious parties to secretly find out the color of your underwear, to take sides in the disputed Iranian election, and is now being used by a 15-year-old to protest being grounded by her parents.

    Her crime was simple: she went to a party with alcohol present and was late for her curfew by one hour. Her parents responded quickly to their daughter’s crimes with a swift and possibly harsh judgment: they grounded her for five weeks.


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  • Google and China

    By ecoscott on 1/15/10 3:34pm
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    Google is Unhappy with the Way China Regulates Information in its countryGoogle is Unhappy with the Way China Regulates Information in its countryThe U.S. government is going to say something to China about the Google situation. They are going to express concern about the “cyber-attacks” that have brought up the issue of Google leaving China and ending business matters there.

    "We will be issuing a formal demarche to the Chinese government in Beijing on this issue in the coming days, probably early next week. It will express our concern for this incident and request information from China as to an explanation of how it happened and what they plan to do about it," said P.J. Crowley, U.S. State Department spokesman.

    A demarche is a formal, written message directly from a diplomat to a government- so we are saying we are upset for real.

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  • It's Definitely OK to Use Social Networking to Help Your Cause

    By becksta on 1/15/10 12:46am
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    Haiti EarthquakeHaiti EarthquakeI haven’t watched much of the footage from Haiti, not because I don’t care, but because I don’t have cable tv. This hasn’t stopped me from reading about it, thinking about it, and wondering what responsibility we in the West have for preventing these kinds of disasters or what we can do now to help.

    The two most straightforward ways remain the same for every type of disaster. They need donations of either your time or your money. I chose money, but only a little bit and then felt bad about my donation and its usefulness or lack thereof after reading an article on Gawker criticizing the “netiquette” of using social media to promote your cause.


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