Yes, but blogs are very yesterday. They peaked a few years ago, and they are fading. Check the metrics being reported in Wired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
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Yes, but blogs are very yesterday. They peaked a few years ago, and they are fading. Check the metrics being reported in Wired.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eki
Actually recent studies have shown that the trend of recruiting is much more indicative of avearge demographics than most claim. When viewed based on education, family income, race, and origin, the military is in some cases reversing the trends claimed.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gannex
More people from average to above average income and education levels are joining the military now as opposed to those doing so in past years.
Here's a good link.
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nat...y/cda05-08.cfm
I agree with your view that most in the military join for honorable reasons. As a percentage of those serving the people involved in wrongful acts is very small.
Agwiii, I disagree on the role of Blogs. Little Green Footballs and others like it are legitimate in many eyes, for they break stories the Mainstream Media wont touch. The fraudulent claims 60 Minutes made about Bush's National Guard record weeks before the 2004 election illustrate what happens in the hands of the mainstream media if left without someone doing the dirty work.
Blogs and "alternative" media are great sources of information that is often raw and unfiltered. The down side is it is sometimes biased one way or the other, but the plus side is it is that raw quality.
The Blogster in Baghdad must be taken for who she is. She is well educated, speaks English well and is a Sunni. Gee....who would she be VERY close to to have those qualities and not be in jail or being tortured when Saddam was around?? Just a thought....I am not saying what she is describing on the ground isn't happening, as Gannex has stated, it is happening.
Of course this mitigates nothing. Eki crying they should'nt be there is too late. What happens now is always been the contention for me, and it seems like the Americans are still trying to put things right. How successful they may be remains to be seen, but at least there is an effort there.
As for Lynnie England, well as I said before, don't condemn the whole army on the actions of a few hot heads. I bet the victims of the atrocities in that prison 10 years ago would have been happy for the guards to only make them play naked twister. For her actions, England was charged and punished. Gannex is not inaccurate in his criticisms of how things were handled in the upper brass, but again, it wasn't necessarily a open policy that prisoners were to be treated with torture and inhuman conditions. That said, Rumsfeld's attitude seemed to set a tone that gave some officers license to condone this.
Again, show me an army anywhere that doesn't have a few people that will embarass it if given enough rope. Every nation has its thugs and loose cannons, there isn't one in the world that doesn't have a prision of some form. Ergo, odds are some make it into the military. It is the actions that the nation takes after the rules of civility are broken that give you cause for judgement. On this score, I give the Americans a C. That said, a lot of nations on this planet wouldn't get a passing grade, and many wouldn't get a grade because their military hasn't been under the stress that the US Army has felt since this has begun....
While blogging has only reached prominence in the last few years, it was actually invented by the ancient Romans who built a majestic blog in 200 BC from marble, granite and links they stole from the Greeks.
"Blog" itself is short for "weblog," which is short for "we blog because we weren't very popular in high school and we're trying to gain respect and admiration without actually having to be around people."
Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it. One popular technique for building readership is to send e-mail to more well-trafficked blogs offering to exchange links with them. One popular response from those blogs is to laugh derisively and hit the Delete button.
Excerpt from: http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,71720-0.html
:s mokin:
I can think of the sacking of Rome in 387 BC by the Gauls. There were a few other sackings for the next thousand odd years. There are many other examples of the army doing things that upset delicate sensibilities.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mark in Oshawa
I remember reading riverbend and salam pax (where's Raed?) right at the beginning, as the bombs were about to start falling on Baghdad. It was the same eary feeling as watching CNN during the first Iraq war.
Just because they're obviously at least as educated as anyone else on the web doesn't mean they're necessarily "Sunni = pro-Saddam".
Do skim through some of their earlier stuff, and see how they evolved as the liberation dragged on.
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/
did I say eary?
what a donkey big-eers :p :
http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/16/16_3_166.gif
Jote, no doubt some of them do have something to say. I didn't dismiss the blog in question as out of hand, but a lot of her anger was pretty much trying to elicit sympathy almost for Saddam. While I think Maliki's government has botched this entirely, alas it seems pretty much the way a lot of governments in the middle east seem to be run like, that is, full of old scores and sectarian intolerance waiting to be settled.
Until Maliki starts governing Iraq as the President of all the groups that make up Iraq, the problems will continue. That isn't the US's fault, except maybe they should just put the US army in the North with the Kurd's, protect a few key instillations, and let the Shiites and Sunni's work out some issues. It is obvious to me they don't need the US Army to shoot at, they are quite content to kill each other....
Quote:
Originally Posted by agwiii
How many blogs have been published worldwide as books, been nominated for and won prizes in literary competitions?
Baghdad Burning
Girl Blog from Iraq
Riverbend
Note: To all of Riverbend's fans, thank you for your concern about her periodic absence from her blog. As far as we know, she is still in Iraq and writing when she can. If we hear otherwise, we will post it here.
Lettre Ulysses Award for the Art of Literary Reportage
THIRD PRIZE WINNER OF THE LETTRE ULYSSES AWARD FOR THE ART OF REPORTAGE
LONGLISTED FOR 2006 SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NONFICTION
In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation.
In August 2003, the world gained access to a remarkable new voice: a blog written by a 25-year-old Iraqi woman living in Baghdad, whose identity remained concealed for her own protection. Calling herself Riverbend, she offered searing eyewitness accounts of the everyday realities on the ground, punctuated by astute analysis on the politics behind these events.
Riverbend recounts stories of life in an occupied city - of neighbors whose home are raided by U.S. troops, whose relatives disappear into prisons, and whose children are kidnapped by money-hungry militias. The only Iraqi blogger writing from a woman's perspective, she also describes a once-secular city where women are now afraid to leave their homes without head covering and a male escort.
Interspersedwith these vivid snapshots from daily life are Riverbend's analyses of everything from the elusive workings of the Iraqi Governing Council to the torture in Abu Gharib, from the coverage provided by American media and by Al-Jazeera to Bush's State of the Union Speech. Here again, she focuses especially on the fate of women, whose rights and freedoms have fallen victim to rising fundamentalisms in a chaotic post-war society.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.
ISBN-10 1-55861-489-3
ISBN-13 978-1-55861-489-5
Publication Date 2005 List Price $14.95
From http://www.feministpress.org/Book/in...55861100869560
Some more stuff from http://www.marionboyars.co.uk/Amy%20...20Burning.html'FOR SALE: IRAQ
For Sale: A fertile, wealthy country with a population of around 25 million…plus around 150,000 foreign troops, and a handful of puppets. Conditions of sale: should be either an American or British corporation. Please contact one of the members of the Governing Council in Baghdad, Iraq, for more information.
In her riveting weblog, a remarkable young Iraqi woman gives a human face to war and occupation. On the 24th of September, 2003, the above entry was posted onto a weblog by an anonymous 25 year old female using the pseudonym ‘Riverbend’. In this hard-hitting journal, she describes the day-to-day realities of life in post-war Iraq, which for her family and neighbours means regular power-cuts, bombings, kidnappings and night-time raids by US soldiers. Including diary entries covering the release of the torture pictures of Abu Ghraib and Bush’s State of the Union Speech as well as a more critical analysis of key players during the war and in its aftermath, Baghdad Burning offers a highly personal narrative on life since the US occupation that is at once disturbing and insightful.
With thousands of loyal readers worldwide, the Riverbend blog is recognized around the world as a crucial source of information not available through the mainstream media.
Riverbend was educated at Baghdad University and worked for a large computer company in Baghdad before the war. She continues to update her journal, found at http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com. She prefers to remain anonymous.
'Feisty and learned: first rate reading for any American who suspects that Fox News may not be telling the whole story.' Kirkus Reviews, 2 May 2005
'passionate, frustrated, sarcastic and sometimes hopeful ...it offers quick takes on events ...from a perspective too often overlooked, ignored or surpressed.' Publishers Weekly, 7 February 2005
'a cross between an underground manifesto and a polished cultural history... With its blend of first-person mouthing off and spirited documentary style, Baghdad Burning offers fair and balanced coverage from inside one of the most rapidly changing - and poorly understood - regions in the world.' Time Out New York, 28 April 2005
'Highly recommended to anyone following the conflict' Library Journal (starred review), 1 April 2005
Baghdad Burning Volume 2 will be published by Marion Boyars in Autumn 2006
Price: £7.99
Format: Paperback, 310 pp
ISBN: 0-7145-3130-8
Publication date: 27 March 2006
One more interesting link on a retired US military man and republican party honcho who tried to hijack Riverbend's blog.
http://www.blogscanada.ca/blog/Perma...3fe64d70b.aspx
A small segment:
Over the past few weeks, an odd campaign has been mounted in the blogosphere. An Iraqi blog, Baghdad Burning, was spoofed by a blogger with opposing political views. Yesterday, the real Baghdad Burning author returned fire. Her first shot against the dirty trickster brought him down.
In a delicious bit of irony, the real Baghdad Burning author is a young Iraqi woman and the fake Baghdad Burning author is a retired US military man and Republican party "Team Leader."