Damien Mulley

Not visited Ryan’s website in an age until this morning as I wanted to do some research on another idea for an irishblog thing. (More in another post) This is Ryan’s blog and this is Ryan’s Flickr site.

I’d read Donncha praise Ryan in a few posts but just didn’t have time to look at the site. Donncha himself has some fantastic photos like this. Anyways, bookmark both sites.

Could I also suggest that the lads tag their photo posts as irishphotos? Be nice to do searches and come up with all those gems.

Nathan Torkington has his kids tell it how it is. The last word, which I suppose you could call the “punchline” is fairly powerful. I wonder is there an Irish version of this?

Lots of good comments here on it. His kids are cute too and the way they react to saying some of the words is precious. Exposing the kids to these words is not wrong at all. Compare this to the kids dancing on the grave of Matthew Shephard and screaming “God hates fags” at pride marches.

It’s the overriding attitude behind the words that is more important. You can use simple words that will get around the strictest censor and still cause absolute offense and harm.

The Blog section in the Sunday Tribune, which as Piaras mentions got bumped up to page 13 mentions my little rant about the Irish Examiner and Archiseek.

The bit that got my attention though was their comment:

We don’t have the space for all the details, but two things are worth noting. First, it is interesting to see Irish subjects of newspaper articles offering rebuttals online. Second, none of the blog entries actually link to or quote the allegedly offending Examiner article, which deprives the bloggers of their key weapoins of context–and just makes them sound like whingers.

Curiously, we were unable to locate the article on the Examiner’s own website.

Firstly, I like how you find it interesting that the subjects give rebuttals online, so this is mine:

Lads, the story we mentioned was the Irish Examiner getting its facts wrong, well, that’s actually being too nice, they twisted facts so much that they were pretzel-shaped and then you asked how come we never linked to the story online, yet the posts myself and others linked to showed it was never put online. Scanned in copies were posted on the Archiseek forum though. Ooops!

Secondly and going back to what you were saying about giving rebuttals to stories, how about having an online forum where everyone can give their comments on the stories that were in the Tribune? And I don’t just mean some letters to the editor email address where some letters may get published. You’ve done very well giving a roundup of the Irish blogs on a weekly basis, now go another step further and have an editors blog or a forum with free discussion.

Update: Jarvis weighed in. See below.

John Naughton has a good piece in the Observer about Citizen Journalism after the latest London terrorist attacks.

‘The victims were being triaged at the station entrance by tube staff and as I could see little more I could do I got out of the way and left. As I stepped out people with cameraphones vied to try and take pictures of the worst victims. In crisis some people are cruel.’

…

I find it astonishing – not to say macabre – that virtually the first thing a lay person would do after escaping injury in an explosion in which dozens of other human beings are killed or maimed is to film or photograph the scene and then relay it to a broadcasting organisation.

…

Such arguments are merely a retrospective attempt to dignify the kind of ghoulish voyeurism that is enabled by modern communications technology.

Hmmm, to a degree I can see John’s point but in fairness as was reported, there was nothing these people could do. Rubber necking always happens and now they have digicams and camera phones and share what they can see with the world. Where have they learned to do this but mainstream media itself. News copters giving chase of O.J., the TV Show COPS, instrusive tabloid bullshit day in day out where they tell the general British citizen that it is ok to go through people’s thrash to give them, the general public, the truth.

Humans have always been rubber necking and have always been reporting in some form. Was it not macabre back in the day when some guy drew on the caves of the other guys in his gang hunting bulls and showing the bloody outcome? What isn’t voyeuristic about news anyway? Human interest stories are by their nature voyeurism anyway.

I sent Naughton’s piece on to Jeff Jarvis and I hope he comments on it. This citizen journalism idea is still new to me and I’d like to see how a pro like him weighs in on this.

Later:
And so Jarvis did weigh in and stated:

As a journalist, you would think that Naughton would welcome more truly eyewitness reporting, more facts, more stories, more humanity. And who better to provide this than witnesses themselves, now equipped not only with cameras but also with the knowledge that they could report what they saw themselves. Isn’t that better than second-hand reporting?

Naughton complains that some of the material they recorded was too graphic to be shown. Well, isn’t that true of any photographer’s rolls? That is why editors edit.

I’ve heard others fret that just-people, lay people, would be too obtrusive — but that assumes that professional journalists are not. Oh, but we are.

Technorati tags: irishblogs citizen journalism

Karen: Oh, honey… black, white, gay, straight, what’s the difference? We all finish ourselves off in the end anyway.

What a charming way to look at life.

A Few Good men “You can’t handle the truth” redone using the Half Life engine. Original audio still there and as dramatic as ever.

Space Invaders Crop Circle. Got via Tom Coates

Mirror Mask to be shown at Edinburgh Film Festival Aug 19th and 27th apparently.

World ‘s Largest Phone companies. China kicking the ass of everyone else. That’s where the money is, you’ve just been shown, so away with ya, g’wan!

Vermont goes for 100% Broadband availability by 2010. 5 years behind the UK and Northern Ireland and probably a few years ahead of Ireland. Cynical, moi? Yes.

Eu Consultation on bridging the digital divide. Everyone that cannot get broadband or has a mother, father, granny that cannot get broadband should reply to this consultation. 2 lines or 2000 lines can be submitted.

David Isenberg rips into the FCC for playing with broadband figures. Different country, same tricks.

In the Irish Times article Bridge blogs give voice to the marginalised talks about how a special type of blog known as a bridge blog helps the marginalised to have their say on matters.

blogger Hossein Derakhshan defined three metaphors for global blogs: “windows”, which give you a glimpse of life in another culture; “cafes”, which allow members of a culture to interact although geographically disparate; and “bridges”, which allow online interaction between cultures where little or none existed before.

So, are there bridge blogs in Ireland? Blogs for the Corrib farmers or the ex employees of Global Mobile Vision?

Technorati tags: irishblogs globalvoices global mobile vision

James Corbett’s GPS in Ireland openeir project is on the 3rd page of Google for the search phrase GPS Ireland. An open source GPS Map of Ireland is a great idea especially when a taxpayer funded OSI will not share their toys with the Irish people.

So let’s all use the phrase GPS in Ireland to link to James at this address: http://eirepreneur.blogs.com/eirepreneur/2005/04/openeir_the_ope.html and give him more Google juice. The more that know about the project the more that will start contributing to it.

Technorati Tags: openeir irishblogs

Damn you anyway Tyler James. Nice caravan you live in though. His version of White Town’s tune is actually good. His voice seems a bit like Will Young’s at times. It hasn’t annoyed me yet though. Out in August.

Oh and don’t worry, I’m still a music snob. Here to keep you happy are the lyrics to the Iron and Wine song: “Trapeze Swinger” Fantastic tune I must say, all 9 minutes of it. I also picked up Superwolf’s new album. Some good lyrics in that too. Wish I could find them online.

Please, remember me
Happily
By the rosebush laughing
With bruises on my chin
The time when
We counted every black car passing
Your house beneath the hill
And up until
Someone caught us in the kitchen
With maps, a mountain range,
A piggy bank
A vision too removed to mention
But

Please, remember me
Fondly
I heard from someone you’re still pretty
And then
They went on to say
That the pearly gates
Had some eloquent graffiti
Like ‘We’ll meet again’
And ‘Fuck the man’
And ‘Tell my mother not to worry’
And angels with their gray
Handshakes
Were always done in such a hurry
And

Please, remember me
At Halloween
Making fools of all the neighbors
Our faces painted white
By midnight
We’d forgotten one another
And when the morning came
I was ashamed
Only now it seems so silly
That season left the world
And then returned
And now you’re lit up by the city
So

Please, remember me
Mistakenly
In the window of the tallest tower call
Then pass us by
But much too high
To see the empty road at happy hour
Leave and resonate
Just like the gates
Around the holy kingdom
With words like ‘Lost and Found’ and ‘Don’t Look Down’
And ‘Someone Save Temptation’
And

Please, remember me
As in the dream
We had as rug-burned babies
Among the fallen trees
And fast asleep
Aside the lions and the ladies
That called you what you like
And even might
Give a gift for your behavior
A fleeting chance to see
A trapeze
Swing as high as any savior
But

Please, remember me
My misery
And how it lost me all I wanted
Those dogs that love the rain
And chasing trains
The colored birds above there running
In circles round the well
And where it spells
On the wall behind St. Peter’s
So bright with cinder gray
And spray paint
‘Who the hell can see forever?’
And

Please, remember me
Seldomly
In the car behind the carnival
My hand between your knees
You turn from me
And said ‘The trapeze act was wonderful
But never meant to last’
The clown that passed
Saw me just come up with anger
When it filled with circus dogs
The parking lot
Had an element of danger
So

Please, remember me
Finally
And all my uphill clawing
My dear
But if i make
The pearly gates
Do my best to make a drawing
Of G-d and Lucifer
A boy and girl
An angel kissin on a sinner
A monkey and a man
A marching band
All around the frightened trapeze swingers

Na-na
Na-na-na
Na-na
Na-na…

13th Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival – 28 July to 1 August

Official Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival website which is of course blank. 14 days to go and nothing is listed. Wondeful!

At least the IFI has the Film Fest Listings but saying that there doesn’t appear to be anything that looks really good. Lots of the films appear to have been around for a good while now.