Write Lightning is a blog from writer Deb Thompson.
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Everyone is welcome here.
(Some links or topics may not be completely kid-appropriate.)
Mon, Jul 26 2004
Writing In A Wiki Kind Of Way
A tip of the Stetson goes to Matthew G. Kirschenbaum for leading me over to WriteHere.net, where you can present writing projects and let others respond, and where you can add to the work of other writers, making the whole place a sort of Wiki roundtable for writers.
posted at: 11:38 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
A tip of the Stetson goes to Matthew G. Kirschenbaum for leading me over to WriteHere.net, where you can present writing projects and let others respond, and where you can add to the work of other writers, making the whole place a sort of Wiki roundtable for writers.
posted at: 11:38 | category: /Writing Life | link to this entry
Are We All Feeding On The Feeding Frenzy?
I noticed a quote attributed to Margaret Thatcher earlier this morning, one I read and started to move past, but it dragged me back to read it a second time, and then a third time.
I wondered how that would work in today's world, where events have sound and video readily transmitted as they happen, and where the public, at least in the USA, has developed such a thirst for information. I started to allow myself to think about it. What would happen, if, for a period of even one week, as far as possible, all USA media (including internet content producers) voluntarily adopted a stance of not reporting or showing even one terrorist act, or commenting on any act, if it was known that the act was that of any terrorist faction or group? We would not allow ourselves to show beheadings of civilians, bombings of mosques, people with weapons and hoods standing over hostages, and the like. Media would volunteer to not cover such activities and viewers would volunteer not to demand coverage. Politicians might volunteer not to comment on any terrorist actions. Maybe artists would volunteer not to promote any existing project that showed terrorist actions and not to produce any new project that showed terrorist actions. Just for a week.
Is it possible? Could this ever happen? Would we ever let it happen? If we did, I wonder if things would change. I wonder if the terrorists would change. And I wonder if we would change.
posted at: 10:02 | category: | link to this entry
I noticed a quote attributed to Margaret Thatcher earlier this morning, one I read and started to move past, but it dragged me back to read it a second time, and then a third time.
"Democratic nations must try to find ways to starve the terrorist and the hijacker of the oxygen of publicity on which they depend."
I wondered how that would work in today's world, where events have sound and video readily transmitted as they happen, and where the public, at least in the USA, has developed such a thirst for information. I started to allow myself to think about it. What would happen, if, for a period of even one week, as far as possible, all USA media (including internet content producers) voluntarily adopted a stance of not reporting or showing even one terrorist act, or commenting on any act, if it was known that the act was that of any terrorist faction or group? We would not allow ourselves to show beheadings of civilians, bombings of mosques, people with weapons and hoods standing over hostages, and the like. Media would volunteer to not cover such activities and viewers would volunteer not to demand coverage. Politicians might volunteer not to comment on any terrorist actions. Maybe artists would volunteer not to promote any existing project that showed terrorist actions and not to produce any new project that showed terrorist actions. Just for a week.
Is it possible? Could this ever happen? Would we ever let it happen? If we did, I wonder if things would change. I wonder if the terrorists would change. And I wonder if we would change.
posted at: 10:02 | category: | link to this entry
