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Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be ?
You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. You are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within you. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we're liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.
-Nelson Mandela

YESTERDAY I CRIED: Ode to Bendalong Tourist Park

I want you to understand,
I had myself a really good cry yesterday.

Yesterday, I cried,
for all the days that I was too busy, or too tired, or too mad to cry

I cried for all the days, and all the ways,
and all the times I had dishonoured, disrespected and disconnected...

I cried for all the things I had given, only to have them stolen;
for all the things I had asked for that had not shown up
for all the things I had accomplished, only to give them away,
to people in circumstances, which left me feeling empty, and battered and plain old used.

I cried because there really does come a time when the only thing left to do is cry

Yesterday I cried.

I cried because little boys get left by their daddies;
and little girls get forgotten by their mummies;
and daddies don't know what to do, so they leave;
and mummies get left, so they get mad...

I cried because I hurt.
I cried because I was hurt.
I cried because hurt has no place to go except deep into the pain that caused it in the first place,
and when it gets there, the hurt wakes you up.

I cried because it was late.
I cried because it was time.
I cried because my soul knew that I didn't know that my soul knew everything I needed to know.

I cried a soulful cry yesterday, and it felt so good...
In the midst of my crying, I felt my freedom coming,
Because Yesterday,
I cried with an agenda.

- inspired by Iyanla vanzant

Again... Remember we told you about Bendalong first ;-) In Gabriella's words

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Under cosmopolitanism, if it comes, we shall receive no help from the earth. Trees and meadows and mountains will only be a spectacle, and the binding force that they once exercised on character must be entrusted to Love alone. May Love be equal to the task!
-E.M. Forster

As you've surely heard, a summer of Faulkner was enough to drive Oprah back to contemporary books and live authors she can bring on her show. Oprah's Book Club to Add Contemporary Writers
Somewhere near you, someone is signing a flyleaf. An insider’s guide to a literary phenomenon. No longer is it just rock stars who go on tour, attract groupies and perform live. Britain has gone crazy over writers and readings at literary festivals And now, live on stage, the superstar author

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Last Day in September: Machiavellian Morality
When Ronald Reagan said the only thing on earth enjoying eternal life is a government program, he forgot about Deep Throat.

The late-spring exposure of former FBI deputy director Mark Felt as the long-secret Watergate source revived this unending political drama: movies were being produced, books published, and Watergate revisited on talk shows...
I now realize that we humans have an infinite capacity for self-justification

• One reason teenagers, among others, are jammed in our prisons [Could this list in fact mark the end of the age of the great public intellectual? Not that there's anything wrong with it, as Jerry Seinfeld might say. Who are the world’s leading public intellectuals? ; On the brink of turning 80, Gore Vidal - aristocrat, intellectual and prolific novelist, playwright, and essayist - is as outspoken as ever. Age cannot wither him ]
• · Ten years ago, the Russian futurologist Leo Nefiodov predicted that the health industry would take over from information technology as a motor for growth The end of the miserable quest for the self ; Americans work harder than any other industrialized nation. Labor on the Screen
• · · Human beings are self-absorbed creatures, so the response to Hurricane Katrina has naturally included some hand-wringing over the question: "Could this happen to my hometown?" Wyoming? Nope. West Virginia? Think again Where To Hide From Mother Nature; Don't Blink. You'll Miss the 258th-Richest American ; 'Fortune's Formula': Wanna Bet?
• · · · The words themselves outweigh moral and ideological arguments The case for the classics is read within ; Wise Hedgehogs and Clever Foxes
• · · · · These WSJ links likely dissappear in short term Knowledge Deficit ; Better Information Isn't Always Beneficial
• · · · · · Bernard Lagan on Mark Latham’s first marriage I had more success with women than her; Where words fail, music speaks ... Too picky? Too shy? Addicted to ``hamster love''? Confessions of a speed dater

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Dear diary ... This weekend I am again invading Blue Sky , the sanctuary of


Speaking of blue skys of our past, I came across a story about my old club and the way it is swimming in financial irony. Oddly and despite being topped and tailed by one of Sydney's highest-grossing restaurants and best ocean pools, the iconic Bondi Icebergs is in financial difficulties having recorded an operating profit for the year of just $1008. Iceberg member #703 no longer drinks as heavily as he used to. Shame on mmmmwwwaaaa Icebergs at risk of sinking

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Rumsfeld's Wisdom
Rumsfeld's logic may be tongue-twisting, but ...

At a February 12, 2002, news briefing, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld explained the limitations of intelligence reports: "There are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know."

• Where the known meets the unknown is where science begins [What's wrong with young American men Attack of the listless lads ; Why do we tolerate intolerance? ]
• · Costs and benefits of community involvement ; Being poor is knowing exactly how much everything costs ; Mark Cuban is a witty guy: If only I was taller. If only I was thinner. If only I was richer: If Only….
• · · Everything I know I Learned from Folk Songs ; There are hundreds of ways of approaching the topic, writing and stress A Plethora of Hats or is it Grumble and Gripe?
• · · · It is difficult enough to get seven internationally known and opinionated business people and journalists in one room at the same time. Getting them to read 17 heavyweight books over a busy summer and then to agree on the best six in a single meeting seemed at best optimistic when the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs launched their business book award in April. How the judges brought the contenders to book (link likely only very short-lived); HR has traditionally struggled to adequately quantify a hard contribution to an organisation. Craig Donaldson speaks with the authors of the report Evaluating Human Capital and the Human Resources Function about the latest trends in the area and outlines the steps HR professionals need to take in order to measure their work. HR’s measurement baggage How effective is your HR function?
• · · · · How taking a Parkinson's disease wonder drug apparently makes some people want to gamble and have sex all the time Overstimulated ; A Final Nomination: Maps for Lost Lovers ; All you need is love
• · · · · · Art of cooking ; Book lovers are shunning the "stack-'em-high, sell-'em-cheap" tactics of supermarkets in favour of the personal touch provided by dedicated bookshops Fairytale result for bookshops

To practice any art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow. So do it.
- Kurt Vonnegut

The creative stakes are high in a time of publishing deadlines and revisions. Media Dragon was selected to review gurus, evangelists, of Shel Israel’s and Robert Scoble’s ilk Galley Reviewers At Large selected:

Blogs offer businesses something that has long been lacking in their communication with customers–meaningful dialogue. Devoid of corporate-speak and empty promises, business blogs can humanize communication, bringing companies and their constituencies together in a way that improves both image and bottom line. With a foreword by Tom Peters, author of such business bibles as In Search of Excellence, this book uses more than fifty case histories to explain why blogging is an efficient and infinitely more credible method of business communication. Blogs are easily linked, allowing information to spread rapidly, and blog readers are active, not passive, participants in the communication. Business and marketing decision-makers will find themselves excited about the possibilities after just a few pages.

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Democratic Audit of Australia
Expanding on the issue of protection of journalists’ sources, Helen Ester looks at a range of factors affecting the Press Gallery’s role in public accountability

These include not only government pursuit of whistleblowers but also a weak freedom of information regime making journalists overly dependent on leaks, and a hollowing out of the press gallery, meaning many gallery journalists are relatively inexperienced.

• Whistleblowing and the media: transparency the biggest casualty [PDF version of the Whistleblowing and the media report ; Jay Rosen: The Net Knows More Than You: An Open Letter to the People of CBS News ; Blogging is unquestionably a medium for personal journaling Blogging for the Soul, Not the Bottom Line ; AOL Survey Says: People Blog as Therapy ]
• · James Torio Thesis On Blogging ; Blogging and Academia ; Global Trends Collaborative
• · · The Internet, immense, global and changeable, seemed to be uncontrollable. We can not control everyone who surfs freely the world wide web. But this is not necessary. There is enough with capturing a fish now and then to frighten the rest or making them change their habits. Censorship and control expand through regulations and repression throughout the world Freedom in the Web? ; Dennis Kennedy has made available his notes on technology disaster recovery Technology Disaster Recovery ; Blog Search is Google search technology focused on blogs. Google is a strong believer in the self-publishing phenomenon represented by blogging, and we hope Blog Search will help our users to explore the blogging universe more effectively, and perhaps inspire many to join the revolution themselves Blog Search
• · · · Barry Eagar: Australian patent blog ; 20 Creative Uses for Podcasts ; If you've heard about the unbelievable rates you can get by using your internet connection to make phone calls, it's time to set the record straight - it's all true Why talk is cheap
• · · · · A home office? ; 8 Reasons Why Lists are Good for Getting Traffic to your Blog
• · · · · · Welcome to probably the most exciting story and poetry site in the world - Right now, I have 22 stories in 4 collections on the site ABCTales Member for: 5 years 37 weeks ; Google muscles into blogosphere, introduces Google Blog Search

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Hollywood Follows the Reader
When Filmmakers Go by the Book, Should Filmgoers Go Buy It Too?

"What! Another of those damned, fat, square, thick books!" an exasperated Duke of Gloucester is supposed to have said to Edward Gibbon upon being presented Volume 2 of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire." "Always scribble, scribble, scribble, eh, Mr. Gibbon!" And all these years later, it's the same thing: Damned, square, thick books, scribbled by little Johnny Writer types, then turned into movies, and this fall appears to feature a shelfful of them. It's not even a trend, it's a simple reality. Just look: "Shopgirl," "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe," "Memoirs of a Geisha," "Pride and Prejudice," "Everything Is Illuminated," "Harry Potter and the Flagon of Iced Gin," all due in the coming months. And there's at least a half-dozen more before Christmas. Good heavens, sirs, will you make a movie of anything ? Have you no pride?

• The deepest truth of the book into the movie There is no God if everyone dies alone [ Why Donnie Darko is a favorite film on college campuses ; World’s literature is diversifying, and a new, bolder generation of readers is taking shape Sink or Swim; Dreams & Words without Borders ]
• · We atheists have to accept that most believers are better human beings Faith does breed charity ; 8 Principles for Learning 50 Reasons Why We Can't Change
• · · They merely wish the property to become their property that they may more perfectly respect it Thieves respect property ; Rabbi Aron Moss Is It Immoral to be Overweight? ; Sydney's underworld of the '80s is getting a fresh airing A life of crime brought to book
• · · · The media were among the first on the scene in New Orleans and often lent a hand, but Network Nine gilded the lily of their "media rescue" to match their rivals at Seven. Media Heros? ; The Angel of Forgetfulness Encouraging Morning ; Australians are finding it harder to get away from it all due to working longer and more erratic hours to pay off ballooning debts Have a good weekend - if you can afford to take the time
• · · · · Chapters Bookstore Celebrates Its 20th, but 21 May Be a Cliffhanger ; Save Kepler's: the Blog
• · · · · · Wisteria? Dividend? Freedom? Sleep? Here's your chance to tell the world about your favorite word ; One sign of a mature, argumentative democracy is that it expects its bright young talents to carp at their own culture. Bedevilled by a lack of detail Trashing own backyards

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When a law enforcement officer looks at a company, one of the first questions he or she asks him or herself will be: Are these people good guys or bad guys?

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: We're So Good We'll Be Fine
Can you ever think too much about leadership? Not in my book.

But then, I'm firmly in the camp of people make history rather than history makes people. EBay also did one thing Mr. Omidyar was not thinking about 10 years ago: it proved that even in these daunting times, one person with a good idea can still change the world.
In law-firm-land, think of what Marty Lipton built at Wachtel, the development of the Socratic/case method of instruction by Christopher Columbus Langdell at Harvard Law in the 1800's, or even the invention of the "Cravath model" here in the early 1900's. Do individuals make a difference? You bet

• And Other Fairy Tales [Maybe we are crazy. Maybe we will change the world; Morris Iemma and Peter Debnam face their first electoral test as Premier and Opposition Leader Tripple MaMaMa byelections. It is all about the state of the State economy, stupid - Bread and the Ballot: Byelections test mettle of leaders You cannot go past the poll bludger for a comprehensive coverage of the triple-M by-election seats NSW by-elections ; The annual allowance for senators and members Recent Parliamentary Library papers ;]
• · They might not know it, but the politicians of NSW have some new neighbours... Just near the Parliament building, a small community of homeless men has sprung up, drawn by the protection it offers from swirling winds. Out of Mind ; Mind games: Without shame, we thrash out marriage difficulties before relationship therapists. Parents pack their teenagers off to psychotherapy when exam pressure threatens to overwhelm. Trauma counsellors swarm over crime scenes as naturally as police From the couch to the bedroom
• · · Proposed laws on strikes and lockouts tip the playing field further against employees Secret ballot or secret war? ; Betting & Polls
• · · · Anti-money laundering update ; Scott Parkin Our very own political prisoner ; Murdoch fears Latham gets more than enough rope
• · · · · The eloquence of America's politicians. My uncle, Richard Podrasky. Representing the cousins, my cousin, Jeannie Podrasky Polished Pollies ; Beyond Right and Left
• · · · · · An eastern German report card 16 years after reunification The Price of a Failed Reunification ; Here comes the rent rise, and it may top 30%

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My youngest daughter, Gabriella, a.k.a. Gabrielle, Bella, Vella, Wella, began blogging this week A debut worthy of MJ Rose ;-)

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Literary bloggers have become the new darlings of the publishing industry Book blogs' buzz grows louder

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Little Fish
Little Fish will, quite simply, knock your socks off.

Little Fish may turn out to be the most important film in a year that's looking like a dramatic turnaround for Australian movies. Local film production is still mortally crippled by under-investment, the legacy of years of deliberate political neglect. But films are being made and many are capitalising on the international success of Australian and New Zealand actors.

• Shakespearean story of Tracy Heart [The struggle to get ahead in the suburbs makes for a memorable Australian movie Sink or swim ; September smatterings ; Nancy Drew and the mystery of the mean girls ]
• · A series of article on the seven deadly sins, and why they're not always so bad! ; Cities of the Future Today’s “Mega-cities” are Overcrowded and Environmentally Stressed ; Kurt Vonnegut doesn't want any part of contemporary culture
• · · Men are more likely than women to be authors of journal articles and influential textbooks in political science. Why? Gender Gap in Publishing ; About 90% of all writers are desperate. Especially with the first few books. And no wonder. There are over 10,000 novels published a year and each imprint only anoints three to four books every season The attention game: A crisis of confidence and sets up a neurotic condition
• · · · A dismayingly bad book What irony: reviewer ousts author ; Oxford University Press is one of the first major publishers (that I've seen, at any rate) to blog Blue Background Makes Nifty Visual Pun
• · · · · Manorama Online reports that Literary figures making false forays into performing arts. ; The True Classic of Terrorism
• · · · · · Self-help gurus might be fakes - but why do so many people fall for them? ; In an age of blogging, reflexive ironizing and ceaseless celebrity worship, two small literary-intellectual magazines try to make a different kind of big noise Among the Believers ; Novels can accommodate those subtleties of the human condition that leave us shaking our heads in perplexity Victory parades should be times of mourning

Mis Quince Anos, Alexandra Imrichova 2005
Originally uploaded by jozefimrich.

Happy Birthday, Mis Quince Anos, Alex
I love you past the sky and past the oceans ;-)
In Latino culture, a girl's fifteenth birthday party is a religious and social occasion that ushers her into womanhood. Learn the traditions of this Coming-of-Age Celebration: Quinceanera Celebrations

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September 8th World Literacy Day: International Literacy Day is a grassroots event

I'm a clear-cut case of a condition which is called exile. Like literature, exile invents its own rules. ‘There is a reason why the language we inherit at birth is called our mother tongue,’ writes Mukherjee. ‘It is our mother, forgiving, embracing, naming the world and all its emotions...’ Yet exile teaches us to embrace our adopted mother with real passion. Today marks the quarter of the century of those special goose bumps one gets when we focus our eyes on our new adopted mother country. My Lucky Country ... What is that impresses most when we finally spot the sanctuary of Sydney Harbour ... peering through the 707 tiny windows? Its sheer size? The way antipodean sunrays pull the trigger reflections out of self-interest? No. Nothing makes an impact like those dark reflections, impenetrable emerald eyes. Those chipped emerald mirrors rival literature, geography and even history and just like mother’s breasts they shout: Ach, drink me up!
Sydney is the mother of exiles. If you were a political refugee in Sydney in 1980 all roads led to our new homes based at Villawood or Coogee Hostels. For me, Villawood became my Hollywood and the script written in English come to me in strange frustrated waves. Driving from the airport on the wrong side of the road is one thing. But not being able to spot any red ferns at Redfern was another. No one could explain to me what could possibly be new about Newtown? Those strange descriptions and words rolled over me, and though they almost smothered me with hard to express sentences, the sentences left me with a unique accent and unique expressions ... But it is the unique kindness of strangers that I will rembember most on my deathbed. Endless mentors: From Dr Dorman to Dr Cope; Soulmates: from Mary to Lauren; Strangers who became friends and then Godfathers to the Daughters of the Velvet Revolution: Christopher & Steve; Adopted family: From June to Minna; Greatest Treasures: Alexandra & Gabriella; Adopted homes: From Villawood to Darling Point to Bellevue Hill to Scaborough to the Shire and only destiny knows where else ... [Lest we forget: Donald Horne's irony was lost on Australia ]

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For me, it's a really, really big responsibility that Webdiary works, because if it works, other journalists will join the independent media movement.... Webdiary movement doesn't just have legs, it has tentacles Webdiary's offer to journalists: journalism bringing more passion to the table ; Confronting ethics in the netherworld between politics and the media

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Losing the next generation of idealists
Edward Wasserman says young people want to do something "active" -- to make things happen instead of reacting to events the way they do in newsrooms. "Students come back from summer PR internships with exciting tales of scanning the next day's papers for stories they helped bring about," he writes.

Journalists have enough worries: cutbacks, bloggers, a geriatric audience. But here's one more: They should worry that bright young people who might once have been heading into newsrooms are going into public relations instead. Worse, these people aren't going just for the money. Journalism -- assailed by self-doubt and public mistrust -- is in danger of losing its next generation of idealists to PR.

• Is journalism in danger of losing its young idealists to PR? [Use it as a guide, not a crutch: Jeff Jarvis: The goal is to be ready — God help us Recovery 2.0: A call to convene ; Who is the one person you would not want to read what you have just written? Heather Armstrong ]
• · Microsoft CEO: 'I'm going to f---ing kill Google' ; New Haven has a new online daily newspaper: New Haven Independent
• · · The American blogosphere has been criticised for its lack of reponse to the media's portrayal of those devastated by Hurricane Katrina since it hit New Orleans last week American Bloggers Come Under Fire ; Online campaign begins for Bill of Rights
• · · · Vega 91.5, the much anticipated brainchild of DMG has kicked off its first day of programming this morning A New Boomer in Town ; Affiliate site to sell for $1.3 billion dollars (via Blog Herald) Empire Poker
• · · · · Blog Herald: Blogs starting to make an impression in German Elections ; The future will make liars out of many current Political Masters WH to press: The time for bickering, blame-gaming is later
• · · · · · That's one question from today's Howard Kurtz chat. His answer: We don't have to deal with bureaucracies, just editors. We just get up and go How did journalists beat relief workers to New Orleans? ; A Gathering Storm for the Media: Misreporting on hurricane further eroding public's trust of media Ham blasts "putrid reporting" of Katrina by the mainstream media ; Search Engines Indexes Sites With Info on Hurricane Survivors and Missing Katrina Missing Persons Site; Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans? Drowning New Orleans

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'The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance.’

We act recklessly and pretend we can order nature around, and are shocked when nature overwhelms us. We fail to plan for the worst and then act shocked when eminently predictable crises occur. Usually we can spend or rebuild our way out of them, but shouldn't we at least ask whether it's a good idea to do so? Why Isn't House Speaker's Question On the Table?

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: Bad Vibrations
Modern social science has banished concepts of good and evil. But, argues Amos Oz, literature, from Shakespeare and Goethe to Grass and Böll, gives us truer insights into human nature

Job's Satan, like Faust's Satan, enters upon a wager. His big prize is neither a hidden treasure, nor the heart of a beautiful woman, and not even a promotion to a higher position in the heavenly hierarchy. No: Satan enters a gamble out of some kind of didactic urge. He wishes to make a point. To prove something, and to refute something else. With enormous argumentative zeal, the biblical Satan and the Aufklärung Satan try to show God and his angels that man, when given the choice, will always opt for evil. He will choose bad over good, willingly and consciously.

• The devil's progress [Spielberg? Hitchcock? Ed Wood? Kevin Smith? Who should be given the task to direct the film of your life story? Based on action/romance, comedy/drama, complex story, and financial budget requirements, this test will select the most appropriate of 24 selected film directors to commit to celluloid the story of your life ; The fastness of friendship; the treachery of one's nearest; the destruction of good by good. Passion which overrides reason VIOLENT AND PROUD DEATH! ; I'm delighted to report that Cold River mania continues to spread, slowly but surely, through the web: Ralph Kaiser writes: 'It's hard to read this work and not shout, Bloody Hell!' Experimental River ]
• · Does allowing a man to open a car door or to slide out a chair at a restaurant perpetuate sexism? A Feminist’s Dilemma ; Sierra Club at a Crossroads; Fiction and Memoir ; The gift of the perfect sentence
• · · There's no place like ancient Rome—except for sweltering modern-day New York City All hail the "monstrous city"; "Teledildonics," quick and easy cybersex is becoming an option for anyone with a mouse Single, white with dildo ; Is monogamy dead? ; The saddest thing about the whole rather sad story of Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa is the publication of his one, world-famous novel, The Leopard, because it could be said that it was the only extraordinary thing to have happened in his life, although it happened, in fact, in death, sixteen months after he had departed this world How To Be Bored
• · · · Once it was a secret; then it was a "right"; now it is a duty Good Vibrations ; If size really matters, pornography now ranks as one of America’s most prominent industries How Pornography Is Transforming Our Lives
• · · · · Image is (almost) everything ; Local communities in a big, tough world ; Authors, Librarians Unite
• · · · · · Increasingly, I'm interested either in forgotten greats of world literature or modern marginal stuff (mostly, but not exclusively, in translation) Odds and Ends ; Ready Steady Blog ; Polish poetry and history

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Bloggers have lost jobs, friends, and even spouses over things they revealed in their journals. Bloggers have to make the conscious decision from the start that what they write today may come back to haunt them tomorrow, and be OK with that choice. That’s the warning from one of the best veteran bloggers. They share their tips and experiences.
Corporate Engagement is peppered with colourful insides of many topics. So czech (sic) out those three veterans Trevor Cook , Keith Jackson, Ben Haslem Corporate world without boundaries

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Trevor Cook
What is the state of Australian blogging? Trevor Cook notes that overall, he is 'pretty bullish about the state of blogging and podcasting in Australia.’

This is a difficult question to answer - it goes to the heart of what blogging is about (fat heads vs long tails, media rivals or new ways to fill gaps in the landscape and so on), it is hard to get evidence of how many Australian blogs there are because a lot of people use US services (blogger, typepad etc) and it hard to judge the influence and impact of blogging in Australia....

• The state of Australian blogging [ Feedster has produced a top 500 blog list ; My Mate has a blog: Donald J. Trump Donald the Blogger: You’re fired; Quick spring cleaning tips for your blog ]
• · James Governor: Should we solve one-click subscription by turning the HTML off? The web browser as a coccyx, HTML as an appendix ; As marketeers we are living through fascinating times
• · · Darren Rowse More on Blog Pay Rates ; Blogger Earns $16K in August ; 'The State' (Columbia, S.C.) Launches Community Blog, Citizen Journalism Push
• · · · Personal blogs, media blogs, and organisational blogs Disruptive and non-disruptive blogs ; Websites contain many things, but not the answer to all question Value the fruits of free speech; State Rep. Daylin Leach said the Web site was being pulled "permanently." He had vowed Thursday to put it back online Blog by legislator to remain off-line
• · · · · James Cherkoff on how 'citizen hacks' are challenging the might of corporations the world over You, too, can become a global broadcaster ; Today, when you lose a customer, you don’t lose just that customer, you risk losing that customer’s friends In Blogs & Blogging, Marketing & PR ; Citizen-journalist bloggers in knickers-in-twist shock ; Writing individual websites – or blogging as it is better known – is helping young Syrians re-engage with politics, users say, with dozens of web logs or "blogs" coming on line in the last year, promoting freedom of speech Focus on freedom of speech through the internet
• · · · · · A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy ; Do as I Say (Not as I Do): Profiles in Liberal Hypocrisy

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Communication is all about sharing a (hopefully) passionate story with another. In doing so we often use shorthand — jargon, references to other cultural material to give additional flavour or ‘back story’, even clothing. Nonverbal communication: What’s your story?
A growing number of social scientists fear that marriage may be on the rocks and few doubt that matrimony, as we have known it, has undergone a wrenching period of change in the past several decades Can Marriage Be Saved? From the bedroom to the courtroom, The Purchase of Intimacy opens a fascinating new window on the inner workings of the economic processes that pervade our private lives The Purchase of Intimacy

The following techniques to telling if someone is lying are often used by police, and security experts. This knowledge is also useful for managers, employers, and for anyone to use in everyday situations where telling the truth from a lie can help prevent you from being a victim of fraud/scams and other deceptions. Warning: Sometimes in Marriage Situation Ignorance is bliss

Art of Living & Saddest Father's Day Across Frontiers: Follow Your Heart!
For some unknown cultural reason we have not been taught and reinforced to address our emotional health in the same manner as our physical health. This is a mistake. I identify with people’s loneliness; I have been there many times; after all I am a Man Without A Country as the old Czechoslovakia no longer exists ... Migrants are often its greatest victims of that stange cold feeling in the bones Loneliness must be one of the most painful experiences of life. It can gnaw away at the very soul of a person's being. What is tragic is that, when a lonely person becomes desperate for human contact, others often sense it and are scared off or repulsed by it. The lonely soul hence becomes the avoided soul and so a downward spiral begins which can push people to despair ...

In western culture we are raised and constantly reinforced to believe that proactively attending to our physical health is appropriate and responsible. Such old sayings as: 'an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" persist in our culture. Regular physical malady we diagnose the ailment and develop a course of treatment. In short, we develop a plan and take action! Occasionally, we determine that the physical ailment cannot be addressed independently. Thus, we seek professional help from a health practitioner.

• It's Ok to Need Help Peter Bakowski and his poetry on loneliness succeed in raising public interest The loneliness of the long-distance poet
[Winning when you knew you were going to win all along is Boring with a capital B. No one wants to play a game that they can win every time. Scoring with a sure thing is fun.. but only for about 15 minutes If you can no longer trust your instinct that tells you that you are right, get out; Raising awareness, increasing the dialog about cancer, building internal and external excitement Blog For Hope ]
• · David Kipen writes his farewell review ... For book critics, keeping a diary couldn't be more unnecessary. Any critic worth his oats adds to his serial public autobiography with every book he chooses and every review he writes. A perfect book for making you miss California ; Storytelling is Dana Adam Shapiro's weakness Never lost for a story ; From the bedroom to the courtroom, The Purchase of Intimacy opens a fascinating new window on the inner workings of the economic processes that pervade our private lives The Purchase of Intimacy
• · · MJ Rose: Come with me and you'll be in a world of pure imagination What's New in the World of 16.3 Million Blogs? ; Susan Schwartzman: Book Publicity News; A Librarian's Guide to Etiquette 'A polite librarian is a good librarian'
• · · · The trend to put very young children in long-day care is leaving us with a behavioural time bomb I just want my Mummy ; Modern dads revel in hands-on parenting; Elisabeth Lloyd tells us a story why some feminists hate “The Case of the Female Orgasm,” and why they shouldn’t. I float here an analysis of why many women and feminist bloggers and journalists are so enraged with me. And trust me, there are lots of unhappy campers: More orgasm
• · · · · Meanwhile: Let's put a collar on the thief of time ; Polka Dot Mittens: nursing students don't just drink all the time
• · · · · · And that is exactly what Kamal Aboukhater, the producer of the movie Blowing Smoke, has just done Doing it my way, all the way... ; Tough times for lords of the manor

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Dreaming of a rapidly growing and increasingly important independent media Dreamers & Doers
The wire services on which newspapers like these tend to rely for breaking news are coming under increasing pressure from blogs - particularly in the area of technology news Blogs beat the wires

The Blog, The Press, The Media: Citizen? Journalist? She's Both
Emily Metzger, a community columnist for the Shreveport (La.) Times, is using her personal blog to convey the passion, urgency and anguish felt by so many other journalists during the tragedy along the Gulf Coast

I don't care how many efficient federal or state press conferences announce that the relief process is underway. It's not enough. I don't care how many dry, well-fed but no doubt anguished officials proclaim to the world that help is on the way. It's not enough. There are still thousands of people trapped in New Orleans and they're starting to die. Whatever's being done is not enough."

• Human Tall [Emely Metzger ; Unbelievable story here, received via a trusted friend ; Katrina update | Jon Lebkowsky ]
• · more via Tim Porter : Prescient Reporting ; Want to know what it's like to be a reporter right now in New Orleans? I'm scared. I'm not afraid to admit it. I'm getting out of here Dangerous Ground in New Orleans
• · · Finding Purpose in Journalism ; Katrina Coverage: Dining at the Media Buffet
• · · · Catallaxy on Margo Kingston Making Citizen Journalism Pay ; Aussie newspaper blogger goes solo Margo Kingston ditches Fairfax and goes solo ; When reporters don't stand up for rights, we all lose liberty Press freedoms aren't free
• · · · · Over at the Blog Herald, Duncan Riley detects a generational change in blogging ; Deep in the midst of this saga, I am increasingly thinking about what will happen if one of my neighbors accidentally stumbles across it. Writing About Real People ; Did Sydney's Daily Telegraph go too far in hounding disgraced Liberal MP John Brogden? The moral balance of daily journalism is more like a playground seesaw than the demure scales of justice we'd love to claim. The ups and downs can be brutal: Brodgen chase sparks ethics row
• · · · · · Are you a blogger? Know of a prize-worthy Weblog? Want to see what's captured bloggers' attention in other countries? Submit Your Favorite Weblogs and Podcasts ; A weblog covering security and security technology: Trusted Computing Best Practices Schneier on Security ; Google's entry into net phone has set the industry abuzz Google Talk makes a big noise

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Only solitary men know the full joys of friendship. Others have their family—but to a solitary and an exile his friends are everything.
-Willa Cather, Shadows on the Rock [Steve, Minna & Helina your soulful friendship is impossible to describe. However, in the context of the bestseller, Friends are like bras, a good one never lets you down ;-)

Last week, I was told to watch out for Why Do Men Have Nipples? Hundreds of Questions You'd Only Ask a Doctor After Your Third Martini. But it seems that readers did more than just watch—they also bought the book. Why Do Men Have Nipples? shot to No. 2 on the Adult Fiction chart. Ironically and tragically, I actually have four nipples. Will that make Cold River a bestseller too when it finally comes out in forest version? There is a degree of anxiety that comes with releasing your memoir in paperback version. All those years of shaping the story are distilled into a surreal monogragh, waiting for the world to pass judgment Alert and over-alarmed

As a nation that is – or rather, as 20-odd million people (or is that 20 million odd people?) on our wide brown island continent How are we going?

Art of Living & Literature Across Frontiers: The Bias of Survivorship

I remember in eighth grade watching a movie in class about a man who had had a heart attack and went out jogging to try and kill himself. Much to his surprise, he survived and kept on running and became so fit and happy that he no longer wanted to die. Another guy had lost his foot and somehow found a way to run. The moral is if these guys could do it, against all the odds, so could you.

• Space to dream: Literary Life [Bill Leak's powerful first novel deals with the ruinous effects of alcoholism and drug addiction Picking up the pieces ; Josef K: Roberto Calasso turns his elliptical style of enquiry to Franz Kafka in K. But examining Kafka's work can be tricky, however devoted you are Special K ]
• · The Tragedy of the Political Exiles ; The feeling of inferiority makes people/men either timid or audacious. [...] Like a pendulum, they swing between a fear of inferiority and a claim to superiority Melancholy and the ‘other’
• · · Emotions as Reasons in Public Arguments ; Caught between loyalty and sedition: Patriotic politicians who have dissented during wartime
• · · · Women 'eye property in divorce' ; What should a new faculty member value most about his or her institution? Salary? Library holdings? Student SAT scores? Health plan? Believing in Parking? ; The politics of parking; The number 1888081808881 is interesting on several counts ; Body politics: why are we obsessed with our flesh?
• · · · · Uma Thurman is just crazy about her Louis Vuitton bag Are you a branded slav(e)? ; Another Slav, James Surowiecki dives head first into the politics of tipping Czech Please
• · · · · · Everyone knows looks shouldn’t matter. Beauty, after all, is only skin deep Looks Do Matter; Baby study suggests beauty is not in the eye of the beholder

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Margo Kingston has a unique position in Australian journalism. She's one of our most senior reporters but over the last three years her focus has been a weblog on public affairs - Webdiary. Until last week, Webdiary was the property of Fairfax but no longer. After spending most of her career at the company, Margo Kingston is unplugged. We find out why she left and what she plans for Webdiary Margo, Unplugged

Eye on Politics & Law Lords: Democracy at Risk
Democracy at Risk reveals the dangers of civic disengagement for the future of representative democracy.

The authors, all eminent scholars, undertake three main tasks: documenting recent trends in civic engagement, exploring the influence that the design of political institutions and public policies have had on those trends, and recommending steps that will increase the amount and quality of civic engagement in America. The authors focus their attention on three key areas: the electoral process, including elections and the way people get involved; the impact of location, including demographic shifts and changing development patterns; and the critical role of nonprofit organizations and voluntary associations, including the philanthropy that help keep them going.

• How Political Choices Undermine Citizen Participation, and What We Can Do About It [A page on constitutional law case book reviews ; If the law is an ass the law professor is a donkey ]
• · The NSW Liberal Party is taking time to heal its wounds after the apparent suicide attempt of former Opposition Leader John Brogden, newly elected Liberal leader Peter Debnam says NSW Liberal Party is healing ; Politicians and journalists have to live in each other's pockets. They naturally become close Peter Coleman: Candid remarks bite back; The question everyone's asking is: did the Telegraph go too far? State Libs healing: Debnam <
• · · Empire' only became a dirty word in the twentieth century Emancipation & empire, from Cromwell to Karl Rove ; Beyond imperialism: the new internationalism; Empire: a blunt tool for democratization
• · · · Once a liberal pin-up and intellectual leader of the global human rights movement, Michael Ignatieff has fallen out badly with some of his best friends and colleagues No more Mr. Nice Guy; We may have seen only a hint of hip-hop's political promise Hip-Hop Voting Bloc?
• · · · · I just returned from a lovely little respite from the usual grind and its daily dose of news alerts and fire alarms A tale of 4 ethics ; 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America': Who's No. 1?
• · · · · · The history wars ; A Geoffrey Robertson Hypothetical: Australia under attack ; The sacrosanct seats of the lords of creation: n 1925, in the ‘bear pit’ of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly in Sydney’s Macquarie Street, Millicent Preston-Stanley gave the first speech made by a female Member of Parliament (MP) in this state and only the second in any Australian parliament Preston-Stanley and Women MPs

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How a media Web site is changing the face — and pace — of media culture
The Romenesko effect

The Blog, The Press, The Media: New around here, stranger?
If you came here in search of information and are curious to know what else this blog has to offer under normal circumstances...

This week, there was a significant event. Margo Kingston, a professional journalist who pioneered blogging on her Webdiary site for The Sydney Morning Herald, has severed connections with Fairfax and gone independent. She is a new phenomenon — the stand-alone journalist. Kingston's site relies heavily on her contributors. She is passionate, partisan, often annoying and, as one of her former bosses once remarked to me, "impossible to manage". Kingston is not a "respected journalist", and while I disagree with her as often as I agree, I mean that as a big compliment.

• Webdiary [Jay Rosen; News outlets, online journalists struggle to fill post-storm ...]
• · "The wall between you, - the audience, - and the circus is coming down," McFarlan declares. It's a three-ring sign of the times: Thanks to new media, we have all become the messengers But what are we saying? ; Blog links for Katrina survivors and families
• · · Can you do a Wayback on that? The Wayback Machine is a free web service that allows people to view archived versions of websites. It consists of around 40 billion web pages that have been archived since 1996 The Wayback Machine The Wall Street Journal Online discussed how US lawyers have used the service to obtain copies of old web pages for use as evidence in areas such as domain name litigation, where proving the content history of a website may be important. Content
• · · · Lib-web-cats is a directory of libraries worldwide Online, Searchable Directory of Libraries Worldwide ; Google wants to be your best friend on your computer ; How Yahoo! will be the center of the million-channel universe
• · · · · Blog Faces Lawsuit Over Reader Comments