Datum the First: On April 8, 2007 Tim O’Reilly wrote a Draft Blogger’s Code Of Conduct …In the nearly seven years since, many similar initiatives have been proposed.
ethics & philosophy
ideals, breaches, disappointments and inspirations
Nugget of Awesome: You Need To Get Off My Foot
If you step on my foot, you need to get off my foot.
If you step on my foot without meaning to, you need to get off my foot.
If you step on my foot without realizing it, you need to get off my foot.
Expectations of Deception
Gary Younge is upset about the level of deception which is present within everyday society. He feels this is dangerous, and we’re in danger of subsiding into a culture of fakery and deceit. He uses the examples of Beyonce’s lip-synching the US national anthem during the presidential inaguration, the discovery of horse DNA in budget beef burgers in the UK, and Lance Armstrong’s very public confession of taking performance enhancing drugs during his professional cycling career as examples of this tendency.
I have a slightly different take on things. I think it comes down to the tyranny of expectations.
Thoughts on Australia Day / Invasion Day
Wesley Enoch, Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company, and always a wise voice from the Aboriginal community, wrote this about the significance of what we have chosen to commemorate today. I found it both insightful and moving, and (with his permission) wanted to share it:
Shorter Michael Shermer
Hippieses, I hatesssss them.
How Dare You Call Me A *ist
I see it all the time, both online and off – Person X writes/says something, Person Y says “gee, what you just said/did was kinda *ist” and Person X comes back with “how dare you call me a *ist” (or Person Z butts in with “how dare you call X a *ist”) .
But behaviour is never a fully accurate reflection of character. Bad habits we engage in unthinkingly don’t necessarily make us generally bad people or even generally thoughtless people, but this tends to be the reaction to having those bad habits challenged as marginalising behaviours – that the challenger is calling us a bad person.
The point is that this one particular act that is being criticised has problematic cultural assumptions embedded within it, and those problematic cultural assumptions are what need to be challenged.
The controversy in writing about your children
This article in The Atlantic by Phoebe Maltz Bovy, “The ethical implications of parents writing about their children” is incredibly unforgiving of mother writers and bloggers. She sets the benchmark very low for the test of appropriateness with writing and… Read More ›
Friday Hoyden Quicklink: Beate Sirota Gordon
I had never heard of Beate Sirota Gordon until I saw this piece on Shakesville saying she died earlier this week. One of those people who make me wonder what I’ve been doing with my time, and why I haven’t… Read More ›
Cultural diversity vs feminism
[Cross posted at Ariane’s Little World] The global coverage of the horrific death of a woman from Delhi has certainly shone the light on the difficulties of navigating universal women’s rights in a world where cultures are not all the… Read More ›
Quicklink: NRA Press Conference
Ugh. The hypocrisy of calling for a national database of the mentally ill while decrying any suggestions for a national database of gun owners is breathtaking.
Hoyden About Town 