Intoxication of Blogging & Redeeming Mr Brown

I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant.

The local media reports of the ENTIRE AcidFlask saga, including the latest by TODAY, as summarised in non mathematical form :

1) Bloggers are all young children who run to the wild cyberspace and spout all kinds of nonsense.
2) When bloggers get empowered by the freedom to publish, they go crazy. They get INTOXICATED. They start behaving like Golding children in Lord of the Flies.
3)These young and childish bloggers are irresonsible and do not know the legal consequences of their actions.
4) Responsible adult "VETERAN" bloggers like Mr Brown, Mr Miyagi and XiaXue are upheld by the media as the paragons of blogging. They represent common sense, responsibility, non intoxication. (Note : No disrespect to the former two)

The underlying messages of the media reports :

1) Blog like the veterans.
2) Media reports are so much more well-researched and more factually correct. More responsible than bloggers.
3) AcidFlask's apology rules him as Guilty. He is an intoxicated blogger who in his childish exuberance in finding a brave new world acts irresponsibly and desecrates Eden.

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I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant.

The latest article by TODAY renders, with a final flourish, the entire spectrum of local media reports unreserved in its deification of the utter wrongness of bloggers who touch on socio-political issues in Singapore. Among the media organisations who had reported on the affair, TODAY was always a little bit more vacillatory, a little bit more reserved than its colleagues in the production of news in Singapore. This article makes up for it. Reserved has been rendered unreserved. The traditional media will report no more on this issue.

Mr Gilbert Koh, from the now defunct SLMJD, commented in one of my entries that he had spoken to ST journalists of HIS views on the issue. His comments are lost in space. Given his views as evidenced in the pre-defunct SLMJD days, it is safe to assume the reason why his comments to ST will never see the light of day. His comments would have made the media reports reserved in its denunciation of the Guilt of the Intoxicated bloggers.

The little Lacanian ghosts keep whispering : blog responsibly, blogging is bad, bloggers are all liars, they break the laws, evil evil evil.

There once was an ST article. Published on 3 Nov 2004. The report touched on political blogging in Singapore. AcidFlask was mentioned as with a few other bloggers. That was a media who had not yet grappled with the potential of a blog.

I am XenoBoy. I am the Political Savant.

Quote of the Day

"If I don't call you back your head spins

If I told you what I think

you'd shit your linens

"It's just another interview, nothing new"

But they don't even know my name." -- Hey Mr Brown, Wheatus

"One popular blog is Mr Brown, who pokes fun at policies in addition to providing updates on his family. Other lesser-known blogs include 'Acidflask', by a Singaporean graduate student in the United States who discusses science and the fallacy of meritocracy ... Still, their reach is limited as Web traffic to individual blogs tends to be low given the vastness of cyberspace and the millions of other websites vying for attention ... But the so-named Lee Kin Mun of Mr Brown's blog believes it is no longer possible to ignore online views. 'I think the Government knows that, and has become more transparent as a result. If it does not address the facts directly, the online discussions will decide (on issues) for it,'" -- Straits Times 3 Nov 2004