Part I

The life of the mind in the age of Web 2.0 suffers, in many ways, from an increase in credulity and an associated flight from expertise. Bloggers are called “citizen journalists”; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular, though we can thank our stars there is no discernable “citizen surgeon” movement; millions of Americans are believers in Biblical inerrancy—the belief that every word in the Bible is both true and the literal word of God, something that, among other things, pits faith against carbon dating; and, scientific truths on such matters as medical research, accepted by all mainstream scientists, are rejected by substantial numbers of citizens and many in politics.

…

Human beings learn, essentially, in only two ways. They learn from experience—the oldest and earliest type of learning—and they learn from people who know more than they do. The second kind of learning comes from either personal contact with living people—teachers, gurus, etc.—or through interaction with the human record, that vast assemblage of texts, images, and symbolic representations that have come to us from the past and is being added to in the present. It is this latter way of learning that is under threat in the realm of digital resources.

Part II

The flight from expertise is accompanied by the opposite of expertise—the phenomenon that Andrew Keen has called, in his new book of the same name, “the cult of the amateur.” This cult, says Keen, “worships the creative amateur: the self-taught filmmaker, the dorm-room musician, the unpublished writer. It suggests that everyone—even the most poorly educated and inarticulate amongst us—can and should use digital media to express and realize themselves.” He is referring to the impulse behind Web 2.0, but his words have a wider resonance—a world in which everyone is an expert in a world devoid of expertise.

Interesting reading. I hope to have more thoughts once I have time to digest this.

Though not as much as “folksonomy”.

TMZ.com came across a copy of OJ Simpson’s “If I Did It” and leaked the entire manuscript as well as posting portions here. OJ’s a bad, bad man. But now TMZ (and their papa AOL/Time Warner) is in hot water from a trustee overseeing Simpson’s bankruptcy:

Last week a bankruptcy judge granted the family of Ron Goldman (the man who was brutally stabbed, along with Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson) copyright ownership of the manuscript so that Simpson can’t resell the book to another publisher and make a profit from it. The victims’ families were awarded a $33.5 million judgment against Simpson in 1997, but Simpson has managed to avoid paying it by declaring bankruptcy. The Goldman family can reap profits from the book now if it’s resold to another publisher.

The trustee overseeing the bankruptcy case took court action (pdf) against TMZ.com for posting the manuscript and wants the web site to disclose where it got the book. According to the trustee, TMZ, along with AOL and Time Warner, have caused harm to the Goldman family and others by diminishing the value of the book and ruining the chance of making any money off of future sales.

Of course it’s a bit ironic that Time Warner — known for going after copyright infringers of its movies — is now in the hot seat for violating someone else’s copyright. See this action that Warner Brothers took in January against a blogger who was offering content from WB movies.

Oops. I wonder how this will impact the series.

An article about how far kids are allowed to roam from home has been making the internet rounds over the last week:

When George Thomas was eight he walked everywhere.

It was 1926 and his parents were unable to afford the fare for a tram, let alone the cost of a bike and he regularly walked six miles to his favourite fishing haunt without adult supervision.

Fast forward to 2007 and Mr Thomas’s eight-year-old great-grandson Edward enjoys none of that freedom.

The article, based around a family and town in England, notes how each generation was allowed less and less freedom to roam about the neighborhood. There’s talk of children’s mental health being at risk due to this closeness and lack of contact with nature but there’s not much look into why these changes have happened. Security, television, transportation, localized entertainment, any number of explanations could be studied to see why this trend has occurred. It’s still interesting to note, sure, but it should only be the start.

Last year a whole bunch of Virginia bloggers committed themselves to spending an entire weekend without repeating other bloggers. Yep, nothin’ but original content for a whole three days. What were they thinking?!?!?!!

Whatever it was, F.T. Rea over at SLANTBlog has thrown down the gauntlet to challenge the Virginia blogosphere to do it again July 20-22. Who will accept this challenge?

That Ain’t White: The long and ugly history of ‘trash’ talk

Is it, as John Waters once said, “the last racist thing you can say and get away with?” Or has it transformed into a symbol of something like ethnic pride? Or is it just a comical phrase used to condemn—or sometimes excuse—bad behavior, like too much drinking, cussing, fighting, and general screwing around?

And why should we care, anyway? What makes any of this white trash talk anything more than mere pop culture trivia? To answer these questions it helps to look back to the past, to see when and how the term arose, to think about the uses to which it has been put, by whom, and why. Surprisingly, the answers have a lot to do with our changing ideas about sex, class, and gender.

Whether they use the term white trash or not, most Americans are unaware of its long and ugly history. If you had to guess, you’d probably say that the term arose in the Deep South, sometime in the middle of last century, as a term that whites coined to demean other whites less fortunate than themselves. Yet most of what we presuppose about the term is wrong.

Yes, folks, only on WVCW - Your Music, Your Station can you get your fix of Bryan and Jason talking a lot and playing some music for a whole couple of hours.

Join us tonight at 6pm as the show finally comes back for the summer and we rock out to some new tunes and new chatter about absolutely nothing that matters. But, hey, it should be a good time.

WVCW - Your Music, Your Station (Youse’ll need RealPlayer or RealAlternative to listen, sorry)

AIM - wvcwradio (get in touch with us while we talk, it’ll be neat!)

I’m sorry, but this is just out of line. Via Not Larry Sabato:

Bob McDonnell and Gay Gyms

And then Ben Tribbett offers a link to the Daily Progress story without comment.

What is the story?

The University of Virginia will allow same-sex partners of its students and employees to join the university’s gyms, officials announced Tuesday. Gay and lesbian staff members had pushed the university for years to add the benefit.

In a written opinion issued June 7, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell told the school it could provide gym memberships to adults who live with an employee or student but are not their spouse. This is the first time McDonnell has offered an opinion on the issue, and it came after a request from UVa earlier this year.

McDonnell said in the opinion that the benefit is allowable because it will be offered uniformly, without any regard to the type of relationship.

So because the Attorney General offered his legal opinion on allowing same-sex (and even opposite-sex) partners access to UVA gyms, these gyms are now “gay gyms”. Yes, clearly this is all about Bob McDonnell and gay gyms if Ben’s snide post is to be taken at face value.

A gay man walks into a bar, is it now a gay bar?

Just one more unethical move by Ben Tribbett to smear Bob McDonnell when there’s clearly no story.

Seems News Corp may be interested in giving away MySpace in exchange for a 30% share of Yahoo:

The discussions remain tentative and could collapse after the departure of Terry Semel as Yahoo!’s chief executive and his replacement by Jerry Yang this week. Mr Yang, co-founder of Yahoo! and incoming chief executive, yesterday pledged to “dig in” to his new role, and acknowledged the difficult task he faces to arrest the decline in the internet portal’s shares.

News Corp, the parent company of The Times, is interested in a deal even if it means losing some control of MySpace because it would give the media group exposure to a far larger internet-based business.

Other News Corp digital assets, including the games network IGN, bought in 2005 for $650 million (£326 million), are also thought to have been offered to Yahoo!.

Yesterday Yahoo! was worth $37 billion. A quarter stake in an enlarged company would be worth $11.1 billion.

It is not clear whether Yahoo! was willing to accept the terms offered, even though it has been eager to break into social networking to catch up with Google. Yahoo! tried and failed to buy Facebook, the No 2 social networking site, for $1 billion last year.

This could be a coup for Yahoo, who’s been chasing Google for years after spending a good amount of time as the Net’s big dog.

I’ve dug White Stripes since they broke big with “Fell In Love With A Girl” back in the day. Icky Thump is their third album since White Blood Cells and, while fun, it and the two before it (Elephant and Get Behind Me Satan) just aren’t nearly as good as their first three. Still a great album, to be sure, but there’s something about the first three albums that just has a lasting impact that the last few seem to miss. Perhaps it’ll grow on me the more I listen (Get Behind Me Satan failed to impress me until I listened to it for a while), but if you’re not sure about the White Stripes, listen to their first few albums first, get to be a fan, then grab this one.

Choice Tracks: “Icky Thump”, “Rag And Bones”, “300 MPH Torrential Outpour Blues”

De-Tribbetizing Virginia’s Rumor Mill One Race At A Time

So far the commentary’s pretty even keel and the rankings of the races and top VA blogs are interesting to see. I wonder what they’re using for their basis.

Just the same, looks like NLS did back in the day, giving races a pretty fair shake. Let’s see how long it lasts…

John Sarvay of Buttermilk and Molasses fame has set up the newest Richmond community site, North Richmond News, the sixth Richmond community blog to pop out in the last five months.

- RVA Blogs
- Carver And Jackson Ward News
- Church Hill People’s News
- Fan District Hub
- Hills And Heights
- North Richmond News
- Petersburg People’s News
- West Of Boulevard News

The folks over at Destination Nation explore Richmond’s “lost city”. Now I’m curious and up for a field trip. Just to check it out.

And that probably makes me a bit pathetic.

Check out all the Scott Pilgrim madness here. Book Four comes out this September so you have plenty of time to catch up on all the back issues.