new week

I have written here before on the "danger" of highly concentrated collective information centers such as Google and other net sites, and this man, focusing on the Wikipidia, puts it thus: "the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy. This idea has had dreadful consequences when thrust upon us from the extreme Right or the extreme Left in various historical periods. The fact that it's now being re-introduced today by prominent technologists and futurists, people who in many cases I know and like, doesn't make it any less dangerous". You can read more in DIGITAL MAOISM: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism by Jaron Lanier on the site Edge.
For the soccer football fans, a blog entirely dedicated to the World Cup in Germany, considered the biggest sporting event in the world. Within this blog, each country has a blog of its onwn. Portugal's is here.
See where you stand on this social, political compass. I'm right there in very good company such as the likes of Gandhi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama. Yeah!
Grunting and Grumbling: a sociological analysis of rural male interaction on Slate.
Yesterday in 1431 St Joan of Arc was killed by burning at the stake. She is nowadays in France a symbol of the extreme Lepenists. I remember a trip to France where my declarations of admiration for this great woman, was met with silent stares and condemning gestures. After I enquired on the nature of such reaction I was informed that she has become persona non grata to the "bien pensant" french. Too bad. Vita Sackville West wrote a beautiful biography of St Joan, including in it transcripts of the trial and dialogues with the guards that were responsible for keeping her. We learn that the reason she refused to dress in a womanly fashion was the very real fear of rape.
Is this blog an meta agregator? Huummm....
world cup blog, soccer, St Joan of Arc, grunting, online collectivism