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September 30, 2007
This week
I read...- Fra jakt til flukt En artig liten historie, men samtidig en advarsel. Jeg kjenner ingen som har opplevd dette, men at det skjer med noen som jeg leser bloggen til, er en påminnelse om at det kan skje meg.
- "Lord Reith, founder of the BBC, legendarily fired off an angry memo to his staff after a broadcast in which someone or other was described as “the famous lawyer”. The memo went like this: ‘The word FAMOUS. If a person is famous it is superfluous to point out the fact, if they are not then it is a lie. The word is not to be used within the BBC.’ Way to tell them, Scottish guy." Stephen Fry's second blog post or "blessay" as he calls it, is all about everything he associates with the word "fame". And I love the way he writes about "Leonard's Code by Dan Whatsit".
- "Lunefull Legende" av Fredrik Drevon, om bokhandleren George Whitman som driver fantastiske Shakespeare&Co. Et absolutt pluss med å flytte til Paris er at jeg kan tilbringe tid her.
- Rare norske navn fra 1801
- En avhengighetsskapende stat? og kronikken den linker til Vil dere den totale stat?
These past few weeks, I have watched
- Stardust, an absolutely GREAT movie. After seeing this, I was so happy I wanted to skip down the streets. This is not really something I do that much. However, I was with a friend who can't walk at the moment, so I was skipping for the both of us. I loved every single moment of this movie, really.
- Veronica Mars
- Ally McBeal
- Skins
Posted by Julie at 9:39 AM | TrackBack
September 23, 2007
This week
Tom Friedman quoted my father in the new and updated version of The World is Flat. Congratulations, Dad.
I listened to...
- Seahorse by Devendra Banhart
- Lifehouse
- Switchfoot
- Holly Brook
- Missy Higgins
- ... and Marit Larsen, because the company I work for, gave me her album and concert tickets
I read what I've been reading for a while (The Polysyllabic Spree) and I added the following to my Bloglines:
I revisited an old favorite, Sahara Beduin,and I mourned the fact that LaSosta will soon be coffee place history.
Posted by Julie at 4:39 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
September 14, 2007
Dobbeltnerding
Internasjonal politikk og podcasting i samme link! Utviklingsminister Erik Solheim og tidligere generalsekretær i FN Kofi Annan har lagt ut podcast. Dette blir første del av en serie der Solheim tar ukentlige telefonsamtaler om aktuelle temaer. Og det er mulig å abonnere.
Posted by Julie at 4:51 PM | TrackBack
September 13, 2007
Think before you act
This week I received an e-mail from the student government telling me that someone had contacted them, wanting me to remove something from my blog.
I was curious and a little nervous at first, and then vaguely annoyed when I found out what it was all about: someone wanted me to remove a comment because of (in this person's own words) "a pathetic attempt to remove myself from the internet." There was nothing incriminating in the comment - the only thing a reader would find out about the commentor was that he/she liked my blog without knowing me personally.
Although this incident was really minor, I suppose it does set a precedent for how I should handle this kind of stuff in the future. And I must admit that my gut feeling was annoyance. Commenting a blog is like talking to the blogger in real life. Once you've said something to someone, you can't really unsay it. You can tell them to stop telling other people that you said it, which I guess is what this person did to me. You can insist on getting credit for your brilliant thoughts. But if you regret having said something in real life, then, well, that's life.
I feel like I'm constantly telling people this to no avail, but (drum roll) the internet is just like real life. Facebook doesn't change who your friends are, cruelty is still cruelty, and once you've said something, it's out there. Both literally, because of internet tools like Bloglines and web.archive.org (see comments to this post), but also in peoples' minds. Once someone knows that you went to that party, or that you agree with that political blogger, no amount of de-tagging or comment-deleting will save you.
The obvious solution is to think before you act. I've discussed this with friends who claim that there is a difference between how you are expected to act in private and how you are expected to act in public, and that no one has the right to force anyone else to mix the two. This is sort of true. I agree that no one has the right to upload drunken photos of you, but I still believe that the easiest solution to this problem is to avoid passing out in your own vomit when there are cameras in the room. That, and only getting drunk with people you actually trust. And if you think about it, in the good old days before the internet, people still managed to know all the weekend gossip by lunch on Monday anyway. People in China didn't find out, but did you really care what people in China knew about your drunkenness? And do you really care now?
And all this whining about potential employers googling you? What are people really afraid of? I can just picture it: "You know, this woman has an excellent education, interesting work experience and great recomendations, but she used to write comments on a fashion blog, so she's clearly not serious enough for this company." or "I hear that when this man was in his early twenties, he used to go out with his college friends and (gasp!) drink beer! We couldn't possibly hire someone like that." Or maybe: "I know she's really qualified for the job, and she's beautiful too by the way, but in this one photo I found on Facebook, she was having a really bad hair day."
However, if you insist, I guess I'll humor you. I have now removed the person's name, e-mail and website from this site.
Posted by Julie at 3:06 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
September 8, 2007
Legeslang igjen?
Som et apropos til diskusjonen om legeslang fra noen måneder tilbake: Fredskorpsets utvekslingsprogram for helsepersonell skaper tydeligvis ikke brain drain fra utviklingsland.
Solheim sier likevel at det internasjonale samfunnet må "få på plass regler som hindrer tapping av helsepersonell fra utviklingsland". Jeg er litt spent på hva disse reglene skal være - forhåpentligvis er det ikke snakk om å bare hindre flinke folk i å flytte på seg. Å nekte talentfulle mennesker å reise til land som vil ha dem, land der de kan leve bedre liv, bruke sin utdannelse og tjene penger, virker for meg grunnleggende galt, selv hvis det skulle ha positive konsekvenser for verden som helhet. Samtidig er det tragisk at helsepersonell "flykter" fra der de trengs mest. Det er imidlertid ikke alle tragedier vi kan forby. Å nekte noen å stemme med føttene, behandler bare et symptom på et langt større problem. "Studier viser at mange helsearbeidere fra utviklingsland selv ønsker å bli værende og arbeide i egne land, dersom forholdene og framtidsmulighetene hadde vært bedre," som det står i artikkelen fra Utenriksdepartementet. Og erfaringer fra utlandet kan bedre lands fremtidsmuligheter betraktelig.