Why Dont You Blog?

It’s almost a truism that anyone who makes a tear-stained televised appeal for help to solve a murder will probably be arrested within the week. It seems as if the more extravagant the grief that is willingly expressed on camera, the more likely that the person is guilty.

Even the BBC has noticed. Today it published a feature on the phenomenon .

And, now, I’ve stumbled across true-crime-in-the-media. 2.0:
Barbora Skrlova on MySpace Assuming this is an elaborate joke, albeit in poor taste, I am compelled to look for MySpace profiles of other notorious figures.

For instance, Myra Hindley seems to have half a dozen.

I type in Fred West and get a “Server is too busy” message a few times.
(Quick break to panic at the idea that half the global population has been taken with a lunatic desire to see which really evil people have a MySpace profile.) Then I find there’s an ill-starred 13 pages full of Fred Wests. Lose interest when I consider that most of them might indeed be real humans who just happen to be called Fred West. Then again, a fair number have headlines such as “Get a load of my floorboards”

On firmer ground with Rosemary West. After a good few innocently but unluckily named real US females who just happen to be called Rosemary West, I find a MySpace profile purporting to be from Fred West’s soulmate. In fact, there’s a link to a more convincing Fred West impersonator in her friend space..

What about Josef Fritzl? That one is actually quite scary. I can’t even work out if its meant to reference the Austrian maniac or the name is just a coincidence.

Michel Fourniret? The server times out. Then I get a
“We weren’t able to find a ” Michel Fourniret ” on MySpace”
message, which probably won’t be true for long.

(In case this name isn’t familiar to you, he’s the male half of a French version of a Rosemary-and-Fred-West couple. She lured young women for him to rape and murder, in exchange for his promise to murder her ex-husband. The family that slays together, stays together…….)

I can partly understand why sane people might create web pages for the truly evil. (Apart from an adolescent desire to shock people.) These sorts of crimes make most of us so uneasy about the nature of what it means to be human that humour becomes a necessary defence mechanism. Otherwise, it’s impossible to contemplate the things they have done.

All the same, I have to suspect that at least some of these tributes aren’t ironically post-modern comments on the nature of notoriety. Some of them have been put there by the very same sort of unspeakable beings who do such crimes.

It’s usually baffling how these spectacularly homicidal people find each other to begin these partnerships in crime.. Rosemary and Fred West; Michel and Monique Fourniret, the children who killed James Bulger; Myra Hindley and Ian Brady…… Do their eyes meet across the proverbial crowded room and they see the spark of a potential partner in homicide? Does it “take one to know one?”

Blimey, interactive web 2.0 must do away with so much of the uncertainty for such people. They could start by putting up profiles of their psycho role models …

Popularity: 18% [?]

Popularity: 18% [?]

This blog has a special fondness for El Morya since Black Sun Journal brought him to our attention. So, what great news on Black Sun Journal that he has a MySpace profile and MySpace friends!

I wrongly assumed that these would be standard imaginary friends of the sort the Internet is full of - invented blog personae for internet marketing blogs that don’t seem to market anything as much as fill cyberspace with empty links to other linkfarms.

But oh joy, these are real blogs to cheer your heart if you are the sort of person who finds humanity too reasonable for your taste (There must be some people who feel that.)

The El Morya MySpace profile has the fantastic El Morya picture. A young looking 99, indeed. imagine you crossed Osama bin Laden’s standard mugshot with a Victorian Sunday school picture of Christ. The profile background sound is sounding suspiciously like Handel’s take on circus music as played on those call-centre answering machine loops that make you want to beat your brains out with the headset.

(Yes, my classical music knowledge is rubbish. It’s probably some tune that everybody recognises. Well, OK, I sort of recognise it. Pomp and Circumstance? Don’t mock. I’m trying to be musically erudite here.)

El Morya’s interests include not very inspiring paintings by Nicolas Roehrich Who? He’s not Raphael that’s for sure, although I seem to remeber that one of El Morya’s cronies is supposed to be Raphael, so you think they could have got him in to do the painting.

I had to visit his MySpace friends. Given a choice between reading the posts and looking at the friends’ profiles, this wasn’t a difficult decision. I decided to stick with the ones with human pictures.

A few bits that give the flavour.
Earthstone Co-creations:

My name is Jennifer Salness, and I am a energy healer, crystal intuitive & dealer, editor, podcast co-host, ETC. Multi-dimensional!

(The exclamation mark so perfectly encapsulates this site.)

Cindy

In my search for Truth of our origins, I have had some amazing spiritual experiences that has changed my life and view of God and the world forever. I believe in angels. I love to interpret dreams for Spiritual Growth and I practice Gendai-ki Reiki for energy Healing

Lauren other worlds

I am an artist, author, and life-after-death survivor, which might account for the fact that I am also a contactee, a mystic, clairaudient, clairsentient, and more. I have no doubt that we are each great souls having a human experience and it’s my mission to help others remember who they truly are, help others understand that we can learn through enlightenment rather than through pain, and also help eradicate the fear of death and any belief in separation from our own Truths. …..
My nickname is Walks Between Worlds. I’ve been to “the other side” too many times to count, my most extreme “journey” having lasted 3 days.

Look, I’m sorry to be pedantic but that isn’t a nickname. “Yozzer” is a nickname. I defy anyone to shout “Oy! Walks between Worlds!” when they spot a friend across the street.

Anyway, I’m getting bored with the human friends. (And I am becoming a tad embarrassed for my gender.) So I am impressed to see how many divine and mythical beings have MySpace profiles.
Heaven on Earth , Divine Union, Mary Hath Chosen and loads more.

Ah, God. Wow. See, there is a God. And, in the 21st century, even for the divine being, creating a MySpace profile is so much more convenient than carving words onto stone tablets. A lot of us have been feeling a spiritual void since the great Blog of the Gods has fallen out of existence, with no posts since July 11th, so I’ll quote the great man himself here…..

About me:
People call me by many names; Jehovah, Allah, Father, Yahweh, Adoni, Elohim, Ahura Mazda, Hashem, ECT…But most call me God. I’ve been around since before “The Beginning”. I’m a pretty nice guy when you get to know me. But be warned I do have a bit of a temper. A lot of People think that Evolution and science disproves my existence. But see if you got to read the full Bible you’d know that I made several humanoid creatures before I settled on Adam and Eve. And the thing you call the big bang I called “Let there be light.” Anyways. Acknowledge me, Treat others as you want to be treated, be good and we’ll get along fine. Oh and to let you know I’m very busy you’re not the only planet I have to watch over you know. So sometimes my responses to prayers are slow and some time the answers are just no.

Who I’d like to meet: I already know every one. But not everyone knows me …

Wow, it starts off almost paraphrasing the the words of the old Rolling Stones song Sympathy for the Devil But in reverse. (Well, I thought so….)

Blimey God’s friend list is unsurprisingly even more star-studded than El Morya’s; Jesus, St. Michael, Saint Gabriel - Archangel, Archangel Raphael (Ah ha, the ascended Raphael isn’t the painter or the Mutant Ninja Turtle then, my bad), Zoroaster, Moses, Muhammed, the Peace of God be upon him, Blessed Virgin Mary, St. Mary Magdalene, St. Peter, Saint Paul the Apostle, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Saint Joseph, Shiva, GANESH, Tara, kuan yin, Krishna, Kali-Ma, Saint Germain, Babaji, ENKI, (who?) Tenzin Gyatso. (who?)

Is that A list or what?

Popularity: 33% [?]

Popularity: 33% [?]

The Internet has magical powers over the young, or so you would think from the constant drip of demands to stop children using it.

In the past week, the Professional Association of Teachers
called for social networking sites to be closed to prevent bullying,

Teachers in websites closure call
Teachers have called for websites such as YouTube to be shut down as part of efforts to prevent pupils and staff being bullied.

“Odd”, you may think, if you are over 20, “I can’t remember MySpace being involved on the day when 2 girls pulled a knife on me by the swings.” (Maybe that was just me)

“Sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me” may be an exaggeration but it’s worth remembering even as an adult. There is a major difference between getting beaten up for your lunch money and someone saying something snide about you on the MySpace.

Adults could even intervene positively to help kids stand up to Internet “bullying”. Teaching kids to defend themselves with words and attitude is much safer when the kid in question is sitting behind a keyboard rather than facing a gang of their tormentors in the park.

The problem is the bullying, not the use of any specific means of self-expression to carry it out.
The deceptive anonymity of the Internet can bring out the worst in anyone, child or adult. If you ever accidentally feel too positive about human nature, a couple of hours on MIRC will wipe that cheery grin from your face.

If some kids are bullies and some kids are fearful of getting picked on, that’s the world we live in. Bullies are usually the most disturbed kids. They certainly pick on those they see as weaker, which is a pretty transparent indicator of their own feelings of weakness. Maybe, professional teachers could start trying to do something to stop them behaving as malevolent scum, before they start thinking banning MySpace is a good idea.

In June , there was a story claiming that:

One third of US online teenagers have been victims of cyber-bullying according to research by the Pew Internet Project.
The most common complaint from teens was about private information being shared rather than direct threats.

So already, the most common bit of Internet bullying is not actually bullying then? This paragraph is followed a list of behaviour that had counted as “bullying”. It included forwarding private emails, and a fair few other things that might constitute teasing at worst. The poor kid nursing a real-life black eye might quarrel with this definition. In fact, a kid who was a real victim of Internet harrassment and threats would probably also quarrel with it.

There’s also a BBC Health contribution to the regular concernfest that is the media’s kneejerk reaction to so-called pro-ana websites.

Pro-anorexia websites offering tips on extreme dieting are nothing new, but their growth on social networking sites is a disturbing new twist and brings them within reach of a wider audience

So girls with a natural relationship to food - i.e. eating when they’re hungry and not eating when they aren’t- are going to become anorexic because they stumble across one of these sites? Pretty far-fetched.

We send conflicting messages to young women. For instance, they are led to believe that they can best attract the father of their future children by being too thin to procreate. You’re considered a little odd if you are female and not on a permanent diet. In fact it’s almost seen as unfeminine not to be obsessed with your own body shape and not to hate yourself for deviating in any way from the skeletal ideal.

Whose fault is this? You can hardly see social networking as responsible. Were there no anorexics before Web 2.0? No bullies? The Internet can be depressingly ugly. At least the virtual mirror world makes us think about things we don’t want to believe exist. Pretending they aren’t there doesn’t make them disappear. Don’t shoot the Messenger.

Popularity: 22% [?]

Popularity: 22% [?]

Aren’t tags great. Add the combination of technorati’s tag obsession (despite its other wise crazy inconsistencies) with MySpace’s crazy users and their “Religion and Philosophy” category and you can find some wonderful results of a search. One of my favourites is the Philosophy search. It really does produce a wide, wild and wonderful selection of peoples posts. Take this for example, when I did the search a few minutes ago:

While some of the links may seem tame enough, further investigation puts paid to that! It really is funny reading some of the things people seem to believe. The cynic in my partially suspects people are writing this nonsense, not because they believe it, but because they think it is cool or funny or something.

Add this to the volume of creation science videos on YouTube though and I may well be wrong. On a lighter note though, there is one thing which restored my faith in humanity (even in theists as this appears to come from a very Christian blog post - its on MySpace for a start..) (read original)

Joke of the day:

where can you find 50 cent and eminem?

between your sofa cushions

It might just be me having a funny turn today, but I really liked that joke.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Popularity: 14% [?]

It might just be me, but my recent surf through technorati philosophy blogs (mentioned here first and then here) turned up some interesting results. In addition to the topical ones I have already mentioned, there seems a massively disproportionate number of MySpace blogs on the topic.

Seriously, pretty much nine out of ten links I have followed (the list was sorted by “freshness”) have been to MySpace blogs. Some are serious and relevant (for example this one about law and freedom - valid points even though I support banning smoking!) but by and large they are the “philosopical musings” of bored teenagers (even when written by apparent adults like this Wonder Woman religion post….).

I wonder if that pretty much sums up MySpace….

On a technological note, Technorati is still annoying. It is taking 20 minutes to index posts here, which ensures that when they do arrive in the index they are very, very far down the list in a busy topic like Philosophy. What are the other (generally MySpace) sites doing to get indexed within a minute or two?

Just to clarify the second paragraph above, out of the first fifty links tagged “Philosophy” on Technorati, only ONE was not a MySpace blog… Blimey.

Popularity: 34% [?]

Popularity: 34% [?]

It seems I posted the last article in haste as there is a new contender for the most “off the wall” philosophy tagged blog.

Take a look at this blinder (from Enigma, another MySpace user…)

As a Buddhist, I practice Nichiren Daishonin’s buddhism. I’ve been quite open about it up until a few months ago. Where I work, there are a few other people who I recently found out practic the same type of buddhism. However, there is one person - who I don’t know at all who has been imposing what I can only describe as anonymous guerrilla tactics to get other people to become aware of this practice. They have been posting magazines to the work place, which has annoyed some members of staff and leaving books around to people with messages like ‘lord knows, you bloody need it!’ That sort of shit. Not necessary. I have tried to find out who it is but to no avail.In this practice, it is through forging genuine friendships with people and showing some sort of example yourself as a human being that you introduce others, not by force or by some underhand tactics or other. It annoyed me…

ps - Anyone have any questions about Nichiren Buddhism, just ask me….:)

That is it. The wonders of MySpace seem to prevent me from looking at any other posts made to try and put this into context.

It really has left me stumped as to what “she” is going on about.

Popularity: 31% [?]

Popularity: 31% [?]

There is a list of things about the web which even to this day leave me feeling… disappointed.

For those who remember the “good old days” of the late nineties, you will remember how the “Internet” was the all singing, all dancing answer to everything.

The Web was the path to riches for everyone. The Web would put an end to working in an office, as we could all now telecommute. The Web would spell the end of newspapers, books, TV etc., as now everything would be done e-style.

Obviously this is not the case.

Very few people can earn a living purely from the internet, let alone get rich on it. The internet success stories are, generally, organisations which have a solid Bricks and Mortar foundation. There is a good reason for this as the bubble burst showed.

Oddly, we seem to be reinventing the bubble once more. Sites like MySpace are “valued” as being worth billions. How? Why? What income does it generate?

Did no one learn from the start of this millennium? Is the real legacy of the internet the 10 second attention span? Have we become so ingrained to only worrying about the last news item to scroll past we forget all the ones before it?

Popularity: 8% [?]

Popularity: 8% [?]