Blogging the democratic revolution
Glenn at Instapundit has an excellent roundup of this growing issue about Google’s problematic relations with Red China’s government and its implications for freedom of press. The link is here. Val at Babalu and Steve at Hog On Ice have additional thoughts – or well, deeds – here and here. UPDATE: This just ran across the stock ticker: Google (GOOG) lost 6.35 to 436.68 in high volume despite news it launched a search engine in China. The search engine censors topics that are sensitive to Beijing, creating some controversy. Google hit an intraday high of 454.23 before falling back. THE…
Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has discovered something a bit different for Global Voices this week, with unusual blogs showing growing readership in Bolivia – yes, soccer blogs. Don’t laugh – of course this is revolutionary – this is a hemisphere that has had ‘soccer wars!’ Check it out here.
The topic of the week is Bolivian president-elect’s understated style of dressing. Leftwing Evo Morales doesn’t actually own a suit, but only street clothes, something that’s creating a bit of a sensation around the world. On Morales’ first unofficial World Tour to meet assorted leaders in places like Spain, Belgium, Netherlands, South Africa and China, riding there on a Venezuelan PDVSA state oil company jet, he encountered baleful looks in ultra-formal Spain, and phony expressions of sympathetic support from the nominally communist Chinese for his dressed-down look. I don’t have a problem with him being who is he and in…
I’m currently reading The Oligarchs, a truly fascinating book about the six everyday Soviet citizens who bought up Russia during the period of privatization and came to rule the country from behind the scenes. It’s very good, very detailed, and told smoothly like a story. The most fascinating part about it is not so much what these men did, but how they did it — and the author starts from the beginning, going from the mid-’80s through the late-’90s — involving exactly how they built their empires in a legally deficit environment where everything goes. Check it out.
David Sasaki and Juliana Rincon Parra at Global Voices have something very special in their Bolivian blog roundup – a slew of translations from the original Spanish. If you had always wanted to be able to read the Spanish blogs but couldn’t do it, they’ve opened that window and have a long, beautifully done roundup from the Spanish-language Bolivian bloggers. Well worth a click here.
As Bolivia’s Dec. 18 presidential campaign, one that will influence the entire direction of a continent kicks, into high gear, Eduardo Avila has compiled a comprehensive roundup of what’s being said in the Bolivian blogosphere. There are the usual good analytical blogs, but he’s found some photo blogs and new names we’ve not seen in the past. The whole this is on Global Voices and is well worth a click here.
Pajamas Media hosted another one of its blogjams, where in this case the editorial board members discussed ways that the company could be more “bloggy” and overall revolutionary in its approach to media. Well, after reading the whole thing, I have one big suggestion that I think the editorial board should take into account when revising how it provides content. Since I wasn’t part of the blogjam, it’s going here. Don’t takes news from Xinhua, which you may or may not know, is the official state news and propaganda agency of the Chinese government. Google News does it, and it…
Eduardo Avila of Barrio Flores has this week’s Bolivian blog roundup, in what I suppose I could call ‘The Special Sandalista Edition’ as it is chiefly focused on the writings of foreigners writing about Bolivia, and some of them, who shall be nameless, are knee-deep in Sandalista do-goodery that is utterly unsalable in their home countries. But that’s not the only kind of foreigner who blogs about Bolivia – there are all kinds – normal humanitarian workers, Lonely Planeters, curious outsiders, people working in the country. For a Bolivian, it must be a really fascinating experience to see their country…
I’ll be going to the Pajamas Media launch tomorrow in New York City. But first I have to get there. And since I’m too cheap to get a hotel, I’m leaving on the 2 a.m. bus! We might be taking a bit of a detour tomorrow then, with some liveblogging of the conference, pictures, all that good stuff. It’ll be fun.
Alvaro Vargas Llosa, one of the gold standards of Latin American journalism, has a great new Spanish-language blog with The Independent Institute, a libertarian think tank in Oakland. It’s full of excellent items, and has contributions from first-rate journalists and thinkers from all over the hemisphere. It’s so nicely done – and already I can see it’s going to be a success – Alvaro has an item here about Patricia Poleo, whose case we have been following at Publius, among other topics. Check it all out here.
Egyptian blogger Abdal Karim Soliman was released from jail after a massive effort pressing for his release. He had been arrested simply for what he wrote on his blog, which was a denunciation of attacks by Muslims on a Coptic nun. It sparked an outrage in the Egyptian blogosphere, prompting a worldwide campaign on his behalf. Bloggers wrote posts to create the buzz, readers wrote letters to the Egyptian embassy, and it took off from there. The Egyptian government finally buckled and released him. It was the end of The Sandmonkey’s post, however, that made me start thinking about this…
Just a month to go before Bolivia’s elections and Eduardo Avila has a roundup of the week’s sentiment from Bolivia’s growing blog community. His excellent Global Voices roundup is here.
There are a lot more blogs from Belarus now than there was when Publius was first started. Given that Belarus is biggest focuses for democracy promotion going, I think it would be good to get out the word on some of these blogs; which, by the way, make for very good and interesting reading. – Tobias Ljungvall on Belarus: Expert and author on Belarus, blogging with unique insight. – The BEING HAD Times: An American based in Pinsk, Belarus, writing about issues in the country. – BR23 Blog: Blogging about issues straight out of Minsk, Belarus. If you’re interested in…
A lot has happened in Bolivia since last week. For one thing, elections were declared Dec. 18. That’s probably the most gripping story in the Bolivian blogosphere, and for obvious reasons – democracy has been put back on its rails – or well, apparently, the perspectives are different. Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has his first rate roundup of all the news reported around on Bolivian events at Global Voices. Read the whole thing here.
Following up on yesterday’s journalist poetry awards, Academic Elephant submits this Haiku loaded with meaning and insight (text by nutjob Arabist Juan Cole): Partition is the consequence of failed co- lonialism. Beautiful! If anyone else composes some news poetry, please send it along (or post it in comments). Oh, and while I’m on the subject of Cole, here‘s a recent post by Anton Efendi of Across the Bay that I meant to link to recently, dissecting the latest ass-headedness from Prof. Cole — it’s about the authenticity of the letter from Zawahiri to Zarqawi.
One of the rarest things on the blogosphere is a non-Sandalista, non-foreigner-financed, non-foreigner opinioned, non-angry-Latin-intelligentsia Colombia blog that’s by a Colombian about marvelous Colombia. I have had yet to find one – until now. Unfortunately, you bring up Colombia – even to a Latino audience in the states – and the first thought they have about Colombia is about drugs. It happened to me during a Spanish presentation I was giving. I discussed the strong Colombian banking system and was horrified when the first question from the audience was ‘is it full of drug money?’ And these people weren’t only…
Venezuela’s bloggers have found a call from the BBC World Services to submit questions to Venezuela’s dictator Hugo Chavez online. This event probably is part of a coordinated propaganda effort from the Western hemisphere’s communist tyrants to reach out to the outside world through the Internet. Fidel Castro did almost the very same thing last week, albeit under greater conditions of state control. For Castro and Chavez, the idea is get online with the rest of us and appear hip or perhaps human, via the easily controlled medium of the Internet. It’s not like live TV where a tyrant could…
Eduardo Avila at Barrio Flores has a Bolivian blog news roundup for the week at Global Voices with a good variety of posts. Read it here.
Singapore threw into jail a couple of ethnic Chinese Internet posters who wrote derogatory remarks about their Malay countrymen. As I wrote here, this kind of thing goes on all the time, and I’ve seen it myself. But this time, the Singaporean government cracked down, swiftly and surely laying down its brand of justice, something that may have a chilling effect on Internet freedom. The Internet is one of the few places where one can feel free in taut neat Singapore. For a country so obsessed with its international ‘competitiveness’ it doesn’t look auspicious. But a look at the government’s…
I was going nuts, there was no Boli-Nica for weeks, and the whole world seemed … gray. At long last he is BACK and he’s got a funny new post up on Hugo Chavez’s latest scheme to build a ‘national computer.’ Boli, we want more! Boli describes Hugo Chavez’s latest schemes with state-financed computers, how it’s likely to be done and why it won’t work. By coincidence, a day or two ago, I put up a post on ‘rent-seeking,’ citing the estimable Tyler Cowen, describing the same dynamic. But in hilarity, Boli was matched by Boz, who wrote an even…
Francisco Toro, after a (too-)long hiatus, is back to blogging thoughtfully about Venezuela. His new blog has a beautiful new design (although truthfully, the last two were extraordinary, too) and a new format of short posts with pithy original ideas. I don’t always agree with him on everything but I would say I do like Francisco best when he has genuinely original ideas, and fortunately, that is often. It’s a real treat to see him back, so go read the whole thing (yeah) here.
This is just what we were looking for – of all people, my boss at work discovered it and sent it to me. Just what we wanted to see, a free-market Brazilian blog written by a smart Brazilian that tells us the deal about what’s going on in Brazil. I’m really excited! The blog, called ‘Swimming Against The Red Tide’ written by Luis Alfonso Assumpcao, in Porto Alegre (!), Brazil, hits home runs!!!! I guess he saw the leftist hippies up close and wanted to say something. His blogroll links to sterling free-market other blogs we are great fans of.…
This is cool. Reporters Without Borders has published a broad and detailed booklet for bloggers and others who want to get out there opinion; especially people from countries where that isn’t necessarily easy to do. Check it out here.
Alvaro Ruiz-Navajas has started a terrific new blog on Bolivia, with his first post loaded with intelligent insights. I look forward to seeing his thoughts as they come, going into the Bolivian election in December. Go see the excellent new blog here.
Driving Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is his animosity directed at the U.S. He loathes the U.S. not only because it’s what he really feels (he is said to stiffen in the presence of U.S. citizens) but almost as importantly, because it is politically useful. In Chavez’s logic, if all the blame about the poverty and oppression in the world can be focused on just the detested U.S., the rest of the world will unite behind Chavista ideas and he can then build an alliance to eventually challenge the hated “hegemon.” It’s not working the way he planned though. There are…