In the Footsteps of History

He was one of the first people I met in Sydney, and fate kept throwing us back together at random. At the movies, at the beach, at the bar. Finally we gave up, took the hint, and became good friends.

"My characters tell me so much and no more, with reference to their experience, their aspirations, their motives, their history. Between my lack of biographical data about them and the ambiguity of what they say lies a territory which is not only worthy of exploration but which it is compulsory to explore."
"The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, and anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its true place."
Harold Pinter, "Writing for the Theatre"

Among the more fascinating letters to editors are those from lawyers. Surely an editor somewhere must have a wall of framed threats from lawyers, which cause either considerable mirth or lots of pain. These are just two instances of bullying by lawyers, who hide behind ''instructions'' in making outlandish threats to people who seek to throw light on murky behaviour by corporates and politicians. Unfortunately, it is something editors experience on almost a daily basis. Matrit wolf in sheepskin clothing

In life and on the page I most enjoy the company of knowledgeable people, not trivial pursuers but those with a ready grab bag of bright shiny bits. I mean generalists, hunter-gatherers of fact, proudly messy non-specialists, foxes over hedgehogs. On the writing of one such:
“It is, in a beautiful sense, thinking aloud, at its most congenial, conversational, richly anecdotal, and always observant. He is the world’s best companion for looking at a Venetian building or Gothic carving. He can tell you that the stone flowers that seem to be mere decoration at the top of a cathedral column grow wild in the fields round about. He takes nothing for granted; his readers are children to be taught, to be beguiled into learning.”

`Not What We Are, But What We Have Never Been'
Coelacanth: the word held their attention longer than the big bronze-colored fish. When I caught up with them in the Houston Museum of Natural Science, my younger sons and a friend were arguing over proper pronunciation, and not one was even close, all pronouncing the first “c” as a “k.” It’s SEE-la-kanth, a sound nearly as exotic as the fish. My fourth-grade teacher, Miss Gertrude Martin, told us the story of a fisherman in 1938 netting a species thought to have been extinct for 65 million years. She would already have been a middle-aged woman when the “fossil-fish” was discovered, but Miss Martin told the story breathlessly, as though it were a fairy tale and she was a little girl. Ever since, I’ve paid attention to any mention of the coelacanth.

It isn’t notably pretty but its fate has been fortunate. Not only was it resurrected from extinction – it tastes bad and makes predators sick, which accounts for its rare but ongoing existence. One source reports: “Coelacanth flesh has high amounts of oil, urea, wax esters, and other compounds that are difficult to digest and can cause diarrhea. Where the coelacanth is more common, local fishermen avoid it because of its potential to sicken consumers.” Elizabeth Spires includes “Coelacanth” in The Wave-Maker: Poems (2008). It’s prefaced by fragments attributed to National Geographic:

“Once thought to be extinct…
lives at depths of up to 1500 feet…
dies of shock when brought to the surface…
almost nothing is known about it…”

“I saw you in a book: bubble-eyed and staring,
mouth spookily aglow with a sourceless yellow light.

“Extinct, you cruised among cold silences
until a hand roughly hauled you out of your element,

“and for a moment you lived, only to die again,
in shock at a world too bright, too dry, too thin.

“Mute, you speak volumes: the weight of water pressing
on you like an enormous question, your ancient saucer eyes

“peering, constantly peering, through ragged curtains of Time.
What, what do you see? O tell me, tell me, tell me.

“You and I, we live in depths profound and ceaseless,
we swim against cold currents until, netted,

“and gasping, we are shocked to find out
not what we are, but what we have never been.”

That is, I presume, not extinct, though dead, which reminds me of this.

Magic of seven wonders of the world: The Strangers Who Resemble Us

With an escape across the iron curtain on Seventh of the Seventh, seven wonders of the world, seven deadly sins, and seven days of the week, one could be forgiven for thinking the numeral seven had special significance to humans. 7; “Even my death will be contested,” said Albert Camus. He was right. The pensive existentialist remains a discomfiting but indispensable presence...

Why do hundreds of people attend a conference called “Boring”? Because banality is appealing, especially when it approaches absurdity... Surprisingly Interesting

Keats was firm about what makes great literature. A poet must dwell in uncertainty, he said, “without any irritable reaching after fact and reason” This Strange and Contradictory Media Dragon; Take a page from the heartfelt and ribald correspondence of Sherwood Anderson, Theodore Dreiser, and Wharton Esherick What makes a good friend?

Let the fingers do the talking

"Communication is too alarming. To enter into someone else's life is too frightening. To disclose the poverty within us is too fearsome a possibility."
~Harold Pinter, "Writing for the Theatre"

It was this missive that provoked the allegations of brain death, half-wittedness and idiocy. ''I have absolutely no problem with you including my correspondence in whatever publication that surprisingly somehow allows you to be gainfully employed,'' Doyle wrote back that day. ''In fact Nathan, subject to you being comfortable with everyone realising that you are in fact as I suspected completely brain dead I would be more than delighted for you [to] share that fact with the world. ''I do not usually provide gratuitous legal advice to idiots incapable of independent thought but if you do publish the emails Nathan it is you who has published them so when the jokes about you start circulating please do not think that I will in any way be liable for the outcome to your reputation (if you have one).'' She told Fabian that ''attempted blackmail isn't really the best way to go about luring potential clients but I must say Nathan that I would not have expected anything less from you. Now take your publication and your threats Nathan and shove them up your arse.'' Emails fly in fiery clashes

Crikey on legal battle

Want to be a top global thinker? A survey suggests that your best bet is to become a political dissident or a tech visionary; Happiness hype. Here’s what we know: Happy people are typically married, healthy, religious. Here’s what we don’t know: Does happiness makes life meaningful? Happiness

Have you read your media dragon?

The C.P.J. reports that government officials and their allies are now suspected of being responsible for more than a third of the murders of journalists, a higher proportion than killings attributed to terrorist groups or criminal enterprises. Using War as Cover to Target Journalists

Stories are the most durable texture of life for us. Not forms of societies, but stories. Stories are really what keeps everything together, in a way. When you are abandoned by stories - when you go back beyond the invention of writing, beyond the literary tradition - you feel of course lost: because one needs stories. Am I the only one a little disturbed by this poster's attempt to change the flinty Susan Sontag into an aphorism-spouting love guru? Probably just me, I know. Over the past couple years, I've become very hesitant to mention the titles of books I hate. And I do occasionally keep reading the books, even after deciding I hate them, because Hazlitt was right. There is pleasure in really hating something, really just holding it in your hands and wishing it harm and destruction. Part of the hesitancy is, you know, what if I am reading this wrong. What if I'm only 50% through and at 80% something clicks and I see what the author was doing. And it's not like I don't want to warn people off. But while there is pleasure in hating something, and there is pleasure in the reading of a hatchet piece, to me there is not a lot of pleasure in writing a good hatchet piece. I get a little bored halfway through. I'd much rather talk than write my way through hating something, and I do, endlessly, to the people around me. Obviously, I am reading a book that I hate right now. I hate it with a cleansing self-righteousness. I make fun of it in my head, and I feel superior in every way to its aims. And I will miss it once I get to the final page, because being in awe of a novel doesn't really give you the same kick. Have you read your Roberto Calasso or Jozef Imrich ;-)?

It seems like a strange time to be defending the ultra-rich, but Douglas Smith's Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy kind of does that, trying to draw our sympathies to the class of nobles that were sent into exile, arrested, or executed during the Revolution. (Minor complaint: There had to have been more eccentric ways for these people to spend their money, and Smith is for the most part quiet about it, except for the guy who always traveled with his own cow, to secure a private supply of fresh milk. I guess probably turning your characters into eccentrics is not a great way to provoke sympathy, though, and so the rich people are only mildly crazy here.)It seems like a strange time to be defending the ultra-rich

The Silent Killer

We can pretend that we’ve got this stuff figured out and we’re in this queer utopia and it’s all wonderful. We can invent our own identities and create our lives, but it’s also not nearly so perfect as I think many folks would like us to believe.

Many leaders fail to appreciate the risks that arise from failing to manage the way that ideas and information flows within their organisation. How to use failure as a strategic tool When learning from mistakes is welcomed and honoured within the culture, people are more candid, leaders are not kept in the dark, and learning happens

A commonality of theme binds us together, that need to make sense of the evil that lurks all around us, the inherent injustice, cruel unfairness and undeniable banality of life NoirCon is a theatre for all that is noir

Magic Keywords: Thanks of Giving at Citizen's Corner

Scientists have uncovered water in Australia that is thought to be more than 1,000,000 years old. Vintage drop - our oldest water found
The singer is more important than the song: What makes stories memorable and ensures their spread around the globe? Tania, Irena and Dominique will answer this questions tonight at Citizen's Corner filled with all sound and fury ...

In a nutshell, media dragons are serious comedians, artists who know that in most human lives, absurdity and sorrow are woven together too tightly to be teased apart--and that it is comedy, not tragedy, which illustrates that fact most fully. Life is too complex to be painted solely in shades of black. Even as Shakespeare made room in Lear for the Fool, so does A media dragon make room in his theatrical sermons for the pungent humor that, as Henry James so truly said, is the saving salt.

When is personalized search not personalized search? A recently discovered shift on how Google may alter your search results based on what you — and others in aggregate — previously have searched for may have you wondering how to answer that question. To understand the latest development, I think it’s helpful to go back and review the “flavors” of personal search that Google has, flavors that often all get mixed together. Let’s dive in. Of “Magic Keywords” & Flavors Of Personalized Search At Google

UK's 'last typewriter' produced;

An App That Turns Any Surface Into An iPhone Keyboard Innovation Engine

Digital staffing: the future of recruitment-by-algorithm Recruiters will deem candidates unemployable if they fail to find information about them online. Unless you are hiding an undesirable history or do not exist, you are now expected to have an online profile. The big implication is that you need to invest a considerable amount of time managing your digital reputation. The only thing worse than not having a profile is having an undesirable profile. Indeed, your chances of being headhunted online are inversely related to the amount of inappropriate self-disclosure found in your Facebook or Twitter profile. Egosurfing - self-googling - is now more important than updating your CV Unless you are hiding an undesirable history or do not exist, you are now expected to have an online profile

Thanksgiving History
The man behind The Man: how a strategist called Jim got Barack Obama back into the White House

Atomic Memories: Antipodean History

"'The best thing for being sad,' replied Merlyn, beginning to puff and blow, 'is to learn something. That is the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then--to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting.'"
~~T.H. White, The Once and Future King

Owen Richardson on Robert Drewe’s Montebello: “…Drewe uncovers good material about the fate of the Australian soldiers and sailors who witnessed the tests, many of whom died young of cancer.” Living in the Shadow of Atomic Waste

Army chief David Morrison's speechwriter, Malcolm McGregor,has secured the support of the Defence Force to continue employment as Cate McGregor. The former journalist and political staffer to John Hewson and Bob Carr shocked the political establishment yesterday by choosing to publicly confirm the transition. During my days and times of my life as the Crown employee there were many characters who had a personalities made of “many bright, shining splinters.” Nothing quite cohered. They were strangelly brilliant disasters, elegant and obscure ... Parliamentary Officers on level 10

"At this time the thought of death was never far from Mozart's mind. A letter to his father says: 'I never lie down at night without reflecting that--young as I am--I may not live to see another day. Yet no one of my acquaintances could say that in company I am morose or disgruntled.' It is this mood that is reflected in in the C major Quintet. No music could be further removed from morose or disgruntled thoughts or feelings. But the happiness that shines through it is not the relaxed indifference of evasion: it is the result of having considered death to be 'the best and truest friend of mankind.'"
Benjamn Britten, program note for Mozart's C Major Quintet, K. 515 (1973)

Wade Davis just won the Samuel Johnson prize for his book Into the Silence: The Great War, Mallory, and the Conquest of Everest. I'll probably get around to reading it, because if people die in a remote location, or at least lose some bits of themselves to frost bite or exposure or gangrene, I am usually there. Just now getting around to reading The Lost City of Z, it is satisfying all of those needs right now. (Davis is also the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow, so you know he knows how to tell a motherfucking* good story about peril.) via Media Dragon book lover

(Mis)Treatment Strategies

"Omission and simplification help us to understand--but help us, in many cases, to understand the wrong thing; for our comprehension may be only of the abbreviator's neatly formulated notions, not of the vast, ramifying reality from which these notions have been so arbitrarily abstracted."

-Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

In January 2013, Mr Chris Jordan AO starts as Federal Commissioner of Taxation in charge of the Australian Taxation Office (ATO). He follows Mr Michael D’Ascenzo AO, who was not reappointed after his seven-year term. Business may be cheering the appointment of a former KPMG partner as the nation’s tax chief from January, but one of his predecessors has warned: Chris Jordan will have to be just as tough a tax collector as any commissioner plucked from within the Australian Taxation Office But his main job is to keep that revenue – about $750 million per day – rolling in to fund government to do what the public wants it to do. Google

Early Europeans: Rum Corps or NSW Corps

They were nicknamed the "Rum Corps" because of their monopoly in trading in spirits.Early European Dragons

Fairfax created A number of headaches for coal mining schemes.
THE family of New South Wales Labor power broker Eddie Obeid received $30 million and stood to make a further $70 million using inside information on coal exploration licences provided by disgraced former mining minister Ian Macdonald. Not only is this ''the most important investigation ever undertaken'' by the Independent Commission Against Corruption but ''it is corruption on a scale probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps,'' counsel assisting the inquiry, Geoffrey Watson, SC, said in his opening address on Monday. Fairfax Digging Deep

Former luminaries of the state Labor Party continue to crank out material for future Liberal Party election ads. In the exciting words of Geoffrey Watson SC, counsel assisting the inquiry, the level of corruption to be investigated is "probably unexceeded since the days of the Rum Corps". The alleged superstar has been former ALP powerbroker* Eddie Obeid, so much so we'd suggest he send an invoice to the Libs. Though if the alleged dollar figures are right -- and there are so many zeroes involved, it looks like a bubble machine run amok at a children's party -- sending Obeid any dough could be a coals-to-Newcastle scenario. (*Or powerbreaker; we're never sure which.) If it is corruption then
Google on 100 million rum deals the biggest abuse of power by elected later European politicians Corruption on a scale in exceeded since the days of the rum Corps

Coda: Answering an employment advertisement to work in the United Kingdom placed in a national newspaper seems an innocent enough action. Yet for some Czechs, this simple response to a seemingly legitimate job has led to a life of servitude by falling victim to the crime of human trafficking.  Bohemian Slaves

St Mark Square in Venice flooded

Royal Commission into child abuse and cover up

Renaissance Man visits Bluest Mountains

His paintings are not beautiful. They spark no great emotion and can be fiendish to untangle. But what they do show is rare technical ability. Beneath the megalomania is a man who knew exactly how to use his brush, combining expert Flemish-style accuracy with the showy baroque of Old Master painting. "Soft Construction with Boiled Beans", 1936, shows Dalí's savage vision of his country during the Spanish civil war. A fleshy, decomposing figure rips itself apart against a sky that is almost Raphael-like. He said: "I am a man of the Renaissance, I would sign a pair of pants if someone commissioned me to. Renaissance Media Dragon

Note to myself Michael finished his 9 years and 6 months project in Blue mountains ... Alchemy at Surry Hills and Jenny are pleased

Australian mayors: what can and should they do? Smarter government the economics of online services in US - This report talks about eGovernment changes being made in the American state of Utah. The key to this improved service is eGovernment - the process of delivering information and processing government transactions digitally through web, phone, mobile, and point-of-purchase channels. 1,000 online services; UK digital efficiency; Cell me the money: unlocking the value in the mobile payment ecosystem; Internet Activity, Australia, Jun 2012

This Town Ain’t Big Enough for the Both of Us

Why read books? To learn, yes. But also to escape the messiness of life, to establish a sense of superiority, to distract ourselves from ourselves... Cold river 101

In the first section of the anthology, “The Flash Nonfiction Form,” Bret Lott notes, “There ought to be an explosion of recognition, a burst of self-awareness that gives my reader the understanding that these few words she’s read have had hidden within them a realm far larger than any she could have imagined.” 
Bret’s definition is really a definition of all excellent art. A painting is taken in through the eyes, but can magically bloom, in the viewer’s brain, into words and sounds and aroma. A ballet is just movement of a dancer’s arms and legs and torso but can be translated, in our minds, into a universe of feelings and associations. Brief nonfiction prose tells a story, provides information, but that is only the surface of what is possible. The author is trying to create, though language, image, metaphor, the possibility for that “burst of self-awareness” that the term “flash” implies. It doesn’t just go by in a flash: it illuminates, like a flash gun. Recently, the journal TriQuarterly (re)published the anonymous essay The Facts of the Matter.  The piece troubles many of the conventions of creative nonfiction–including the obligation to be factual–in service of the argument for factualness in nonfiction Matters of fact

THE PROFESSOR: JILL LEPORE'S FATAL FLAW
The Story of America: Essays on Origins
ASKED ABOUT HER busy career, Harvard professor and frequent New Yorker contributor Jill Lepore recently said, “Either you’re going to run out of breath or you’re going to trip.” (She also has a family and has written six books.) In her latest offering, The Story of America, a collection of essays mostly published in The New Yorker, the history professor has tripped.  Lepore started writing for The New Yorker in 2005 and since then has filed 86 pieces—blogs Wonder Woman

Media Dragon stared in disbelief the first time a straw rose up from my can of soda and hung out over the table, barely arrested by burrs in the underside of the metal opening. I was holding a slice of pizza in one hand, folded in a three-finger grip so that it wouldn't flop and pour cheese-grease on the paper plate, and a paperback in a similar grip in the other hand—what was I supposed to do? The whole point of straws, I had thought, was that you did not have to set down the slice of pizza to suck a dose of Coke while reading a paperback ... How Authors Write

Films

Blake: Honouring Excellence in Photography, Poetry and Popular Creativity

"Artists (like Tash) are artists because they have an extra sensitivity--a skin less, perhaps, than other people; and the great ones have an uncomfortable habit of being right about many things, long before their time."
Benjamin Britten, "Freeman of Lowestoft"

Each year the Blake Prize raises questions about issues of belief, doubt, human justice and social values. Photojournalism provides a reflection of the human experience that transcends history, language and culture ... A single photograph can educate, motivate, captivate and inspire. A single poem can stir the heart and soul ... The Blake finalist works will be shown at Sydney's S.H. Ervin Gallery from until December 16.
The Blake Society has established two prizes that challenge artists and poets to investigate ideas and issues surrounding spiritual thought and religion in contemporary art and literature. There is no such thing as injustice or justice in art. You have to participate and that is it ;-)

The World Inside the Mind of A Monk In MMXII AD Tash made another history by being one of the rare the antipodean bohemian finalists for the 61st Blake Prize, John Coburn Emerging Artist Award and the MUA Blake Prize for Human Justice. The View From Mandalay Hill
Natasha Murray
Prize Year:

61st (2012) Dimensions:

40 x 40cm

Bathed in light, a novice monk watches over the sprawling city of Mandalay from the lookout on Mandalay Hill. The hill itself is a site of pilgrimage for many Burmese Buddhists who make the 240m climb to worship at the Sutaungpyei Pagoda.

This is Tash's hymn to the formidable structures that dot our and foreign landscape like frozen music. Tash is alert at every dawn, dusk and between to capture them empty and in the mysterious light...musings of the monk resonated with Media Dragon as Elliot inspired the gathering at the Blake Praize with his existential observations - Who am I? Why am I here? Photographs like stories can be so cathartic and so enlightening and comforting and educational and they can give people a sense of a world they didn’t know before. They can make the isolated feel included; they can make people who feel misunderstood feel better understood. And the great works of art will always be with you. They’re not fickle the way people are ...

Between Days: Darkness and Light: Light, colour, paint and perspective all come under intense scrutiny, especially on Wednesday afternoons

The Sacred in Literature and the Arts

(Nota Bene:The Blake Prize was established in 1951 to find art to decorate churches)
Not so Hungarian Nude Zealander, Kevin Roberts, who has two first names like Jozef Imrich, shared last night with the world his views that there is an entire generation of people who value creativity and innovation. They will make art, products, music, books and brands that will decrease our impact on the environment and improve our quality of life. The media have a saying, "If it bleeds, it leads", and you just need to turn on your computer/mobile/tablet to know that media is a magnet for bad news. The world is sometimes painted as being so bleak that we forget that there are some real causes for us to celebrate. Kevin lists 10 reasons to be optimistic about our creative future

CODA: This year, the Human Rights Awards will be celebrating 25 years of recognising the efforts of Australia’s finest who have promoted and protected human rights in Australia Human Right Awards

Market Glut - Too Many Media Dragons?

“In order to write the book you want to write, in the end you have to become the person you need to become to write that book.” ― Junot Díaz

"We're pumping out all these graduates while the readership for literary fiction is shrinking. I think everybody knows that." Market Glut - Too Many Writers? Here’s one Link that goes with the bushels - a convertible bookcase - from holding your books to holding your corpse. Vcourtesy of BookRiot

Levi Asher comments on an advance screening of the film adaptation of Kerouac’s ON THE ROAD. I don’t want to say that these cold river memories on kindle have to be simple, but I want to clarify my language. I want them to be direct without sacrificing the kinds of music, the picture-making I’ve always been interested in. “There is nothing static, relaxed or dull in any of the stories in this book, so don’t come here if you’re in the mood for gentle reverie or immature, superficial awe... In a book as short as this, what’s left out is as important as what’s left in. There’s a sense of each character’s life beyond the page which reveals Sole survivor's surviving skill. On The River - Two Graves Full

After David Ogilvy’s wildly popular 10 tips on writing and a selection of advice from modernity’s greatest writers, here comes some from iconic writer and painter Henry Miller Legacy of Writing Tips and even more tips Writing tips from two-time Booker winner, Hilary Mantel Dead Are Real

Resisting Amazon On Cup of Melbourne

Resisting Amazon - A Few Unintended Consequences For The Behemoth "'At a certain point you have to decide how far you want to nail your own coffin shut,' said Michael Tucker, owner of the Books Inc. chain here. Amazon wants to completely control the entire book trade. You're crazy if you want to play that game with them.' Unintended monopoly

Pay-What-You-Want E-Book Bundle Makes $1M In Two Weeks "An experiment from major authors including Neil Gaiman and Cory Doctorow, which allows readers to pay the price of their choice for a collection of ebooks, has shattered all expectations, racking up sales of more than $1.1m (£700,000) in under two weeks." Cold River Echos

How To Write A Book In A Month (Many Do!) "It's hard to explain the program - and even tougher to describe why anyone would sign up to create 1,667 words a day (that's the pace you need to maintain to finish on time) - and yet it's become phenomenally popular, with an estimated 300,000 writers from around the world participating this year Words words words ...

Ian McEwan On The Novella: 'The Perfect Form Of Prose Fiction' "It is the beautiful daughter of a rambling, bloated ill-shaven giant (but a giant who's a genius on his best days). And this child is the means by which many first know our greatest writers. Readers come to Thomas Mann by way of Death in Venice, Henry James by The Turn of the Screw, Kafka by Metamorphosis, Joseph Conrad by Heart of Darkness." Kafka et al

Publishing Industry In Trouble? Uh... No For all the complexities that publishing faces, the notion that books are somehow less of a factor in the cultural or information ecosystem of our time doesn't hold up to the evidence Facts of Publishing Life

Everything That’s Wrong with Political Journalism

Jay Rosen has been on the journalism faculty at New York University since 1986. Jayis the author of PressThink, a weblog about journalism and its ordeals (www.pressthink.org), which he introduced in September 2003 a year after Media Dragon was born. So what is the job of a political journalist today? Is it to describe the reality of American politics, as a “straight” reporter would? Or is it to defend reality and its “base” in American politics… more like a fact checker would? Jay was alerted to the find by Alec MacGillis of the New Republic. He was exasperated by this brief report in the Washington Post, which appeared at The Fix, the Post’s top political blog. If you don’t know it, The Fix is a reporting and analysis franchise built around the many talents of Chris Cillizza, a star reporter and key presence on its most important beat: national politics. Everything That’s Wrong with Political Journalism in One Washington Post Item

Though blogging at its best can provide an insightful view from the outside, it has now been subsumed into the mainstream. Five years ago there was an exciting new kid on the writing bock: "blogging". An ugly word – brutish and heavy – it seemed to describe something thrilling and even a little mysterious. Blogging was a new kind of writing, by a new kind of writer, with a new kind of content and a direct relationship to its audiences, who were engaged and vocal in response. It apparently democratised letters but also carved out a new place for the authorial voice. The 18th-century coffee house was being reborn, short circuiting the ponderous processes of paper. The digital writer was re-inventing the commerce of telling stories, advancing opinions and creating a genuinely free marketplace where expression had to fight for its audiences on its own terms. The optimistic view of it was that as "conventional" journalism ebbed from really important parts of our national life, the corruption that inevitably follows a decline in scrutiny could be compensated for, and indeed reversed by the new form.Blogging enriched the Orwell prize, but times have changed

Blogging is a combination of science and art. The science part requires that bloggers use the latest search-engine-optimization tactics. The art is to hone writing and editing skills. But it doesn't have to be as difficult as that may sound. As a longtime blogger and journalist, Paul Chaney has learned what works for him, and what does not. Based on his experience, here are nine suggestions to help you become a better business blogger. Blogs are the forerunners of social media and some consider them to be antiquated and out of style. But blogs can help you or your company in a way that social media cannot, especially for search engine optimization. 9 Blogging Lessons for Ecommerce Merchants
We are the reckless, we are the wild youth, we are chasing the visions of our futures, one day we’ll reveal the truth. Many students have blogs with hopes that they may have a positive effect on their future ...; Every blogger basically needs 1 thing: audience. Best Ways to Promote Your Blog Posts; She has more than 1,000 followers on her blog, runs a successful Etsy store called Paulie Antiques, works for Impulse, a student-run magazine, styles for films and writes for Teen Vogue. She's also a costume design student at the University of Illinois.

CODA: A Bulgarian digital rights activist is the proud owner of your Facebook name, username, and email today. Bogomil Shopov bought this information for 1.1 million Facebook users for $5. Bulgarian blogger buys data for 1.1 million Facebook users for $5