"Judge a man by the reputation of his enemies."
— Arabian Proverb
"A man with no enemies is a man with no character."
"Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake. Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you."
— Matthew 5:11-12, King James Version
"If a Man is judged by his enemies this MEdiaDragon fellow must be quite a good man indeed." is judged by his enemies, this MEdiaDragon fellow must be quite a good man indeed." What Muhammad Ali Taught MEdiaDragon About Blogging
If
I'd written all the truth I knew for the past ten years, about 600 people -
including me - would be rotting in prison cells from Rio to Seattle today.
Absolute truth is a very rare and dangerous
commodity in the context of professional
journalism.
~ MEdia Dragon - Hunter S. Thompson Social Media App Usage Across the Globe Digital Vision
There is a concept that everyone uses when they talk about making major changes in their lives (especially social media), and it’s called the “Right Time.”
There is
also something about a blog birthdays that makes it as fascinating as a revival
or a hanging ... The news hits you like a thunderbolt ... A new prophecy is needed, and the nature of the new prophecy, like the old, will be shaped by antipodean bohemian language . So back in MMII aka 2002, spelled backward, it was a right time for a hobby called MEdia Dragon ... [ ... A Secret Map Showing the Location of MEdia Dragons: Czechs and Sikhs are the greatest readers]
May tits and dragons and numbers guide you on your way:
The Internet Back in circa 2002 Compared to Now Laughing Squid ...
Sometimes writers write about a world that does not yet exist. We do it for a hundred reasons. (Because it’s good to look forward, not back. Because we need to illuminate a path we hope or we fear humanity will take. Because the world of the future seems more enticing or more interesting than the world of today. Because we need to warn you. To encourage. To examine. To imagine.) The reasons for writing about the day after tomorrow, and all the tomorrows that follow it, are as many and as varied as the people writing:
More than 14 Years Ago experts predicted media dragon newspapers might some day come on a book sized receiver
May tits and dragons and numbers guide you on your way:
Sometimes writers write about a world that does not yet exist. We do it for a hundred reasons. (Because it’s good to look forward, not back. Because we need to illuminate a path we hope or we fear humanity will take. Because the world of the future seems more enticing or more interesting than the world of today. Because we need to warn you. To encourage. To examine. To imagine.) The reasons for writing about the day after tomorrow, and all the tomorrows that follow it, are as many and as varied as the people writing:
More than 14 Years Ago experts predicted media dragon newspapers might some day come on a book sized receiver
Poets and their birthdays. An annual excuse for mopey and rueful words: It's their party and they’ll cry if they want to. And poets want to be blogfathers too...
Bumblebees’ Little Dragon Hairs Can Sense Flowers’ Electric Fields NPR
~ Czech-born Tom Stoppard, Arcadia
Socialism sounds great. It has always sounded great. And it will probably always continue to sound great. It is only when you go beyond rhetoric, and start looking at hard facts, that socialism turns out to be a big disappointment, if not a disaster...
Social media overtakes TV as young people's main source of #news : @Reuters Institute for the study of #Journalism
They tried to bury Media Dragons. They did not know we were seeds ...
[On Tenderness: What Genetics and Seed Godfather Gregor Mendel Teaches Us about the Heart of Science ]
14 Years ago, in Internet years, about fourteen thousand years, on MEdia Dragon... VOW
To everything, it seems, there is a season—including blogging. Some
are for irony of youth, others for the legislative and taxing middle of the journey. But save in memory,
only a precious few can be for always. Life sees to that...
Every day Media Dragon enters a cryptic blog entry and about 300 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook. An estimated 204 million emails are sent every minute. How do we decide what to keep?... Archives of MEdia Dragons
WHY SO SERIOUS? How to be Funny When You’re Running an RPG — Moe Lane’s latest article at the PJ Lifestyle section
Via Interrete – “Our world is a bizarre and awesome place – but some things are just hard to believe! Here are 10 world geographical facts that you might find surprising or interesting“
Every day Media Dragon enters a cryptic blog entry and about 300 million photographs are uploaded to Facebook. An estimated 204 million emails are sent every minute. How do we decide what to keep?... Archives of MEdia Dragons
“The world is what exists and what happens, but we gain enormous insight by talking about it — telling its story — in different ways.” Three billion heartbeats. The clock is ticking: Chapter 7 verse 7
WHY SO SERIOUS? How to be Funny When You’re Running an RPG — Moe Lane’s latest article at the PJ Lifestyle section
Via Interrete – “Our world is a bizarre and awesome place – but some things are just hard to believe! Here are 10 world geographical facts that you might find surprising or interesting“
“I wonder if the problem isn't my vocation. A writer's life tends to be seamless, and he doesn't divide it between work and leisure. On the hunt full time for copy, material, something to write about, he doesn't need to collect anything, or play at anything. The writer's work and his play, if he is lucky, are one. How can he have a hobby, really, when the entire world is his hobby?”
It took me 14 years of blogging to finally link to this story ... How exactly does procrastination work, and how do you stop it? Psychological research, comics and The Simpsons will explain.
The why of procrastination
What word processing wrought. Easily, endlessly editable text lets you go on revising forever. It’s a blessing And a curse
Philosopher Peter Singer ‘People don’t realise how much they can make a difference’
A crazy old media dragon who imagines himself a knight rides forth on his frail horse, Rocinante. The modern era - and with it the novel - is born DragOn Time
“A great deal of creative blogging has arisen from various despairs.”
“We shed as we pick up, like travellers who must carry everything in their arms, and what we let fall will be picked up by those behind. The procession is very long and life is very short. We die on the march. But there is nothing outside the march so nothing can be lost to it. The missing plays of Sophocles will turn up piece by piece, or be written again in another language. Ancient cures for diseases will reveal themselves once more. Mathematical discoveries glimpsed and lost to view will have their time again. You do not suppose, my lady, that if all of Archimedes had been hiding in the great library of Alexandria, we would be at a loss for a corkscrew?” ~Tom Stoppard, ArcadiaCHANGE: Traditional Publishers’ Share of E-Book Sales Shrinks. “In another look at e-book sales, Mooney reported that the Big 5 publishers’ share of e-book sales fell to 34% in 2015, down from 38% in 2014. In 2012, the Big 5 held a 46% of e-book unit sales. The loss of share of the Big 5 was made up by self-publishers and small publishers. Self-publishers’ share of the e-book market rose to 12% last year from 8% in 2014, while small presses accounted for 30% of e-book unit sales in 2015, up from 26% in 2014.”
All is proceeding as Our Mate Instapundit have foretold ...
Amid media megamergers mosaic community of media dragons thrives
As a Iceber Swimmer who cross the Iron Curtain rivers I appreciate prophesy from the Hopi Elders, purportedly an open letter of advice on how to get through the year 2001 at that time I was in Brisse devoting time to our girls swimming adventure. It could not be more prescient in 2016:
To my fellow swimmers:
here is a river flowing now very fast.
It is so great and swift,
that there are those who will be afraid,
who will try to hold on to the shore,
they are being torn apart and will suffer greatly.
Know that the river has its destination.
The elders say we must let go of the shore,
push off into the middle of the river,
and keep our heads above water.
And I say see who is there with you and celebrate.
At this time in history we are to take nothing personally,
least of all ourselves, for the moment we do,
our spiritual growth and journey come to a halt.
The time of the lone wolf is over.
Gather yourselves.
Banish the word struggle from your attitude and vocabulary.
All that we do now must be done in a sacred manner and in celebration.
For we are the ones we have been waiting for.
So Act Now!
“The Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University is pleased to announce that Amber, an open-source software tool that preserves content and prevents broken links, has been promoted to full project status on Drupal.org. When installed on a blog or website, Amber can take a snapshot of the content of every linked page, ensuring that even if those pages are interfered with or blocked, the original content will be available
Annette Nellen celebrates the 9th Anniversary of the 21st Century Taxation Blog. “For this 9th anniversary, I’ll note one topic I plan to focus on more over the next year – increased transparency in our tax systems and better tax literacy for all individuals.”
I endeavor insofar as I can to live in the present, taking my cue from George Balanchine, whose attitude is described in his biography:
Having come so close to death at so young an age, he determined instead to spend the rest of his days living in the present. It was a resolution from which he never wavered. Of all his oft-repeated refrains, the most familiar was Do it now! “Why are you stingy with yourselves?” he would ask his dancers. “Why are you holding back? What are you saving for—for another time? There are no other times. There is only now. Right now.” His ruthlessly practical approach to running a dance company was rooted in the hard-won knowledge that his next breath might be his last. He worked within the means available at the moment, using them to the fullest, never wasting time longing for better dancers or a bigger budget…He ran his private life along the same lines: when he had money, he spent it lavishly, on himself and others, and when he didn’t, he lived frugally. “You know,” he said, “I am really a dead man. I was supposed to die and I didn’t, and so now everything I do is second chance. That is why I enjoy every day. I don’t look back. I don’t look forward. Only now.” This dance, this meal, this woman: that was his world.
The Biggest Thank You Card to MEdia Dragon readers
from MAroubra Beach ...
It's one of those things you wish you had written yourself:
Donald Trump’s campaign soars above our
conservative elites, who in their foundations, their little magazines,
their think tanks, define what conservatives may do or say. Trump
ignores them, they tell us, and disorder and chaos must follow
Voices in Danger, A platform for stories of journalists killed, kidnapped, jailed or threatened just for doing their jobs
See also Journalists in the line of fire
and Reporters Without Borders – Help defend freedom of information every day
Peter Reilly, Tax Court Rules That Blogger Is Subject To Self-Employment Tax. Of course, that requires blogging income.
Voices in Danger, A platform for stories of journalists killed, kidnapped, jailed or threatened just for doing their jobs
See also Journalists in the line of fire
and Reporters Without Borders – Help defend freedom of information every day
“Everything can be taken from a man,”Viktor Frankl wrote in his timeless treatise on the human search for meaning, “but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”And yet, as Adrienne Rich observed in her sublime meditation on writing, capitalism, and freedom, “in the vocabulary kidnapped from liberatory politics, no word has been so pimped asfreedom.” How, then, are we to choose our own way amid a capitalist society that continually commodifies our liberty?
Peter Reilly, Tax Court Rules That Blogger Is Subject To Self-Employment Tax. Of course, that requires blogging income.
Here’s the thing about inspiration: It has to be earned. Someone is inspiring not because they look at you with big eyes and ask you to find it in your heart to believe in their dream. It’s because they actually have a dream that’s worth getting excited about. And those dreams don’t come lightly. They come from blood, sweat, and tears.
Inspiration is like love. You don’t get it by pursuing it directly.
[…]
Inspiration can’t be performed. It’s an audience response to authenticity, courage, selfless work, and genuine wisdom.
For a necessary complement to TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking, see Anna Deavere Smith on the art of listening in a culture of speaking, then revisit Ursula K. Le Guin on the magic of human communication
Talk is Cheap
One of the first things reporters at Poynter learn is to bookmark Matt Thompson's newspaper style guide. While you might not notice if the "The" is capitalized in a news organization's name, people who work there do (and they'll let us know). More importantly, it's our house style to refer to news organizations by the names they prefer, capitalized letters and all. So here's part two of that first style guide, with updates on the names of digital news organizations. Some of these are straightforward. Some are all caps. Some have no spaces. MediaDragon looks like BuzzFeed in this guide ...
I REMEMBER WHEN IMMIGRANTS WERE EXPECTED TO ADAPT TO THE COUNTRY THEY IMMIGRATED TO: Sweden stirs debate with women-only swimming, in nod to Muslims
Our juvenile compositions please us, because they bring to our minds the remembrance of youth . . .” So writes Samuel Johnson on this date, May 29, in 1750, in The Rambler#21, and I cannot agree more with his conclusion.
Here’s a beautiful and peculiar word: usquebaugh. The OED at the NSW Parliamentary Library donated by late Brian Vaughan traces it to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha, literally “water of life.” It means “whiskey” and entered English in Shakespeare’s time. It’s exotic enough to dazzle a word-minded drunk, and it comes in handy every weekend. You can also find usquebaugh in the letter Swift wrote to Pope on May 2, 1730 ... But explaining this poem is another story for the next birthday ...
For a necessary complement to TED Talks: The Official TED Guide to Public Speaking, see Anna Deavere Smith on the art of listening in a culture of speaking, then revisit Ursula K. Le Guin on the magic of human communication
Talk is Cheap
One of the first things reporters at Poynter learn is to bookmark Matt Thompson's newspaper style guide. While you might not notice if the "The" is capitalized in a news organization's name, people who work there do (and they'll let us know). More importantly, it's our house style to refer to news organizations by the names they prefer, capitalized letters and all. So here's part two of that first style guide, with updates on the names of digital news organizations. Some of these are straightforward. Some are all caps. Some have no spaces. MediaDragon looks like BuzzFeed in this guide ...
What we learn from collecting lots of data on San Francisco rents. And here, both are excellent and useful pieces, basically SF is ****ed.
I REMEMBER WHEN IMMIGRANTS WERE EXPECTED TO ADAPT TO THE COUNTRY THEY IMMIGRATED TO: Sweden stirs debate with women-only swimming, in nod to Muslims
Our juvenile compositions please us, because they bring to our minds the remembrance of youth . . .” So writes Samuel Johnson on this date, May 29, in 1750, in The Rambler#21, and I cannot agree more with his conclusion.
Here’s a beautiful and peculiar word: usquebaugh. The OED at the NSW Parliamentary Library donated by late Brian Vaughan traces it to the Irish and Scottish Gaelic uisge beatha, literally “water of life.” It means “whiskey” and entered English in Shakespeare’s time. It’s exotic enough to dazzle a word-minded drunk, and it comes in handy every weekend. You can also find usquebaugh in the letter Swift wrote to Pope on May 2, 1730 ... But explaining this poem is another story for the next birthday ...
“Inspiring
bold John Barleycorn!
What
dangers thou canst make us scorn!
Wi’
tippenny, we fear nae evil;
Wi’
usquabae, we'll face the devil!”
Taken from Social Media: Strategies and Tools for News, a self-directed course by Susan Mernit at Poynter NewsU