March 2004
Log Books
Don't know what a blog is? Read on...
We Blog***
By Paul Bausch, Mathew Haughey and
Meg Hourihan
Wiley, 2002
For anyone who has ever considered creating a blog, or even those who don’t know what one is,
We Blog offers all the necessary information for successfully creating a weblog, monitoring it and expanding that information network. Weblogs are personalized postings on the Internet (they may be posted daily, weekly or monthly). These weblogs offer a unique forum for people who wish to communicate their thoughts and opinions to a mass audience, with the added bonus that the author can remain anonymous. They can be used by groups of people for charity events or organizing conferences, but also by individuals. The latter variety becomes a personal diary, of sorts, offering strangers a glimpse into the life of the blogger. As there are no editors altering what the author has written, the entries are very individual. People write in many different languages, allowing anyone with a grasp of that language to read about events taking place on, say, the other side of the globe within seconds. One can read about the reaction of a 12-year-old to an earthquake in California, or the views of a French pensioner on the current political situation in Turkey.
Written by a team of weblogging experts,
We Blog begins with an exhaustive look at weblog history and ends with a helpful glossary of ubiquitous blog jargon, including a long list of existing blog applications and services. Although the writing can get very technical at times, if one is going to create a blog, one must be familiar with such computer terminology. The book is divided into three easy-to-follow sections: “What is a Blog?,” “Blog Elements” and “Advanced Blogging.” The reader learns how to filter and find topics worth reading about online, and there are exercises for those starting their own blog. The book also lists helpful Websites for registering sites and listing weblogs once they are made. A summary of weblog genres, interviews with blog experts, a concise explanation of how the Internet works and an uncomplicated guide to HTML all help to educate the reader in the ABCs of blogging. Both clearly written and visibly marked so one can find the specific topic one is looking for, this guide is an essential tool for anyone interested in the fascinating world of web blogging.
The Clandestine Diary of
an Ordinary Iraqi***
By Salam Pax
Atlantic Books, 2003
At the beginning of September 2002, an Iraqi in his mid-twenties started posting daily accounts of life in Baghdad on the Internet. These “blogs,” as they are called, included everything from ruminations on the best David Bowie song, to his reactions to the American “invasion” of Iraq and his low opinion of Saddam Hussein. Written in English, and begun at the time when it was inevitable that the US and UK would invade Iraq, Pax’s postings offer a peephole onto the life of this individual, who, like many young men of his age, has a job, enjoys watching MTV and likes hanging out with friends. But as one reads his diary, which has been collected and published as
The Clandestine Diary of an Ordinary Iraqi, one realizes that Salam Pax is not the blogger’s real name (he had to invent a pseudonym
for fear of being caught by the Iraqi government), that he tapes his windows up in the mornings to protect his home and that he cannot call his best friend because the phone lines are down.
Written with a dry sense of humor, Pax keeps the reader well informed on the political situation in Iraq, while offering his own opinion on the matter. Using material from magazines, newspapers and online news sites, such as the
Guardian, the
New York Times, the
Economist, the
BBC,
al-Jazeera and the
LA Times, he attacks the backward thinking of many advocates of the war and compares the disparate Western and Arabic news. He refers to President Bush as “the walking-talking freak show,” tells jokes about the human shields, Arabic language blunders and wonders what will happen to all the Iraqi banknotes that have Saddam’s face on them. Most of all, he lets the reader know that “War sucks big time. Don’t ever let yourself be talked into having one waged in the name of your freedom. Somehow, when the bombs start dropping or you hear the sound of machine-guns at the end of your street, you don’t think about your ‘imminent liberation’ any more.”
Pax also discusses other serious issues, such as the head-on collision of two cultures and the complete vulnerability of the individual and the lack of truth in world politics. Most significantly Pax conveys life in Iraq to a Western audience—although his experience is, of course, not that of every Iraqi. Yet his diary allows the reader access to a world to which the media could never bring such a sense of immediacy. And it is Pax’s frustration and powerlessness that set the reader thinking. As he says, “I know Saddam is a nutcase with a finger on the trigger. But this is my country and I love its people. There is no way you can convince me that a war is OK.”
