Impolite Conversation: Religion and Politics

[tcpip]

Last two services at the Melbourne Unitarian Church were former Senator Janet Powell speaking for International Women's Day and Stephen Stuart, President of the Humanist Society of Victoria, on the separation of religion and state. Powell's speech was not to my liking; too much obsessing over the proportion of women in parliament. Stuart's presentation was dry, formal, with impeccable dress, and cautiously explained how the State has become a defacto funder of religious organisations. Tomorrow night I'll be attending the Sea of Faith to hear David Miller talk on the resurrection-denying ancient Christian Church of Marcion

Global politics has become very interesting; Foreign media has been expelled as the troops seal off Tibet. The Dalai Lama is criticised for adopting a non-violent path. China is concerned with ensuring that its policies are supported at home (after all, if the Tibets can overthrow the dictators so can the Chinese). A popular petition on the matter (130K signatures so far) is available. Dr. John Powers of ANU argues the Tibetan cause - and notes how this would benefit China.

In virtual politics, apparently there is going to be a Livejournal Strike! Local times are available



What's this about?

* It's about free and ad-free LiveJournal accounts being abolished for new members, ignoring the advice from the newly-formed Advisory Board.
* It's about LJ staff trying to sneak this decision in under the radar, and when people found out, telling the users it was done 'to make the signup process less confusing'.
* It's about LJ staff failing to apologize for trying to hide the facts from view and for lying about the actual reasons for their actions.
* And finally, it's about the latest decision to hide certain user interests from the list of Most Popular Interests, some of them being fanfiction, bisexuality, sex and depression. This decision was not announced or explained in any way. Users found out for themselves.

Comments

[khrysha.livejournal.com]

Live Journal's days are numbered. It's censorship net is widening and it's not pleasant. More and more I'm heading elsewhere for my networking. It's such a pity.

Someone said the Russki's own it now... surprising they're so conservative considering they love sex and drugs and mafiosi!

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure whether its days are numbered given the client base and the technology itself. But it sure ain't going to grow under these circumstances.

[longi.livejournal.com]

Install the software yourself and take your friends and communities as RSS feeds.

Then you can decide whether or not to censor yourself or serve yourself ads.

At least you be able to target accurate and interesting ads at yourself :)

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

What a concept.

I want to see nothing by Alzheimer medication pop ups. So I can wax about constantly forgetting to turn them off.

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Good point :-)

[evil-genius.livejournal.com]

It's seems to be the way of things in life. Both online and off.
Something is born and it's free and awesome. A bunch of people get turned on to how awesome it is. A few of them realize there is profit to be made. So they set up a structure to support the awesome and make a profit at the same time. Slowly the original founders are replaced with people who are concerned less and less with the awesome, yet more and more with the profit. In the interest of appealing to a wider audience and thus increase profits, much of the awesome is subjugated or removed entirely. The masses stick around long enough to provide the profit. But those of us who came for the awesome slowly trickle away.

I can think of a short list of 1000 sites this has happened.