Blinger, the Road to Petition, and some shout-outs

Happiness and sadness can both be found at Blinger's blog.

Happiness: Blinger has made my FUCK banner into a sticky post. Visit his blog and take a look.

Sadness: The comments section of one post on Blinger's site laments the blasé attitude of bloggers under censorship. There's a good deal of speculative commentary about the cohesiveness (or lack thereof) of the Koreablogosphere (by which I largely mean expat Koreabloggers who write in English). Blinger makes the excellent point that it shouldn't just be the bloggers who sign these petitions; ideally, it should also be the blogs' readership. At the risk of turning you all off, I say GET OFF YOUR FAT FUCKING ASS AND SIGN THE PETITIONS IF YOU READ THESE BLOGS.

Just lost 90% of my readership right there.

Sadness 2: In that same comments thread, Gumbi remarks on how difficult it is both to gain notice and to get fellow bloggers to act in concert. Steven Den Beste had a great post a long while ago about sociological clumping and unevenness. It's a bit controversial, but worth a read, and some of it may apply to the blogospheric situation, though cyberspace and physical space aren't totally analogous by any means.

SIGN THE PETITIONS, PLEASE.

Joel's petition

Gumbi's petition

Some shout-outs:

Andi takes offense at being associated with the "diary" half of the diarist/pundit blog taxonomy. I find "the Overbroad" a constantly stimulating read, and delightfully unclassifiable. It's one of my must-reads every day. I do have to note, though, that the personal/political typology is pretty widespread: Glenn was preaching this gospel last year. Den Beste divides bloggers into "linkers" and "thinkers," which is also a popular typology.

Wooj writes two excellent entries on racism, here and here. Both make you stop and think. Go thou and read.

The Maximum Leader, among other things, credits my penis as the font of my humor. This isn't exactly a compliment, dammit, and neither is the oblique reference to the Shelley poem about Ozymandias. My penis is NOT a crumbling ruin! If you scroll a bit downward, you'll find another great booze post by the Air Marshal, whose posts are quite popular. I know the Air Marshal generates hits with ease; I still get visits from people Googling about the Lord of the Rings trilogy. The man needs his own blog. Desperately. He'll be getting 500 hits a day in no time just blogging on politics, booze, and LOTR. If he adds his insights on parenting to the mix, he might start stealing readers from Jay's wonderful blog.

Speaking of Glenn, his short post about Richard Riordan's recent "stupid dirty girl" remark is a must-read. It seems the NAACP, the South Korean government, and Korean Netizens have something in common, and Wooj is writing all about it.

Joel, in concert with Antti, may have scored quite the coup: Antti wrote directly to a Korean lawmaker and got a reply. See Joel's post. The good news is that Joel and other bloggers are continuing to campaign hard to get this issue noticed by the Korean public. In the meantime, this whole affair needs to get more air time in the Western blogosphere, even if only as a matter of "bloggerly solidarity": it's primarily bloggers, after all, who are being affected by the current ban.

Hats off to Oranckay for being among the very first (if not the first!) to question the MIC's role in the ban. Whether Peter meant for this to happen or not, it's opened up a whole line of questioning about the MIC and accountability.

It may seem strange for me to put my religious studies hat on at this moment, but as we deal with the MIC (and I don't know how big it is or how many departments it has), it's good to keep the Vatican in mind.

People often say "the Vatican said/did X" as if the Vatican were a single entity whose component parts know no disarray or confusion. This is completely untrue, as I (a Protestant) was repeatedly told by various Catholics when I was studying at Catholic University. There is, for example, a good deal of static between Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger and his Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (a body that issues documents like the controversial, and confrontational, August 2000 Dominus Iesus), and Cardinal Edward Cassidy and the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity (Cassidy gave a talk at CUA and expressed some, uh, polite disagreement with the CDF's approach to interreligious issues).

Various powers are vying for position and influence in the Vatican right now as the jockeying to select a new Pope continues. It's not exactly "a house divided against itself," but it's certainly not of one mind. As we turn our attention to the Korean MIC, we see a similar phenomenon: some officials say one thing; others make different claims. Is the MIC responsible for the continued ban or isn't it? I lean toward a big yes, but I'm scientific enough to entertain other possibilities. I'm also enjoying the slow-but-systematic documentation of the MIC officials' contradictions, which I hope will be attached to names and played off each other for maximum effect. Some heads are going to roll (and I still think I'm going to end up deported), but it'll be worth it.

[Whoops-- head-rolling might not be the most tasteful image to use.]

So here's a new research project: what exactly is the MIC? How many people does it have? How many departments are there, and what functions do they have? Who works there (i.e., when "an MIC official" makes a claim, it'd be nice to know the claim emanated from a finite list of possible people)? Names, a flow chart, a picture of the opponent. We need these. And we need the employees' contact information. Oooh, yes. If someone on the inside can send FUCK (which, as you know, has no leadership and no members) a comprehensive list of contacts, that would be shweet. And no-- FUCK isn't actually in favor of disseminating this list to the whole world, but I've now made the acquaintance of some intrepid FUCKers who'd know what to do with such a list.

Also: as the FUCK movement grows, we should set up a FAQ page (FUQ page?) somewhere for people who are joining FUCK. Welcome, all you FUCKheads. We also need a patron saint. How about the little-known mystic Shiyat al-Fuqr? Or Testik al-Falus?

ONE LAST SHOUT-OUT: Happy Blogiversary (July 10) to Brian at Cathartidae! Keep up the great writing.

DAMMIT, ONE OTHER THING: He doesn't have nearly the readership of the spelling-error-prone-but-somehow-still-hilarious Frank J (whose blog turned 2 recently), but Stavros writes a post that could almost pass for a Frank J "In My World" piece. If Frank were a frothing leftie and not a frothing rightie, that is. Gave me a chuckle. "Politics chafe my scrote" indeed.

Off to do some brush art. And maybe sleep some.

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