Thursday, August 10, 2006

Rex Hammock: "Are terrorists idiots?" 

Just heard an expert on the WBUR show On Point saying that the terrorists were going to use iPods to detonate the bombs. Also, an obvious point was made, we have always been vulnerable to this kind of attack, which contradicts the constant claim of the politicians that they're doing a competent job of protecting us. Seems more likely luck was what's been protecting us, so far. 

Der Spiegel: "Terrorism experts believe that five years after the September 11 attacks, it's not the bearded man in the cave or his foot soldiers that are giving counterterrorism officials a headache -- it's young killers from Europe who are radicalizing quickly and almost invisibly." 

AP: "With even the most sophisticated screening equipment unable to prevent terrorists from smuggling bomb incredients on board a jetliner, a ban on many everyday items that could be used to trigger those bombs may be coming. The way we travel could be changed forever." Can you imagine traveling without your iPod, laptop, cell phone?  

Doc Searls was at Boston's Logan Airport early this morning waiting while the air travel system went into red alert mode over a disrupted terrorist plot. 

Globe and Mail: Social media and the London terrorist plot. 

MarketWatch: "Security officials said the terrorists planned to smuggle liquid explosives aboard the planes in beverages. The detonation charge would have come from a small electronic device." 

NY Times: "Delays and cancellations rippled across air traffic grids in the United States and Europe, disrupting travel far beyond London and causing severe congestion in airports." 

New header graphic. NYSE on a super-hot summer day.  

Brad Neuberg: "The original OPML spec actually references Douglas Engelbart in its text as the originator of outlining tools." 

Frank Barnako interviews Rocketboom's Andrew Baron. 

Reminder, there's a PDA version of Scripting News. It's still running and still up to date.  

At breakfast today 

At this week's Berkeley geek breakfast, Sylvia Paull, feminist agent provacateur and friend, noted the name-calling and flaming about my post-BlogHer pieces. I had told her that when I write about gender I get attacked. I've told other feminist friends the same, and said it at BloggerCon in June. They denied it, telling me basically to be a man, suckitup, stop being so sensitive. This time Sylvia got to see both the cause and the effect, and I won the argument, finally. She now sees the barriers, ones she herself doesn't have, but others of her gender do have, to letting men say their piece about gender.

I failed to point to Liz Henry's original piece, the first I saw of her writing was elsewhere, so that's where I pointed. She was one of the doubters, post-BloggerCon she ridiculed me for asking for permission to speak on gender. Perhaps unwittingly she gave the best demo of why I, and other men, are fearful to speak about gender. In a condescending and humiliating fashion, we get lectured by women who don't stop to think before they name-call and attack. No, Liz I don't think it's cute when you call me a sexist. And I don't think it's fun if it doesn't go both ways. I don't want to call you or anyone else a name, but if I did what you did, imagine the verbal stack of bricks that would come down on me.

We still have a long ways to go before we're having fully respectful discourse about gender. Men know what we have to do, we've had it drilled into us for at least a generation. But there's a long to-do-list for women, and because men have been forced into silence on this subject, that list hasn't had a chance to develop. Liz, it's time to bend over backwards to create safety for men to speak on this subject. Many of your colleagues are already doing this. There are still a few standouts, and you are one of them. No more gender-bashing, lecturing and name-calling, and no more tolerance for that. I will consider what you have said. Now it would be great if you would do the same.