2000-06-08
Dear Diary:

����You can't have vigilantes in Utopia, you can't.

����But I can sense their presence here, the soft hiss of steel as they whet their knives, the smell of pitch as they prepare their torches for a dark hunt for vengeance.

����You can't have vigilantes in Utopia, you can't.

����It makes sense that it should all be swirling around the Uncle Bob diary.

����If you think of Diaryland as a world, then each of our diaries is like an individual community. Communities can be all different sizes, from places so tiny that if you blink you miss them to big teeming urban centers.

����I have always considered Diaryland a digital attempt at Utopia, a place where very diverse communities of varying sizes co-exist in peace. A place where an individual's opinions and feelings were respected no matter how foreign they were to someone in another community.

����You can't have vigilantes in Utopia, you can't.

����I'm a "blink your eyes" sort of community, only friends and family come here. What I'm writing is very quirky and intensely personal. If you don't know me, how could any of it possibly say anything to you?

����But the Uncle Bob diary is heavily visited, it's the Diaryland equivalent of New York City.

����Someone just dropped a neutron bomb with a side cannister of sulphuric acid on Uncle Bob, slammed his diary hard in anonymous diary of their own. He tells the tale in his own site, if you want to follow it. You can see by his response that the attack has caused him anguish, and with good reason.

����This is supposed to be Utopia, the place where you shuck your protective veneer. Nobody is prepared to be hit like that here.

����And now all the people who are intensely fond of both the diary and the man behind it want vengeance. BUT the writer of the slamming diary is anonymous. So ... we have people sharpening knives and readying torches but without a visible target. Only suspicions, and already there are threats, innuendos, the soft muttering of a coalescing mob ...

����You can't have vigilantes in Utopia, you can't.

����So we're at one of those interesting moments. Are we going for the Salem Witch Hunts? Should we be looking for another demagogue like Joseph McCarthy to help us hunt down the insidious Other that would corrupt our little world?

����Or do we decide that what matters is preserving Utopia?

����Like I said, an individual diary is a community. It can be as small as a community of one if no one visits it. No one has to go anywhere they do not want to go, no one has to visit a diary with which they do not agree.

����I hate the sound of knives being sharpened, the smell of pitch on torches.

����And with all my heart I believe you can't have vigilantes in Utopia, you can't.

--Marn

Old Drivel - New Drivel


Subscribe with Bloglines


Want to delve into my sordid past?
She's mellllllllllllllting - Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2012 - Back off, Buble - Monday, Dec. 19, 2011 - Dispersed - Monday, Nov. 28, 2011 - Nothing comes for free - Monday, Nov. 21, 2011 - None of her business - Friday, Nov. 04, 2011 -


.:Cast:. .:Diaryland Notes:. .:Comments (0 so far):. .:E-mail:.
.:Adventures In Oz:.
.:12% Beer:. .:Links:. .:Host:. .:Archives:.

Cavort, cavort, my kingdom for a cavort Globe of Blogs 12 Per Cent Beer my partners in crime


A button for random, senseless, drive-by linkings:
Blogroll Me!


< ? blogs by women # >
Bloggers over forty + ?
<< | BlogCanada | >>
[ << ? Verbosity # >> ]
<< x Blog x Philes x >>


This template is a riff on a design by the truly talented Quinn. Because I'm a html 'tard, I got alot of pity coding to modify it from Ms. Kittay, a woman who can make html roll over, beg, and bring her her slippers. The logo goodness comes from the God of Graphics, the Fuhrer of Fonts, the one, the only El Presidente. I smooch you all. The background image is part of a painting called Higher Calling by Carter Goodrich which graced the cover of the Aug. 3, 1998 issue of The New Yorker Magazine.

Kids, don't try viewing this at home without Netscape 6 or IE 4.5+, a screen resolution of 800 X 600 and the font Mead Bold firmly ensconced on your hard drive.

�2000, 2001, 2002 Marn. This is me, dagnabbit. You be you.