And then there are some

There seems to be a bit of a scandal over the Net these days, and it has to do with a number of web journalists in all their worth saying what they want and how they feel like it.

Well, not everyone is saying what they want, but rather just one or two very outspoken ones that seem to spark flames with their posts. And then because these few not only have very fulfiling lives, this uses the term "Putting out flames with gasoline," simply because a lot of people are jealous and have a sense of prick pride.

Oh, and did I mention that this particular one who not only is outspoken and has a seemingly-very-fulfilling life have no prick? Whatever makes you happy calling it a Peter, dick, cock or pet dragon. A she, mind you. And there is a disturbance in the blogness of the world (or at least the Malaysian-Singaporean side), where some dislike to her happy happy life, telling her that it isn't right for her to make a daily report on how happy she is, because she reminds them so much of the unhappy lifestyles that they have.

While some of them are indeedly jealous, there are some that are unhappy with her such as this particular fellow, who recently took offense to her opinions on whether the normal should use handicapped toilets or not.

While it isn't much of my problem to highlight the situation concerning, it is interesting to note how far we have come in the Internet and the purposeness of blogging. Once, blogging was limited to HTML pages written out by very aspiring people back in the old days where Google was limited and porn was in an abundance. These days, Google has grown and so too has online porn.

Everybody these days has a blog.

Yup, nothing to it. You leave the technology and design to the webmasters, and you can set away typing whatever you feel like typing with freedom at your fingertips. Well, maybe not so anymore, but in every aspect, you have more power of expression than lets say a column in the newspaper and still have the potential to be served to more than just the local populace.

And in every form of media that has come to pass, there has always been a sort of crisis surrounding it. Or a revolution as you might say. Like the transition of monochrome televisions to full-colour, smoke signals to FM, Morse to the Internet, stone slabs to newspapers. And so has blogging come a long way, if has taken not more than a number of years to evolve.

And there are crisises, problems arising from the idea of blogging. Freedom of speech, the one reason that separates the natural world from the virtual. Now that barrier is vanishing, turning into a thin red line where governments seek to control various portions of the Internet. After all, aren't the servers located in their own country, and wouldn't they have every right to limit what should and what should not be?

And so begins the blog wars.

There are many sides to this. There is no Axis and Allies, Warriors of Light and Darkness to this, really. A sign of times that when a conflict arises, there is no such thing as the good guys versus the bad guys anymore.

You have on one side the fellows saying what they want (1), speaking the unwritten rule of the Internet: Say what you want. There are those who feel that the former should be like them (2), and say things within their boundaries, that not everything is to be said, that the Internet should apply to the conforms of society. And then you have another group (3) that seeks to speak on the politics of the real world, such as Malaysia-Today, for example (which are in my opinion, very news-worthy sites. Will speak more on this some other day). Lastly, you do have the majority of mild-mannered (4) (those who aren't involved, such as I) people who just make their way day-to-day.

And then you have the government(s) (5).

So you have Party Number One at war with Party Number Two, and vehemently so. Then you have Party Number Three engaging in an interesting guerilla war with Party Number Five, and the latter trying what they can to stifle the former. In both fronts, you have the members of Party Number Four who are really residents of neutral countries but are more than willing to become mercenaries or supporters of one of the other four parties, most likely because they believe in a cause, or are just there to toss more gasoline on the fire.

Of course you have those that are ignorant of this and seem aloof, but nobody really cares about them or writes about them because they aren't very interesting. Boring people aren't much fun.



So what is the moral of this story? Well, nothing yet. They say history is written by the victors, so we're just going to see what comes next then, eh?