The American blogosphere logged a tragic milestone on Monday with the Virginia Tech massacre that claimed 33 lives.
Eighty or so hours after this incident, there have already been thousands of blogs written about this national tragedy (as of this posting, 8,687 blogs have been written under the heading of Virginia Tech, according to Technorati.com).
One of the more intriguing threads was the speculation of the meaning behind the name "Ismail Ax," which was found scrawled in red ink on the arm of Seung-Hui Cho. The name was also the alias Cho used on the postage when he sent his manifesto and video to NBC.
Some thought it might be a reference to the Islamic account of the Biblical sacrifice of Abraham. It seems that the Islamic connection was a popular theory in the blogosphere because many people believed the incident to be related to terrorism.
But in Cho's 1800-word manifesto and video, he ranted incoherently against wealth and debauchery, never citing any scripture, simply referencing Jesus Christ and martyrdom. He was organized, but seemed to lack the discipline and focus of a jihadist. Cho's motivations appear to be intensely narcissistic, and self-absorption goes against everything Islam is about. So it seems highly dubious that Cho did this in conjunction with any terrorist network.
Another, more obscure theory is that the name is a reference to the outlaw warrior character Ishmael Bush from the James Fenimore Cooper novel "The Prairie." The character is supposed to symbolize the darkest evil in man. Or some think it might possibly be the character Ishmael from "Moby Dick," since Cho was an English major and had likely read the book.
Others think that Cho used the name simply because it was the nickname he had adopted on a video-gaming site.
In a cynical sign of our tech-savvy times, Raymond Patterson of Corpus Christi, Texas registered the domain name ismailax.com five minutes after he heard it mentioned on a Fox News broadcast. Patterson says he has about 200 domain names registered overall. How somebody could be thinking about business while hearing details of a massacre is beyond me.
But Patterson said he had no intention of making "blood money" off the site. Fortunately, he appears to have lived up to that promise, and the domain has since been used to direct people to a memorial site for the Virginia Tech victims.
Regardless of the name's meaning - if there really is any - there's no way we'll ever truly know what compelled Cho to do what he did. But as journalists - and humans - we will always be striving to answer the unanswerable.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Thursday, April 12, 2007
The Dynamics of Digital Dating
With Web 2.0 taking an increasingly large role in the lives of Americans, the idea of online dating, a minuscule niche just a few years ago, is rapidly attaining more respectability in the mainstream.
Couples are no longer ashamed to admit that they met online (not that they should have been in the first place - where else could you find such a precise match?). Those eHarmony and Match.com ads are now ubiquitous.
But even the dynamics of a meatspace rendezvous are being drastically altered by the Internet. You can Google your date's name and essentially find out all about him or her before ever engaging in a prolonged conversation.
This puts you in the awkward situation of already knowing your date's interests and what they are going to talk about, but not being able to say anything without looking like a stalker.
Of course, you shouldn't praise or condemn your date based upon a simple Google search, for obvious reasons. One being mistaken identity (having the name Josh Smith, this has happened to me more times than I care to remember.) Another reason being that people often lie or embellish on the Internet - about themselves and about each other. Everyone has an agenda.
Due to the preponderance of digital deception, the cottage industry of online background checks was born. Dating sites like True.com run criminal background checks on their subscribers. True.com plans to sue a Florida subscriber who was revealed to be an ex-con via a background check.
True.com has lobbied hard to get state legislatures to require online dating sites to have prominent postings that tell users whether they conduct criminal background checks on their subscribers. It's an idea that state lawmakers in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia have been flirting with for the past couple of years, but none has passed any legislation yet.
Of course, True.com is likely serving a corporate interest more than it's trying to curb crime. The site, which charges $50 a month and is notoriously hard to drop, used to this ploy to make a name for itself and stand out from the other services.
In another note of hypocrisy, the supposedly family-oriented service uses scantily-clad models in provocative poses (akin to those found on porn sites) to lure potential clients. And it also sends out fake, automated "winks" (which are user-to-user IMs meant to express an interest in each other). So if clients aren't really paying attention, they'll erroneously think that the site is paying off and they're getting their money's worth.
It's kind of ironic that a site selling itself on the premise of protecting users from deception is in fact methodically deceiving its own users. And it's even more ironic that the site is named True.com.
But the beauty of the Internet is that you can research all these companies beforehand, filtering out the frauds before you hand over your hard-earned cash in search of a romantic connection.
Whether dating in meatspace or cyberspace, risks will have to be taken and likely much money spent. But in both realms it's always a worthwhile proposition.
Couples are no longer ashamed to admit that they met online (not that they should have been in the first place - where else could you find such a precise match?). Those eHarmony and Match.com ads are now ubiquitous.
But even the dynamics of a meatspace rendezvous are being drastically altered by the Internet. You can Google your date's name and essentially find out all about him or her before ever engaging in a prolonged conversation.
This puts you in the awkward situation of already knowing your date's interests and what they are going to talk about, but not being able to say anything without looking like a stalker.
Of course, you shouldn't praise or condemn your date based upon a simple Google search, for obvious reasons. One being mistaken identity (having the name Josh Smith, this has happened to me more times than I care to remember.) Another reason being that people often lie or embellish on the Internet - about themselves and about each other. Everyone has an agenda.
Due to the preponderance of digital deception, the cottage industry of online background checks was born. Dating sites like True.com run criminal background checks on their subscribers. True.com plans to sue a Florida subscriber who was revealed to be an ex-con via a background check.
True.com has lobbied hard to get state legislatures to require online dating sites to have prominent postings that tell users whether they conduct criminal background checks on their subscribers. It's an idea that state lawmakers in California, Florida, Texas, Michigan, Ohio and Virginia have been flirting with for the past couple of years, but none has passed any legislation yet.
Of course, True.com is likely serving a corporate interest more than it's trying to curb crime. The site, which charges $50 a month and is notoriously hard to drop, used to this ploy to make a name for itself and stand out from the other services.
In another note of hypocrisy, the supposedly family-oriented service uses scantily-clad models in provocative poses (akin to those found on porn sites) to lure potential clients. And it also sends out fake, automated "winks" (which are user-to-user IMs meant to express an interest in each other). So if clients aren't really paying attention, they'll erroneously think that the site is paying off and they're getting their money's worth.
It's kind of ironic that a site selling itself on the premise of protecting users from deception is in fact methodically deceiving its own users. And it's even more ironic that the site is named True.com.
But the beauty of the Internet is that you can research all these companies beforehand, filtering out the frauds before you hand over your hard-earned cash in search of a romantic connection.
Whether dating in meatspace or cyberspace, risks will have to be taken and likely much money spent. But in both realms it's always a worthwhile proposition.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
Confessions of a Porn Addict
According to a figure cited in an article on CNN.com, at any given moment there are about 28,258 Internet users looking at porn. Being a guy, this number didn't surprise me at all - if anything it seems kind of low.
What did surprise me were the results of an unscientific poll, conducted by the surreally-named XXXChurch.com, which found that 70 percent of Christians admitted to having an ongoing porn problem. "Problem" was defined as an addiction having reached the point where it had a negative effect on their personal lives, ruining relationships with their significant others and family members.
The founder of XXXChurch.com, Craig Gross, said 76 percent of the pastors he interviewed also confessed to having a porn problem. Gross says he isn't surprised by these figures, since pornography has become mainstreamed to the point where it is a $12 billion-a-year industry with 4.2 million porn sites to surf.
Gross founded the online ministry XXXChurch.com to start a dialogue about what he saw as the growing issue of porn use within the church. Along with his site, he also hosts periodic breakfast meetings that he has dubbed "Porn & Pancakes."
In addition to attending porn conventions and handing out bibles to the attendees, Gross travels to college campuses across the country and engages in debates with porn legend Ron Jeremy on pornography's effects on its users.
But Gross' methods are mild in comparison with that of Pure Life Christian Ministries, which offers a six-month, live-in treatment program for males with sexual addictions. This entire six-month period is devoted to labor and intensive bible study. All contact with the outside world is cut off - TV, cell phones and especially the Internet.
Their approach is like that of a substance abuse rehab clinic, and they treat their clients' addictions with the same seriousness as alcoholism.
Personally, I don't see porn in itself as a bad thing (as long as it's the legal variety). Like alcohol, it can be a good outlet - when used in moderation. It's when the activity becomes your life as opposed to a fleeting escape from it, that it becomes a problem.
Unfortunately, the Internet allows these activities to be conducted effortlessly and hassle-free - you don't have to spend a dime, and you get to forgo those sheepish walks to the cashier where you request a discreet brown paper bag.
If these time-honored rituals were still in place, porn usage would be a fraction of what it is today. I think it's mostly a matter of will power. But these problems do exist, and though I'm not particularly religious, I admire the efforts of men like Gross to address them.
If there are people for whom porn has become an all-consuming obsession, than I am all for whatever methods they deem necessary to get them back on the straight-and-narrow, and onto a happy and productive existence.
What did surprise me were the results of an unscientific poll, conducted by the surreally-named XXXChurch.com, which found that 70 percent of Christians admitted to having an ongoing porn problem. "Problem" was defined as an addiction having reached the point where it had a negative effect on their personal lives, ruining relationships with their significant others and family members.
The founder of XXXChurch.com, Craig Gross, said 76 percent of the pastors he interviewed also confessed to having a porn problem. Gross says he isn't surprised by these figures, since pornography has become mainstreamed to the point where it is a $12 billion-a-year industry with 4.2 million porn sites to surf.
Gross founded the online ministry XXXChurch.com to start a dialogue about what he saw as the growing issue of porn use within the church. Along with his site, he also hosts periodic breakfast meetings that he has dubbed "Porn & Pancakes."
In addition to attending porn conventions and handing out bibles to the attendees, Gross travels to college campuses across the country and engages in debates with porn legend Ron Jeremy on pornography's effects on its users.
But Gross' methods are mild in comparison with that of Pure Life Christian Ministries, which offers a six-month, live-in treatment program for males with sexual addictions. This entire six-month period is devoted to labor and intensive bible study. All contact with the outside world is cut off - TV, cell phones and especially the Internet.
Their approach is like that of a substance abuse rehab clinic, and they treat their clients' addictions with the same seriousness as alcoholism.
Personally, I don't see porn in itself as a bad thing (as long as it's the legal variety). Like alcohol, it can be a good outlet - when used in moderation. It's when the activity becomes your life as opposed to a fleeting escape from it, that it becomes a problem.
Unfortunately, the Internet allows these activities to be conducted effortlessly and hassle-free - you don't have to spend a dime, and you get to forgo those sheepish walks to the cashier where you request a discreet brown paper bag.
If these time-honored rituals were still in place, porn usage would be a fraction of what it is today. I think it's mostly a matter of will power. But these problems do exist, and though I'm not particularly religious, I admire the efforts of men like Gross to address them.
If there are people for whom porn has become an all-consuming obsession, than I am all for whatever methods they deem necessary to get them back on the straight-and-narrow, and onto a happy and productive existence.
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