silver

BIAS CHECK: I do not agree with lj's point of view. I am also not lj staff, nor am I one with flocked entries. Please read with these in mind.


I'm starting to see the privacy debacle on lj as a vast difference in the concept of who owns what.

It's obvious that for people with flocked journals or entries who are telling lj that they don't want this feature feel that it is their content. That the comments made on their account fall under their 'jurisdiction' (used in the non-legal sense). They want the ability to control what is seen and what is not seen: while copy and paste is always possible, it is an conscious, deliberate action that crossposting is not.

From lj's standpoint, the comments are the property of the commenters, and so they have control over what and where they post their comment. A crosspost of a comment to them is thus not the invasion of privacy that many lj users are calling it.

This seems to be a sort of Gaping Pit of Ideology that neither can cross. The ones who don't like lj's decision will lock down further or get out — to dreamwidth, to journalfen, to where-ever else — and the users who agree with lj's view or simply don't care will not be able to understand the fuss.

This reminds me of the state/federal rights fight in the US.

Hi! Welcome to my journal! I like books and words and languages and all sorts of things. If you like books, we'll probably get along splendidly. This journal is a mix of fannish and bookish and real-life stuff, but in general I keep this journal lighthearted, as a place to have fun--this is where I relax, chat with people, and do silly things. My favourite genres of books are historical fiction, fantasy, alternate history, historical fantasy, science fiction... Come in, pull up a chair!

Let me be terribly earnest for a moment: I like Aquinas' quote "Seldom affirm, never deny, always distinguish." I believe truth is complex, that slogans rarely express the complexities that underlie them, and that when possible I should try to understand why before attacking. There are terrible people, terrible beliefs, terrible things, but merely shouting about "wrongness" has rarely worked. (I am atheist, but I remain fascinated by medieval Europe, the role Christianity had in shaping that society and ours today, and I enjoy Aquinas' logic and writing.)

My reviews/critiques tend to be whatever catches my fancy, but I am not interested in defending what I like on anyone's merits. I also consider this place a space for me, the reader: reviews I write represent only my point of view, are for other readers, and are not intended to be personal attacks.

LiveJournal is my home--my LJ is the same name. Everything on DW is on LJ, but not the other way around.

If you need to contact me, my @livejournal.com address will reach me.

I finished The Red Scarf yesterday, and meant to post about idealism sliding to cynicism, and then I went on sf_drama  and was completely derailed.

The Red Scarf is written by Kate Furnivall and centers around two young women who are in a Siberia labour camp--Anna and Sofia (I am not even going to try to pronounce the last names in this book. I give up.) What was really interesting to me, though, is the shift in ideology that Mikhail Pashin experiences. [And also seeing a book that doesn't just automatically scream COMMUNISM IS BAD without justification.]

I think that the people who tried to institute communism--the ideological embodiment of it, anyway--really, genuinely wanted to make their world a better place. As far as people in the Western hemisphere can see it, though, it's failed miserably. And I think the slow realization that perhaps those shining ideals that were so worshipped in the past aren't as perfect is fascinating. How do you deal with that kind of shake-up? What do you do when the solid ground of your beliefs crumbles right out of existence?

Mikhail and Vasily were both strong supporters of communism, right before the revolution; Mikhail born of a lower class, Vasily very much of the aristocracy. It's interesting to see, though, that SPOILERS AHEAD ( Spoiler )