Blogocracy

Although I missed Derek Miller’s presentation at the Vancouver meeting of the Editors’ Association of Canada, I listened to it the next day by podcast. He describes building a website in less than 15 minutes.

The talk followed a day-long blog conference in Vancouver called Northern Voice.

Reason contributing editor Cathy Young writes on “Smears in Cyberspace: Blogs and media ethics” in the February 2006 issue. Visit her blog.

Arm-chair traveller

Think{it}communications has a simple but stylish website with samples of several genres of writing. Without the icons accompanying the links on the right-hand side, the home page would be too text heavy. The exception is the banner at the top that rotates photo art when clicked. Sometimes though, the banner goes blank. The only contact information is a phone number, but no email.

Eyetrack III studies “online news consumer behavior in the age of multimedia.” Eyetrack III's website is hosted by the Poyneter Institute of Journalism. While Poyneter’s website is too busy for my taste, I enjoyed browsing Eyetrack III. The designer handles a great deal of information by dividing the layout into three columns and three rows. The first row provides a paragraph or more on the topic with link. The second row gives only the first sentence of articles with links, while the third row simply provides links.

Once a link is clicked, the design switches to a narrow column of links on the left and a wide column of text on the right. It’s easy to navigate. Eyetrack III offers a lot of information for web designers of online news sites.

Arm-chair travel takes on new meaning with Central Park.com. The website has photos, events, and interactive maps. It presents a ton of information, nicely arranged in its user-friendly website.

Love at first click

Tazo Tea, which is distributed by Starbucks, has an interesting website. The only thing though about Tazo.com, it’s a one-off website—I doubt if people ever make more than one or two visits. (Unfortunately, Tazo.com has a pop-up that sometimes doesn't work. Also, it disables the browser back button. Here's the link, which will open in a new window.)

First, I'll tell you what I like about the website. The design has both an old-time look, as well as a contemporary (notice the steam rising from the tea) design. On the “Explore our Teas” page, it divides the teas into black, green, and what it calls herbal infusions, and it provides a little history on the teas.

The page I really like is “Consult the Tea Leaves.” Type in your name and answer two questions, and then the tea reader does his stuff. Today, he said: “I see you watching the sun in Hawaii.” Nice thought. Notice the eyes of the tea-reader follow your mouse movements.

But, as I mentioned, this is a one-off adventure. I’ll probably never visit the site again. The exception would be if I were travelling and wanted to find where I could buy Tazo Tea. But I’m not that much of a tea nut-case to need this particular brand. Stash would do, or even the less expensive, Tetley Tea.

What I don’t like about the Tazo Tea website are the small frames. These require clicking on arrows in order to read the full text, something I hate.

A website that I check periodically is Darren Barefoot’s. I’ve bookmarked this website on my browser bar. So I can fit as many as possible bookmarks on my browser bar, I shorted the names of the websites. For example, Darren Barefoot’s is shortened to DB and sits in between Con (a money conversion site) and Dict (to dictionary.com). I have 31 buttons now (in addition to bookmarked pages in the drop-down menu, and in addition to my bookmarked pages).

I can’t remember how I first found Darren’s website. He was a technical writer, so perhaps I saw his name through browsing the STC website. Darren’s home page is a blog; I’m amazed at the amount of stuff he’s in touch with. In addition to continuously updating his personal website, he operates a company called Capulet Communications. It’s the content of Darren’s website that I like, but also it’s easy to get around.

I rather like Capulet’s website too, because I like the grey background and love black and white photographs. The designer adds a nice touch with white hairlines around the photos rather than using common black hairline. I also like the ease of getting around it. The copy is short. Great.

Capulet Communications’ website has the feature I like the best. I can increase the size of text by hitting Ctrl-+ (or Ctrl- - to reduce) and everything increases nicely. On some sites, when you increase the size parts overlap and make it difficult to read. Perhaps this is due to the use of frames. Another thing I like about the Capulet website is that the width is on the narrow size (like this blog design).

2005 Canadian Excuse Award

On the eve of Canada’s 2006 Federal Election, Svend Robinson must be hitting back the drugs to keep his mania at bay. The former Member of Parliament (New Democrat Party) has a tendency to get quite excited about things; he has told the press that if he’s re-elected, psychiatric drugs will keep him in balance.

Mania? That’s not a journalist faux pas. Mania is a perfectly good word to describe enthusiast behaviour which often becomes really annoying behaviour to others. But since mania has a nasty after-taste sound, psychiatry has re-branded mania to the polite-sounding “bi-polar disorder.” Nice and tidy.

This re-branding, however, turns a guy like Robinson, who just wanted to have a little fun and a nice glittery diamond ring for his gay partner, into a so-called mentally ill man. But Robinson, along with his supporters, does not seem to mind.

Robinson has always shown enthusiasm for the causes he embraces. He must be a pretty keen hiker too, because it was a hiking accident that caused him, seven years later, to steal a diamond ring.

His claim goes something like this: The hiking accident resulted in so much stress, that many years later it caused him to attend an auction, look at some jewellery, get really excited over one diamond ring in particular, and then steal it. He later confessed, returned the ring, and resigned as MP. And we rewarded him with an all-expense paid medical leave.

American philosopher and psychiatric critic Thomas Szasz asks why the voices in people’s heads always tell them to do nasty stuff, like burn your children or kill your wife. Why not, “buy your mother flowers” or “take your wife out for dinner”?

In Robinson’s case, I wonder why the hiking accident didn’t cause him to try another leisure sport or perhaps, water the lawn, read a good book, or take a holiday—at his expense. There are many ways to relieve stress, other than stealing a diamond ring.

We like to take credit for the good things we do, but shirk responsibility for the creepy or criminal things we do. From the Twinkie defense to the battered-woman syndrome defense, to the hiking-accident-post-stress sob-story, our culture is riddled with excuse-making and excuse-makers. American defense attorney and Harvard Law School professor Alan M. Dershowitz, chronicles this trend in The Abuse Excuse.

If Robinson loses the election tomorrow, here’s a little consolation for the poor stress-prone guy: To commemorate his contribution to pundits’ ink, I’ve established the annual Canadian Excuse Award—and the 2005 Canadian Excuse Award goes to Svend Robinson.

Life in the fat lane

Even though I’m 40 pounds overweight, I swore I’d never read a diet book. Reviewers of The Hungry Years: confessions of a food addict couldn’t quite classify it—memoir, personal diet book, literary journalism, creative non-fiction—and this intrigued me. What would a sometimes-overweight well-known British journalist do with the topical issue of fat? I ordered William Leith’s book from the library.

Before The Hungry Years arrived, I was set to dislike it because I assumed the journalist knew it was a ripe time to commercialize the hot topics of obesity and the controversial Atkins diet. He needed a good angle and found it in his interview with Dr. Robert Atkins just before he died. As any good fat journalist would do for research, he went on the Atkins diet. And, to spice things up, Leith also chronicled his fondness for cocaine, painkillers, caffeine, alcohol, as well as his penchant for women who smoke and shop too much.

Leith surprised me though. The book unexpectedly captivated me—giving me pleasure. After reading about 30 pages a night of The Hungry Years, I received an email from the library requesting me to return the book. I had assignments due, readings including daily newspapers—not too mention the dozen or more e-news and e-zines that zip in and out of my inbox. I rarely read for pleasure these days.

But, Leith’s writing was worth stealing away one afternoon from my work. Lying in bed, covertly reading The Hungry Years reminded me of the way I quietly get up in the middle of the night for white bread slathered with butter and jam, slouching in and out of the kitchen for my clandestine snack.

The book was like food: by the time I got near the end of each chapter—and they were short chapters of two or three pages—I wanted more. The closer I got to finishing a plate of food, I wanted more. Leith calls this, full but hungry. There’s about a minute or two of unadulterated gratification in eating. And then it’s a slow race to the end, knowing that within a short time I’ll be back where I started—hungry.

Leith explains that carbohydrates, which contain a lot of sugars, make our blood sugar rise; the rise is followed by a drop, and the drop in blood sugar causes hunger. Next to sugar, the worst culprit is French fries. Leith also sets the record straight about the Atkins diet: it is not a high-fat, no-fruit diet but merely a plan that reduces the intake of carbohydrates—bread, potatoes, pasta, rice, and high-carb snacks. By reducing carb intake and eating meals of egg, cheese and meat protein, vegetables, and fruits, and handfuls of macadamia nuts, appetite is satiated.

On the low-carb diet, Leith rapidly lost weight. He lost his heavy-smoking girlfriend too. And his father, who tried the diet, lost weight.

Not only did Leith lose weight, more importantly, he lost his craving for food. He didn’t crave, he didn’t obsess, and he didn’t long for food.

But he missed being hungry.

Losing weight and losing the craving for food wasn’t enough for Leith. He had to figure out why he loved his addictions so much. And this is where the book takes a dive. Leith took a stroll down therapy lane and, unfortunately, the last part of the book becomes an endorsement for the helping industry.

As a good therapy client, Leith learned to build shrines of his childhood hurts and to return, week after week, for worship. He reverted to eating too much, drinking too much, and consuming painkillers and cocaine too much. And Leith let his new girlfriend, who owned over a 100 pairs of shoes and loved shopping too much, feed him lots of toast with butter. He described gorging on pasta and wine, and passing out with her on a hotel bed—fully dressed.

The helping industry erodes self-reliance. Reliance on others erodes discipline. It is discipline—not insight into our bad childhoods—that we fatties lack.