Pointing Fingers

Annoy.com vs. Rupert Murdoch: Decades of Disgust

From its inception, as part of a First Amendment lawsuit challenging the Communications Decency Act, our role was to ensure that both language and imagery, crude in style and execution in its early days, was intentionally as indecent and annoying as possible.

The targets of Annoy.com’s wrath – politicians and the media – were excoriated with unreserved venom and vitriol, with the foulest language imaginable and frequently graphics to support it. And top of that list, from day one, was Rupert Murdoch and his media properties.

The biggest irony of all, was that our small company had waged a First Amendment battle, the resolution of which would protect the likes of News Corporation. No one could argue that online transmission of content of the New York Post, The Sun, News of the World and later Fox News, would meet the vague definitions of both indecent and annoying.

Almost every month, our disgust for Murdoch and the extent to which he was singlehandedly and irreparably degrading journalism was published on Annoy.com.

All this time we’ve been railing against Murdoch, it felt like we were swimming upstream alone. Long before Keith Olbermann began his vendetta against Fox News and later Murdoch. But the Internet has a memory, and despite the vulgarity of some of the expression, here is a compilation of what Annoy.com published. Vindication has taken a long time, but it looks like finally it may just have arrived.

William Bennett Turner Talks First Amendment

One of my remarkable First Amendment attorneys, Bill Turner, gives an overview of his book, Figures of Speech: First Amendment Heroes and Villains.

I'm incredibly honored. In this Authors@Google Presents talk, Bill spends a considerable amount of time discussing landmark First Amendment cases that set the stage for any Internet law to follow. Renv.ACLU, in which I filed an Amicus brief, and ApolloMedia v. Reno in which I was the plaintiff. He also dicusses Wikileaks and Julian Assange.

In addition, he discusses other important cases and their implications, including Yetta Stromberg (the first time in American history that the court struck down a law on First Amendment grounds) to Ku Klux Klan leader, Clarence Brandenburg, Earl Caldwell (the journalist who covered the Black Panthers and refused to hand over his notebooks and recordings to the FBI at the behest of J. Edgar Hoover), Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Larry Flint (editor of Hustler magazine).

Bill’s book provides an incredible history of the First Amendment – how “fighting words” or “shouting fire in a crowded theater” and other familiar First Amendment principles came to be. I will definitely be discussing more of Bill’s book, chapter by chapter, in posts to follow.

Introduction"
1 Yetta Stromberg
2 Jehovahs Witnesses
3 Dannie Martin
4 Raymond Procunier and Robert H Schnacke
5 Earl Caldwell
6 Richard Hongisto 
7 Clarence Brandenburg
8 Larry Flynt
9 Clinton Fein and the ACLU
Afterword

DADT - A Well Deserved Celebration, A Cautious Next Step

Yesterday the Senate voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Finally, clearing the way for President Obama’s signature. Although I didn’t serve in the military, this victory is intensely personal.

In 1994, I, along with Trace Cohen & Steve Campbell founded ApolloMedia, which purchased the electronic rights to Randy Shilts’ journalistic masterpiece, Conduct Unbecoming, about gays and lesbians in the U.S. military.

The critically acclaimed, award-winning CD-ROM we produced -- which Rolling Stone magazine called “evolutionary” -- was the first ever to tackle gay politics, and a product that in and of itself, pioneered digital activism by allowing users to use a zip code map to automatically print out and fax (yes, fax) their representatives in congress (no representatives had email accounts yet).

Using images and videos, we were able to build upon the brilliant research by Randy Shilts and put a human face on an issue that was largely invisible – unless you were in the trenches, actively fighting it.

The project involved meeting and interviewing incredibly brave and pioneering servicemembers and lawyers and activists fighting for the dignity of all gay and lesbian servicemembers.

Long before Lady Gaga and GOProud (an organization taking credit for the repeal),there were many people fighting in the trenches.

Before Dan Choi, Mike Almy, Katie Miller and Victor Fehrenbach there were Johnnie Phelps, Copy Berg, Perry Watkins, Leonard Matlovich, Miriam Ben Shalom, Grethe Cammermeyer, Dusty Pruitt, Justin Elzie, Keith Meinhold, Tanya Domi, Zoe Dunning, Joe Zuniga, Tracey Thorne, Joe Steffan, Andy Holmes, Barbara Baum, Ruth Voor, Karen Colton, Jerry Rosanbalm, Karen Stupski, Phil Adams, Chuck Schoen, Cliff Anchor and Carole Brock to mention but a few. Some of them actively fought the ban, others forced to suffer its consequences.

There were the legal minds, activists and writers that not only made life better for those facing discrimination long before DADT was hatched as an awkward “compromise” but shaped the legal framework of gay servicemembers that would ultimately lead to the demise of DADT – compassionate and savvy warriors like Bridget Wilson, Mary Newcombe, John McGuire, Kate Dyer, Kathy Gilberd, Kirk Childress, David Mixner, Frank Kameny and Rhonda Rivera, Alan Berube, Aaron Belkin and Nathaniel Frank among many.

There were the founders of Servicemembers Legal Defense Network – Michelle Benecke and Dixon Osburn -- which has been perhaps the most important organization protecting servicemembers under DADT to this day.

There was the GLBVA veteran organization founded by Miriam Ben Shalom, and stewarded by Nancy Russell, Jim Darby, Ed Clayton, Cliff Arnesen, AVER, and a host of others.

There was the Alexander Hamilton Post, Post 447 – the first gay American Legion post, founded by Paul Hardman, and active today thanks to people like Bud Robbins, Arch Wilson, Mario Benfield, John Forrett and many others.

Many of these incredible and inspiring people became friends that I love, treasure and respect to this day.

There are many more – too numerous to mention – who have played a role in fighting this battle.

Days before the release of Conduct Unbecoming, the Navy attempted to bar the use of a 1972 recruiting poster featuring the first African American used in a recruiting campaign. Servicemember Ed Graves had been discharged from the Navy a few years later for being gay. Refusing to allow the "Don't Tell" provision of the new policy relating to gays and lesbians in the armed forces to extend to civilians as well, ApolloMedia refused to pull the image.

Represented by Mike Traynor at Cooley Godward, ApolloMedia prevailed against the Navy, establishing the de facto recognition that CD-ROM publishers were entitled to the same First Amendment protections as traditional media.

Wired magazine, under the stewardship of Jane Metcalfe and Louis Rosetto, sold the the CD-ROM through their online property, Hotwired - the first ever commercial web magazine. Additionally, original content from the CD-ROM was developed to promote it, further bringing light to the injustice of the military’s treatment of gays and lesbians.

The Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy was very new, but already the extent to which it was just as bad as prior policies was already clearly evident.

Following the release of Conduct Unbecoming, ApolloMedia set up the first website for Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, allowing SLDN to extend its reach beyond traditional avenues, and become one of the first policy driven entities to establish a web presence, serving as a critical destination for servicemembers ensnared in the horror of DADT.

In the case of a naval sailor facing dismissal after private information about him was leaked to Navy investigators by America Online, as publisher of Annoy.com, I launched a "Who's That Queer" Competition" by posting a photograph of a gay active serviceman and daring the military to identify him.

While our efforts pale by comparison to the many who risked their careers and lives to change the treatment of gays in the military, or have made eliminating this discrimination their life's work, yesterday’s senate vote repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, serves as an affirmation that despite the insidious efforts of the likes of Senators Sam Nun and later John McCain, we were on the right side of history back in 1994.

And once the champagne glasses have been appropriately drained, there are those of us who know all too well that the repeal of the policy is just the beginning. Even the demise of Apartheid, where the oppressed became the rightful stewards, did not transform institutionalized discrimination overnight. Allen Schindler and Barry Winchell, viciously and savagely murdered by fearful, hate-driven fellow servicemembers, can attest to that.

There is a lot of educating to do, and a lot of work needs to be done to ensure new methods of discrimination don’t creep into the military, and that the military doesn’t turn a blind eye to harassment.

Women, who can openly serve alongside men, can attest to the sexual harassment that continues to this day – ironically aided and abetted by DADT. Lesbian baiting, however, will become an ugly thing of the past.

SLDN has a lot of work ahead. But right now victory is well deserved.

Whether you are a kid growing up in a small American town and need an escape from a claustrophobic, homophobic mindset, are a patriotic American who believes in defending American’s promise of freedom, or whether you’re following in the footsteps of a proud family tradition, you can now serve openly and honestly without being forced to lie about who you are.

Thank you to all the servicemembers, past and present, and their ardent supporters, without whom this victory for civil rights would not have happened. I salute you.

FBI: Federal Bureaucratic Infringement

Why, you may ask, would the cover of Annoy.com consist of nothing but the logo of the FBI? No tweaks, witty modifications or slight alterations. Just the image of the logo exactly as it is. And, of course, a disclaimer!

Because, it appears, the FBI decided to take time out from protecting the United States from terrorist attacks, and instead spend its resources on demanding that Wikipedia remove an image of their logo from their website. The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has threatened Wikipedia with legal action if the online encyclopedia doesn't remove the FBI's seal from its site. The seal is featured in an encyclopedia entry about the FBI.

In a letter to Wikipedia's general counsel, Mike Godwin, FBI's Deputy General Counsel, David C. Larson wrote:

"Regulations governing authorizations to use the seals of Department of Justice - components, including the FB I, are published in Title 41, Code of Federal Regulations, Part 128-1.5007(b), and require requests for authorizations to use the FBI Seal to be referred to the Director of the FBI. The FBI has not authorized use of the FBI seal on Wikipedia. The inclusion of a high quality graphic of the FBI seal on Wikipedia is particularly problematic, because it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting violations of these restrictions by Wikipedia users."

In a response to the FBI's demand, Wikipedia's general counsel, Mike Godwin wrote:

"In your letter, you assert that an image of an FBI seal included in a Wikipedia article is 'problematic' because 'it facilitates both deliberate and unwitting violations' of 18 U.S.C. 701. I hope you will agree that the adjective 'problematic,' even if it were truly applicable here, is not semantically identical to 'unlawful.' Even if it could be proved that someone, somewhere, found a way to use a Wikipedia article illustration to facilitate a fraudulent representation, that would not render the illustration itself unlawful under the statute. As the leading case interpreting Section 701 points out, 'The enactment of § 701 was intended to protect the public against the use of a recognizable assertion of authority with intent to deceive.'"

Mr. Godwin's response raises two core issues – one in which he states "Our inclusion of an image of the FBI Seal is in no way evidence of any 'intent to deceive,' nor is it an 'assertion of authority,' and a second point where he states: "Badges and identification cards are physical manifestations that may be used by a possessor to invoke the authority of the federal government. An encyclopedia article is not. The use of the image on Wikipedia is not for the purpose of deception or falsely to represent anyone as an agent of the federal government."

The question to be asked is whether the second point -- Wikipedia's role as an encyclopedia publisher -- is a necessary defense for someone like me, simply publishing this story along with a reproduction of the seal on Annoy.com and on my blog Pointing Fingers. (Clearly not, although I did add a disclaimer to the Annoy.com cover to make sure that there is no doubt whatsoever that I have any intent to deceive.)

While there is no doubt I am not intending to deceive anyone into thinking Annoy.com is really the FBI, the question is whether the same defense raised my Mr. Goodwin can be applied to content that is not intended as an encyclopedic reference or a news story. Or the fact that Annoy.com is not a non-profit web site, just one that doesn't make a profit!

Perhaps Annoy.com is not best suited to pose this question by way of testing it, given my own history with the FBI in the Annoy.com case against the Department of Justice, which included having to answer interrogatories that were furnished by the FBI. Or a later suit, United States v. ApolloMedia. Our stories are intertwined.

There's also a similar case I was involved in that revolved around use of a seal belonging to the federal government.

In 1995, the United States Navy denied my request to use an image containing the United States Naval Academy crest for Conduct Unbecoming, my CD ROM on gays in the military based on Randy Shilts' book of the same name, using an amended provision of the Trademark Act of 1946 to support its position.

"The United States Naval Academy crest is a trademark registered with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (Reg. No. 1,810,681) pursuant to the Trademark Act of 1946, as amended (Lanham Act, 15 USC Chapter 22). The United States Naval Academy crest is predominately displayed on the poster in question which is an Academy advertisement. Its use, therefore, is subject to the approval of the United States Naval Academy."

We challenged the Navy, informing them that their reliance on the Lanham Act demonstrated a fundamental misunderstanding of its application. Not only were we planning to use the poster containing the seal, but alongside the letters refusing us permission, the letterheads of which themselves contained the navy seal. The Navy, upon seeing our resolve, capitulated, and the image was released by us without incident.

I spoke briefly with Mike Godwin today. He was clear that unlike our issue with the Navy, the Wikipedia case had nothing to do with trademark and which the FBI had not asserted. But he did state that the FBI's actions certainly raised First Amendment issues.

The First Amendment is not trumped because a contextually relevant piece of information or image can be used in deliberate and unwitting violations. Particularly an image that is so widely used and familiar, from lecterns to caps, and certainly in the telling of this very story. And even though Mr. Larson refers to the "high quality graphic of the FBI seal," suggesting that expression can be censored based simply on the resolution of an image.

It's the equivalent of prohibiting mobile phones because they can be used in violation of the law. (As evidenced by United Arab Emirates' recently announced plan to suspend Blackberry Messenger, email and Web browser functions, saying they pose a threat to national security because they cannot be monitored.)

The government cannot criminalize expression because someone may in the future violate the law. It would be difficult to come up with a clearer case of prior restraint, and the chilling effect it would have if this legislation related to an image on a Wikipedia page about the FBI. Censorship that requires a person to seek governmental permission in the form of a license or imprimatur before publishing anything constitutes prior restraint every time permission is denied.

Another point is the spirit of the statute, in which one looks at the intent of congress in writing the statute. Quite clearly, the language refers to those who would reproduce official badges, identification cards, or other insignia with the intent of deceiving another. In a conversation with the legal director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Cindy Cohn, she wondered the same thing she had to New York Times' John Schwartz.

Does the FBI not have better things to do?

Your Privacy. Your Problem. Idiot.

Everyone knows about Facebook's latest privacy violations at this point, which this time, has more than your average privacy zealots up in arms. Matt McKeon's visualization The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook drives the point home more effectively than a million pontificating editorials.

In a nutshell, they modified their Terms of Service - again - so that pretty much everything you once thought was private isn't anymore, and launched their "Instant Personalization" strategy, chockablock with clever, social-sounding features and concepts such as “open graph,” "social plug-ins" and "connections" all designed to make you feel part of something bigger and more and edgy and important.

And to save you having to so much as think about it, they signed you up (or opted you in). You can still opt out of some things if you have the time and wherewithal. You can also learn calculus, a foreign language and climb Kilimanjaro if you want to. It's just as easy.

One of the things you ought to be really grateful for, is that Facebook's new caching policy now allows developers to store their users' Facebook data permanently. So your personal data is now in the hands of any Facebook developer, presumably scrupulous, of course, even if you didn't sign up for the application. All it takes is a bored, self-obsessed friend taking yet another stupid, annoying quiz and broadcasting the results. Developers get data on friends too. You agreed to that somewhere in the fine print once. You did. You use Facebook, right?

This all ties in neatly to Facebook's new "like" strategy, which coupled with the change in privacy settings, is just about a month or an algorithm short of calculating (based on where you Foursquared you had dinner last night), exactly when you're taking a shit so Charmin can text you on your mobile to try out their new UltraSoft 2ply toilet paper, which thrillingly, happens to be the same as what your sister, your ex-boyfriend and your dentist's mother-in-law "like".

Not everyone is against it though. In fact, a lot of people "like" it so much, they think you're a petrified luddite and whiny, annoying asshole to even voice concern over this erosion of privacy that is to yours what Katrina was to New Orleans.

In a blog post titled "I Wish Facebook Was MORE Open!!!," Robert Scoble marvels how " only about 50 of my more than 1,300 friends have disappeared from my Facebook friend network." Of course when you have real friends, you tend to care more about losing 50 of them, and might have to give two seconds thought as to how to remain in touch while respecting their desire to keep their opinions to a select few.

Jeff Jarvis, who has given this a good deal of thought, seems to say a hell of a lot without appearing to grasp the most basic premise. See for yourself in a post titled "Privacy, publicness and penises," which seems to take Danah Boyd's thinking and twist it into a confusing landscape where public is private and private is less public or something to that effect but in which privacy is a casualty. I think. Boyd's research "examines social media, youth practices, tensions between public and private, social network sites, and other intersections between technology and society." If you don't know her work, it's worth your time.

Not everyone who appreciates the benefits of efficient communications technology is driven by the extreme narcissism that it enables. There are some of us who are confident and capable people who really don't think that every mundane thought is worthy of mass distribution. While a good, well-deserved shit reveals much about one's well-being, one's fiber intake and whatever else can be garnered from analyzing it, there's a reason we flush it instead of TwitPic it.

It's shit, though, that smart people seem incapable of discerning. Just like so much of what our brains fart shouldn't be reposted, retweeted, repackaged, revomited, reingested and re-regurgitated. Not everything is worthy, or in the public interest. We don't need any more digital clutter any more than we need real shit piling up.

Caring about your privacy, according to Paul Carr, on TechCrunch, generally makes you the asshole in a piece titled "NSFW: Facebook Breached My Privacy, And Other Things That Whiny, Entitled Dipshits Say." In the only intelligent sentence in a diatribe of self-aggrandizing crap, Carr claims to be "a firm believer that Facebook et al have an obligation to act to defend a person’s reasonable assumption of privacy."

Given that Carr would brand you a whiny, entitled idiot to have any reasonable privacy assumptions to begin with, the most I could garner from his privacy be damned utopia was don't do anything you don't want the whole world knowing about, or else destroy anyone or anything that might serve as evidence. And if that fails, cry and beg Facebook to help you.

Robert Scoble asks: "Just what are you doing that needs to be so damned private? Are you having sex inside Facebook? Doing illegal drugs? Cheating on your wife? Damn, your Facebook life must be SO interesting!" To which I respond: "That's the whole point. It's none of your fucking business."

More than that, it's such a specious argument - the notions that everything should be public, and if you don't want your every utterance instantly available worldwide, then don't utter anything on the Internet at all.

Sure, if there's something that is so private, the revelation of which would destroy you or a relationship or a career, then avoid sending it electronically, whether that be voice, video, photo or text or any other means on any communications device or application. In fact, avoid saying it anywhere you may be overheard, or telling anyone you don't implicitly trust.

But otherwise, just because these jackasses are willing to roll over and wallow in it all, don't give up on the idea that you can generally communicate with friends or affiliations of your choosing simply because that's what you choose. Don't give up on retracting permission when companies like Facebook change terms on you. Because Facebook may not like what you decide to do with their brand if they fuck you over enough, agreements and promises be damned. Don't give up on enjoying the promise of and distinctions among information that is publicly available versus its aggregation and the publicizing of it elsewhere, without your permission, knowledge, request or desire.

In the real world, when someone treats you like a cheap, unworthy piece of shit, you reestablish the definitions and boundaries of the relationship. An invitation to opt in to a new service or product demonstrates a respect for you as a person, and a confidence by the inviter in their product and service and the value it will add to your life.

There's a flip side to the same issue to what people like Zuckerberg and Scobie seem to be tone deaf. Interesting as Scobie may think it is, I couldn't give a flying fuck what music he listens to on Pandora or what movies he likes. Or if his father's fucking the postman, or if he has the clap.

I have enough of my own shit to sort through without having to wade through his as well wherever I go or wherever I click. If you're all that fabulous, I'll opt in.

In a Zuckerman and Scobie privacy-dead, opt-out world, they fuck you up the ass involuntarily without a condom. Because that's what you want, whether you know it or not. And if you don't like it, you better make damn sure you learn what steps you need to take to ensure it doesn't happen again, no matter how inconvenient it may be for you, how difficult it may be to do, or how long it may take. And don't even think about complaining either, you whiny, entitled dipshit.

It's not rape. It's Opt-out.

In Your Facebook!

When you have a company that's drunk on power like Facebook, they end up coming across as a bunch of belligerent drunks with their penises whipped out, slurring how much you’re going to enjoy being gang raped by them. Their latest Instant Personalization is a case in point.

That crass inability to understand the subtle nuances between publicly identifiable personal data versus publicized personal information. The lack of self confidence in who they are and what they represent coupled with a lack of respect for who you are, that they automatically opt you in instead of having the common decency to invite you to participate in their depraved, privacy killing orgy.

Their precedent-setting but pathetically limited understanding of identity management that assumes you want your grandmother and co-workers to know who you pissed on last night. Or where you were when you took that photo.Welcome to my next exhibition…it will be coming very soon…

About Face: Facebook Terms of Service Reversal Has Irreversible Consequences

Some people attribute it to Twitter. Others point to blogs and email campaigns. Regardless, the speed with which Facebook responded to a ferocious backlash over changes it made to its Terms of Service agreement was remarkable. Not only for the speed of its crisis management in the wake of the outcry and proposed boycotts, but for what likely marks a significant turning point in the way content, copyright and ownership are perceived in general.

The facts are simple. About three weeks ago, Facebook made a modification to its Terms of Service, without much, if any, communication as to the changes. The equivalent of releasing a press statement on a Friday afternoon so as to avoid above-the-fold coverage the following morning. In response to a reader tip, a February 15, 2009 article by Chris Walters in Consumerist titled “Facebook's New Terms Of Service: "We Can Do Anything We Want With Your Content. Forever," spread like wildfire.

You hereby grant Facebook an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to (a) use, copy, publish, stream, store, retain, publicly perform or display, transmit, scan, reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt, create derivative works and distribute (through multiple tiers), any User Content you (i) Post on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof subject only to your privacy settings or (ii) enable a user to Post, including by offering a Share Link on your website and (b) to use your name, likeness and image for any purpose, including commercial or advertising, each of (a) and (b) on or in connection with the Facebook Service or the promotion thereof.

For even the layperson, the scope and breadth of the new, somewhat abstruse terms were ridiculous. The terms were fraught with legal landmines, and sweeping enough in scope and breadth to probably render half of them invalid anyway.

If Facebook owns all our content, some clucked and twittered and pinged and bonged, even after we have terminated our accounts, does this mean they are liable for any of the illegal content we upload? Not quite.

Under the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996, which most media outlets reported as having been struck down in the wake of a couple of Supreme Court decisions challenging specific provisions of the legislation, Service Providers are not liable for third party content. (Disclosure: I was personally involved in both challenges heard by the Supreme Court –filing an amicus brief in the first, Reno v. ACLU, and as the plaintiff in the second, ApolloMedia v. Reno).

Of course if Facebook was to exercise some of the rights they were laying claim to in the new terms, such as the license to “reformat, modify, edit, frame, translate, excerpt, adapt” or “create derivative work” from, they would cease to be merely Service Providers, or, Information Exchange Providers, (as CEO Mark Zuckerberg positioned Facebook in his unconvincing justification in the wake of the backlash), but Content Providers, for whom a whole different set of rules applies.

A few remarkable things happened. In an age where Privacy and Terms of Service are all but ignored, the fact that so many people were paying attention was astounding. But more interesting was that the outcry seemed to include many people who are ensconced in a culture where expectations around ownership of intellectual property are that it should be free.

Musicians, artists and filmmakers have been forced to rethink ownership of the fruit of their creations, where their music is given away by attaching it to a product. Not that long ago, top musicians would never dream of allowing their music to be used in commercials, lest they be accused of selling out. Only now do we see Ford using David Bowie’s 1969 “Space Oddity” to hawk the Lincoln MKS (despite the bizarre inappropriateness). Madonna, on the other hand, used “Hung Up” to sell Motorola before the song from her Confessions album was even released for the sake of the music.

Facebook's seizing control and ownership over the content belonging to the average user highlights an evolving and fundamental paradigm shift in how people view intellectual property. As the distinctions between user generated content and “editorialized” content become blurrier by the minute, so do the lines between treatment of customers as active stakeholders, as opposed to simply passive consumers.

This bodes well for creators of content, who are looking for ways to monetize the fruits of their labor, as consumers become less likely to be offended by the notion of paying for premium content – based solely on the quality of the content and reputation of its creators.

It may turn out that Facebook, in spite of its about face, inadvertently  ushered in the turning of an inevitable tide.

Bullshit 2.0

Writer’s block.

It sounds pathetic in this day and age. In a world where every Tom, Dick and Harry is frantically typing his every waking thought, the quaint notion of writer’s block seems like a poor excuse of sorts.

For the last month I have been back in South Africa, the land of my birth and where I was raised. After more than ten years of writing about every political, cultural or social phenomenon, I found -- and find -- myself wordless.

Although I specifically allowed myself to slip into a mode of observation only – to simply absorb what was going on around me, every now and again I would have an overwhelming urge to spit something out.

Dick Cheney’s remark about anti-war sentiments aiding an Al Qaeda strategy; Alberto Gonzales’ atrocious abuse of the position of Attorney General; Thabo Mbeki’s incomprehensible policy of “quiet diplomacy” with a sick and demented dictator named Robert Mugabe, who deserves his place at the table with Hitler and Idi Amin. Yet just one paragraph into the outage, the words would evaporate, leaving me with a hundred opening paragraphs but not one full-fledged anything.

And everything I wanted to say was already being said a million times over by a zillion different people in a gazillion different ways anyway. Global, multilingual interpretations of prepackaged press releases by desperate publicists about their desperate clients.

With an avalanche of verbiage spewing faster and more furiously than green house gas emissions on a Texan highway, I felt myself being drowned in a cacophony of self-absorbed trivia masquerading as the new information pipeline. User-generated crap. The empty promise of Web 2.0.

Communities of like-minded communities linked to like-minded communities of like-minded people for like-minded discussions about like-minded subjects concerning like-minded consumption of like-minded products in like-minded earnestness for like-minded drones to inform like-minded sheep with like-minded generosity about like-minded everything so that like-minded beneficiaries can wallow in like-minded individuality.

Bullshit 2.0.

For every deed, a million analyses; for every sentence, a million deconstructions. Blogs begetting blogs, begetting social networks, begetting conversations and commentaries. Comments about comments for comments, responses for responses about responses. Words tripping over words to embellish words about words. Sentences about sentences, broken down into keywords and efficiently retagged into categories and subjects to be repurposed and rehashed and replayed and redeployed. An over-bloated, over-tagged, over-stuffed, over-sub-categorized, over-rated, over-extended, over-hyped, overload of over-analyzed, over-distributed, over-offered, over-done overstatement -- over and over and over again.

I am part of the problem. I read it, feed on it, absorb it, process it, analyze it, regurgitate it and piss it back. As if somehow, my own bullshit filter transforms the same old, tired garbage into fresh, new, insightful, meaningful, and appropriate pearls of infinite wisdom, cast before grateful, appreciative, deserving, underserved swine.

Maybe this is the unblock. The verbal diuretic that opens the flow. The release of the clog so that the excrement can flow free again.

I am back. Aren’t you lucky?