On men blogging: Among many of the male bloggers I know — especially the ultra successful ones — there’s a sort of rivalry to see how much stuff they can pump out, how quickly. That’s really a guy thing, don’t you think?
Ultra-competitiveness is not a male-only activity. Women are into one-upmanship, too.
Margaret Wente wrote an opinion piece in the Globe and Mail entitled “Why are bloggers male?” She basically states that blogging is “more of a guy thing” and goes on about it being related to why talk shows and opinion pages are “still dominated by male voices” and similar piffle.
The piece is accompanied by a picture and a tagline that reads “Guys get pumped by going higher, faster, farther than anyone else. That’s why they spit out instant opinions”. The tagline is attention grabbing hyperbole, so meh. The picture, on the other hand, is a little more controversial.
If you’ve been paying attention to the news lately, you may recognize this as a photo of snowmobiles at the site of an avalanche in Revelstoke that killed at least two people a few days ago.
Now, I don’t know whether it was Wente or some random editor that chose the photo to accompany her opinion piece, but whoever it was is lacking in good judgement. I’m sure that the families of those who died are thrilled at being used as the example for Wente’s piece.
Oh, and the last time I checked, some of the biggest talk shows on the air are hosted by women – Oprah and The Ellen Degeneres Show are just a couple that spring to mind. @benlucier on Twitter pointed out that The View should also have sprung to mind.
And at a recent gathering of bloggers from the Ottawa area, the ratio of male to female bloggers was evenly split, or possibly skewed in favour of the women. A quick review of my Ottawa blogroll shows that about half of the blogs listed are run by women.
Apparently, she’s pissed off women bloggers because they’ve added an editor’s note at the bottom of the piece that there’s going to be an online debate between Margaret Wente and female bloggers at noon on Friday. Should be interesting to watch.
As for the title of this blog entry, it’s taken from her opinion piece:
All you have to do is write “Margaret Wente is an idiot” and hit send. Instant gratification!
At least she’s right about something (and it’s not the instant gratification).
Updated to include a reference to The View.
Earlier today, the House of Commons has passed a motion 139:135 that reads as follows:
"That, in the opinion of the House, the prime minister shall not advise the Governor General to prorogue any session of any Parliament for longer than seven calendar days without a specific resolution of this House of Commons to support such a prorogation.”
While not binding on the Prime Minister, it makes it clear that the majority of members of the House of Commons do not approve of Harper’s recent suspension of Parliament. Cool.
Jack Layton uttered a great line in the House of Commons earlier today when the motion was being dealt with:
‘Our prime minister is not a king and it’s time he understood that.’
Regardless of your politics, you have to admit that’s a great sound bite!
A story posted on the National Post’s blog caught my attention in my RSS reader and screamed “click me”. The headline was “Woman aspires to weigh 1,000 pounds” and was based on a Daily Mail story.
So I clicked. And then I wished I hadn’t.
I just checked the Environment Canada website and at noon today the temperature was 10C. This means that Ottawa drivers risk running afoul of the by-law enforcement officers if they’re observed idling their cars for more than three minutes if the temperature is 5C or warmer, taking into consideration the windchill. I don’t recall hearing about anyone being charged since they started enforcing it a couple of years ago, so perhaps Ottawa drivers are turning off their engines when they’re waiting to pick someone up.
What do you think of this by-law?
These words were uttered by Julius Caesar who was taunting Titus Vestricius Spurinna, an Etruscan haruspex who had warned Caesar that something bad would befall him. In this case, Spurinna had the last laugh, so to speak, because later in the day Julius Caesar was assassinated by his enemies.
Other notable things that happened on this date in history:
As well, one of my good friends celebrates her birthday today. Happy birthday to her! 😉
I was visiting someone in an old age care facility recently and was quite surprised with how cleverly the elevators there operate. The facility has two floors and residents are able to move about the facility pretty much at will. Access in and out is carefully controlled to minimize the chances of someone wandering off.
Some of the residents have Alzheimer’s. One of the characteristics of Alzheimer’s is a tendancy to wander. Thus, one of the goals when designing a care facility for people with Alzheimer’s is ensuring that there aren’t any dead end corridors that could end up frustrating them while they roam about. Elevators pose a special problem because of the potential for someone to get frustrated, or even trapped, if the doors close and they can’t figure out how to make them open again.
Some places use access controls such as swipe cards or keys to control access to elevators, but in this facility the elevators are designed to minimize this problem while allowing the residents to use the elevators on their own. Rather than requiring someone to push a floor button, they detect when someone enters the car and automatically go to the other floor where they patiently wait for people to exit. Very clever.
AKA Keeper of Maps, I'm a geocacher who lives in Ottawa, Canada.
