Blog Silence on 4/30? Sorry, Not at ASZ.
There’s a proposal being floated to declare April 30th a “day of blog silence”, in honor of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and it’s starting to receive some traction. The idea is sure to generate some heated online discussion, both pro and con.
Regardless of how other blogs proceed, ASZ will certainly [...]
There’s a proposal being floated to declare April 30th a “day of blog silence”, in honor of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy, and it’s starting to receive some traction. The idea is sure to generate some heated online discussion, both pro and con.
Regardless of how other blogs proceed, ASZ will certainly note the day, but we won’t be participating. Why? I think Lorelle explains it fantastically, even though it appears that she will indeed shut down her blogging for the day. Using logic identical to Lorelle’s, I arrived at a different place: if we silenced this blog for every day that 32 people somewhere in the world were of victims of deadly violence, we’d be offline forever. I understand the concept of silence, and how powerful it can be (Gandhi being a prime example of the effectiveness), but in this case I believe that raging against the global darkness is a better approach.
Perhaps we’ll devote the day exclusively to discussing how our society has been numbed to violence, or the topic of gun control. Those of us in the Philadelphia area are intimately familiar with the topic of gun violence in the streets, so such discussions are certainly worthy (as they are every day of the year). But ASZ won’t be shut down for the day.
I hope that our readers feel that this is the right call. Most certainly, there will be no lack of opinions on both sides of the discussion…
i totally don’t get what a day of blog silence has to do at all with what happened at vt. i’m with you when you say that raging against the global darkness is more appropriate. the more i think about it, the dumber it is. moments of silence are fine, but wtf does it have to do with the blogosphere?
I agree with your logic and opinion. To me, if readers want to have a day of blog silence in rememberence, more power to them, they shouldn’t actually read blogs that day. Thanks for all you do to keep us sane and informed!
Silence? Are you kidding me?
No thank you. Besides, it’s much too late for me as is.
We won’t be silenced. Tragedy is not the time to turn off a voice of reason.
I don’t really see it as a matter of being silenced, Doc - it’s (obviously) a voluntary thing that some spaces in the blogosphere are going to respect - and I’m not going to disrespect the effort, because I do understand the power of silence. But I think focusing on root cause issues might ultimately be more productive…
I’ll go with this moment of silence. http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/FSA/signUp.jsp?key=2217
It makes sense. As to my blogging, I am not willing to restrain myself from talking about whatever I need to talk about because the NRA has lobbied so successfully for anyone, even non citizens, to get any gun they want.
“Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” — Dylan Thomas
This is the first I’ve heard of this. As usual I guess I was asleep at the wheel. I don’t know what day of the week that is but if it’s Sat or Sun I don’t post those days any way.
If it makes some feel better to do it, fine by me. I seriously doubt I will do it because I really don’t see what good it will do. Now if they want to dedicate a day to much tighter gun control, I’m all about that. Or if they want to dedicate a day to mental illness not being recognized and treated as it should be, I’m all about that too. These people who were shot were victims and they were victims who all were killed in one place by a murderer. I’m fairly sure there were 30 some other murder victims that day but they were scattered around the country and killed by different murderers. Shouldn’t they be remembered too?
Wha? Makes no sense to me.
Damn, this is turning into a hard decision.
how about this, nobody use the V or T buttons on your keyboard that day. See how many blog’s you can do without the words THE or VACATION……….. or T.V., no T.V. for VT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I’ll be speaking out against violence. Anyone who wants to join me is welcome. I made a badge you can use in your blog if you want:
http://www.elainevigneault.com/2007/04/17/speak-out-against-violence.html
Fuck your blog silence!
The preceding flashback has been a shameless self-promotion.