Look it's Bz's birthday!

Here’s a little tale to savour: the school that Jack Bz frequents blocks certain sites. Now, both his blog and mine are blocked. His is blocked for the following reasons:

The site you have chosen has been categorized as: Journals and Blogs, Humor, Travel

Yep! Not even a mention of fashion (haha “travel”, what the hell?).

Now here is why my blog has been blocked:

The site you have chosen has been categorized as: Journals and Blogs, Hate Speech, Humor, Pornography, Sports

That’s simply amazing me. When on earth have I talked about “Sports”? Similarly, I don’t think I’ve ever actually talked about porn, just used “pornography” as a joke label on a previous blog. But...

...hate speech?

For those who don’t know (straight from the old Wiki):

Hate speech is a term for speech intended to degrade, intimidate, or incite violence or prejudicial action against a person or group of people based on their race, gender, age, ethnicity, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, language ability, moral or political views, socioeconomic class, occupation or appearance (such as height, weight, and hair color), mental capacity and any other distinction-liability.

...Yep!

Bz said it’s probably due to the usual Ugmo comments about Michael being disabled – which isn’t even true, and I’d like to point out that we are all huge fans of Jack Deakin, who has autism. I’m certainly not racist, unless someone could take that thing about the “Nig-Cats” as anything other than cultural comment (mind you, I suppose using half of that n-word probably made me shoot myself in the foot, but how else was I supposed to talk about reclaiming insults without mentioning it?). I do ironically have issues with a certain gender, but I think I’m entitled to; is there really anything wrong with a man hating the typical male? Just like, is there really anything wrong with a white person (as I am) disliking elements of white culture (which I do)? Or – oh man – elements of black culture? I probably shouldn’t even be separating the two like that, but... I find this sort of stuff interesting on a historical and cultural level. I don’t put people into groups to degrade them at all; you may remember (assuming you’ve read all past entries) that I argued against the notion of “being part of the crowd” as being a bad thing, and I’ve argued against the arrogant representations of teenagers and children. Come to that, I’ve argued against prejudice and arrogance in general! If nothing else, my respect for the “mainstream” would surely prove I don’t... oh man, I don’t think I even need to say it.

Remember when I said I was worried that people could misinterpret what I’m saying? Well...

Mind you, it’s unlikely that they actually bothered to read my blog at length before deciding to shut it down, and yet... they must have read some of it, right? I don’t remember ever leaving a label that mentioned anything in that “hate speech” explanation at all.

Oh god – socioeconomic class? I hate it when people are termed in classes, because it’s bloody prejudiced and, if not even that, just irritating that there needs to be a point made of that. Political views? All that I’ve ever argued about in this blog is that I’m sick of people having unfounded and scant political views that they’ve absorbed from members of authority (e.g. musicians). I was going to point this out in a few days anyway, in a “35 Things I Don’t Have an Opinion About” thing, but I might as well make it clear now: my political views are practically non-existent. I find politics fascinating in their own way, but I don’t really swing either way (even on my Facebook, the line about “Bits and pieces, but mostly Labor” is a joke, because it echoes the following “Bits and pieces, but mainly agnostic” line after it [which in itself is a joke, because that’s, in a way, what agnosticism is]). I recognise that political leaders have problems, but... maybe this is because I’m a historical nut, but I can’t actually pass judgements on any leader until they’re done. Do you know what I mean? In a way, I think it’s actually uncharitable of me to do so.

Occupation or appearance? Since when? Mental capacity? What? Distinction-liabilty?

Really, I just find all this a bit perplexing. It’s also irritating, because again it means I’m being misread. Looky, I write hundreds upon thousands of words of text, and I can still be misread. That means I’m either poor at writing, or some readers can’t read between the lines. I’m not going to bother to say either way.

Age, though... now, this one is interesting. I said before that I’ve argued against the representation of teenagers, and in that rant I lambasted certain adults for doing so. But god, I hardly said that adulthood is stupid, or indeed insulted anyone personally. Come to that, I don’t think I ever have actually insulted anyone personally on this blog (though there’s probably one occasion where I have); my critique of Green Day and Pink was one of caution and annoyance. I’ve never said what I think of them as individuals (because of course, that’s practically irrelevant if we’re discussing them as a band; as I’ve made clear, so far the two are separate – though obviously this may change, depending on Myspace and yeah-I’ve-covered-this-never-mind). There are few people that I genuinely dislike, and I haven’t actually ever mentioned them in this blog before. Why? Because it’d be too easy. I’m not going to bother talking about why K*l* S*n**l**d* is a misguided bully, because there’s no need to. It’s far too obvious. Even my poking fun at a certain Desperate Housewives actress was immediately followed up by a point about how weak it was to criticise someone like that, how stupid and pointless it is. And, more to the point, how inoffensive that actress actually is. She hardly deserves a huge wad of hate, and neither does the show, not really. I’d just dismiss it and ignore it.

Sorry, got sidetracked. Age... well, about a month ago, Jack Bz and I were looking up our names on Google (or rather, I was looking up “Tds4a”). And so, I stumbled upon this:

http://www.optevi.net/newstracker/default.aspx?f=1&e=52737

Just to make it clearer:

Youth vs. adults in gadget wars
Increasingly young people are feeling uncomfortable about their elders encroaching on what many young adults and teens consider their technological turf.

[news]
Young people, grudgingly, share tech turf with adultsHouston Chronicle Clinton and Obama take off the glovesInternational Herald T No need to fret over recent UGA arrestsAtlanta Journal Consti

[blogs]
"BEST" OF 2007Tds4a Today Youth vs. adults in gadget warsInternet and Technolog Alaska Cruising - Now It's a Family Thing34626

Um... that’s right! Tds4a Today got mentioned as part of a “Youth vs. adults in gadget wars” debate!

I’m not going to knock back publicity, cos it made me feel super-special for a moment when I saw this – and they haven’t done anything wrong – but it did make me chuckle. Particularly because they specified that it was the “BEST” OF 2007 post. I – I don’t remember ever referring to a dichotomy here! The only time I remember ever making fun of the adult/teenage gadget thing – apart from that irritating thing on Today Tonight, which was against people being lumped into age groups patronisingly anyway – was when I recently said something like, “Oh god, my mum now has MSN. Tremble in fear.”

It’s... a joke! I’m a bit worried if no-one gets that. That’s the sort of thing that families do, tease each other. Just like all of those old “Silly Sister’s Quote of the Day” things (which, to make it clear, my sister has seen, and does find funny!).

Right. Okay. Enough of that. Time for today’s themed list thingy, then.

...actually, I’ll do it tomorrow.

RETRO-EDIT: I was using this as a launching pad to make an overall list of points about how this blog isn't offensive and anyone who finds it so is a pillock (oh damn, now it's offensive). As it happens, it looks instead like I was attacking a bot.

Oh yeah; I've been informed that it was more likely a bot than someone actually reading the damn site. I'm pretty darn computer illiterate in a lot of ways, you know. :)

So... yes.