gawker stole ian shapira's story.

i loved this article in today's washington post.

at first glance, it seems like another "how will newspapers survive in the internet age" sort of story. but i think the point made is valid:

Current law basically allows the Gawkers of the world to appropriate others' work, repurpose it and sell ads against it with no payment to or legal recourse for the company that paid me while I sat through two hours of a generational seminar.

Marburger compared my article and the Gawker posting and concluded: "This is what in our opinion is a huge contributor to the demise of those who are originating news reports. If you don't change the law to stop this, originators of news reports cannot survive."

i don't pick up near the traffic a site like gawker does. at least not yet. but i like to think there is a responsibilty on the part of the blogosphere to give credit where credit is due. but i also think it's interesting how newspapers and aggregators both need each other in order to survive, yet the former is faltering financially while the latter is cleaning up. a good read and thought-starter, for sure.

the vatican says something not stupid.

carla bruni need not get upset this time.

the vatican newspaper has called oscar wilde a "lucid analyst of the modern world."

indeed he was. he poked fun at marriage, gender roles, and societal norms. i wonder what the vatican liked best?

* A man can be happy with any woman as long as he does not love her.

* Genius is born--not paid.

* I think that God in creating Man somewhat overestimated his ability.

* The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible.

*Work is the curse of the drinking classes.

* It is absurd to divide people into good and bad. People are either charming or tedious.

* Scandal is gossip made tedious by morality.

* I like persons better than principles, and I like persons with no principles better than anything else in the world.

* The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it. Resist it, and your soul grows sick with longing for the things it has forbidden to itself.

* There are many things that we would throw away if we were not afraid that others might pick them up.

* There is a luxury in self-reproach. When we blame ourselves, we feel that no one else has a right to blame us. It is the confession, not the priest, that gives us absolution.

* Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is man's original virtue. It is through disobedience and rebellion that progress has been made.

two recent post articles about sarah palin

i'm kind of in love with this op-ed written by barbara boxer and john kerry, refuting a palin op-ed about energy. i hate that anyone has to take her seriously, but i like how the senators subtly mention her ties to oil companies, and state how scare tactics used in the past to stymie environmental legislation have no basis.

the other article i'm digging is the results of a post-abc news poll. while palin still has her GOP following, she's clearly losing ground, and for that i am thankful. more people don't think she's a strong leader, or clearly understands complex national policies. my favorite excerpt is as follows:

Rick Buila, 38, of Sharonville, Ohio, who works in finance and voted for the McCain-Palin ticket in November, said his opinion of the governor has changed. "I don't think that she is cut out to be on the national stage," he said. "I look at her education and her background and the way she carries herself and her [resignation] speech, and when you have someone who's out there saying 'You betcha' about 50 times, I don't think that's the person we want to have negotiating with other countries."

amen.

palin's resignation speech: the good version.

vanity fair takes a stab at making sarah palin sound cohesive. nice try, guys. notice not a single thing was stetted.