Hey All,

Until a few months ago the word "blog" was foreign to me. This is my first web log and I hope that is serves as something more than an online diary. I assume that nobody is really interested in what kind of bagel I ate for breakfast, so I'll try to spare you all such tedium. Instead I intend to post things that pique my interest. No doubt, this will include some casual rambling, off the cuff remarks and academia. I hope that this blog gravitates more so to the latter and attracts insights from others interested in art, culture and emerging technology (as well as its practices).

On the note of culture and technology practices: Am alone in wondering if I ought to post "rules of conduct" or a disclaimer in this blog? In general, I am the type of person who likes to believe that people will take the high road and be compelled do the right thing. However, I am not very surprised when they do not. I say this not for myself so much, but to protect those who may post replies to other's postings within my blog.

Since I grew up culture has changed - both for the better and worse. Deeply embarrassing to me is the amount of hate crime that still exists in and outside of Canada. The incidents of vandalism of Jewish grave stones in Toronto exemplifies this. To my eye, hate crimes seem to be everywhere on the web and sadly on the rise again (evidenced by the 56 million dollars the Canadian government has dedicated to combat it in this in this year's budget). In a word, hate crime really bums be out. Further, I'm an ardent feminist who takes great issue with pejorative characterizations of women, knowing that those damnations (the b-word, the c-word etc.) carry more weight than their male counterparts. I was revolted to read new sexually shared colloquialisms a review of the new movie The 40 Year Old Virgin and was dismayed to learn in a similar article that S.L.U.T. is now an acronym that stands for "sexually liberated urban teens". How awful! What I want to know is where have all the feminists gone?

This is on my mind because as I rollerbladed from school to home the other day, I passed through a Portuguese neighborhood and was verbally assaulted by a 20 something male. He referred to me as a "bitch" for the amusement of his friends. This is the underside of peer pressure, I assume. I expect that this fellow would have minded his P's and Q's (old English spoken by barkeepers who would remind people to mind their pints and quarts) had he been alone. What was my reaction, you may ask? It was a giant eye roll and I kept skating. I suppose I should consider myself lucky that I wasn't "bitch-slapped".

I was pleased to see the flag function on this site, and urge others to get to know it, if they are unaware of it. It indicates to me that there is a community out there that has the same concerns. In closing, don't get me wrong - I'm no prude and enjoy lively conversation and contentious issues. I simply wanted to remind people about that invisible line in the sand and urge them not to overstep it, mostly for the benefit of others..

OK. Lecture over. It would be very helpful if blog enthusiasts posted some suggestions on how to manipulate this blog and make format without writing raw code.

Thanks,

Peter