HTML Tags Of Evil

Yesterday, it was brought to my attention that Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad now has his own blog. No, really.

This is a big development. Even those who heretofore downplayed the importance of blogs must admit the medium has come a long way in just a few short years. I believe President Ahmadinejad is the first government leader to share his thoughts in a widely available personal journal since Joseph Stalin in the late 1940's.



Now, unlike a lot of people, I haven't been a strong critic of Iran's new leader. In fact, I've always admired his personal style, which is kinda mod Sonny Bono. People call him a "madman", but to me, the jury is still out; for instance, he's yet to claim responsibility for the death of Jon-Benet Ramsey. When I first heard about his blog, I was completely ready to say, "Congrats, Mahmoud, and welcome to the mullahsphere."

But after having perused his site, well...let's just say that smoke you see is coming from my ears, not my laptop.

Ahmadinejad.jr - or as it shows up in my browser, ???????? - is an almost 100% rip-off of Lomblog. As they say on the Net, let's go to the screen capture:



Check it out. You have a sidebar, a poll, some links, and a photo of Mahmoud. Now, look closely at that photo: let's see.....he's sitting in a chair, he's casually dressed, he's sporting tres contemporary - and very rakish - facial hair.

Come now, who does that remind you of? Hint: scroll up. Scroll...keep scrolling, and look at the left-hand side of your screen.

Ok, I'm going to assume there's something wrong with your neck, or your mouse, and you can't do that. So here's a side-by-side comparison:



Yes, I couldn't believe it at first either. But faster than you could say "enriched uranium", there it was.

And a web poll too! Who's been doing polls on his site for more than two years? Hint again: the guy who's not being watched by the UN.

Mahmoud, I know what you're up to. Don't play the unsophisticated tyrannical rube with me. There's nothing wrong with paying homage to an earlier, greater peer. But thievery without credit or at least a place on the links list violates all the rules of blogging.

Sure, I might profit if I copied a few things from you. My traffic would surely spike if I dubbed the US "the Great Satan", called for the destruction of Israel or said the Holocaust was a "myth". But, in the parlance of today's youth, that's not the way I "roll". Unlike some who do what I do, I have a code of ethics embedded in my moral template. It's a code that reads "script=thou shalt/not steal".

Unfortunately, Ahmadinejad's blog has no e-mail link. I don't blame him; I'm sure he's tired of getting that "72 Virgins Want To Meet You In Heaven Now!!!" spam. But he does have a comments section. So if you could, please follow this link and tell the president of Iran to stop ripping me off.

The Most Merciful, the Most Compassionate, the One, the Only,

LF

Celebrity Blogging

First off, my apologies for the lack of recent posts. I've spent the bulk of the past week trying to arrange a return visit to the Cannes Film Festival. Unfortunately, I have outstanding debts at most of the local cheese shops so this was not possible. Don't feel too bad; I'm not the only American who's the victim of fairweather French. I understand the only way Michael Moore could get in this year was by posing as Roger Ebert's decoy. Tell est vie. At least we're both on a diet.

Another consolation: star-packed film festivals near nude beaches on the South of France no longer represent the vanguard of the entertainment industry. Blogging is where it's at. Yes, you no longer have to work maintenance at a rehab clinic to read the daily thoughts of prominent entertainers. Among those following the blog-path blazed by true pioneers like myself and David Berkowitz are Tom Green, Ru Paul, and everyone's favorite comic gender-bender, Dave Barry. The trend is sure to continue as the Internet grows and more big names get placed under house arrest.

Now celebrities sounding off, diary-style, is really nothing new. You could say the blogging form itself began with the liner notes to Frank Sinatra's 1956 All Alone And Feelin' Reflective LP ("Time: 1:43 am. Activity: Eating bacon and eggs off a whore's ***. Soundtrack: The Nelson Riddle Orchestra. Mood: Top O' The World"). And of course, the late Hogan's Heroes star Bob Crane was the world's first video blogger:



Contemporary celeblogs range from cheap device for movie promotion to cry for help. Here's a sample of Rosie O'Donnell's blog:

oprah is a hybrid human
i am sure
decades from now
they will exhumne her remains
and find the dna
of the rest of us
in the future
evolved

Pretty chilling, isn't it? It's as if Anne Frank's basement had broadband.

Then there was last week's debut of The Huffington Post. Following her success as failed gubernatorial candidate's wife and failed gubernatorial candidate, Arianna Huffington has created a blog consisting entirely of posts from her famous friends. What a great idea. There are just so few venues for the already well-known to express an opinion. Finally the blogosphere is opening up to people whose only prior outlets were TV, movies, radio and major publications. Viva Democracy!

I hope I don't sound bitter. I'm not resentful of the Hollywood glitterati poaching on my turf. I know that when this whole blogging craze dies down, they'll go back to their wealth, fame and adoring public, and I'll still have a body of work I can be proud of, assuming I delete two-thirds of my archives.

Up Next: White House Demands Newsweek Retract Down Arrow



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Berko-blog

The list of notables scrambling to jump on the blog bandwagon is growing almost daily. Alongside has-beens like Margaret Cho and Andy Kaufman is none other than David Berkowitz aka the Son of Sam killer. His site is apparently hosted by the House Upon the Rock Christian Church in San Diego. But if Berkowitz has indeed converted to Christianity, he has by no means given up on a life of crime: most of his blog is pure thievery!

For those that, understandably, refuse to click the link, let me offer one example from the Berko-blog's sidebar:



What's that? A web poll? And uh, who's been running web polls on his site for more than a month now? Hint: look a little to your right.

The virtual stickup-job doesn't end there. Check out his sign-off on this post about gay marriage:

God washed away their sins. He then called each of them to be His children. And He justified every last one of them, just as if they'd never sinned (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).

God is doing the exact same things today.

D.B.

D.B.? Ahem, isn't there another popular blogger out there that tends to refer to himself by his initials? Mr. Berkowitz, you're lucky you're already in prison for killing all those people in the Seventies, or I'd make sure you headed straight to lockup for swiping intellectual property.

Let's try, as hard as it may be, to look past these obvious appropriations and examine the substance of Berkowitz's writing. Take this excerpt from a post on gangs:

As an "oldtimer" in prison, it is very sad when I see young men in their late teens or early twenties coming into the system, especially when they have long sentences that stretch across decades.

I think the gang scene is all fake. It's a big lie. These guys kill each other over meaningless territories, over gang colors, or for some other ridiculous reasons.

Ah yes. I agree completely. The only legitimate reason to kill anyone is because you're receiving Satanic messages from your neighbor's dog.

Berkowitz is obviously a man who has a little trouble adjusting to the modern world, or at least what he sees of it:

So this evening I went outside again even though it was very cold. Winter has not left the foothills of the Catskill Mountains.

But going outdoors was for me another time to walk and pray and collect my thoughts. I felt that, earlier, I was going to lose my mind with all the yelling and the continuous blasting of "Hip-Hop" music.

By now, it's obvious what the former NYC bad boy's intentions are: he's clearly angling for the "cranky old coot" slot on 60 Minutes for when Andy Rooney meets the big ticker in the sky. Good luck with that, but somehow I don't think "A Few Minutes With David Berkowitz" is going to fly.

Of course, it's easy to take potshots at the Son of Sam killer. But as I found out earlier this year, blogging from prison is never easy. Were it not for my longstanding ties with the Nation of Islam, I doubt my laptop would've survived the weight room. Let's just hope that Berkowitz is given the space to finally find his own voice.

L.F.