what i found ironic and mildly irritating was on BBC news last night they interviewed London's Indonesian Charge d'Affaires and tried to imply that the authorities had a part to play in not preventing this bombing by not acting sooner to incarcerate suspected terrorist sympathisers. Of course the west did everything it could to prevent 9/11, A Mr Pot talking to Mr Kettle type scenario if ever there was one.

If I respond to you here, will I be treated with respect, or is this a one-way lecture?

Dave, you're welcome to respond here. All of my readers are welcome to respond here.

Gary, that's an item I hadn't heard. I'll have to go out to the BBC and see what it says.

I agree with The Age's observation. I'm not sure the media has brought your average American's attention just how big this is.

It's way, way too busy with the sniper.

I agree that there is far too little coverage, with the necessary background information, for Americans to make sense of these bombing, Shelley.

This endless, meaningless chatter about what they don't know about the Washington sniper is enough to make me turn off TV news forever.

Although I only know Australians through weblogs, I too, sympathize with them and others who lost loved ones. it seems like we may all be in this together.

"It seems like we may all be in this together", says Loren. Well, that's something of an understatement, isn't it? :wrygrin:

As an Australian who lived in the States for a few years a decade or so back, I never cease to be amazed how insular, parochial self-obsessed and self-important America is as as a nation. (In that it resembles the worst of how Britain used to be a century ago.) I remember most a conversation with two young building workers in the mid-west: they asked me how long it had taken me to ride my motorcycle over from England - they honestly did not know that there was an ocean in the way...

One of the reasons I keep coming back here to Burningbird's weblogs is that Bb to me typifies the _real_, aware, alive America that's swamped by self-important junk. She's one of the few Americans I've come across who knows - not merely thinks, or guesses, or remembers sometimes, but _knows_ - that "we're all in this together", squabbling ever more dangerously in this one fragile, crowded biosphere on this one small planet.

Rant rant. Never mind. Just a little grumpy at present. Perhaps the wrong way to say 'Thanks', Bb, but thanks it certainly is.

Hi Shelley, so here's what's really going on. Last night I got a whiny email from an Australian living in the US who says that he's unhappy that the press here doesn't get obsessed with their tragedy, but that was just the first paragraph, the next five paragraphs were about how weblogs didn't solve the problem, because they were just as clueless about the Australian tragedy as the US press was.

Then I thought "Hey I was just reading about this on a weblog" and I thought of Jonathon Delacour's blog. So I sent him a link. And in the morning as a gesture I pointed to the The Age article, and got some more whiny email from Aussies, so I thought Hey here's a good chance to get some flow for the Aussie sites.

Then I read on your stinkin site that "sadly Dave is all fucked up" or whatever you said, and thought to myself "Shelley doesn't have any idea how this happened, and didn'read the post carefully enough." Then I thought I'd better check my post to see if I actually said the complaint was about bloggers, and there it was in black and white, so you must not have even read it. Not unusual for you to go off half-cocked before you get all the facts, but there you have it, the real story behind the story.

Dave, you ask what you cannot give. You ask respect that you deny me, in my own weblog. You use "whiney Australians" when the country is trembling from the horror of the senseless dead.

I said you missed the point, because this isn't about weblogs. This was never about "weblogs".

This is about life. And death.

And you think this is about weblogs. Weblogs. What a mockery.

Damn, Dave. I feel like all I do is follow you around and say you're an asshole...

...but you really are an asshole. When you decide to open up scripting.com in a manner that lets people respond to you - and graciously say, "you're welcome to respond here" after such an obviously antagonistic statement like, "will I be treated with respect, or is this a one-way lecture," then maybe you can run around posting jack-assed comments about "whiny emails" and using tragedy to drive traffic.

God! For such a brilliant man, you really have yet to master one of the most important functions of the computer: the backspace key.

One important difference between Sept. 11 and Bali is that the attack here (US) occurred in 3 different places on our own soil. Had 2000 Americans died in Mazatlan or Jamaica it would have been just as tragic, but it might not have received the same level of coverage. We all (Americans) felt violated that day because we sensed that the attack reached our doors.

"The vast majority of the people in this country have never heard of weblogs"

Let alone Australia.

Cheers,

Let's not turn this into a flame-fest on Dave. Dave speaks his mind on his weblog and writes candidly, and I support that. However, when you do that, people will bitch, moan, disagree (call you an asshole), etc. That's part of it, and I think it wrong to complain about it. When you make your opinions and thoughts public you enter into a *public* discourse, a conversation. For any blogger (not just Dave) to expect anything else, he/she is mislead.

Blog on, people.

Sorry, Ryan. No agreement from me on this one at all. I disagreed with Dave -- I thought the title "Whining Australians" was appalling. And we can disagree and agree with each other.

And when Dave comes in with "stinking" weblog posting and all that shit he dumped on me?

Give me a god damn break.

Dear Shelley. Thank you for your considered and heartfelt comments about the Bali bombings.

I've been back to the little Winer's blog and he sure doesn't say there what he is trying to explain above [even if that still doesn't excuse his arrogance]. Actually, the more he comments the more he opens his mouth to change feet.

Thanks for giving him access to your comments so that we can all see him for what he is.

Oh, for fuck's sake. This is a non-issue.

The USA doesn't give a rat's arse about anyone else. It's a living monument to self-interest, and will likely remain so. Why anyone wastes breath complaining about it is beyond me. You may as well complain about the weather, or Dave's relative volatility before his second cup of coffee. Get over it.

Dave, think of it this way:

s/New York/Bali/;
s/United States/Australia/;

The whole point of the post was to rail against american insularism. This was an example.

Personally, my heartfelt sympathy goes out to the people who died, and their families, in both tragedies.

Three comments:

(1) 'Whining....'. Well, all sides can probably use some consideration of another's viewpoint here. (Emphasis right now on CONSIDERATION.) All this name calling never does anybody any good. If you begin a commentary with a slam against an attitude you wish to change, well.... good luck. Rarely works.

(2) Dave's comments here. Um, '"sadly Dave is all fucked up"'? Dave... when you use those double quotes in this context one tends to think you are directly quoting the person. I never saw any such quote from Shelley. Next, we have your comment about "I read on your stinkin site...". Well now. Please see my first comment about effective ettiquette.

(3) Shelley's original comments - and some of the comments here. With all due respect and most certainly all due sympathy to the victims of the bombing... what exactly do you expect? First off, I'm only commenting now because my week has been a complete hell. In my 18 years working in IS I have never experienced the scope of disasters I've had to deal with this week. I'm only now reading the weblogs I visit for the first time since Saturday.

Yet, somehow I _did_ hear about the bombings from the usual news sources. Granted, the normal media overkill on the sniper shootings dwarf this, but nonetheless they did cover it.

As for the tendancy for the AMERICAN media to focus on things important to AMERICANS, again... what do you expect? Personally, I prefer that my local news cover local news. That my national news cover national. I _do_ sympathize with the victims of the bombing. But I care more about my local police captain who was cleared of blame in a civl lawsuit because the so-called victims nose was never broken. I care more about how the S&P and NASDAQ did today because my 401(k) depends on it. And I care more about the damn sniper because I am considering driving down to Virginia this weekend to visit friends.

I'm not belittling the tragedy that occured in Bali. I'm not saying our media paid enough attention. I'm just explaing a different viewpoint.

Peace, everyone!