Earlier today, like much earlier, I was out and about with a few other people cleaning up trash around the City (as part of the Keep Frisco Beautiful campaign). It would have been nicer to see more supporters actually helping, and at one point I was thinking there were as many organizers as there were volunteers. Still, after our city’s mayor said a few words (to the press), and then said a few more words (to more press), he actually said a few more words (to us) and set us free to go grab some trash. (I make this general observation about the length of time it took to set us on our way, as I am not a morning person, and I’d been there for an hour already.)

Anyway, I worked with a couple of other members of Frisco Pride, and collected a good amount of trash. At first we thought the area that we were assigned was too small (for the amount of time — we were wrong). Sadly, most was related to building materials (like plastic wrap, etc.), and got me thinking that I hope the city actually gets a clean up bond or payment from any builder (chances are this is not the case). After an hour and a bit of cleaning up, we finished, and I came home to wash the morning off me.

When I got home, I found this on the answering service (we have Vonage, so it emails any messages left as WAV files *snicker*):

That was Chris (who is in Florida for the weekend). Isn’t that sweet? He might be a litle off key, but I loved it Of course, the safe thing about Chris being in Florida is I can post this just to prove how sweet he can be

(Side note: the little WordPress audio tool/plugin can be found here.)

Thanks to danah over at apophenia, I discovered that the Deleting Online Predators Act, or DOPA pass the US House today by a vote of 410-15.

According to a ZDNet article, the bill was

apparently meant to restrict access to MySpace, the definition of off-limits Web sites is so broad the bill would probably sweep in thousands of commercial Web sites that allow people to post profiles, include personal information and allow “communication among users.”

The details will be left up to the Federal Communications Commission, and authority was provided that “gives more leeway to the FCC in devising a category of verboten Web sites.”

I find it interesting that this is “one” of those pieces of legislation that aims to help legislators with their election efforts in November.

Monday while driving from Denton, I heard this commentary from this girl who, according to the NPR site:

is a high school student with an online journal. Her mother reads the journal — but Bly thinks she shouldn’t.

The piece covers a little about the phenomena of MySpace, and how parents are connecting online to this network to keep an eye on their kids (in particular, this girl’s mother).

As I was listening to this, I decided to jot myself a note (which I’ve just found) and blog about this. One, I applaud parents for getting involved with their child’s online activities; it’s what parents should do. Secondly, as you listen to this piece you realize the potential for parent’s to understand their children more by reading their online journals. And, C. (This is directed at the “youngings”) If you don’t want your parents to read your journal, don’t post them online for the world to see.

As my very wise friend Ian commented, it’s the equivalent of writing a journal, and then pasting the pages on your front door (his words were more descriptive, but it was the best a mind could do after consuming a number of glasses of wine).

Side note: I hadn’t heard that MySpace had overtaken Google and Yahoo as the most visited site (which apparently happened a week or so ago).

This is a term we have heard (and will continue to hear) a great of in the media these past few days. I think it sums up what ‘could’ have happened quite appropriately. Yesterday, while watching CNN’s coverage, a spokesperson for Israel was intent on explaining how precise their attacks were (stating that they could direct them to within 20 feet of the target). UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is right to call on a full investigation on this matter, especially when it appears that there is no obvious reason why this target was fired at.

I was listening to NPR the other day, and they were discussing the insanity defense being used by Andrea Yates attornies (a defense that appears to have worked). After listening to this, I was left wondering - what is the apparent connection of “doing God’s work” and insanity. Yates, by her own admission, said that she needed to protect her children “from damnation” as she apparently had a vision that indicated that at least two of her children were on a pathway towards sin. In November 2004, a mother who cut off her baby’s arms in God’s name, as she wanted to give her children to God (she was later found not guilty by reason of insanity), and earlier that year, another woman from East Texas was found not guilty (by insanity) by bashing in the heads of two of her children with rocks (again, by carrying out God’s will). The women’s attempted to murder her third child, but according to the mother, he just “wouldn’t die.”