On Unfortunate Love Affairs with Myspace, Plastic Bags and Stuff
Thanks everybody for coming along on Sunday and I hope everybody enjoyed the pizzas. I think the evening went very well and thanks again to beardedwonder for providing the venue.
Before I talk about something else, I was made aware of a website dedicated to the European films that might get nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar in 2008. It features reviews, interviews etc. If you're interested, click here.
Why is it that British people have this rather silly love affair with plastic bags. It's no wonder Britain head the list of dumping more waste on landfills than any other European nation which given the way the Spanish and the Italians throw about with waste is quite an achievement.
The reason why this cropped up again was because I went shopping for toast and tomatoes today and I took my linen bag along. I put the tomatoes in my bag and went to the counter. The first question was whether there weren't any plastic bags at the fruit counter to which I replied that I always take my bag with me. He shrugged, hit the screen to weigh the tomatoes and proceeded to put my linen bag into a plastic bag! Now, I don't like using the word nitwit but this was beyond reason.
With the fourth suspect in the Meredith murder case being arrested in Germany, I started thinking again about how odd this case is. It's not been covered at all in Germany and hence another story caught my attention yesterday. Typical for German newspapers, something that happens in the States is more interesting than a tragic but fascinating international murder case in Italy.
The tragic suicide of a teenager because she was dumped by her "boyfriend" on Myspace was nothing that interested anybody about a year ago. About a week ago, an American journalist uncovered the heinous truth about it (Read Pokin Around for more info) and since then it has spread through the web community.
The gist is this. The "boyfriend" never existed but was invention of the vengeful neighbour's daughter (for breaking their friendship), her mom, and one her mom's work colleagues as well as some other girl. They knew exactly how to enthrall the poor girl, how to hit the right buttons, gain her confidence etc, but after some weeks of nefarious fun they decided to go for the kill by sending her the dumping message alongside a note saying: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."
There have been no charges brought against the neighbours even though they admitted to faking the account because the FBI was unable to retrieve the last messages but more importantly because whilst there is a law against mobbing, it doesn't cover online psycho mobbing which is why the case is hotly debated now because they might be the first to introduce such a law.
More interestingly, the author didn't mention any names apart from the girl's name and those of her family, probably in order to avoid being sued. Der Spiegel Online claims to contacted him and he said that the internet would take care of that. And sure enough, the website rottenneighbors.com (I believe, haven't looked it up) features the names.
I cover this story because I find it so tragic. She seems to have been gaining self-confidence which I presume is why it hit her so hard that she committed suicide.
Comic of the Day:
Before I talk about something else, I was made aware of a website dedicated to the European films that might get nominated for the Foreign Language Oscar in 2008. It features reviews, interviews etc. If you're interested, click here.
Why is it that British people have this rather silly love affair with plastic bags. It's no wonder Britain head the list of dumping more waste on landfills than any other European nation which given the way the Spanish and the Italians throw about with waste is quite an achievement.
The reason why this cropped up again was because I went shopping for toast and tomatoes today and I took my linen bag along. I put the tomatoes in my bag and went to the counter. The first question was whether there weren't any plastic bags at the fruit counter to which I replied that I always take my bag with me. He shrugged, hit the screen to weigh the tomatoes and proceeded to put my linen bag into a plastic bag! Now, I don't like using the word nitwit but this was beyond reason.
With the fourth suspect in the Meredith murder case being arrested in Germany, I started thinking again about how odd this case is. It's not been covered at all in Germany and hence another story caught my attention yesterday. Typical for German newspapers, something that happens in the States is more interesting than a tragic but fascinating international murder case in Italy.
The tragic suicide of a teenager because she was dumped by her "boyfriend" on Myspace was nothing that interested anybody about a year ago. About a week ago, an American journalist uncovered the heinous truth about it (Read Pokin Around for more info) and since then it has spread through the web community.
The gist is this. The "boyfriend" never existed but was invention of the vengeful neighbour's daughter (for breaking their friendship), her mom, and one her mom's work colleagues as well as some other girl. They knew exactly how to enthrall the poor girl, how to hit the right buttons, gain her confidence etc, but after some weeks of nefarious fun they decided to go for the kill by sending her the dumping message alongside a note saying: "Everybody in O'Fallon knows how you are. You are a bad person and everybody hates you. Have a shitty rest of your life. The world would be a better place without you."
There have been no charges brought against the neighbours even though they admitted to faking the account because the FBI was unable to retrieve the last messages but more importantly because whilst there is a law against mobbing, it doesn't cover online psycho mobbing which is why the case is hotly debated now because they might be the first to introduce such a law.
More interestingly, the author didn't mention any names apart from the girl's name and those of her family, probably in order to avoid being sued. Der Spiegel Online claims to contacted him and he said that the internet would take care of that. And sure enough, the website rottenneighbors.com (I believe, haven't looked it up) features the names.
I cover this story because I find it so tragic. She seems to have been gaining self-confidence which I presume is why it hit her so hard that she committed suicide.
Comic of the Day: