Connecting the Dots Around The Blogosphere

There are several posts that I've read recently that seem unrelated. But perhaps some reader can connect the dots.

First, there is a post on the Doc Artz blog about the experience of rewatching episodes from season 1 of LOST. The post admires the ways in which things that were once simply details the significance of which was unclear, were later revisited and connected up with other aspects of the storyline. Any and all LOST fans should read it, and will appreciate it. Some will gain new insight into connections between details from the first season and some of the most recent plot developments to unfold on the show.

Next, Daniel's Think Tank provides the largest number of answers I've ever encountered to the perennial question "Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?" As if the sheer number of answers were not enough, the answers are given from the perspectives of famous philosophers, Biblical authors, and popes. You don't need to be someone who wonders about chickens and their motives on a regular basis to get a kick out of this post. In addition, Daniel's Think Tank is a relatively new blog by a Romanian who is seeking to explore alternatives to fundamentalism. So even if you cry foul at poultry attempts at humor, pay his blog a visit anyway.

Finally, I was made aware that our local Indianapolis Public Schools have banned access to web sites that are connected with atheism, various alternative religions, and LGBT matters. I think Jesse Galef is right that, if the aim is to avoid controversy or to avoid promoting religion in a state-funded classroom, then one has to prevent and/or prohibit access to all religious views and not only some. Otherwise, it gives the impression that the state is doing something contrary to the first amendment: giving free access to some religious views in schools while silencing others. As it stands, the policy seems to be largely sensible, but in a few specific instances to inexplicably single out certain categories of religion or sexuality as prohibited while allowing access to others.

The issue of blogging and freedom of speech keeps coming up in Indiana. After Bert Chapman drew much ire for a blog post about homosexuality, his employer Purdue University rightly stood up for his freedom of speech while also distancing itself from his specific personal views. At Butler University, my own employer, the Jess Zimmerman lawsuit is certainly putting the university's reputation with respect to free speech at risk before a watching global audience. The university maintains that it undertook the lawsuit to discover the identity of the anonymous blogger Soodo Nym and find out whether there was any connection between said blogger and some threatening e-mails sent to university administrators during the same period. And more recently, the lawsuit has been dropped. But more will obviously need to be done if the university is to stop the growing tide of negative responses, which include a petition and a fair amount of poking fun around the internet:



Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that some of the criticism and poking of fun at Butler University has taken place on campus, such as in the student newspaper and even an official student blog on the university web site. As far as I'm aware, none of these critics has been rounded up by thought police. And so I'm not persuaded that free speech is genuinely in jeopardy on campus. What genuinely does concern me is the following. First, it is obviously troubling that students' perception of the situation on campus is such that it leads any of them to feel that they must hide their identity in order to speak openly. Second, there are always tensions at a university, an institution that seeks to combine liberal arts education and professional training, idealism and success as a business. The souring of relationships between students, faculty and administrators that inevitably results from an occurrence such as this recent one is to be regretted. And so I'll watch in coming days to see whether Butler can achieve something that freedom of speech doesn't guarantee: genuine communication. Will the various sides and interested parties talk to one another, or shout at one another, and what sort of atmosphere for learning will be the result?