The Early Morning After

Dear Readers -- I can't guarantee that there won't be an imminent platform change over to Typepad, the land of the user-friendly customizable website, but until I lose my mind again, I (re-)give you the blog, mid-redesign. Please be kind as we go through our growing pains (read: learn the ways of the XML). They don't teach this sort of thing in political philosophy grad seminars!

Malaysian Blogger Nathaniel Tan Arrested

On Friday 13 July, Malaysian blogger Nathaniel Tan (jelas.info, suarakeadilan.com, bangkit.net) was arrested by authorities there. He is currently under remand while police conduct an investigation into his alleged violation of section 8 of the Official Secrets Act, which pertains to "wrongful communication, etc. of [an] official secret." Tan and another blogger had posted a digitally manipulated photo of the Deputy Prime Minister dining with a Mongolian murder victim. It is unclear at this point whether Tan has been granted access to legal counsel; according to those who have been able to speak with him when he appeared in court, he has not been given clean drinking water. Tan is widely considered to be a prominent online voice in Malaysia; one of his sites, bangkit.net, is a portal for Malaysian civil society groups. According to provisions within the Malaysian Multimedia Bill of Guarantees, the government is not allowed to censor the Internet; Tan's arrest reflects the government's increasing resistance to that freedom of speech. Supporters have been asked to post this image of Nathaniel Tan on their blogs. We here at probably awkward ask any and all of our blog-writing readers to pass this along on their own sites. more info about Tan's detainment here and here.

Dopplegangers? Not so much

So HT found that someone had found probablyawkward through a search for the string "So You Think You Can Dance" and "homophobic." (Like I said, we're spying on you. Especially you, Prince Edward Island.) Which led me to check Google, and lo and behold, we're on the top page of results. I look to see who else popped up, and found an article on the same topic on Theory My Culture. This site was started the same month ours was and deals with very similar issues: life, pop culture, theory (sadly, no food), but with such a different tact. [MD: Upon further research I see it's also a male/female blogging team.] I'm not saying "Go read them not us." You can read them after you read us if you want. I AM saying "It's amazing how different two things that are ostensibly the same can be." It does inspire me to actually reference Judith Butler when I post about how I almost had a meltdown about gender normativity during the previews before Knocked Up.

Housekeeping

I just added Digg, Reddit, and del.icio.us buttons thanks to the help of the Aetheist Jew. This process was remarkably more irritating than it should have been. We've also added a Sitemeter tracking slug to the bottom of the page. So, basically, we're watching you. (HT adds: It's probably more narcissistic than that: we're watching you watch us.) And finally, HT is learning how to embed video. Soon we'll be a real blog! And then the world will tremble at our feet. Especially you, Prince Edward Island, whoever you are...

Weird realization

I just realized HT had somehow psychically formatted awkward with almost the exact same colors as my defunct blog shatteredglass. weird. no one but me cares about this. HT adds: I was going for maximum readability so as to facilitate smoother ideological indoctrination.