BuzzMachine

Meanwhile, in the Congo
: A compelling presentation of the CBC’s reporting on the Congo. [via Die Zeit]

Aw, shucks
: I’m honored to be included in a list of a-list bloggers. Except I think I’m a poseur on that list. And, in fact, I doubt that there is an A-list. There are a hundred A-lists: one for tech, one for politics, one for sports, one for Cleveland, one for Iran, one just for guys named Hebig, and so on, and so on. The power of blogs is the power of the total, not the power of the powerful few. I didn’t include my own blog on my list of most-influential lists (and, again, I was flattered just to be asked).

Another life
: Blue Bird Escape — the weblog of a teenager Iranian-American girl who has just returned to visit Iran — continues to amaze me with its clear, heartfelt insight. Today’s entry:

Coming back home has made me look at things differently. It has given me a brighter and stronger view. I now understand why people want to get away. I now understand how different my life would have been if I had stayed. I can see that people have problems. I can see that they are not happy but they try to make the best out of it.

Dear Kofi Annan
: Ali sends an open letter to Kofi Annan urging help for Iran:

…If the world community does not take an urgent and timely action it is feared that the Iranian regime may observe no limits in its suppression of the demonstrators.

With regard to the above, we the undersigned request your urgent help so that another human tragedy can be prevented before the Islamic Republic’s regime causes a bloodbath in Iran. Protests and demonstrations are a democratic right of the Iranian people and it is a duty of the world democrats to defend this right. We ask you as a responsible authority to respond to this appeal:

1)Condemn the inhumane crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran and demand that it stops the suppression and use of violence against the demonstrators.

2)Send immediately an international team to observe the situation in Iran.

3)Support the general demand of the Iranian people for a referendum and free elections observed by international organisations.

Please act urgently so that another human tragedy can be prevented in time.

The letter also gives us good background on the significance of July 9 and the ongoing demonstrations for democracy.

UPDATE: Here’s where you can sign this letter as a petition.

Dear President Bush
: Iranian.com offers three letters to send to President Bush. One tells him to support the student demonstrations. Another tells him to offer only moral support. The third says the U.S. should do nothing. Take your pick.

Dear Ayatollah Khamenei
: And here’s Human Rights Watch’s letter to the supreme leader.

: You can see this ying-yang of opinion in my comments below: One Iranian commenter thanking bloggers for support, another warning that such support can put people in danger.

And you see this exact debate at Iranian.com, where Setareh Sabety lectures Iranian exiles and emigres:

Iranians abroad must unite under one cause: the protection of the human rights of those protesting in Iran. It is the duty of those Iranians who live in democracies to try their best to do what they can to protect the Iranians that have mustered enough courage to take to the streets in Iran and demand a regime change….

But this very right, that Iranians abroad possess, to differ with one another, is exactly what is needed in Iran. The right to speak ones mind without fear of being imprisoned or beaten up is the most basic first step to achieving democracy….

I asked friends who live in France and have French nationality why they did nothing to protest the comment made by their foreign minister that Iran was a democratic nation. They looked stunned as if they, in fact, as French who cared for their motherland, had a duty to voice their anger about France’s repeated appeasement of the theocratic regime….

[We should] unite and demand our respective host nations and the international community as a whole to put pressure on the regime to avoid imprisonment and bloodshed? Is that not the best that Iranians abroad can do for the youth within our borders?

: Andrew Sullivan wonders why Iran is still page-three news in the Times.

Movable Type PR crisis
: Movable Type has a PR crisis brewing. Anil joined in the comments at Site-Essential but if you want my PR advice, when something starts brewing in the blog world, the best thing to do is go to your own site and explain things clearly: Open source the info.