My Dots for Saturday, March 24, 2007

The Royal Portrait: A Sloshed Prince Harry

“Its so hard to be a prince.”

[photograph, photographs, Prince Harry, drunk England, royal family

 

 

 

Journalism for Bloggers

“An Authoritative Guide to Blogging.”

Rule 1: Never write a guide telling people how to blog things.

Rule 2: Most things look better when you put them in a circle. Use lots of circles in your blog.

Rule 3: If you really insist on having a good guide to narrative journalism for bloggers, this article is for you. It presents blogging guidelines initially developed by Michael Polla for a presentation on Narrative Journalism that was presented at The 2006 Nieman Conference on Narrative Journalism.

Rule 4: Don’t be too proud—this really can be very useful in helping you to develop and enrich your own unique blogging writing style. Take a look and learn! Plus, take a look and enjoy! I did, and you will too.

[tags: blogs, bloggers, blogger journalists, journalism, journalism for bloggers, weblogs, media, new media]

 On Affirming Free Agency in The Analytic Process

There is a gap between what we actually expect of patients in psychoanalysis and what we acknowledge we expect. In other words, perhaps we take for granted the patient’s ongoing intuitive sense of some of the ingredients that the relationship requires. This calls for a critique of the standard emphasis on denial of the possibility of responsible, relationship-cultivating ‘restraint’, seeing it almost always as irrational ‘resistance’ that requires interpretation.

Instead of attending so selectively to the possibility of ‘resistance’ whenever we notice patients exercising restraint in what they decide to tell us, we could consider giving them credit sometimes for their artfulness in imaginatively and sensitively contributing to an optimal analytic relationship.

Then we might find more opportunities to affirm our patients as responsible, social human beings rather than being so focused on their allegedly neurotic censorship and inhibitions, which are rendered seemingly unnecessary by our own illusions of saint-like interpersonal transcendence and tolerance.

[tags: blogs, psychoanalysis, contemporary psychoanalysis, relational, psychology, social constructivism]

 Report Claims: Remaining Charges Against Duke Lacrosse Players Will Be Dropped

The remaining charges against three Duke University lacrosse players originally indicted for rape may be dropped sometime within the next few days, according to a new report.

Inside Lacrosse Magazine writer Paul Caulfield told FOX News on Thursday that several sources have revealed to him that the assault and attempted kidnapping charges still pending against Collin Finnerty, 19, of Garden City, N.Y.; Dave Evans, 23, of Bethesda, Md.; and Reade Seligmann, 20, of Essex Falls, N.J., will soon be dropped.

Caulfield said his sources include more than just attorneys for the defense. “There is no case here and they will be hearing a dismissal in the coming days,” Caulfield told FOX News.

Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong last year indicted the three former players with raping an exotic dancer hired to perform at an off-campus lacrosse party on March 13, 2006. The dancer, who is black, claimed that she was sexually assaulted in a bathroom in the house by three white lacrosse players.

DNA was taken from all members of the university lacrosse team, except for the single black player on the team. DNA tests never conclusively proved that anyone on the team assaulted her. But DNA from other individuals was found in the accuser’s underwear, among other places.

The case caused a firestorm of racial tension in a community. Lacrosse coach Mike Pressler was essentially fired and last year’s spring season was canceled, Seligmann and Finnerty were suspended (Evans had already graduated by the time the story came out), and Duke began a rigorous review of how alcohol on and around campus is treated.

As the months went on, the story of the accuser — a 28-year-old student at North Carolina Central University — continued to change. When she acknowledged late last year that she could not be sure if she was actually raped, Nifong dropped the rape charges against the three players. The players had claimed their innocence all along, calling the charges “fantastic lies.”

Nifong is now facing ethics charges from the state bar association from, among other thing, concealing potentially exculpatory evidence that defense lawyers claim could have proved their clients’ innocence. There have been rumors that the families of Finnerty, Seligmann and Evans may be considering civil lawsuits against Nifong, Duke or the state if it turns out the accuser’s story doesn’t pan out and Nifong is found to be guilty of mishandling the case.

[tags: Duke Unversity lacrosse players, lacrosse players charges dropped, rape charges dropped, Duke University, media, Mike Nifong]

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The Royal Portrait: A Sloshed Prince Harry

IT’S SO HARD TO BE A PRINCE

AND DAD IS CONFUSED

 

Emerging from his favourite nightclub after downing several “Crack Baby’ vodka shots, Prince Harry stumbled spectacularly into the gutter.  Only seconds earlier he had lashed out at a photographer, chasing him through West London’s late-night traffic and trying to shove him in the back.  Eventually, the 22-year-old royal prince was helped back to his feet and into a waiting Range Rover, which sped off with one of its doors still hanging wide open.  Harry’s mentor, former Welsh Guards captain Mark Dyer, was seen hanging for dear life onto the seat in front of him.

The extraordinary scenes were played out just after 3 a.m. on Saturday after the Prince had spent a night inside his favourite late-night haunt, Boujis in South Kensington.