Blogwatch: #griots and #16Azar, measles, swine flu, and another openly gay bishop
Lots of activity today on Twitter on the #griots and #16Azar tag. The former was created at the time of last year’s Greek riots, and the latter is for 16 Azar on the Iranian calendar, Students Day. Both Greece and Iran are, for different reasons, rocked by protests today.
I don’t have a lot of time this morning for posting; I mean this posts to be mostly just brief links. So for the Iranian protests I’ll point you to Andrew Sullivan, who has been one of the best bloggers all along when it comes to covering Iranian protests, and who has promised to cover the protests today. At the moment, I’m hearing on Twitter about a 16 Azar protest at Madyar University; videos have been uploaded to Youtube. The Iranian government was said to have prepared in advance for today by tightening up on the Internet; I guess countermeasures like Haystack must be working, since protestors are still filtering some reports out. The mainstream media is also covering this story prominently, of course.
On Saturday, on the eve of yesterday’s protests in Greece commemorating the police killing of a teenager last year, people were remarking on Twitter that #griots didn’t seem the right tag this year, since the protests were so peaceful, and that reports of rain meant that it was likely things would remain subdued. Obviously that didn’t hold; today the Guardian reports that Greek riots continue into their second day, while eKathimerini reports that
There was a fragile calm in central Athens last night after several hours of extensive rioting that followed protests to mark the one-year anniversary of the shooting of a teenager by a policeman and as several hundred protesters remained holed up in the grounds of the University of Athens and the city’s Law School.
Here’s a flash camera displaying the street by the Athens Polytechnic University.
Other links:
Oxfam’s blog reports on an act to end violence against women, internationally.
The CDC presented preliminary safety data indicating that there were few serious reactions after the swine flu vaccine.
The Middle East has seen a 93% drop in deaths caused by measles in the past eight years.
The Los Angeles Diocese just elected an openly gay bishop suffragan.
Everybody loves … Andre? On how different Andre Braugher’s new role in Ray Romano’s Men of a Certain Age is from his Frank Pembleton role in Homicide. (The show starts tonight, but I have a regular meeting on exactly the day of the week that it shows, so my plan is to check the web for it afterwards.)
As long as I’m on entertainment news, I’ll note that Vanessa Williams now has a Twitter feed, @VanessasPage.
And, for fun, Catherine and Heathcliff audition for Twilight.