yet another nod to Leonard Cohen turning 70

because the time is approaching when my children will ask me who Dylan, Waits and Cohen were, and I will answer them, perhaps before they ask. via wood s lot - well worth a look, as always.

And via infinite thought, a sociological bit on blogging in Iran: Gender and the “self,” inside the mirror

Perhaps one of the main reasons for the popularity of the internet and the high use of weblogs among Iranian women, youth and intellectuals is the search for and reconstruction of a lost or forgotten identity. In the process of recreating identities, the virtual space of the internet becomes a new mirror in which individuals see themselves the way they truly are or want to be, or see those parts of themselves that they have censored. For many bloggers, the weblog becomes a mirror into their souls; a place where they represent their true selves and define themselves according to their liking, without the social and cultural constraints that impede them in real spaces. For women, who are constantly playing roles in a moralistic society, this takes on added significance. The internet and weblogs become a mirror in which youth and women can see their "hidden selves" and/or "repressed selves." ...The greater freedoms accorded to masculine subjectivities is one of the main reasons that male bloggers tend to write under their own names much more frequently than women bloggers. Many men believe that they do not need to have multiple weblogs, because they can express themselves through a single weblog.