OhmyNews International

Huge video sharing website YouTube is offering users an opportunity to become “internet stars” by entering their video blogging competition.

The YouTube Next Vlogger contest is part of the company’s Next Creator initiative which seeks to help promising artistes develop their skills and build up a following.

The competition is open to candidates from Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and America.

Video blogging is one of the most popular types of activity on YouTube where almost anyone can submit film on topics ranging from accounts of the riots which occurred in the UK last summer, reviews of new movies and music albums to instructional “how to” blogs.

Read the full story on the Mashable.com website: http://mashable.com/2012/03/29/youtube-vlogging-contest/.

There’s no winner in this one. According to Singapore Seen, a middle-aged Ferrari driver almost hit some pedestrians at a crosswalk. The driver got out of his car and challenged a man to fight. He promptly got beaten up by a gang of youths.

Some comments from the post:

masterchief 

Well, if he dare to challenge others, he should be prepared. Furthermore, he is obstructing traffic by coming out of his car. So in short, he really deserves it.

isthissafe 

Looks more like when Umpha Lumphas go bad.

harveykid2 

The police should charge the Ferrari driver for dangerous driving and not also stopping before the zebra crossing for people to cross.
He is asking for it. He could be an AH BENG just because he drives a Ferrari.

Contributor lazloman at Current points out that allocations of spectrum by the American FCC will be made to local low power FM stations rather than “translators” that rebroadcast programs from right wing networks. This was really the original intent for the spectrum anyway–not really to stifle right wing programming but to make spectrum available for community programming independent of large centralized entities.

FCC decision strikes right-wing radio dominance (Current.com)

A favorite tactic in political arguing is using the Hitler card. It’s become such a cliche that you can say the argument has become absurd as soon as someone brings up comparisons to Hitler.

NowPublic has just published an article called “Hitler or Bloomberg? Take the Fascism’s in Fashion Quiz.” It’s selected quotes, and it challenges the reader to guess who said each.

I myself was guilty of using Hitler and Nazi analogies against George W. Bush during the height of his power. I found lots of similarities with the Bush regime and fascist regimes. A practical joke I used to do was take Mussolini’s essay defining fascism and replacing “fascist” with “conservative.” I posted this in conservative discussion groups and watched how many posters agreed with it. I also took selections from “Mein Kampf” and replaced “Jews” with “liberals.” Had the same effect.

I’m in the middle of reading the classic definitive history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Shirer. It’s very detailed, and really, Hitler was not a man of deep political thought. He just hated Jews and loved nationalism and power, and all his politics revolved around those. Reading the history of the Nazis, really, you can cherry pick most any quality and attach it to most any organization. So even if I agree with the political views of the writer, they lose their credibility as soon as they start playing the Hitler game.

As Jon Stewart said, “Only Hitler could be Hitler.”

Hitler or Bloomberg? Take the Fascism’s in Fashion Quiz (NowPublic)

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a guest Op-ed from Henry Seggerman, Manager of Korea International Investment Fund

Yes, you read that correctly. Allow North Koreans onto Yeonpyeong Island. My argument here is that the Northern Limit Line (NLL) is fundamentally unfair to North
Korea, and that South Korea should at long last address this problem.

Before I’m locked away for violating the NSA, allow me to caveat the controversial statement above.

I still believe North Korea is a full-fledged member of the Axis of Evil. The regime leaders are guilty of crimes against humanity, for which they should be tried and
punished. I also still believe in the only morally acceptable reunification would be full absorption of North Korea into a capitalist democratic unified Korea.

BUT (and this is an important BUT), South Korea is paralyzed in a North Korean policy loaded with inconsistencies. In two blatant acts of war, North Korea killed 46 Cheonan
sailors and four people on Yeonpyeong Island. Proportionate retaliations would arguably have killed 50 North Koreans. But this could never happen. Why not? Because North Korea has 11,000 cannons pointing at Seoul and really could turn it into a “sea of fire.” So, South Korea has spent nearly two years limiting its “retaliation” to rather feeble verbal demands for an apology from North Korea, which obviously is never coming.

Meanwhile, the Kaesong Industrial Park continues providing North Korea about $1 billion in annual revenue. Closing Kaesong would be a perfectly reasonable response
to the North Korea’s killing of 50 South Koreans, but somehow this does not occur to South Korea. Since South Korea is neither going to retaliate militarily against North
Korea’s killing of 50 South Koreans, nor stop giving the North nearly $1 billion in revenue at Kaesong, then it’s perfectly reasonable for me to discuss revisiting the NLL.
Economically speaking, doing so would not be the kind of free handout South Korea gives the North at Kaesong.

No peace agreement was ever signed ending the Korean War, only an armistice. Separate from even the armistice, the UN unilaterally drew the Northern Limit Line
without any consent sought from, or given by, North Korea.

The NLL runs for 100 kilometers, hugging North Korea’s coastline sometimes by less than five kilometers. It forces North Korean trade ships to make an awkward 100-
kilometer northbound detour before they are able to head out into open sea. This is particularly galling given that Haeju, at the southern end of the NLL, is the only port in
North Korea which does not freeze over in the winter. Hardly a month goes by without another angry complaint about the NLL coming from the DPRK.

Of course we stopped taking those purplish, bellicose KCNA press releases seriously years ago. However, when they say US and ROK drills at the NLL are a provocation,
they really do have a point. Imagine your pet dog was bitten by a rat and is rabid. Then you take his leash and pull it as tight as you can around his neck. What kind of response do you expect? The US/ROK West Sea drills hugging the very edge of the NLL are a constant reminder of the punitive, arbitrary NLL, never agreed to by North Korea.

Loosening up the NLL is not my crazy new idea. Actually, I borrowed it from South Korea’s last President. Less than five years ago, Roh Moo-hyun diverted enough
attention from the endless nuclear shell game to negotiate a “special peace and cooperation zone in the West Sea encompassing Haeju and vicinity” with North Korea.
Near the end of his rule the deal did not close, and it was certainly not revived by the new conservative administration that marched into the Blue House.

Why not revive President Roh’s idea? Given Park Won-soon’s recent victory in the Seoul mayoral race, the DUP may “occupy” the Blue House this Fall. If that is the outcome, pursuing President Roh’s West Sea deal may be a possibility. In fact, both Saenuri’s Park Geun-hye and DUP’s Han Myeong-sook are already offering to engage with the DPRK’s new leadership. Eliminating the NLL dispute would remove a dangerously lethal and completely unnecessary flashpoint in North-South relations.

After the Cheonan and Yeonpyeong killings, making any West Sea concessions to North Korea will obviously inflame sensitivities in the South. On top of that, KCNA will
surely trumpet that the DPRK has “dealt a merciless revolutionary blow to the imperialist stooges of the ROK.”

But why not think up a more creative deal? For example, why not offer some of President Roh’s NLL concessions if the DPRK agrees to move the 11,000 cannons far away from Seoul? Or come up with some other deal which relieves tension and can be seen as advantageous to both sides?

Given the untimely ends met by Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi, who abandoned their nuclear programs and were later executed, moving the 11,000 cannons
will be a much easier sell to the DPRK regime than giving up its nuclear weapons. Over the years, there have been numerous West Sea skirmishes between North and South
Korea, and it is not unreasonable for us to expect more. And there is a lot more danger of a terrible KPA cannon barrage on Seoul than the DPRK starting World War III with its pop-gun nuclear arsenal.

Henry Seggerman is the Manager of Korea International Investment Fund, the oldest hedge fund in Korea. The views expressed herein are the author’s own, and do not
reflect the views of this newspaper.

Last September, I was experiencing the first probable feelable shock of an earthquake in my life. I was riding towards my room on my bike that evening. On reaching the center of the Sankhamul Bridge of Kathmandu, my bike got stopped. Suddenly, the 8.9 scaled quake started swinging the bridge. After seeing the public scampering, my heartbeat also got faster because of fright. I was thinking, the bridge may break down. After escaping out, I was so eager to update my Facebook status about this most memorable incident. Through the hurdles in network connections, I accomplished the job of updating. Some friends liked and some of them commented on it.

Besides the comments, I admired something else. The wall of this social network was filled up with current updates about the recent quakes. Casualties, damages, intensity on different areas were all seen in the posts of the users. Facebook at that time stood as an open portal for citizen journalism. Merely 10 percent of my Facebook friends are journalists working for different media or freelancing, but I was seeing the posts from about 50 percent of my friends who have not done their first reporting. I was getting the updates from most of the districts in just seconds.

“No one has to be a professional Journalist to disseminate the Information or news.”

This statement has been proven because Facebook was the only news source for me that day. Most of the radios and TVs were playing music. Some were talking about politics and some were scrolling flash news. But naively I was searching for full details about the casualties in the areas of my concern, which may be my homeland or somewhere else. But none of the media were providing the full details. I thanked my friends for updating their statuses. I, too, was updating my experience and perceptions about the quake, through which my friends abroad could get informed. After that day, I am always thinking and searching for ways to use this social portal as a space for citizen journalism. If used decently, Facebook permits us to get a lot of news, information and updates through an individual citizen journalist. In my sense, every Facebook user is a journalist who may be narrowcasting, but is propagating the news. All of us, you and I.

You may be wondering what I mean by decency. I do have another experience to share. I have liked some interesting Facebook fan pages. Some of the pages I have liked contain more than seventy thousand likes. One day I got the sad news of the demise of Ram Man Trishit, the popular music artist from Nepal. Again Facebook was the medium to give me the news.

“May his soul RIP,” I wrote on the status of Mysansar.com. With a profound heart, I was just signing-off, my eyes scanning loosely over notifications. Some of the users liked the status were there was written, “Ram Man Trishit is no-more.” I didn’t feel, I should say something to them because it is just common sense that no one likes his demise.

After the demise of Dalit-Activist Subas Darnal, many were writing on his Facebook wall. Some of them were stating, “I am sad to listen the news of your death, I do not believe it,” and some were writing, “Is this news true?”

Where had the common sense of those users been? Do they not know that the dead cannot answer their questions and comment on their status posts? Again the question of common sense arises.

The same is happening nowadays. The vulgar posts on Facebook walls also lack common sense. If you want to read more about those unbelievable offensive stories by clicking on ‘Follow,’ you will definitely get the same problems as these. If you want to get rid of those stories posted on the walls of your friends by your name, just click on ‘Report as Spam.’ You can see this option to the right of the story post.

Finally, it’s my conviction that Facebook is an open slam-book protected with passwords. If used decently it is a space for sharing feelings but it is also a destructive technology if we forget the universal concern of common sense. Again I say, use Facebook as a diary, to share your experience as a storyteller and to share the news as Citizen- Journalist. Facebook has the largest coverage, which not only spreads your success but also your slip-ups. Mind your clicks on likes and keys on comments. That’s the rule of Facebook common sense.

Shanghaiist discusses an infographic printed in the Shanghai Daily that talks about China’s “leftover” women.

What are leftover women?

They are unmarried ladies in their late twenties. Yes, if you are not married by age 25 in China, you are already a sort of social pariah. But the women seem to be taking the title and owning it. Read Shanghaiist for more.

Infographic: The plight of China’s ‘leftover’ women (Shanghaiist)

Cal Widdall at Shanghaiist reports details of Chinese hackers gaining access to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. According to a source, there were 5,408 security breaches in a two year period. The majority of the attacks likely weren’t government sponsored or completely malicious, according to the article.

Chinese hackers gained full access to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab last year (Shanghaiist)

While interviewing some folks for an article that I was writing about the local horse industry, I heard a comment repeated that I’ve heard from time to time during the 20 years that I’ve lived in Parker, Colo.

I was told that Douglas County (Colo.) has the largest horse population per capita in the nation.

Since I was writing an article for the Parker Chamber of Commerce’s annual magazine, I decided it was time to try and find someone who might know if that claim is actually true. Yes, I’ve heard it for years. Yes, the person who said it recently also has heard it for years.

The information was repeated, but it was never actually verified. It was time for me to put on my reporter’s cap and do some digging into the truth.

Guess what? I couldn’t verify the claim. In fact, after making calls to numerous people involved with horses and the horse industry statewide, most said they didn’t know. Only one person said he doubted the statement could be true and gave me some information that would lead one to believe that no way could the claim be factual.

The more I thought about it, the more I thought it was crazy to believe the same claim for 20 years – especially with the area’s incredible population explosion over that same time period.

This is a good lesson for citizen journalists and writers of all kinds. Just because you hear a statement of so-called fact repeated over and over, does not make it true. It is always best to find an expert who should be able to tell you whether the information you’ve heard is factual or absolutely absurd.

So don’t repeat everything you hear as fact – even if you’ve heard it for years and from multiple people. Do your due diligence to uncover whether the information is a myth or reality.

Susan Cormier is the co-author of the “Handbook for Citizen Journalists” (http://www.citizenjournalistnow.com/)