A dilemma, not.

For me, this is a true dilemma.

A couple of years ago, Blogger became Google; that's the most direct way to put it. Blogger was the digital front door for a small company called Pyra Labs, Google bought Pyra, and Pyra continued to operate Blogger as a small piece of the ever-expanding Goggle universe.

Not too long ago, Google handed over to the Chinese government information on Chinese web surfers who might be -- or might not be -- attempting to visit websites that the government doesn't want its people to see. That's my own summation of actions taken by Google which Google states is required of it to do business in China.

China recently arrested a journalist working for the New York Times. He was arrested because of an article he wrote that the Chinese government said...oh, it doesn't matter what the government said, really. They arrested a writer because he wrote something the government didn't like. They subsequently dropped the original charge, after much scrutiny and exposure by worldwide media, and came up with another charge -- fraud -- and gave him just under five years.

So, I have this conumdrum, to wit: I'm a writer; if I were a writer in China, I wouldn't be allowed -- by LAW -- to write what I'm writing now. If I used Google to try and access sites that the government deemed unacceptable, the government could -- by LAW -- get information about my attempts from Google, and Google would be compelled -- by LAW -- to give it to them and, apparently, it would do just that.

I have heard several times over the course of my adult life that some people worry and fuss over things that they have absolutely no control over, and, therefore, it's a waste of their time. I understand this approach, and it has merit. As an example, when teaching video production classes at a DeVry-type school many eons ago, I knew that when it came time for the students to choose a subject to build their first significant video piece around, someone, or several someones, would choose "the homeless". In response, I would use their idea as a class on how to focus ideas, by drawing out the multiple levels of complexity inherent on "the homeless" subject, to wit:
"...okay, the homeless. Well, what about the homeless? Is your idea about how many; men; women; the impact of homeless on city services; the impact on the general public; feeding; housing; homeless children; homeless families; homeless teens; there are an estimated 5,000 homeless teenagers on the streets, so, will you focus on how they got there; why they're homeless; how about what happens to the homeless...migration of homeless to here...from here...new services ...andonandonandon..."

And so, there is some merit to fretting about something of which you have no impact or control. Can't cure world hunger; can't singlehandedly stop arms proliferation; can't even help all the homeless become non-homeless.

BUT, I can make a video documentary on any one of those ideas listed above; I can make a documentary on one homeless person; I can feed one person; I can volunteer in a shelter. I can find a way to channel my altruistic intentions into local, grassroots action.

I'll come back around now, back to the Google-owns-Blogger thing. There's a new Beta Blogger option for us. Click on it and you find some interesting 'improvements' and enhancements to our blog sites, yahdaw yahdaw. But, go to the FAQ and look around, and you find out that you'll need to open a Goggle G-mail account if you want to use the Beta stuff and, more importantly, you don't have to do it right now, but you'll have to do that eventually whether you want to or not, and if you don't, your blog as you know it now will disappear.

I don't want a Google account of any kind. As I read through the info and discovered the changes coming in my Blogger future, I realized that I had known of the Blogger to Google morph, and I had placed it amdist the mental pile of news and tidbits that flood my head, much as the literal paper-based news and tidbits that fill my office. I was remiss in not keeping track of that tidbit, since I had followed the Google gift to the Government of China story, and had been pissed, but also, truly, truly disappointed in Google's response to the questions of why it had capitulated and given up the info: if you're going to do business in another country, then you have to follow that country's rules.

That's it?

Fuck you. Fuck you. Your skyrocketting share price of $350 or whatever it is today might suffer if you incoproated some kind of freedom of speech vertebrae into the spine of your global business plan? Your board of directors might revolt if you decided that you'll do fine in most of the world without having a Google presence in China? It's just so disappointing that you took this route, that you knew when the China incident drops off the media radar, when most people have forgotten what you did, and many didn't care to begin with, that you knew it wouldn't matter. But it does matter; it matters to me.

I'm not one to try and mount the platform and make everyone listen to ideas that are too lofty for practical, everyday use. I DO use Google as a search engine. And, I certainly understand how everyone who's anyone in the world of business not only DOES business WITH China, they actually build manufacturing plants IN China, and that without the ability to do business with and in China, the U.S. economy would be in a real tizzy -- for all the moms and dads out there, I understand why it's important to be able to go to a big box store and get your kids' sneakers for twenty-five bucks, instead of the forty-five bucks it would cost if they weren't manufactured in China. But, I have to draw a distinction here, because, goddamn it, Google, you're supposed to be different.

You're supposed to be innovative, and people-centric. The people who work for your company love the way you do things, the way you treat them, the opportunities you offer. Your technology works, and you've become a noun-to-verb, both a brand awareness coup and problem for you. If you were a Chinese company -- government or 'privately' owned -- and I wrote this exact post about you and about my views, I would most certainly be picked up and questioned, and probably arrested, and that's not an exageration.

I honestly started this post without having decided what to do about Story & Pictures', but that is no longer the case. At some point in the near future, I'll move Story & Pictures from Blogger and continue it under its own domain. I'll certainly let everyone know when this happens.

China's huge, Google's big. There is a legitimate notion in not using a population's government as a target for an action if that action deprives the population of something positive and really does nothing to effect that government. Thus, I am a multi-celled organism unseen by the dinosaurs I am trying to effect. So be it.

This is about me, and what's in my writer's soul. I've worked very hard to be able to make a paltry living as a writer, and I have garnered some level of recognition of my skills, and that at least gets me inside a community of people I admire and respect. My tiny action is all about me on a very small level, but it's about the other "me's" in this world who understand what this is really all about.

I'm mad and sad, but I'll get on with things, it just won't be here