Armenia: YouTube, Facebook Emerging as Reform Tools in Yerevan

I’m reposting here a highly optimistic article about Internet in Armenia by Marianna Grigorian. Marianna, a respect journalist and my good collegue, contacted me asking to respond to some questions. Too bad, I was busy and responded only after she had sent the article in. As Marianna told me, if I had responded earlier, her article might have a totally different perspective. Pity.

Other than that, the article makes a great read, but its rather unrealistic. I’m quoted here, but the quote comes from a discussion we had much earlier.

This is the second story on YouTube and social media I’ve seen so far, which is arriving at wrong conclusions. Hopefully, Sunday will give me time to say a word or two on what I really think on those scandalous YouTube videos. Meanwhile, Marianna’s article is below.

Read more »

Small Change -- Why the revolution will not be tweeted

At four-thirty in the afternoon on Monday, February 1, 1960, four college students sat down at the lunch counter at the Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro, North Carolina. They were freshmen at North Carolina A. & T., a black college a mile or so away.

“I’d like a cup of coffee, please,” one of the four, Ezell Blair, said to the waitress.

“We don’t serve Negroes here,” she replied.

The Woolworth’s lunch counter was a long L-shaped bar that could seat sixty-six people, with a standup snack bar at one end. The seats were for whites. The snack bar was for blacks. Another employee, a black woman who worked at the steam table, approached the students and tried to warn them away.

“You’re acting stupid, ignorant!” she said. They didn’t move.

Around five-thirty, the front doors to the store were locked. The four still didn’t move. Finally, they left by a side door. Outside, a small crowd had gathered, including a photographer from the Greensboro Record.
Read more »