Yule Heibel has a great post on what it means to be “authentic” and “local” on the one hand and also global in the full sense of that term on the other. I was thinking along the same lines (though with less Frankfurt-school flavorings then Yule’s well-reasoned and seasoned piece) as I was contemplating a small paragraph in a story in our local paper about feuding neighbors. As feuds between neighbors go, this went as local as it gets. With a spitting distance between fences, one would assume that the focus of the fight and resolution would be of the same short focal length…. And yet, when one neighbor slashed the throat of the other neighbor’s little dog, the blood spilled in a widening arc, defying the laws of physics. That’s because the bereaved neighbor turned to the Internet with cunning to meet the brute force and so bring about local change:
Bricknell advertised a petition on the Internet site Craigslit, urging the court to give Guarduno the maximum sentence. More than 4,000 animal lovers throughout the nation have signed it.
Whether this petition made a difference in the judge’s ruling (or the man’s previous issues with the law), the fact is that he remains in custody in lieu of $100,000 bail. Sure, this piece was front-page news in our local paper, above the fold, too, but as far as the Internet as a tool for strengthening the local goes it’s hardly a whimper.
Good grief, what a story! If I were Bicknell, I’d be really worried about living next to this guy. And, indeed, how strange, this interplay between “local” and “global” (in the form of Craigslist) here…
PS: love your title for this entry!