Could Facebook Become a Latter Day Wiener Kaffeehaus?

The following appeared first on FB, 8/21/2010. © 2010, All rights reserved for respective authors.

My friends; This is a good read, and an re-affirmation of the very idea that our many hours on the FB could some day be worth something -- vielleicht! Next step: Let's get together for a real coffee! Best, P.A.

Preface
I came across a very insightful post and its associated comments by Prof. Donna Shalev, and I thought that these deserved to be compiled into a single note. (You may find my own brief -- yet equally insightful! -- points at the end.)

I hope the non-musicians won't be distracted by musical references. Similar things were happening with writers, philosophers, poets and painters, also in Paris or Barcelona. The point is, it's possible that FB could become conducive to an unprecedented cross-culturization of a somewhat scattered community of intellectuals worldwide, with results similar to that of the close intellectual encounters of early 1900 Vienna. (Payman)

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Kaffeehouse
By Donna Shalev

"Kaffeehaus was ueberall": Is Facebook the new fin-de-siècle Kaffeehaus? Does it fulfill similar functions? For these, see the following excerpt of an essay on the culture of the Kaffeehaus. (Schoenberg was a member of Karl Kraus' "stammtisch" [regular's table, or the regular's gathering] at Kaffee central... More ideas and pictures, more artists and their stammtisch/kaffee affiliations are welcome):

Wronged by Justice for 27 Years...

Wronged by Justice for 27 Years... (*)

By: Payman Akhlaghi

Until quite recently, when he was found to be innocent, Michael A. Green spent 27 years in prison for a crime he never committed. And if it were not for the new science of DNA, and some little evidence kept in the archives by accident (sic!), he might have had to remain incarcerated for another 48 years, to serve a 75-year sentence in full. Arrested at 18, Mr. Green was no angel; but nothing he did at the time came even close to the immensity of the accusations laid upon him by the prosecutors -- and by the victim of a gang rape, a white woman. (Mr. Green is black.) He never admitted to his guilt, and he even passed on a 5-year sentence, offered to him in exchange for admitting to something which he insisted he had not done, in the first place. While living a most torturous life in prison, he educated himself in law, and eventually typed the appeal request, which led to the re-opening of his case, and to his soon to be announced exoneration. As you contemplate the plight and misery of this now 45-year old man, bear in mind that 258 people have been exonerated in the past decade alone, as the result of DNA tests.