How tweet it is...

Did you know that the State Department has a blog? It’s true, Dipnote went online in 2007. It’s been explained to everybody, repeatedly, that Dipnote is an abbreviation of a diplomat’s notes. The diplomat is not blogging, instead, staffers are blogging. They are also tweeting. Most of it is restricted to the “everybody, everywhere hearts Hillary Clinton all the time” line, but occasionally, when nobody’s looking, a piece of valid information gets through. As was attempted in their video, Spring Break, Have Fun, stay Safe. It was a good attempt, but unfortunately, it was also unscripted. It didn’t have enough clear information, it should have been a lot more helpful, but it was a nice attempt.

Unlike this silly Madagascar rumor, non-rumor thing. Last week, Twitter was all a tweet, or rather a re-tweet, regarding the then president of Madagascar who had been ousted by a coup. Dipnote went on Twitter saying that it was aware of the rumor about him going to the US embassy, asking for refuge. Minutes later, Dipnote repeated the rumor, and declared it false, and requested that everybody re-tweet. So a bunch of people did. Here’s the upshot, the US Embassy was never in any danger, there were never any threats to Americans, and Dipnote is still aggrandizing itself for acting quickly to a dangerous situation, even though the dangerous situation, wasn’t.

Former President Marc Ravalomanana did not seek help from the US; he instead went to Swaziland, where a meeting of heads of the Southern African Development Community is planned. The African Union has already suspended Madagascar’s membership. If the education provided to me on all those rainy summer afternoons, courtesy of the Parker Brothers, is to be trusted, it’s entirely possible that the Africans will take some action against the current government of Madagascar. If that happens, the Africans will win. Africa is bigger. They may reinstate the former president, or simply make a deal with the new one. Either way, it’s kind of refreshing to watch a skirmish that has nothing to do with us.