Andrew Sullivan and Nick Denton have written about this phenomenon already. It's a great Shabbat highlight, with an important lesson.

For those unfamilliar with the story, Hossein Derakshan came to Canada from Iran. In September of 2001, he discovered blogging... and soon decided to share his discovery. Hossein posted instructions on his blog, explaining to his readers how they could start Farsi-language blogs of their own.

Over 1,200 Iranian bloggers, many of them in Iran, have taken Hossein up on his offer in the last few months. Many of those bloggers are women, who now have a public voice for the first time - albeit an anonymous one in many cases.

Think about the impact of that for a minute.

That's 1,200 writers, plus all the readers they reach, plus the people who will now get inspired and start virtually untraceable blogs of their own. All in a brutal theocracy that has been trying very, very hard to shut down the independent press outlets Hossein once worked for, yet can't reasonably disconnect from the Internet. The result is a spreading social movement for "living in truth" - and that is no small thing.

Farsi readers can find his web log here. Or perhaps you would prefer his English web log instead?

He's a remarkable receiver, and giver, of a remarkable gift.

Hossein did all this as an individual. But he didn't do it alone. The web infrastructure left in the aftermath of the dot-com bubble and those individuals who worked to make Blogger et. al. the public resource it is today. Many, many people worked hard to "do the right thing," with the results we now see in Iran, thanks to Hossein.

Think about them the next time you wonder if you can possibly make a difference. You can. If you really want to, you will. Often in unforseen and unforseeable ways.