BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

June 02, 2003

Crock
: Alleged presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich sends a letter to Donald Rumseld demanding that the Defense Department "fully disclose" what happened to Pfc. Jessica Lynch. Noncontroversy. Nonstory. Noncandidate.register code for bejeweled 2

UPDATE: Mike G posts this in my comments, explaining to another commenter why this is a nonstory:

What makes this a non-story is where Kucinich enters it in the news cycle:register code for bejeweled 2
1) BBC makes outlandish allegation
2) People start refuting obvious errors and biases
3) Nutty LA columnist picks up outlandish allegation
4) Nutty columnist roundly condemned for picking up a story that by now has been thoroughly discredited
5) The world moves on
6) Flowers grow, birds sing, ocean pounds the rocks at the beach
7) New Matrix movie opens
8) People get bored with Matrix movies
9) Look, 2 for 1 on Parmesan cheese at Kroger
10) Guy delusional enough to think he could be president suddenly discovers something he's delusional enough to think could be his hot issue

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A plan: the Internet, weblogs, Iraq, and freedom
: I've been harping on the opportunity weblogs can bring to a newly free Iraq.
Today, Paul Boutin weighs in, suggesting: "There's a great opportunity: American computer makers should be seen over there setting up a few dozen free public PCs with high-speed access. Or just leapfrog into the new decade by handing out wireless laptops." And a commenter below adds: "Miscosoft and Dell need to get on this and start donating some free computers."register code for bejeweled 2

This will not take much. The plan is this simple. It needs:
1. Bandwidth. MCI is over there installing mobile phones. It would take nothing -- nothing -- for them to bring Inernet POPs to a handful of locations in the major cities at the same time. If I were running MCI, I'd do it as a mitzvah, considering the hell my company had caused the world. But a foundation could underwrite this as well.
2. Computers. My commenter is right: Lots of companies -- Dell, HP, IBM, Apple, Gateway, Microsoft, Intel -- can afford to donate machines. It won't take many, just a few hundred.
3. Tutor. Iranian webloggers needed Hoder to explain how to blog. Salam Pax could do likewise.
4. Space. The U.S. and British military should find space for temporary Internet cafes that could be used by servicemen for X hours a day to email home and by Iraqis most of the day to exercise their newfound free speech.
5. Guru. Somebody needs to bring this together, getting companies and foundations to donate bandwidth and machines and getting the government to facilitate this (and see that it is in America's interest to encourage such free speech). I'll volunteer. So will many others, I'm sure. register code for bejeweled 2

What comes out of this: A hundred Salam Paxes. A thousand Salam Paxes. The intelligent, caring, involved future of Iraq will come online to share their experiences and opinions and hopes and fears and Iraq will be better for it; so will the world, for we will build bridges to Iraqis online.
History has never had a better, cheaper, easier, faster means of publishing content and distributing it worldwide. Now is the time to take advantage of this for sake of democracy and freedom and nothing less than that.register code for bejeweled 2

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Close encounters with Salam Pax
: I knew this was coming but couldn't say anything about it....
Peter Maass, who has done some great reporting from Iraq, writes in Slate about his close encounters with Baghdad blogger Salam Pax.
I knew this was coming because, I'm told, Maass read my translation of Pax' Austrian interview and through various clues realized that his translator for a few weeks in Baghdad was none other than the famous/infamous Salam. While in Baghdad, Maass didn't know who Salam was or that his translator was the Salam.
Maass' story doesn't reveal anything earth-shattering: no Ba'ath or CIA ID cards dangling, you conspiracy theorists. There's a surprising (for me) physical description: "chubby and cherubic and hip and speaks beautiful English, and often says 'thingy.'" I would have thought gaunt and "gaunt and snarky." Wrong. But then, many presumptions about this guy are wrong.
My favorite tidbit is his reaction to The New Yorker:

He was amazed at the length of the stories. "They go on and on," he remarked. "They start in one place, go somewhere else, then to another place. They are, like, endless."

At least the cartoons break them up.register code for bejeweled 2

: Meanwhile, Pontifex, a military blogger in Iraq, responds to Salam Pax' complaints about the American occupation:

Alright, buddy: until you can come up with a better alternative, I don't want to hear it. Yes, life sucks. What's your point? If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem. Your innaction was enabling to Saddam in some small part, just like everybody else. We came in and did what you and your countrymen were unwilling or unable to do. And then people like you come out and say, "Well, what about this?" Deal with it yourf+++ingself, you ungreatful prig.

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Wrong side of the blogging bed
: The normally snarky Dave Winer is supersnarky today, writing:

Amazingly, Glenn Reynolds is still covering the war. Seems like an exercise in futility. In its aftermath, of what use were the warbloggers. A lot of punditry, a lot of furor and outrage, quite a few flames, but what did they actually do other than act important. They got no stories, no new data, they didn't balance the press, which reported the war as if the US was a petty Third World dictatorship. They didn't even out the press. Pheh.

Well, Dave, one might say the exact same thing about, say, techbloggers. And it would still be stupid, insulting, and wrong.
Have warbloggers changed the world? No more or less than you, guy.register code for bejeweled 2

: Maybe this is what put Winer in a foul mood: His fellow tech people booed him.register code for bejeweled 2

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Free
: Last week, I told you that Rossi is putting her memoirs online, a chapter at a time (in hopes of finding a wise publisher who'll publish them). Chapter 2 is now online. Enjoy.register code for bejeweled 2

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Memorial help
: I need help.
I'm working on a proposal for a World Trade Center memorial and, to get right to the point, I can't draw. I need someone to help me create a few visualizations. They won't be fancy; my concept isn't really architectural. So my need is to convey that concept more than a design. And as this very page proves, I'm no designer.
Lemme know if you're willing.register code for bejeweled 2

: Greg Allen reports that there will be more than 13,000 submissions to the memorial jury (and RenewNYC reports that they come from all the states and from 90 nations). That is simply amazing. I know what it takes to make my humble suggestion. There are 13,000 people who feel compelled to bring their creativity, imagination, intelligence, effort, and probably prayer to the effort to create an appropriate memorial for September 11th.
I believe that Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam Memorial, said there were 1,300 submissions to that competition.register code for bejeweled 2

: Late last week, Greg brought together a half-dozen people who plan to submit proposals: an architect, an couple of artists, an interior designer, and me, a two-left-thumbed journalist. (I was waiting to blog this until he did; he just did.) I multiply the care I saw around that table by thousands and I'm even more impressed.
The night before, three of them attended a session for the public to meet the jury and hear their many concerns and agendas (firefighters' families who want to make sure the names of firefighting colleagues are listed together... neighbors who don't want to have to get around a sunken memorial...). This is going to be a terribly difficult decision for this jury to make: thousands upon thousands of heartfelt proposals weighed against hundreds of special needs and concerns. And, as Greg points out, the design above ground is not easy to work with. A memorial will have to be subtle, for the new WTC design is not.
But I am glad that the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. insulated this process somewhat from all the pressure and set down clear rules. Their hope, clearly -- and the proper outcome -- is for a memorial of clear and striking vision to stand on its own, not as a product of a committee or politics but as a product of inspiration and genius. register code for bejeweled 2

: I'm hardly saying that my proposal is genius. That's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I have to. Recent visitors to this site (especially those of you drawn by the promise of nude stewardesses, below) won't know that I started this weblog out of September 11th, because I was there and survived and reported on the attacks.
Proposing a memorial is part of giving back, part of healing, part of moving on -- pick your psychocliche, they're all true.
By the way, I cannot, unfortunately, share my proposal with you here (until it loses); the rules of the competition are clear that entries must remain anonymous.register code for bejeweled 2

: Note the geometry we all have to deal with. That's just a cleaned up version of the map the LMDC gave us. It is an odd polygon for a landmark.
: Here is the original siteplan for the World Trade Center.register code for bejeweled 2

: About a week ago, I went back to the site to take it in; part of my design process.
I was amazed at the construction. The new PATH station is set to be ready in November. WTC 7 is being rebuilt. The rebuilding is impressive. I thought it might bother me, but quite to the contrary: I can't wait for life to return to that place.
The site is cleaner and quieter in other ways. The wall of tribute on the fence by the cemetery is gone. But people still need to leave their memories and prayers and praise and so they found a wall of painted plywood and there, they leave tokens and words.
The memorial is already being built.register code for bejeweled 2

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