|
BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis
|
June 30, 2004
Not fair
: Indian trains have wi-fi. New Jersey Transit doesn't. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern: The million-buck boobs
: The FCC is reportedly getting ready to fine Viacom more than $500k for showing Janet Jackson's one boob (values the pair at $1 million). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Opinion
: I'm quoted in an editorial in the Ft. Wayne News Sentinal. (Haven't been a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner since 1981, but nevermind, I got quoted.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kristof v. the neonuts
: Nicholas Kristof calls the new extremists of the left n their divisive, demonizing tactics -- stolen from the extremists of the right -- in a wonderful column today: So is President Bush a liar?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Plenty of Americans think so. Bookshops are filled with titles about Mr. Bush like "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them," "Big Lies," "Thieves in High Places" and "The Lies of George W. Bush." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A consensus is emerging on the left that Mr. Bush is fundamentally dishonest, perhaps even evil — a nut, yes, but mostly a liar and a schemer. That view is at the heart of Michael Moore's scathing new documentary, "Fahrenheit 9/11."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In the 1990's, nothing made conservatives look more petty and simple-minded than their demonization of Bill and Hillary Clinton, who were even accused of spending their spare time killing Vince Foster and others. Mr. Clinton, in other words, left the right wing addled. Now Mr. Bush is doing the same to the left. For example, Mr. Moore hints that the real reason Mr. Bush invaded Afghanistan was to give his cronies a chance to profit by building an oil pipeline there.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"I'm just raising what I think is a legitimate question," Mr. Moore told me, a touch defensively, adding, "I'm just posing a question."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Right. And right-wing nuts were "just posing a question" about whether Mr. Clinton was a serial killer.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm against the "liar" label for two reasons. First, it further polarizes the political cesspool, and this polarization is making America increasingly difficult to govern. Second, insults and rage impede understanding. Amen and I'm glad that one outcome of the Moore overdose will be a new call for moderation and centrism. This is a start. Kristof tips his hat to others: Some Democrats, like Mr. Clinton and Senator Joseph Lieberman, have pushed back against the impulse to demonize Mr. Bush. I salute them, for there are so many legitimate criticisms we can (and should) make about this president that we don't need to get into kindergarten epithets.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But the rush to sling mud is gaining momentum, and "Fahrenheit 9/11" marks the polarization of yet another form of media. One medium after another has found it profitable to turn from information to entertainment, from nuance to table-thumping.  Yes. I stopped in the Barnes & Noble where President Clinton signed his book last week and I was shocked at the hate and divisiveness and extremism dripping from the shelves. Sure, moderation doesn't sell. But do we have to sell hate? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kristof concludes: Mr. Bush got us into a mess by overdosing on moral clarity and self-righteousness, and embracing conspiracy theories of like-minded zealots. How sad that many liberals now seem intent on making the same mistakes. Take that, neonuts. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Let the man speak
: The Wall Street Journal says the right is boiling over Fahrenheit and some unAmerican idiots actually are trying to get it pulled from theaters: Some activists want to confront the movie's controversial assertions or even stop theaters from showing it; others, including the White House, are keeping a low profile to avoid hyping the film....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But some eaglets -- conservative groups operating without sanction from the White House -- have started a late-game campaign to remove Mr. Moore's movie from theaters and its advertisements from television sets. Move America Forward, a new conservative group based in Sacramento, Calif., and formed to support U.S. troops abroad, lobbied movie houses last week to ban the film and urged viewers to boycott it. Citizens United, a conservative grass-roots group based in Washington, filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission last week saying the movie's promotional ads, if they continue to run past the end of July, will violate campaign-finance laws.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Such moves may be playing right into Mr. Moore's hands -- and his pocketbook. "I want to thank all the right-wing organizations out there who tried to stop this movie either through harassment campaigns, going to the FEC to get our ads removed from television, or the things said on television," says the filmmaker. "They have only encouraged more people to go and see it." Listen, I've made it clear that I think the film is a pile of poop. But I think it should be shown and I certainly think that any effort to stop it from being seen is not only stupid -- it does, indeed, turn Moore's paranoia into a self-fulfilling prophecy and a profitable one at that. But, more important, it is utterly unAmerican.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Another Cannes winner!
: Heiko Hebig sent me this. He made it into a quiz on his site; I couldn't resist going straight to the punchline. This is an ad for the German tabloid Bild and, just like Michael Moore, it won an award in Cannes (this one the Cannes Lion ad contest; go to page 2, bottom right). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
More Moore
: Howard Kurtz in the Washington Post has a great roundup of critical, online, and blog reaction to Fahrenheit. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Mayor Loon
: Correspondent TVsHenry sends me this quote from Baltimore Mayor Martin O'Malley. I can't find the context and source or confirm it but with that caveat in mind.... The guy is apparently a lunatic, an idiot, and a traitor -- not to the President but to his fellow citizens, his own constituents, the real and potential targets and victims of terrorists' attacks. This is the mayor of a major American city who's supposed to save his residents from terrorists? He'd let the terrorists in and keep the President out. TVsHenry says he said: "I remember after the attacks of September 11th, as the Mayor of this city, I was very, very worried about al Qaeda... and still am. But I'm even more worried about the actions and inactions of the Bush administration." And I'm worried about you, Mayor. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Extremism in the defense of extremism is a vice
: Oliver Willis responds to my post on extremism saying, rightly, that he has moderate opinions and he's tired of being called an extremist for them. Right. I add in his comments: Oliver:
The people branding you extremists for having a legitimate political opinion and taking part in the necessary national debate on issues are the extremists themselves. That's what I'm trying to say: It's time we turn the tables (or mirrors) and brand the extremists as extremists when they oversimplify and label and, more than anything else, demonize. The evil person is, thank God (and take that literally) rare; the incompetent is not so rare. I don't agree with or like George Bush or plan to vote for him yet to watch him being labeled -- by "my side" -- as the devil himself is, at the very least, unhelpful to democracy and to "our side." So it's time we repudiate them. You and I agree about some things and disagree about some things but we respect each other and our opinions and we discuss them here and openly. That's the way a democracy is supposed to work; that's the only away it CAN work. When the extremists try to divide us and throw us into one corner or the other, we need to fight back and tell them we're not the extremists, they are. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The vast blog conspiracy
: Strange column by Paul Carr in the Guardian launches off on a silly local Fox TV "report" that makes fun of blogs; we've seen that plenty, Lord knows, but this becomes a convenient launching pad to argue there's a vast right-wing conspiracy against blogs, thus positioning the column's world view: that blogs are the salvation of the left and that Air America is blog-brilliant. If he turned down the volume below 11, there might be a point here, but it's hard to hear it over the speaker distortion. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: TAKE THAT, CLEAR CHANNEL: Stern is holding a press conference now to announce that he's adding nine markets, going back on in many of the markets where Clear Channel pulled him -- including swing-state Florida -- and adding new markets. He's still talking about going to satellite when his contract is up in 18 months and he's still saying that if large personal fines are signed into law by Bush, he will just play music and shut up. But in the meantime, Viacom has shown its support -- and balls -- adding stations for Stern. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 29, 2004
Extremism
: I just opened the most upsetting email, one of many that responded to my view of Fahrenheit 9/11. It said in part: Wake up Mr. Jarvis, we are a nation divided! It is us vs. them! What rock have you been living under for the past few years? I am much more afraid of Bush, Ashcroft, and the rest, then [sic] I am of any terrorists. Now that is truly frightening. This man -- a guy named Robert who lives in Moscow, ID (supply your own irony) -- truly believes that his enemies are his fellow citizens and his President, not the terrorists who murdered 3,000 of my neighbors before my eyes. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What the hell is happening to America?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Or is it really happening to America? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Or is it happening to an extreme fringe? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
When I was on CNN the other night, the only thing I said that surprised Aaron Brown and Jeff Greenfield -- and it took them physically aback -- was when I responded to the old saw that we are a divided nation and said, "It's our fault."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's our fault -- in media and politics -- when we paint America as a nation divided and it's as if we want it to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This is why I have such a problem with Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11: It seeks to divide. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It demonizes. And it picks the wrong demons. It's us vs. them, but the them is us. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I hated it when the right wing demonized Bill Clinton. So, you know what? That pretty much makes me honor-bound to hate it when the left wing demonizes George Bush. For I do not believe that the half of America that elected the one is evil while the half that elected the other is angelic. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I can't stand Michael Moore for looking at America as inspiration for leftist invective just as I can't stand Rush Limbaugh for looking at America and spewing his right-wing rants. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I hate it when my colleagues in media talk about how we all hate each other when I see absolutely no reporting that backs that up; I can't stand being turned into a one-dimensional fool by my own business. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Am I going to light a candle and ask, "Can't we all get along?" No. The issue isn't us. The issue is how we are portrayed by politicians, political activists, and media. They're wrong about America. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So it's time to turn the tables and treat them as they treat us: Let's cut them out of one-dimensional cloth, for they truly deserve it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's time to treat Michael Moore as the extremist that he is. Simple-minded, simplistic, mean, venemous, a hate-monger who does nothing to advance the debate and aims instead to divide. Add your nominees on the left.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And the same goes for Rush and Jerry Falwell and others who spew their hate and half-facts and bile and intolerance. Add your nominees on the right.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
They are extremists.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We're not.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And media are their dupes or, worse, coconspirators.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But we the people now have a medium to call our own. We need to use it to reclaim the reasonable middle. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Don't quit your day job, Brooks
: Said it before. Say it again: When David Brooks writes a good column, it's good. But when he writes a dumb column it's a doozie. File today's under doozie. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He has been trying to write about polarization in America (see the post above this one) and today he argues: To a large degree, polarization in America is a cultural consequence of the information age. This sort of economy demands and encourages education, and an educated electorate is a polarized electorate. He says that people who are more educated stick to their parties and sides more loyally, therefore they are more polarized. Or, professor, it could be that they've thought through their views and analzye issues differently -- perhaps more intelligently. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He also argues that it's a matter of geography: The information age was supposed to make distance dead, but because of clustering, geography becomes more important. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The political result is that Republican places become more Republican and Democratic places become more Democratic. That's absurd, too. I live in a rabidly Republican county and I'm a Democrat. But I don't yell at my neighbors about politics over the fence. Nor do I long to move to a place where I can sit in the Starbucks and talk with people sure to agree with me (in fact, I'd find that pretty damned dull). I might have no hope of winning a local election, but I cast my vote in the presidential election and mine counts just as much as the vote of the liberal in Upper Montclair. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But then Brooks really goes off the deep end with his suggested fixes for this problem he's imaginging: Still, it's worth thinking radically. An ambitious national service program would ameliorate the situation. If you had a big but voluntary service program of the sort that Evan Bayh, a Democrat, and John McCain, a Republican, proposed a couple of years ago, millions of young people would find themselves living with different sorts of Americans and spending time in parts of the country they might otherwise know nothing about.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It might even be worth monkeying with our primary system. The current primaries reward orthodox, polarization-reinforcing candidates. Open, nonpartisan primaries might reward the unorthodox and weaken the party bases. To do nothing is to surrender to a lifetime of ugliness. Oh, that's cute: The ideology draft: Forced service to meet people not like you. Well, you know, everybody isn't like me already. And "nonpartisan primaries"? That's oxymoronic; it's just plain illogical. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Micah Sifry responds to the same doozie column asking, What political ghettoes? Here are some problems with these notions:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
-50% of us don't bother to vote in presidential elections; barely over 1/3 vote in non-presidential years and in some cases single digit turnouts have been sighted for some municiipal and even statewide races. If partisanship was on the rise, surely that would lead to much higher identification with each party's candidates, and thus be reflected in higher turnouts. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
-More Americans are identifying as political independents and registering as such (or "decline to state"), while Democratic identifiers are sharply down and Republicans are flat. This recent column by Rhodes Cook spells out some of the salient facts.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
-The information economy isn't as big as Brooks cliaims, so his theory that more of us are suddenly free to move wherever we like and thus congregate in places "where people share their cultural aesthetic and...political values" seems like quite a stretch. And even in such places, diversity reigns. Go read the rest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
See, we're not as divided as they -- media and politicians -- say we are. Only the extremists are. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Let the people speak
: Tim Blair, the most forward-thinking journalist I know, just did something great: He handed over his big-media Australian column to three Iraqi bloggers: This week's column is brought to you direct from Baghdad by Ali Fadhil, a paediatrician, and his brothers Mohammed and Omar, both dentists. Read more from the trio at http://iraqthemodel.com/. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
How is life in Iraq? Depends on your point of view. A bunch of us were talking the other night; one friend, very angry, said: "Did you see what happened today in Antar Square? The Americans came, blocked the street and attacked the toy store. They were smashing kid's bicycles!" Another friend, listening carefully, asked: "Was there a big loading truck with them?" Yes, came the reply. The second friend then told his version: it turned out he'd been at the store buying a bike for his son. "I was in the middle of tough bargaining with the shopkeeper when two Humvees and a truck stopped out front. One of the Humvees waved all the cars to pass. Soldiers from the second Humvee said they wanted to buy some bicycles. It didn't take a long time, as they didn't bargain, and they bought a huge number of bicycles and filled the truck with them and left." Whom to believe? Here are two good friends and both were on the scene. As for me, it didn't take a lot of effort to figure out who was closer to the truth. Those bikes have probably been delivered to a local school. – Mohammed PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Something you may not have read about: in May, Iraqi soldiers saved the life of a US marine shot during patrols in Al Karmah, near Fallujah. Private Imad Abid Zeid Jassim dragged the injured marine away from gunfire then attacked the enemy. We (and you) don't read any good news like this. All we get are pictures of idiots throwing bricks at burnt cars. Why don't the media cover such stories? The attitude of the major media no longer surprises me. It only disgusts me. – Omar
Go read the rest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And big-time American journos should be ashamed of themselves they didn't think of this first. It has been there, on the web, right under their noses, all along. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And I have to share this email from Tim, when he told me about this last week: Another thing -- Ali, who is so polite and formal, insisted on beginning every email with "Dear Sir". So I told him everybody in Australia calls each other "mate".PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now he's writing "can we change this, mate?", "Omar wants another couple of lines, mate", etc. And he's signing off with "Cheers, mate."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's beyond beautiful. I must meet these people. Me, too, mate.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Fisk away
: Andrew Sullivan asked any blogger to create a transcript of Fahrenheit 9/11 and a day later, here's the first chunk. And here's Andrew's take on the messianic parallels between Michael Moore and Mel Gibson.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What's really happening in Iraq
: Winds of Change has a roundup of what the Iraqi bloggers said about the handover of power.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Here's Michele's roundup.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: And reservist and writer Eric Johnson tells a story of the Washington Post's bureau chief in Baghdad telling one view of what's happening there, the dark view.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff, cont.
: Today's packed PaidContent has two great items that point to the future of a Place for My Stuff:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Motorola, Rafat reports, is restarting its iRadio initiative. Here's Motorola's description in the job posting Rafat found: • Time-slipped & buffered audio – record & store radio/TV audio and play it back at a scheduled time or on-demand. The audio might originate from Satellite radio, AM/FM broadcast, Internet or Cable TV. Imagine listening to your favorite radio/TV show when & where you want to . . . not when it happens to be broadcast!
• Pause-Resume – pause audio playback in one domain (person, home or car) and resume it in another. Picture listening to NPR during your commute home, pausing when you reach your garage and resuming where you left off on your home stereo!
• Push-to-Buy – push a button to purchase & download audio to a target destination. Imagine listening to a great new song on a phone or in your car . . . a simple push of a button launches a transaction to purchase a legal, secure digital copy of the song, download it to your home PC and wirelessly stream it to your car and phone when you get home!
Think of it as a Virtual Personal Audio Recorder based on a few building blocks:
• Car – An aftermarket, Bluetooth/802.11 enabled storage capable device or a multi-function head unit
• Home – A multi-media, 802.11 enabled gateway
• Person - A Bluetooth, MP3 & FM capable handset (Cell Phone or iPod)
• Back Office - Client & Server software architecture to enable seamless services
iRadio . . . doing to analog AM/FM broadcast what HBO & PVR did to traditional TV broadcast! This is what the Place for My Stuff enables: I get my stuff wherever I want, whenever I want, on whatever device I have. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: But until high bandwidth is ubiquitous, this will be accomplished by syncing. See, then, Rafat's World's-Fair-quality demo of a wi-fi car: "At a table inside Starbucks, Ford executives set up a laptop that had a bunch of MP3 tracks on its hard drive. Inside the [2004 Lincoln Aviator SUV], a prototype Wi-Fi entertainment system from Delphi was built into the dashboard. It had all the regular buttons for AM and FM radio, a CD player and even a Sirius satellite radio receiver. But there was one more: a synchronization button...We pushed it, and in about 20 seconds, some two dozen MP3 files from the laptop inside Starbucks were downloaded to the Delphi radio and stored on a built-in flash memory drive." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The value of links
: Paid Content tells us that game company IGN just bought movie-review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes for $10 million. When you think about it, Rotten is a sort of early weblog -- summarizing and linking to reviews everywhere -- and it gets traffic (276k unique users per week), so it built value. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Supreme Court and free speech
: The Supreme Court just blocked a law aimed at pornographers as a likely unconstitutional slap at free speech. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The court was divided and sent the case back to a lower court. But even in the case of pornography and children, the court stood behind free speech as a principle, an American ultimate, that requires protection. And if the Court protects free speech against even pornography and children, surely it will protect free speech against the indecent indecency legislation about to be signed by Bush.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"There is a potential for extraordinary harm and a serious chill upon protected speech'' if the law took effect, Justice Kennedy wrote for the majority. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Here's Ernie Miller's take on the decision. And here's Eugene Volokh on the issue of prurient interest. And here's Jack Balkin, who also says: Putting together Justice Thomas' opinion in Hamdi with his vote in ACLU v. Ashcroft, we may infer that the President can throw any citizen in a military prison indefinitely, but that the citizen has the right to view pornography while there. Don't you just love having your very own constitutional law experts at the ready? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Henry sends me this great quote from Dennis Miller: "The Senate overwhelmingly agreed on a bill Tuesday to fine broadcasters as much as $3 million a day for racy language. Oh, yeah? Well guess what, FCC. I'm still going to say whatever I want. So don't intercourse with me." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Memevertising
: Hugh McLeod, marketing visionary, is trying to create a new kind of advertising by creating a meme for Technorati: Smarter conversations equals better products. It’s so frickin’ obvious. Spread the word. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
RSS I: What RSS needs to make money... and grow
: I joined in an RSS webcast the other day and ranted on what RSS needs to grow -- which is also to say what it needs to make money, for if content creators can't make money from it (or at least not lose money because of it), they won't join in... but when they do join in, RSS will grow and become a new standard for delivering content across multiple media, clients, and devices. It goes hand-in-hand, or hand-in-pocket. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Especially since RSS will be read by multiple clients on multiple devices (see the next two posts), we need to set business standards -- or at least establish business needs -- now so that as it proliferates it prospers. But I do not see any means of getting those business needs into standards-setting discussion now. Here are my opening bids for business needs:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
1. Unique users. If content creators cannot report unique users they cannot get advertising. Period. So RSS readers must set unique-user cookies. Period.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
2. Traffic. RSS readers must allow content creators to count displays -- versus just downloads -- of RSS items.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
3. Advertising. If content creators cannot put advertising on feeds, they will not give full content and will give only headlines to link back to their sites where they have the ads. But partial feeds are a pain, right? So there's the carrot/stick: Give them ads, they will give you content. That's the way the world works.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
4. Brand. I'm adding this one. As a reader, I find it frustrating that I can't see the brand of a feed unless I scroll up on FeedDemon and read the one line atop the the screen. Brand matters to the content creator, of course, but it also can matter to the reader: You want to know what you're reading.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
5. Navigation. I'm adding this one, too. But I know I'm not alone here: Like many RSS fans, I use the feeds to alert me that something is new and if it is of the slightest interest, I prefer to read the post on the web page with full functionality. It's a pain to get to that web page now. The easy solution to Nos. 4 & 5 is to include a brand element that is also clickable to the creator's web page.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now I know some will accuse me of just turning feeds into HTML and I will agree that this can go too far real fast. But there is also good need to consider this functionality to make RSS prosper. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That's precisely why we need some means of soliciting, discussing, and incorporating business needs into the future of RSS. There are a few ways that can happen. Dave Winer just left the RSS advisory board and they're looking for a replacement; I suggest they get someone (no, not me) with a business outlook to join in. Or someone can put together an RSS business summit. Whatever. If someone does not take this bull by its horns, RSS will grow too slowly. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
RSS II: Putting his mouth where is money is
: Brad Feld, a VC at Mobius, explains on his blog why he just invested in Newsgator. It's a very good post but even more important, it's an example of a new and more transparent world of investment. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
RSS III: More on Newsgator
: By the way, regarding Newsgator... I said in an offhand remark when Brad invested in the company that I didn't use Newsgator because I don't want anything more cluttering my Outlook (it's plenty cluttered already!). Brad answers that in detail on his post, explaining that Newsgator also has web and mobile versions. I didn't mention it in my offhand remark but I've already used both. And they're both very good. In fact, I would absolutely love it if I could sync my reading of RSS feeds across mobile and laptop, as Newsgator offers. The rub remains: I still prefer using a client to using a web service with less functionality (and no offline usage) and Newsgator's non-web client uses Outlook and so I don't use Newsgator as my core reader. I do use Newsgator on my Treo. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
All of this is just transitional nitpicking on the way to the integration of RSS feeds into most every bit of software we use: It will be part of our browsers (see Safari); it will be on our mobile devices; it will feed the architecture of web sites (I'm working to rearchitect my day-job sites around news feeds); it will feed media of many sorts (it's already being used to feed ESPN video and rich advertising); it will feed new devices not yet invented. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Feeding me -- sending me any kind of content anytime anywhere on any device -- is the promise of this medium in an ever-connected world and RSS will be at the core of that. This is just the beginning.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 28, 2004
Geekgasm
: Jason Shellen has a moment of rapture when his Treo talks to his TiVo to record 60 minutes. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Apple & RSS
: Apple just announced adding RSS to its Safari browser and Vivek Shankar (of the Northwestern Hyperlocal project) just sent me the link to the demo. Most cool. Nice features, such as a slider to change the length of the listings. Amusing note: They say the feeds are ad-free, not something the client can control at the end of the day. Bottom line: How long before it's in IE?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Dear Bill Gates,
:
: Jay Rosen sends Bill Gates an open letter with suggestions for his rumored blog. Do a newsy blog. Something like: Bill Gates reads the headlines. Gates on politics and world affairs. Gates on the spread of freedom and markets, war and peace, public education, AIDS prevention, the limits of technology, the misery of Africa, and the difficulty of solving messy global problems. Gates on why the politicians are sometimes a joke. The big picture Gates. The occasionally angry Gates. Even the ranting Gates. The man who had to expand his knowledge in order to extend the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to its practical, global and problem-solving agenda. Jay, ever the media historian, says there have been three ways for the rich, powerful, and famous to deal with media: (1) Lock them up. (2) Ignore them. (3) Hire a flack. This is a fourth way ( a la Mark Cuban): Speak to your public directly. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Jay also gives Gates some practical suggestions: Hire a blog assistant. Ignore the lawyers. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm with Jay on the overall notion: Who needs to be humanized more than Bill Gates? Who needs a means of talking directly to the people without enough filters to clean up the Hudson more than Bill Gates? What modern business mind would be more fascinating to step into more than Bill Gates?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Plus, we fellow bloggers can suddenly find ourselves in the same club with Bill Gates. And we can all hope to get a little Gates link love (a microlanch?). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And more Moore
: The Sun-Times has two good stories on one page about Fahrenheit followups. In the first, reporter Tom McNamee does a straightforward fact-check on the film. In the second, a MacArthur genius got so upset over the film that he found himself starting a revolution with nothing but his pooper scooper: Saturday night, a 64-year-old man was walking his Doberman through a South Side neighborhood where residents have been complaining about dog owners not cleaning up after pets.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Patrol officers stopped the man -- community activist Sokoni Karanja, a onetime recipient of a prestigious MacArthur Foundation fellowship -- to see if the dog, which was on a leash but without tags, had a license, police said.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But, officials said, Karanja became agitated and threatened to sic the dog on the officers. A scuffle ensued, and Karanja was arrested and slightly injured.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"He just saw 'Fahrenheit 9/11,' and apparently he was telling the police officers, 'George Bush does not control me,'" said Prairie District Lt. Dave Caddigan.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Police Capt. Eugene Roy said "the best way to summarize is he was distraught and upset after viewing the movie, and his wife attributes his behavior to that." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
More Moore: Health next
: Well, this is good news/bad news:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Michael Moore plans to tackle health care next. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Well, the good news is that health care is a subject that damned well needs tackling. It's shameful what's happening in this country: millions uninsured; people trapped in the wrong jobs just because of health benefits; money wasted on exploding insurance bureacracy; doctors' time wasted with insurance time-wasters; proper and necessary care withheld from the sick; costs skyrocketing; malpractice rates driving doctors away.... Oh, Lord, it needs tackling. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The bad news: If Moore does as blunt and bad a job of it as he did with war and politics in Fahrenheit and gun control in Columbine, it ratchets-up and dumbs-down the debate. What we don't need is more polemic and preaching to the converted and the sick. What we do need is intelligent, well-researched, strongly argued media that will set and change the agenda in both parties. Once upon a time, I might have thought that Moore could contribute to that debate. But that's my real problem after Fahrenheit: He merely seethes and it's too damned easy for the other side to ignore the slob seething in the corner. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: Adam Thierer of the Cato Institute writes in the conservative National Review that the Senate had its head up its ass -- well, he didn't quite say that; I did -- when it sneaked in its indecent indecency bill last week. First, he argues that playing nanny is not government's job: Parents like me should be rejoicing that our judicious and morally upstanding leaders are taking steps to protect our children from the filth in this world. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But there is another, less popular way of looking at the issue. That is, whatever happened to personal responsibility? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I have a serious problem with calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent and I would hope some others out there do too. Particularly troubling to me is the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues. Art, music, and speech are fair game for the Ministry of Culture down at the FCC, but don't let them regulate our cable rates! He goes on to reveal the corner the censors are painting themselves -- and us -- into, for their primary rationale is that broadcast is pervasive and that's why it is excused from the First Amendment to the Constitution. Except broadcast isn't pervasive anymore; it's dying. Cable, satellite, and the Internet are pervasive. Does that mean they have to/want to regulate the speech on all those media? Uh-oh. As traditional broadcasting dies a slow but certain death, do we start censoring "indecent" speech on cable, satellite, the Internet, and everything that follows? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In a free society, different people will have different values and tolerance levels when it comes to speech, and government should not impose the will of some on all. When it comes to minding the kids, I'll take responsibility for teaching my own about the realities of this world, including the unsavory bits. You worry about yours. Let's not call in the government to do the job for us. Amen. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In defense of the taste of the masses
: I was a TV critic during broadcast TV's -- and American pop culture's -- true golden age, when television was filled with good shows and those shows were also the most popular, proving -- against all popular snarking -- that Americans, the masses, do have good taste. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
TV has changed but that doesn't mean we've lost our taste.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kurt Andersen wrote/spoke about this on Studio 360 this week. Television in the 90s was defined by smart, well-written prime-time network sitcoms like Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Seinfeld and, of course, The Simpsons. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But in the 90s the best shows were also by and large the most highly rated shows. That had never happened before. And mainstream TV was arguably superior to mainstream motion pictures. That had never happened before either. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Looking at the Nielsen top 10 in the 90s actually used to made me feel a little better about my fellow Americans. Western civilization wasn't necessarily in decline. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But that golden age, like all golden ages, was too good to last. In 1999, among the top shows were still ER, Frasier, Friends, 60 Minutes and The X-Files. But then within just a couple of seasons, the highest-rated programs were mostly,…not so good. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And ever since, most of the shows at the top of the ratings have been mediocre series... Or worse. And he cues a clip from Survivor. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kurt, of course, finds greater meaning in this: So…what happened? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Some of it is just a matter of inevitable, uncontrollable boom and bust cycles, like farming. We're in a drought. But there's also an unmistakable generational underpinning to this trend line. He says it was baby boomers who, as an audience, created the boom but it is also baby boomers who, as TV executives, are causing the decline: And in response to the rise of cable TV, those big network executives are running scared…and making panicky, safe, second-guessed, uncreative programming choices, in favor of the dumb and the bland. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In other words, it may have been baby boomers who made prime-time great in the 90s…but it is also baby boomers who are turning network TV back into an unsatisfying wasteland today. Interesting analysis but I'll argue that Kurt got it wrong. He's looking at media the old way -- just as folks who analyze weblogs on the basis of the power law do: This analysis says that the biggest shows/blogs/pubs/entities are what matter most because they're the biggest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That's no longer true. In a world of extreme choice and consumer control, in a world of a zero-barrier to entry to publishing and of exploding TV, in a post-mass-medium world, you can't judge our taste or take our pulse based on the biggest. You have to look at the whole.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So when judging our taste on the basis of TV, you have to include cable and HBO in your sweep. HBO is now the fountain of the best TV in history and also the most daring TV because it can be, unfettered as it is by ratings and advertising. We watch those shows and even pay for them. We still have taste.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We also have lots of special interests that can now be satisfied by lots of cable channels: My wife and I could sit there and watch hours of home-redo shows yesterday. You can watch history or news or music or whatever you like. We still have taste.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There is more TV than ever. There is more great TV than ever. The audience for TV is bigger than ever. We still have taste.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So what about broadcast TV?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It is now just another niche. It's the biggest niche, but that's a matter of circumstances, economics, and habits; it is now the default, when-there's-nothing-better-on choice. They said for years that TV was a lowest-common-denominator medium and that wasn't true; as Andersen and I have argued, in the '90s, when given a chance to watch good shows, we did. But now we have other places to watch those good shows. So broadcast TV becomes the fast-food joint on the busy highway with the high rent that will slap out burgers; it's the tabloid sitting on the stands next to The Atlantic; it's the volume business; it's the LCD on the LCD screen. But you can't judge our taste as a culture based on what is shown just on broadcast TV anymore.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff, cont.
: Blogfriend Rex Hammock just sent some amazing links continuing the wishful thinking about getting a place for all my (and your) digital stuff:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Rex found this remarkable new service made available to every resident of Indiana (finally, a good reason to live there!): SimIndiana gives hooked-up Hoosiers free "word processor, e-mail, contact manager, spreadsheet, personal information manager, and file manager" and -- far more important than that -- a place for all that stuff: If you create a document in SimWord® (SimIndiana's word processor), you do not have to save it to a disk or to a computer’s hard drive. With SimIndiana, you have the option to save your document in your virtual drive on the SimIndiana server.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The SimIndiana server is accessible on any computer with an Internet connection. Each user is provided a virtual disk drive on the SimIndiana server where files and folders can be securely stored and shared with other SimIndiana users. SimDesk, the company that does this, has a similar deal in Houston. Damn. I want it. Do I have to move to get it? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Rex also sent me the text of a story about a digital Place for My Stuff that he's running in one of his publications soon and with that, a bunch of links, including this one on the Digital Living Network Alliance -- which "established ground rules for building compatible electronic devices that can share movies, music and other media."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But far more fascinating is this link Rex sent for a truly visionary 1945 article by Dr. Vannevar Bush, then director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development, in which he envisioned the functionality of computers and, yes, a Place for My Stuff, not to mention the Web and Google: Consider a future device for individual use, which is a sort of mechanized private file and library. It needs a name, and, to coin one at random, "memex" will do. A memex is a device in which an individual stores all his books, records, and communications, and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Wholly new forms of encyclopedias will appear, ready made with a mesh of associative trails running through them, ready to be dropped into the memex and there amplified. Welcome to that future. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
(My original posts here.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Stern bloc
: The Times writes about the New Democratic poll (days after we did) and its discovery of a Stern voting bloc: Unfortunately for Republicans, a lot of these voters tune their radios to Mr. Stern, who has been crusading to oust President Bush. Mr. Stern is angry at the Federal Communications Commission, which cracked down on stations that broadcast a show of his that discussed anal sex and what the commission called "repeated flatulence sound effects."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Mr. Stern, who has backed Republican candidates in the past, has a mother lode of swing voters in his audience, according to a poll by the New Democrat Network, an advocacy group. Its pollster, Mark Penn, calculates that this "Stern Gang" of swing voters makes up 4 percent of the likely voters this year, nearly as large as the entire Hispanic vote in 2000.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But one bit of solace for Republicans is that Mr. Stern's listeners go to church frequently, which tends to correlate with voting Republican. The poll showed that Mr. Stern's listeners were slightly more likely than nonlisteners to call themselves born-again Christians and were three times more likely to attend church daily. The pollsters did not ask why they went to church after listening to Mr. Stern, so there is no way to calculate how many were performing an act of contrition. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The transfar in Iraq
: By now you all know that power was transferred in Iraq, ahead of sked. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Stuart Hughes beat all the big guys breaking the news on his blog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 27, 2004
God's revenge against mobile phone users
: A scientist says mobile phones reduce sperm counts by 30 percent. MEN who regularly carry a mobile phone could have their sperm count reduced by as much as 30 per cent.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Those who place their phone near their groin, on a belt or in a pocket, are at greatest risk, new research has revealed. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The findings, to be presented at an international conference this week, are the first to suggest male fertility could be affected by the radiation emitted by mobile phones, also long suspected of causing cancer. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The study by Hungarian researchers found the sperm that did survive exposure to mobile phone radiation showed abnormal movements, further reducing fertility. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But Australian experts advised men not to panic yet. Or it could just be that guys who wear dorky belt clips for phones get less action. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Free speech
: CNET gives you a decent backgrounder on the coming Supreme Court ruling on the Child Online Protection Act, expected this week. The court is expected to decide early next week whether the Child Online Protection Act violates Americans' right to free expression on the Internet. The 1998 law, which restricts sexually explicit material deemed "harmful to minors" that appears on commercial Web sites, includes civil fines and prison terms in its provisions. COPA has been on hold during the court proceedings. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"If it's upheld, there will be a shock wave," said Ann Beeson, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union who argued the case before the high court. "We've been assuming on the Internet that there aren't laws like this." Nobody would argue that children should not be exposed to pornography (I say we should start with the horrid spam being sent to everyone in the world, including children). But, as with the FCC's and Congress' indecent indecency jihads, as always, the problem will be: Where's the line and who's drawing it? For example, is the Washington Post over the line because it reported what the Vice President of the United States said this week? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Red herring run
: RatherBiased and now a Pittsburgh columnist and now Instapundit are all nattering that CBS is in some payola scandal or conflict of interest -- take your pick -- because (a) CBS interviewed Bill Clinton and (b) CBS' web site has an Amazon affiliate. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, come on.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That's the most crimson of herrings. These people all know in their sane moments that no one at CBS is choosing to interview the former President of the United States and now author of what may be a record-setting biography beause they might make, oh, 20 bucks from Amazon. Yes, and when they put on TV's 10th home improvement show, it's obviously because Amazon sells tools, right?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
These critics better be careful, for if they set this as the standard for conflict of interest, then all bloggers who open up for ads are going to find themselves tied in knots: Take an ad for Walmart and Walmart sells books and so you're tainted, eh? And what about the columnist who complains: Shouldn't he start off every column with a disclosure of all the paper's sponsors who pay his salary? Oh, yes, then there'd be no room for a column. But in this case, that may be a good thing.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Come on, folks.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: By this same logic, the LA Times is engaging in payola every time it reviews a movie since, on its web site, it has a deal with Fandango to sell movie tickets. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Now this is just too beautiful. I go to the aforementioned columnist's page and what do I see? Why, yes, an ad for the aforementioned Clinton book. So this columnist is sucking at the Clinton teat. Spit out that milk of commerce, boy! See for yourself:
 PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Let's imagine this scene: Sumner Redstone calls in Don Hewitt and Dan Rather and giggles as he says, "Let's get Bill Clinton onto 60 Minutes and when his book comes out our secret Amazon deal -- well, actually, it's not a secret; anybody can see it -- will make us hundreds, I tell you, hundreds! That will cure our pathetic stock price, boys! Hee-hee-hee!"PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Folks, this is about the most ridiculous meme I've yet seen. It makes Michael Moore's almost-seven-minutes-in-the-classroom meme look like Pulitzer-calibre reporting. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If you want to complain about Dan Rather's questions, fine. I'm no Rather fan; in a major national magazine, I called him the dumbest anchor alive. You want to complain about Bill Clinton's answers, cool. I like Clinton; you don't; that's politics.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But this is below naive. In New Jersey, we have a word for it: It's dumb. And, frankly, it doesn't speak well for weblogs. Imagine you're a first-time reader, having heard about the balanced, intelligent, nuanced, sophisticated, savvy discussion that occurs on weblogs. You come into the middle of a discussion about how 60 Minutes had on the former President of the United States and author of a record-selling book because they'd make a few Amazon affiliate bucks. It would make you run back to the comfort of old media. But you're better than that, aren't you?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Q&O castrates this meme with a swift and sharp knife. [via Instapundit]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Max Black says: Of course, Jarvis is right but I'm still fuming about the CBS 60 minute Clinton infomercial. In any case, CBS should have noted the apparent conflict of interest. Oliver Willis does a little digging -- didn't take much; anybody could have done it; good on Oliver for doing it -- to point out who owns the aforementioned Pittsburgh paper. Why, its none other than the behind-the-scenes bad guy of The Hunting of the President, the Clinton hater of Clinton haters, Richard Mellon Scaife. Says CNN: Scaife's tax-exempt foundations disclose their grants on the Web. Among them: $2.4 million over several years to American Spectator to pay for anti-Clinton reporting, even a private eye to dig up dirt. And millions more went to other anti-Clinton groups. Hmmm. Shouldn't the columnist have disclosed that: "My money to write this very column comes from the guy who spends his money to smear Clinton." Not doing so is what I'd call, well, a conflict of interest to beat all conflict of interests. But I expect no more of the likes of these.
Says Oliver: "Nothing to see here, move along." Yes, sir, officer! PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 26, 2004
Religious freedom?
: Well, it's not just France that's doing dumb things like banning religous clothing. Germany's banning headscarves. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Smut.de
: Germany leads in porn. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And someday, he will grow up to be governor of California
: Doctors report a superstrong German toddler: A "genetic mutation has given a Berlin five-year-old muscles twice the size of other kids his age and about half the body fat."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
 More Moore
: I was going to take a vacation from Michael Moore today but, what the hell, here's a wonderful compilation of self-loathing-American quotes by the big man himself from David Brooks:
For example, it was during an interview with the British paper The Mirror that Moore unfurled what is perhaps the central insight of his oeuvre, that Americans are kind of crappy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"They are possibly the dumbest people on the planet . . . in thrall to conniving, thieving smug [pieces of the human anatomy]," Moore intoned. "We Americans suffer from an enforced ignorance. We don't know about anything that's happening outside our country. Our stupidity is embarrassing." : The big man is doing boffo box office, beating White Chicks and Dodgeball Friday. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Photo thanks to Donald Sensing. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Allah reconsiders his HQ.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
New York, where fads become cliches
: Lockhart Steele says: Beware The Lamp.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
X-rated Ashcroft
: Nerve is holding a contest to create the "sexiest" one-minute video starring prude-in-chief John Ashcroft. I can't decide whether to animate the stone lady with the naked breasts he covered up or to dabble in puppetry of the penis. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
His Life
: Daniel Radosh presents Bill Clinton's My Life: The Powerpoint.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Switching accents
: Just got email announcing that Arianna Huffington will be subbing for Tina Brown on CNBC's Topic A this Sunday. Should be livelier. Among the guests: Al Franken and 15-year-old Theo Spielberg plus a "book club" reviewing Clinton's bio.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
BilLOG
: Bill Gates is getting ready to blog. [via Standard Deviance via Kinja's new blog on blog compilation]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
CNN notes
: A few notes on CNN last night...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: As we left last night, Greenfield said he starts every mornking reading blogs. He mentioned Instapundit and Kos. "Wonkette?" I asked. "Of course," he said. Continuing my campaign to make Wonkette a TV star, I said to Greenfield, "You should do her," and realized that didn't sound so good. "I mean, you should do her on TV," I said and realized that sounded even worse. Then we were through the revolving doors. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Newsnight has changed. The show is much better paced than it used to be, filled with more reporting, more stories, less droning. I don't know whether it's a change in format or a new producer I've warmed to Aaron Brown. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The email I read on my Treo moments after leaving the studio included such gems as this: "I don’t know how you can say that Bush is not the enemy. He is the enemy. " And: In case you hadn't noticed, Bush et al ARE 'evil, venal, corrupt, incompetent co-conspirators out to ruin our world.'" And: "People like you are the problem with this country." I got some nice emails, too.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Transcript of the show here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 25, 2004
Just got off CNN Newsnight with Jeff Greenfield and Aaron Brown and the, uh, charming email is starting already. Blogging from the cab. More later...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If you came in from CNN, here's a link to the review that got me there.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's late. Good night. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
More Moore
: As of now (and this could change), I'll be on CNN with Aaron Brown tonight between 10 and 11 ET to talk about Fahrenheit 9/11. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Last night, I watched the Independent Film Channel, which aired Moore's press conference in Cannes after he won the big enchildada there and it was incredibly boring: a guy drones his opinions for a half-hour; it was like being stuck in an elevator with him.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But I kept watching as they aired The Big One, Moore's film after Roger & Me, because I wanted to see whether he had changed or I had. I used to enjoy Moore; I clearly don't now. Well, I'm sure we've both changed: I'm skinnier and the beard's whiter; he's bigger and the beard's scruffier. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But Moore has lost something: Call it his light touch (I said his light touch, light for him) or call it his sense of humor, he used to make his point by making fun. He poked at the powerful to bring them down to earth. He laughed. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now he's still poking fun but in the immortal words of Billy Crystal, it's not fun, it's not funny. He's deadly serious. He's downright rabid. And that makes him harder to take; don't you always want to back away from somebody who's seething at you? It also makes his role as a filmmaker and political activist different: He's no longer just ridiculing the powerful; he's no longer turning them into punchlines; he's now trying to convince us that these particular powerful people -- Bush et al -- are evil, venal, corrupt, incompetent co-conspirators out to ruin our world. If you're going to try to convince us of that, then you have a different obligation of fact and argument than if you're just trying to make fun of somebody. You should give us legitimate facts and arm us with arguments by showing both sides of an issue and beating down the other side. If you don't do that, you're only shrieking. You're weakening your own argument by ignoring the other side. You're insulting the intelligence of your audience by not giving them both sides. You're just seething. That's what Moore is like now. He wants to convince us he's telling the truth but he's afraid to tell the whole truth. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: By the way, Mike's Blog is coming soon! Hoo boy!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: A commenter says I was wrong in part of this post about the first day's take and the number of screens it appeared on in two NY theaters; couldn't confirm either way and I'm headed out and so I killed that part of the post. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Cynical tax cuts
: George Bush (following in the footsteps of Reaganomics) made a politically cynical tax cut when he came into office, cutting taxes but not cutting spending and instead borrowing so he could cut those taxes. He gave away money to voters, money he didn't have. He borrowed money from our children to pay us to curry favor with us. That is political cynicism at its worst; it's one of my big problems with Bush.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now Democratic New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey has made an equally cynical act but with a uniquely Democratic twist. In the state budget just approved, McGreevey lowered taxes by raising taxes. He is taxing income over $500,000 at a new and high rate to give property tax relief to people who make under $200,000 and it has been acknowledged that he can do that because there are only X thousand people in that high income bracket and, hell, none of them probably voted for McGreevey anyway. He also raised taxes on property sales so anyone in the state who is trying to use the money made in a home as a nest egg or as payment on the next home now has to pay the state on the way. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If either manager had cut spending to cut taxes, fine. That's good management. Government, just like industry, needs restructuring. But neither did that. Bush stole from our children and McGreevey stole from the state's most successful to give money and buy votes. That's bad management. That's political cynicism. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern: F the VP
: The irony is so neon-garish it's not even irony. It's just stupid:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
On the very day the Senate sneaks its indecent indecency bill through, the President of the Senate -- aka Vice President Dick Cheney -- spews the F word to a fellow senator. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now I have no problem with him spewing the F word. Spew it myself. Often. But on this very day, the Senate decided that if you or I spew that word on broadcast, we can be fined up to $3 million a day because the F word, says the gospel according to the FCC, is profane. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Sounds like political speech to me. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Note that the Washington Post actually printed the word. And the republic did not collapse.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The New York Times, on the other hand, got prissy about it. At that point, the aides said, the vice president turned and stalked away, using an obscene phrase to describe what he thought Mr. Leahy should do. Just whom are they protecting? The vice president said it on the the floor of the U.S. Senate and the word is newsworthy because the Senate just chose to chill such speech by the people on the people's airwaves. The word is news. He said fuck, folks. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The death of perspective
: German media are comparing Abu Ghraib to -- yes, I'm actually going to say this -- Auschwitz. We expected it. We knew it would come. Only the when and where were in doubt. The German media are drawing parallels among the American soldiers’ abuses in Abu Ghraib, Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and the Nazi’s concentration camps. And the icing on the cake? This moronic idiocy, which first appeared in a low-circulation, leftist, feminist rag, is being reprinted in Germany’s most important conservative newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.Do Women Torture as Men Do? By Alice Schwarzer
(...) The first (photo) shows a hooded victim on a pedestal who, with his arms outstretched like the crucified Christ, symbolizes the world’s sufferings. … The second photo shows a pile of naked men that reminds us of pictures from the concentration camps. … The issue here is nothing less than the revision of German history. Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen, Theresienstadt and Dachau are all in the same league with Abu Ghraib. (While under American control – the German media treated Abu Ghraib under Saddam’s rule as a non-event, as a sub-set of the category Arabian folklore.) PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Cool, man
: Michael Tchong's Trendsetters.com newsletter reports: At a May 29 Toronto concert, Blink 182 asked attendees to pull out their lighters. When few people heeded the call, the lead singer announced, “We’re in the age of the Internet, everyone pull out their cell phone!” Within seconds, a sea of lights illuminated the audience. Says our Toronto Cool Hunter, “Everyone could not believe how amazing it looked.” It will look even more amazing in the future, if the new Nokia 3320 is any indication. With an optional cover, the 3320 lets you create “wave messages” that resemble those “Let’s Party” spin tickers sold at rock concerts. Just click on Fun Features and “Wave Messaging” to see what we mean.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Sharing the wealth
: Rod Dreher shares the wonders of blogs with his editorial-page readers at the Dallas News. [via Tim Porter]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff, cont.
: Fred Wilson wonders whether Jeremy Zawodny's plan for using lots of gigantic free email accounts is the place for my stuff. Well, it's a start. It proves that storage in the cloud is no problem. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Reregulation
: Government should not be in the position of regulating media and thus speech, but regulation is only growing. Besides the indecent indecency bills, the Senate's snuck-through version pulls back on the FCC's media deregulation and now a court has ruled against the FCC. Dangerous, very dangerous. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Do they make them in sizes big enough for Michael Moore?
: The Socialist Shirt Shop. [via der Schockwellenreiter]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Paris Hilton blog
:
: No, she's not blogging. Drat. But someone is blogging about her. [via der Schockwellenreiter]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Pumped media
: Rafat Ali reports that Nike is expanding its creative content ambitions after its successful launch on Gawker.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 24, 2004
Cablenewser scoop: Wolfowitz apologizes to reporters
: The amazing Cablenewswer gets a scoop: Wolfowitz sends an apology to reporters in Iraq for hinting they're chicken. See Howard Kurtz' story on the dustup. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
News from Iran
: Hoder uses his wonderful photoblog to report the news that that Sina Motallebi, the Iranian blogger who got out of jail and out of Iran, has been summoned and the bail that freed him is at issue.
: Hoder also says that since the mullahs started filtering (read: censoring) blogs his traffic has gone down.
: Finally, Hoder rightly points out that the Iranians putting the captured and blindfolded British sailors on a perp walk on TV was stupid, for it reminds us all of both the recently beheaded Westerners and the one-time hostages. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Lubcricated?
: Bush backs condoms to stop AIDS. Wonkette says: "In related news, the White House warned audiences that Darth Vader is actually Luke's father and said that Homeland Security has many leads on who shot J.R...."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Watching Michael Moore
: As I walked out of the theater on the opening day of Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11, I thought (read: hoped) that even here, in the East Village of Manhattan, true Moore country, where the flick was already sold out all night, surely even here they wouldn't fall for all his obvious, visual/rhetorical tricks, his propaganda too unsubtle for the cheapest tin-horn demagog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Take this scene: Moore shows dead American soldiers in Iraq, many of them, the more blood the better. Then he says we need to replace them and he asks where they'll come from. He takes us to his favorite man-of-the-people populist playground, Flint, MI, and says that we'll find soldiers "in the places that had been destroyed by the economy." He focuses on poor black men as Bush's next victims -- not even acknowledging that virtually every soldier he has just shown -- and ridiculed -- in the film is white. It's all so convenient: anti-war-pro-poor-multi-culti-heartland. The rhetoric is as obvious as the gut on the guy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But as I leave, I hear an older woman behind me, with a voice as loud at New York traffic, saying to someone who's passing her on the escalator, obviously a stranger: "Don't you sign up, now! Don't you join!" I turn around. She's saying this to a black man, just because he's black: After all, Michael Moore said those people are all conservative cannon fodder, didn't he? The man and the woman with him are polite enough to wait until they're out the door before they laugh and then sadly shake their heads. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Hoo boy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: One of the many things I've learned from blogging confrere Jay Rosen is that you have to stand back and investigate the assumptions that underly a media enterprise.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Moore's assumption is venality. He assumes that President Bush and his confreres are venal, that their motives are black, that they are out to do no good, only bad, and that the only choices they make in life are between greed and power.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That's inevitably a bad analysis. It's the exact same analysis Bill Clinton's enemies made of him. If they were wrong about Clinton, well then, Michael Moore is wrong about Bush. Life is never that simple, never that obvious, unless you're a propagandist or one who believes propaganda. I especially can't buy that analysis when we are a under attack as a nation, when we need to decide who the "us" and "them" are. The war on us as well as the dialogue among my confreres here online has made me question that assumption of venality in American politics.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, you can argue Bush is incompetent; sometimes I do wonder. You can disagree with his policies; I disagree with many. You can question his intelligence; jury's out still. I didn't vote for Bush the last time and don't plan to this time. But I don't buy Moore's Bush. To say that he's the dark force of the universe only leads to simple-minded over-generalizations and bilious caricatures.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Like Fahrenheit 9/11.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The real problem with the film, the really offensive thing about it, is that in Fahrenheit 9/11, we -- Americans from the President on down -- are portrayed as the bad guys. If there's something wrong about bin Laden it's that his estranged family has ties with -- cue the uh-oh music -- the Bush family. Saddam? Nothing wrong with him. No mention of torture and terror and tyranny. Moore shows scenes of Baghdad before the invasion (read: liberation) and in his weltanschauung, it's a place filled with nothing but happy, smiling, giggly, overjoyed Baghdadis. No pain and suffering there. No rape, murder, gassing, imprisoning, silencing of the citizens in these scenes. When he exploits and lingers on the tears of a mother who lost her soldier-son in Iraq, and she wails, "Why did yo have to take him?" Moore does not cut to images of the murderers/terrorists (pardon me, "insurgents") in Iraq or killed him -- or even to God; he cuts to George Bush. When the soldier's father says the young man died and "for what?", Moore doesn't show liberated Iraqis to reply, he cuts instead to an image of Halliburton. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He doesn't try, not for one second, to have a discussion, to show the other side -- and then cut that other side down to size with facts and figures and the slightest effort at argument. No, he just shows the one side. And that, really, is a tragedy. It would be good if we had a discussion. It would be good to have a movie that made us think and reconsider and talk.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But polemics don't do that. They're only made of two-by-fours.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The cheap tricks keep on coming, mostly in what is not said. At the start of the movie, Moore fuzzes the video of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Wolfowitz, et al to make it look as if it were recovered World War II film from Hitler's Berchtesgaden: the bad guys in happier days. The trick is unintentionally appropriate: He's trying to say that these guys are Nazis but he's also using the Nazi propaganda motif to say it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He asks the same questions, streteches out the same memes, we've seen on the Web regarding Bush and 9/11: Why did he sit there in that school another almost seven minutes after hearing that the second tower had been hit? The implication was that he could have done something. But how often do we hear anyone ask -- certainly Moore does not -- what he would have done? What if he had popped up in a panic and ran off? How would that have looked on TV to a nation and a world in such a moment of disorder? Is there some order he could have given in those minutes that the vast federal power structure could not -- and, in fact, was not better equipped to handle than Bush? And if you think Bush is such a frigging idiot, isn't it better that he sat there? The question keeps getting asked. The ellipsis carries the message. But that's no answer.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He goes after Bush ties to the Saudis again and again but never enumerates the Saudi sins. They're there. It wouldn't be hard. It would be helpful. Why not? Just laziness? Or is it easier to end with another ellipsis? Conspiracies are spiced with silence.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We know that Moore opposed even the war in Afghanistan but here he doesn't say that. Here he says we didn't bring enough force to Afghanistan and thereby gave bin Laden "a two-month headstart." Moore doesn't say that Bush, with his family ties to bin Laden's family, wanted that to happen. But the ellipsis whispers it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He ridicules the terror threats and alerts, showing goofy stories about poison pens and model airplanes and goofier guys from the canned-bean crowd showing off their terror shelters. He gets a congressman, Rep. Jim McDermott, to downright say that the alerts are all engineered to keep us on edge. The implication is -- the sllipsis says -- that we're not in danger. I watch this scant blocks from where almost 3,000 Americans were killed that day. Oh, yes, Moore, we are in danger. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But Moore wants to pooh-pooh the danger and make it into a conspiracy: "Was this really about our safety or..." [pregnant ellipsis] "...something else?" He adds (and I can't read one word of my scribbled transcription): "The terrorism threat wasn't waht this was all about. They just wanted us to be fearful enough to get behind their plan."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Of course, it was all about Iraq.... Wasn't it?...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: If you don't believe that, well, says Moore, you're an idiot. You're Britney Spears, shown in all her ditziness saying, "Honestly, I think we should just trust our President." There's your spokesman for the other side: Britney. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Or you're a bloodthirsty American goon, which is how Moore portrays soldiers who rush into battle hopped up on rock 'n' roll. He spares us the obvious napalm, morning, smell thing. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In Moore's view, you're either with him or against him. Hmmm, who else looks at the world that way?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Yup, Moore is just he mirror image of what he despises. He is the O'Reilly... the Bush of the left.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: After leaving the theater and walking by the black man now shaking his head at what Moore had wrought and the people with bring-down-Bush clipboards, I made my way back to New Jersey through the PATH train at the World Trade Center where, most of you know, I was on 9/11. And now I was shaking my head. Michael Moore did not present bin Laden and the terrorists and religious fanatics (from other lands) as the enemy who did this. No, to him, our enemy is within. To him, our enemy is us. And that's worse than stupid and sad and it's most certainly not entertaining. It's disgusting.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Later, I read Christopher Hitchens' wonderful fisking of the film.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And then I read A.O. Scott's mealy-mouthed review in The Times. He points out that the movie is full of crap in many ways: "...blithely trampling the boundary between documentary and demagoguery..." Hey, blurb that! [Fahrenheit 9/11] is many things: a partisan rallying cry, an angry polemic, a muckraking inquisition into the use and abuse of power. But one thing it is not is a fair and nuanced picture of the president and his policies. What did you expect? Mr. Moore is often impolite, rarely subtle and occasionally unwise. He can be obnoxious, tendentious and maddeningly self-contradictory. He can drive even his most ardent admirers crazy. But then Scott lets Moore off the hook -- and himself off the hook with that audience that applauded the flick in the East Village, which is Times Country, too -- with this: "He is a credit to the republic." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I guess he'd say the same thing of Rush Limbaugh, then.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Scott keeps going. On the one hand: After you leave the theater, some questions are likely to linger about Mr. Moore's views on the war in Afghanistan, about whether he thinks the homeland security program has been too intrusive or not intrusive enough, and about how he thinks the government should have responded to the murderous jihadists who attacked the United States on Sept. 11. Right. But on the other hand: At the same time, though, it may be that the confusions trailing Mr. Moore's narrative are what make "Fahrenheit 9/11" an authentic and indispensable document of its time. The film can be seen as an effort to wrest clarity from shock, anger and dismay, and if parts of it seem rash, overstated or muddled, well, so has the national mood. Crap. It is not creditworthy only to attack and call that discussion and democracy; to insult our intelligence with half, quarter, and untruths; to stifle debate with polemic rather than provoke debate with facts; to mock the people he exploits on film; to gloss over his own outrageous opinions for the sake of convenience; to turn his guns on his own people, letting those who attacked us off as free as birds. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
No, this is no more good democracy than it is good filmmaking. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: EPILOGUE: The movie was Topic A in Howard Stern's opening this morning and the discussion there demonstrates exactly what is wrong with Fahrenheit 9/11: Moore provided no facts for an honest discussion. He provided only fuel for the fire, bullets for bombast. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Granted, this ain't exactly the Algonquin Round Table; it doesn't pretend to be. Stern switched sides so completely that he tries not to acknowledge his former support for the war and for Bush as command-in-chief against the terrorists. Stern wasn't fooled about WMD as he tries to argue now; he was -- like me -- a Tom Friedman war supporter who believed that we had to do this somewhere, we had to bring democracy to somewhere in the Middle East and Iraq was a good place to do it because Saddam was a tyrant and his continued rule was, in good measure, our fault. It's possible to be against Bush in this election and still be for the war and at the same time think that we've messed up the aftermath; it's still possible to support Bush as the sitting president while wanting to unseat him. As Bill Clinton said on Today today when asked whether the release of his book would distract voters: "The American people can walk and chew gum at the same time." Nonetheless, I grant that Stern is hardly trying for a nuanced argument. And the only person to argue against him is his TV director, a graduate of Glassboro State, which ain't exactly Yale. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Still, the argument that raged for 20 loud minutes on Stern this morning will be replayed by water coolers all across America. And you could say that is good for Democracy. You could say that if the people arguing were armed by the film that causes the arguments with facts and intelligent views of the issues. But, instead, they're armed only with one side, half-facts, and bile. That doesn't make for good dialogue or democracy. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: BY THE WAY: The commercials for the film are still saying it's not rated. It has been rated R because of the copious gore and the appeal of that rating lost, even with Mario Cuomo arguing the case. So the commercial isn't quite, well, telling the truth. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: LINKS: Fred Wilson reacts to this post and asks whether I react similarly to Rush Limbaugh; in his comments, I list many posts where I do. He also says it's time for the left to play hardball. Hardball yes, Dodgeball, no. Hardball with real facts and reasoned arguments and intelligence. Mimicking the worst of the right is not what the left should do -- the Rush of the left in Randi Rhodes on Air America or Bizarro Rush in Michael Moore on film. We're smarter than that, aren't we?
Fred says I'm angry. Yes. I'm angry this movie isn't better made.
And here are MooreLies, the Jobless Lawyer, Nick Troester, Sisu, more later.
Says Jason Kottke: The film, while entertaining -- very funny in parts and at times powerfully moving -- was ultimately disappointing for me....
Fahrenheit 9/11 is so much about Michael Moore's opinion that it's difficult to go through that process of finding the truth. The frustrating thing is that Moore has a point, but he's unable to get himself out of the way enough to tell us the story so we can make up our own minds about it.... Samizdata says: One last thought: Fahrenheit 9/11 is many things, but for pity's sake let's not call it a documentary.
- Ty Burr, Boston Globe Here are Reason's Nick Gillespie's links.
Jimspeak: "I think [Moore] and Madonna should get lost on some island somewhere, never to be heard from again ..."
Beth's post here. Smack My Booty's is here. Doc's here. Doubleplusgood here. Greg Piper here. Jared here.
Tony Pierce says Michael Moore is in a dog fight and he's the dog Tony's backing. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: MORE MOORE LINKS: Andrew Sullivan says: I will say this: I will generally go see anything. I even sat through "The Passion of the Christ." But I cannot bring myself to go to this piece of vile, hateful propaganda. I sent him email urging him to see it anyway, just because I'd love to see what he writes.
Here's Pejman. Here's Mathieu (can anyone translate?). Jay Reding. Chaos Overload. Sea-Glass here. Kevin Mori. Drake says.
Richard Bennett says my seeing the movie deserves your sympathy.
And here's Glenn Reynolds.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Gmail virus
: Heiko Hebig notes that restricting access to Google's Gmail to friends of friends of friends is brilliant viral marketing. It's the Studio 54 of mail. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Truly the Baghdad Broadcasting Company
: The BBC is launching a competitor to Al Jazeera. How will anybody be able to tell them apart? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Exploding TV
: Another video blogger. See this about the Manhattan Neighborhood Network and all the video content the people want to make and show. It'll all be coming online soon. [via Loic] Earlier exploding TV posts here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
On the air
: On an RSS Decisioncast today at 1p ET.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 23, 2004
Clinton's book, cont.
: I'm a third of the way through listening to Clinton's book and I have to say I'm enjoying it, especially as he goes through the details of political life. Sure, he has a few too many details in other areas (his Oxford room was down the hall on the left, up three stairs, right after that, across from the closet, down the hall, and up to the right, or something like that). And there are a few hokey moments. But when it gets to politics, this is Being Bill Clinton and that's fun. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Slate does the work for you and comes up with all the juicy bits.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: As if to repent for its Michiko Kakutani hatchet job on Clinton's book Sunday, here's an admiring piece by Larry McMurtry today. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The NY Times says the book set records for sales in its first days, beating Hillary, and perhaps racking up 500k in a day. But then there's the pissy local-angle story: It's not selling well in East Texas. So, what, that means four copies instead of five?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: An autographed copy sold for $675 on eBay.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Respect
: Steve Hall reports that the ANA, a big ad trade group, is inviting marketing bloggers to cover its confabs. Steve Rubel seems to have something good to do with this. Every industry should follow suit.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff, cont.
: Fred Wilson continues the dialogue on a place for my stuff: Is it a server in your house or up on the Internet? (My latest posts here and here; Ed Sim's here and here.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
With all due respect to these guys who know a helluva lot more about making successful business than I do, I still want to keep pushing this issue up the ladder to see it from a more strategic viewpoint.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Let's make two (somewhat risky) strategic assumptions:
1. Always-on-everywhere broadband will become ubiquitous soon. See this note on Wi-Fi news with Sprint, AT&T and Cingular fighting over getting high-speed wireless access up soonest. This means that you will be able to get to your stuff from any device anywhere anytime -- even on a plane. Once that happens, it's less important what you store on your device. It's also less important what clients you have; any client can get data from anywhere.
2. The entertainment and technology industries will figure out digital rights management so that you will be able to store your stuff where it's convenient -- whether that's on your iPod or on your TiVo or on your TiVo in the cable cloud. OK, this is an optimistic stretch, but if these industries don't figure it out, they'll be committing murder-suicide. (See lots of DRM coverage from Ernie Miller.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Once these assumptions come true -- if they do -- you should not worry what device you're using with what clients and what you're storing where. You will want to get to your stuff from anywhere anytime on anything. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That's why storing your stuff in the cloud is preferable. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Short of that, you may want to store your stuff in this device or that -- but that really means you'll want to be able to sync your stuff (which is an opening for a company like FusionOne, which happens to be one of Fred's portfolio companies). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In any case, I won't want to worry about having to get a song or show from this TV to that PVR to that laptop to that video iPod; I will want to either (a) download or stream -- it shouldn't matter if bandwidth is sufficient -- to anything from anywhere anytime or (b) download and sync seamlessly. This still argues for storage in the could, not on a single device I have to install and manage in my home.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Pointpower
: Brad Feld blogs a list of questions a business should answer for VCs. Many an existing business could afford to answer the same queries. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern: Taps for the First Amendment
: TEARING DOWN THE BILL OF RIGHTS: Religious fundamentalists, organized as a Dumb Mob, just dealt a deadly blow to free speech in America with legislators, cynical hypocrites, as their henchmen and media standing idly by, the short-sighted quislings. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Senate has now passed its indecent indecency bill; the House already passed its version; they'll be reconciled soon and signed by the President. And then anyone -- you or me -- who utters what the unelected FCC decides is indecent, after the fact, can be fined up to $3 million a day. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Senate is a stinking pile of monkey shit.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If I said that on radio, I'd be fined personally hundreds of thousands of dollars. If I said it three times -- Senate money shit, Senate monkey shit, Senate monkey shit -- I'd be fined $3 million a day. I can be bankrupted for making what is, in fact, political speech. The Senate and House just took profane action and they deserve a profane political response. But that's not allowed on radio or broadcast TV. Such speech is protected in print. It's still protected on cable or the Internet. But watch out: Cable and satellite and the Internet are next. You are next. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: THE DUMB MOB: While millions of people listen Howard Stern every day, only a few thousand complained to the FCC about him and about Janet Jackson's titanium. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The FCC will admit, when asked, that almost all of the thousands of complaints they got came from one organization, religious scary man Brent Bozell's self-appointed Parents Television Council. Now that is their right to organize and protest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But the FCC and Congress should recognize that this alleged "outcry" is not the nation speaking; it is really just the organized effort of one Dumb Mob.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I call them a Dumb Mob -- not a Smart Mob -- because these "protesters" are following a party line and doing as told and, more importantly, because anyone who does not understand the vital importance of the First Amendment and free speech to the essence of America is dangerously dumb. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But the Dumb Mob won and we let them. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: THE CYNICAL HYPOCRITES: Well, it's hardly news that politicians are cynical or hypocritical. But this action is over the edge on both counts. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We did not hear our legislators stand up for the First Amendment or even try to moderate the attack on free speech. They were scared in an election year of an opponent -- or a headline -- saying they had defended indecency, they had supported smut. They were more frightened of the mob than of the attack on the Constitution. They're smart people, some of them; they know better. But they took the obvious cynical hypocritical political action.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
One result of this will be that Howard Stern will be shut up. He said this morning that the minute Bush signs this into law and he is personally liable for the FCC's taste, he will play records until his contract runs out or he is run out of the station. He will not talk. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
As he said this morning: Congratulations, Democrats. You just succeeded in shutting up one voice for your side against Bush and just in time for the election. Real smart.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now let me tell you the story of the cynical hypocrite of cynical hypocrites: Rep. Anthony Weiner of New York. He stood up on the floor of the House to defend Stern and the First Amendment. When I saw him at the recent Personal Democracy Forum, where we served on the same panel, I congratulated him for his brave pro-American stance. He said he defended Stern on the floor but then he went ahead and voted for the indecent indecency bill. I was stunned. Why? Well, he shrugged, we already had fines; this was really nothing new. Eric Alterman and I started arguing with him; he didn't even know the facts; he didn't give a monkey's ass.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Weiner spoke up for Stern so he could appear on the Stern show and get publicity. But then when the vote came, he voted against the First Amendment and for the mob. He's a cynical hyopcrite. He's another stinking pile of shit. And that's political speech.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: THE SHORT-SIGHTED QUISLINGS: I'm most angry at my colleagues in the media. They stood by and let this happen because it was happening to someone else -- to radio, to Stern. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Other radio and TV stars and stations should have been mobilizing their listeners to make their voices heard in Congress and the FCC, to make them scared of this Smart Mob. But they didn't because it was happening to Stern and they don't like Stern and they were afraid of the Dumb Mob.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Cable networks should have protested and lobbied but instead, they stood by because it was another medium, it was only radio, and they kept their heads down because they are afraid they're next. They are.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Newspaper editors should have been writing editorials protesting this government invasion of free speech because they live by the First Amendment every day; they of all people should be the First Amendment's greatest defenders. But they stood by because it's only radio and only Stern and they're snots.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Internet creators -- you, me, anybody who publishes content on the Internet -- should have protested loudly and organized our opposition for fear that they will come after us next. And they will. Mark my words: The rationale that is used to go after radio and TV will be used to go after cable and satellite and the Internet because, hey, they all go into the home. A few of us protested and suffered attacks for it but too many remained silent. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So now both houses of Congress and both parties have voted to not just chill but freeze free speech in this country. And we let it happen.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
RSS invest
: Brad Feld, blogger and VC at Mobius, has just led an investment in RSS reader Newsgator. I met Brad a few weeks ago and we talked about all the good things happening in this space. This is good for RSS. (I don't use Newsgator, however; can't stand anything else cluttering my Outlook.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 22, 2004
Apple PC for the teacher
: Will Richardson's work with blogging and education gets a well-deserved nod from Intel. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Bastards
: Another beheading. Slime. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: OhmyNews' reporting on the story. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Letting the Air out
: Air America "restructures." That's essentially another way to go into and out of bankruptcy. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
When your audience gives you the finger
: Joe Territo caught this scene before the start of Dodgeball: Previews included an anti-movie pirating public service announcement. Several in the audience spontaneously, simultaneously gave the screen the finger at the end of the ad. Surprised they didn't wing wrenches at the screen. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: F***ING SENATE: The Senate snuck in passage of its indecent indecency bill by tacking it onto a defense appropriations bill. The U.S. Senate on Tuesday approved a measure to crack down on indecency on radio and television by sharply raising fines. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Senate also took steps to rein in the growth of U.S. media companies by invalidating new, more relaxed ownership rules. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The provisions were attached to a bill to reauthorize defense programs and would need to get full congressional approval later this year. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
After being flooded with complaints about nudity on broadcast television and explicit discussions about sex on radio, lawmakers voted 99-1 to raise the maximum fine that can be levied on a station from $32,500 to as much as $275,000 per incident and up to $3 million a day. It's a bad day for free speech, which is a dark day for America. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: PUPPETRY OF THE CENSORS: Broadcasting & Cable is reporting another attack on speech but one that tries to avoid the FCC and the first amendment issues by instead going after a local public-access TV creator for "conduct" rather than "speech." Says a B&C press release quoting Max Robbins, ex of TV Guide: The first real blow to the First Amendment protections enjoyed by the cable television industry may have been dealt by prosecutors in Grand Rapid, MI, setting a precedent that can render FCC and Congressional oversight irrelevant, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
An exclusive story appearing in editions of B&C reports that the prosecutors there used a novel approach to convict a local public access cable TV host after an "indecency" complaint was lodged against him for airing a particularly explicit skit on his late night program. The American Civil Liberties Union has come to his defense and, by implication, the defense of the entire cable industry.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"If this guy's conviction is upheld on appeal, existing state statutes can be used to effectively censor programming on cable," Max Robins, B&C's editor-in-chief says.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
ACLU lawyers appealing the conviction, meanwhile, offered an even more ominous view of the legal tactics applied in this case. They said that allowing the conviction to stand threatens to expose not only cable TV, but broadcast television "programming, movies, videotapes, and even books and magazines to prosecution." ...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A trial court and circuit court [found] that the cable access channel was a "public place" and that exposure was conduct, not speech, and thus not protected by the First Amendment. Now it's up to the Michigan State Court of Appeals to weigh in. What the guy did was dorky and dumb: He painted his penis to tell jokes. But, hey, it's good enough for Broadway.... And no matter, what's happening here is that local officials are going after someone on what is supposed to be "public access" for what they don't like. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There's nothing to stop them from going after the exact same behavior on the Internet.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There's nothing to stop your local cops, then, from knocking on your door for what you put on your blog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Blogphobic
: The Online News Association announced its rules for its awards this year. Last year, I was one of many who made fun of them for not awarding -- that is, recognizing -- weblogs. This year's rules don't recitify the misstep. Ostrich. Sand. Head. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Forgot to mention (and Ken Layne inspired remembering) that you all should submit your weblogs to the contest. Flood them with great weblogs. And blog that you entered. And then we'll see how enlightened they've become. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
One last Clinton book post
: Many yearn for a Clinton. Look at the lines to get his autograph. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Update: I just wandered by the Barnes & Noble on Fifth Avenue to catch the scene. It's raining hard. But people are standing in line and have been for hours just to see Clinton. I followed the line around. It stretches from the entrance on Fifth at 48th Street all the way down 48th to Sixth, up Sixth to 49th, and all the way back 49th to Fifth again: around the entire city block, three of four thick. And those are just the people who got wristbands to let them in; I have no idea how many were turned away. I snapped the shot above with my camera phone. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There were TV crews and drowned-rat photographers and radio and print reporters trying to mine their nuggets for stories. The pictures will tell this story.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: When I was a kid, my mother took my sister and me to Richard Nixon's signing of My Six Crises (he hadn't stopped counting yet) at John Wanamaker's in Philly. No line. Nobody cared. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Compare. Contrast. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: I bought the audio version of My Life this morning and started listening on the way to work. More later. See, I lied. It's not the last Clinton book post....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
TV readers
: In the print (but not online) version of this story on the Clinton book debut, Knopf's director of publicity, Paul Bogaards, pooh-poohs the impact of Michiko Kakutani's slam of the book on the front page -- front page?!? -- of Sunday's -- Sunday's! -- New York Times. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"The American public gets its information about books from television," he sniffed back. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Times have changed. When I first proposed the idea for Entertainment Weekly six years before its launch, it was soundly rejected by Henry Grunwald, then editor-in-chief of Time Inc. The reason: Grunwald said that people who watch TV do not read; one magazine cannot possibly serve both.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now big books are pure mall, Wallmart through and through.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Fashion statement
: Just saw tape of celebs arriving for Bill Clinton's book party last night and there's Al Franken arriving wearing a huge, honking backpack. What's with that, Al? Was he wearing Birkinstocks and hemp underwear, too? You already have the liberal credentials, Al. You don't need to dress it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kerry's God problem
: David Brooks says today that John Kerry has a God problem -- but, remarkably, Brooks deals with only one side of the problem and completely ignores the other.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Brooks says that Bill Clinton (who mentions his doubts about religion as a young man at the start of his autobiography) "understands the role religion actually plays in modern politics. He knows Americans want to be able to see their leaders' faith." And Clinton seems to understand, as many Democrats do not, that a politician's faith isn't just about litmus test issues like abortion or gay marriage. Many people just want to know that their leader, like them, is in the fellowship of believers. Their president doesn't have to be a saint, but he does have to be a pilgrim. He does have to be engaged, as they are, in a personal voyage toward God....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
John Kerry doesn't seem to get this. Many of the people running the Democratic Party don't get it either. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A recent Time magazine survey revealed that only 7 percent of Americans feel that Kerry is a man of strong religious faith. That's a catastrophic number.... They should be doing everything they can to change that perception, because unless more people get a sense of Kerry's faith, they will feel no bond with him and they will be loath to trust him with their vote.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Yet his campaign does nothing. Kerry talks about jobs one week and the minimum wage the next, going about his wonky way, each day as secular as the last. I don't disagree with any of that. We are not quite so religious a nation as Europeans like to think, but we do want to know where candidates stand on God -- not too strong, not too weak, just right. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But Brooks completely ignores Kerry's specific problem with religion: He's Catholic, man. He's pro-choice. He's stuck between the rock upon whom Jesus built his church and a hard place. If he turns all religious and Catholic, liberal and women voters will fear he'll go soft on choice. If he stands up to the church on abortion and gay rights, among other issues -- as he well should, if he could -- he will unleash a Vatican fatwa against him, for Catholic bishops already have proven they'll mix church and state and try to get Catholics to vote against Catholics who don't parrot what they say. Brooks says none of this. Does he have no editors?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 21, 2004
Hmmmm
: It's said that porn leads in every possible online arena, from subscriptions to video. But I haven't seen anything about porn via RSS (not that I've been looking, mind you). What does that mean?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Iranian hostages... again
: Iran has seized three British boats. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And how to do you feel about that, Mr. President?
: There's a rash of psychoanalyzing of the President going on in media. The New York Times today on Bush hanging Saddam's pistol in the White House: In other words, the gun is more than a gun, at least according to the Freudians.
"It's the phallic equivalent of a scalp - I mean that quite seriously," said Stanley A. Renshon, a psychoanalyst and political scientist at the City University of New York... And in the Guardian, plugs/quotes a book by a shrink putting Bush on the couch: Justin Frank, a clinical professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, argues that the president's inclination to see the world in black-and-white, good-versus-evil terms, and his tendency to repeat favourite words and phrases under pressure, are not simply politics as usual, but classic symptoms of untreated alcoholism.... Well, it could be that today, the world is black-and-white, good-versus evil. And repeating favorite words and phrases? That's showbiz. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The market for breasts
: This is absurd when you think about it for, oh, two seconds:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The FCC is raising its current fine for indecency -- not related to huge fines still being proposed in Congress -- from $27,500 to $32,500 because of "inflation."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What, breasts are getting more expensive? Or is that they're getting bigger (wrong inflation)? What costs more about indecency such that you need to raise the fines?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
More idiocy from the FCC.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The runaway 9/11 Commission
: William Safire has a great column this morning dissecting the recent sins of the 9/11 Commission with its al Qaeda-Iraq link stories. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Background: Remember last week, there were headlines aplenty saying that the Commission says there is no link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Uh, but that wasn't the real issue. To my knowledge, few if any people in power said that Iraq was behind the attacks. But many did say that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda and that they had ties. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But this "Commission report: yielded many when-did-you-stop-beating-your-Iraqis headlines as the "Commission" denied something that didn't need denying, putting the Administration on the defensive as Cheney had to say, well, but there are ties. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And then the Commision itself had to backtrack and conceded that, well there were ties indeed. Bob Kerrey (see breakfast club post below) says that there were links, "no question." His No. 2, Lee Hamilton, says the Commission does not disagree with Cheney when he says there are connections and he even backs away from saying there was "no credible evidence" of a 9/11 link to saying that it was "not proven one way or the other," Safire reports. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But by then, the headline damage was done. It looks to the world like another hammer with which to beat up American and its President over the Iraq war. But it's a rotten red herring.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Safire explains that this mess. He says that the headlines came from an interim report of "the commission's runaway staff, headed by the ex-N.S.C. aide Philip Zelikow." The staff "twisted the two strands together to cast doubt on both the Qaeda-Iraq ties and the specific attacks of 9/11." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Turns out that the Commission members "do not get involved in staff reports," Kerrey said yesterday. So this report did not come from the "Commission." It is shocking that the commission would allow this to happen. It is another indication of the Commission's incompetence and the politicization of 9/11 it has allowed and fostered. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Safire gives five suggestions for how the Commission can regain its nonpartisan credibility. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Horse. Barn. Gone. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Commission should be tripping over itself to try to set the record straight but I have no hope of that.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But I do second Safire's fifth suggestion: "5. Stop wasting time posturing on television and get involved writing a defensible commission report." I'd add that they should stop wasting time on $22 bagels and have an Egg McMuffin, too (see below). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Further, Safire lets the media off the hook: "Cheney's ire was misdirected. Don't blame the media for jumping on the politically charged Zelikow report." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Wrong. The media have Google and archives and could and should have untwisted these two strands the Commission staff twisted together.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Breakfast of champions
: I had breakfast with an old colleague this morning at The Regency, the power-breakfast-of-the-moment joint in New York these days. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It was crawling with pols. Crawling. Former Sen. Bob Kerrey of the 9/11 Commission comes in and goes down a damed reception line, table to table, shaking hands. He stops to say hello to Larry King -- who, yes, looks even more like a crypt keeper in person; he should not be wearing assless jeans. Larry says he has Bill Clinton this week. What, Larry, are you last in line>? Then there's rep. Ed Markey of Mass, the legislator who scares me most (because he wants to go after media every which way). There's Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon. And there are plenty of others I'd recognize if I were Wonkette, but I'm not. Crawling, I say. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Mind you, this is a place where lox and a bagel goes for $22. The bill for breakfast there comes to more than I spend on my wife for dinner, which is a commentary not only on my cheapness but also, of course, on the profligate ways of pols.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I go outside and there's a guy on his knees not just scrubbing but scraping, buffing, and polishing the -- who knew it was brass? -- metal grate around the tree in the sidewalk. This is two square feet of space that dogs piss on and there's some poor shlub being paid money to make it shine. This is where are pols are breakfasting.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If I were, say, McDonald's or Friday's or Denny's, I'd offer free meals to any legislator just to force them to come in and eat where the people eat. And while we're at it, why don't we pass a law making these guys wear nametags: Hi, I'm Sen. Soandso, have anything to say to me? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 20, 2004
Supersize me
: Robert J. Samuelson calls blogs "the fast food of the news business."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I prefer to think of us as the caterers, thank you.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
 Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man
: I just got an advance copy of Michael Moore is a Big Fat Stupid White Man by David T. Hardy of MooreExposed.com and Jason Clarke of MooreLies.com from hitmaker Judith Regan. The book has a blog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
As my wife and I were watching Moore on Today the other day -- as he was saying that making Fahrenheit 9/11 was "not political" -- she said she used to like him. I agreed. But he lost his credibility long ago. It's hard for such a big man to jump a shark, but he did. I'll still see Fahrenheit 9/11 and write about it here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Meandering randomly through the book, some highlights:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: It starts with an annotated Moore resume: Brief, unhappy time at GM; brief, unhappy time at Mother Jones; brief, unhappy time at Nader campaign; Roger & Me; brief, unhappy time at NBC and Fox... There's even a brief, unhappy note in a Regan book about ReganBooks: "Writes Stupid White Men. Accuses publisher of censorship. Accuses publisher of plotting to suppress book by not printing and shipping enough copies."
It says he owns a $1.9 million home in New York City and a $1.2 million summer home in Michigan and makes $30k per speech.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: There's an open letter from the authors to Moore, explaining that they were both inspired by his "fictitious" speech at the Oscars: "We've collected more than enough evidence to prove that you are the most fictitious character of our times."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: They nya-nya, saying that "the prophet of the left is never right." e.g.:
September 14, 2001: Moore opposes the Afghan war. "But I beg you, Mr. Bush... do not declar war and massacre more innocents."
November 14, 2001: The Taliban collapses, and Kabul falls to American forces.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The book takes on Moore's works and publishes pieces by Tim Blair, Andrew Sullivan, Kay Hymowitz, Anthony Zoubek, and Peter Ross Range.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: It diagnoses, in detail, his psychological condition: Narcissism. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: It dissects his stand on terrorism. He injects these ideas into the debate:Attacks on Americans are heroic and destined to succeed: "The Iraqs who have risen up against the occupation are not 'insurgents' or 'terrorists' or 'The Enemy.' They are the REVOLUTION, the Minuteman, and their numbers will grow -- and they will win."
And America's at fault: "What I do know is that all day long I have heard everythiug about this bin Laden guy except this one fact -- WE created the monster known as Osama bin Laden!" : It concludes: Whatever argument Moore assembles, the important thing is that the dialogue has begun, one that invites you as the reader to judge the truth of these matters for yourself.
In the end, that is what our contruy -- the one that has bestowed on Michael Moore all its many riches -- is most firmly about. : The book ends with extensive notes on sources. And the authors also vow to post any corrections here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The NY Times Philip Shenon says Fahrenheit 9/11 was not made available for review but he saw a screening and says that the facts seemed to pass muster and that Moore hired fact-checkers to go over every word. That may well be the case, but that's what the National Enquirer does, too. That's not to say that either lies. But both choose to view the world through their prisms to tell the stories they want to tell. Not that I'm criticizing, for Shenon says Moore hired lawyers to go after those who attack him. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The Washington Post's Richard Leiby says FoxNews honcho Roger Ailes was the biggest supporter of Fahrenheit 9/11 getting distribution because he saw it as a matter of free speech: Harvey Weinstein, the Democrat-loving Miramax honcho and executive producer of Michael Moore's incendiary documentary, was on AMC's "Shoot Out" last Sunday talking about who, in his view, was the biggest media supporter of the film. "The unlikeliest of allies happened -- Roger Ailes at Fox," Weinstein told co-host Peter Bart. "I mean when he sees this movie -- I don't want to be responsible for a cardiac bill -- but on a First Amendment issue, it blew his mind. So the best coverage we had wasn't ABC, CBS or NBC -- even Michael Moore couldn't believe it -- there's Fox News. A movie in [Ailes's] mind that couldn't be distributed or had to fight for distribution, just was un-American. He'd rather say, 'Bring it on, we'll deal with that, but you have a right to show it.' " PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 19, 2004
Disgust, long overdue
: The Observer points to statements by two firebrand Islamic clerics against "random atrocities" performed by al Qaeda and reports (or speculates) that, finally, at long f'ing last, we have reached the edge of their tolerance: The statement last week was part of a phenomenon which, though its outlines are barely discernible, give us a glimpse of light at the end of 'the war on terror' tunnel. For, though it is gaining in many areas, the radical Islamic militant movement labelled 'al-Qaeda' is beginning to lose public support in others. So 3,000 dead doesn't do this. But a few distasateful beheadings and "collateral damage" of dead Muslims does. Whatever. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Shampoo by Prell
: I've not seen this before: In the full-page ad for July's De-Lovely, the movie story of Cole Porter with Kevin Kline and Ashley Judd, the second big production credit -- after music and lyrics by Cole Porter himself -- is "Style by Giorgio Armani." All style, no...?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Beer for Democrats, gin for Republicans
: Rochester-area Democrats plan to give away beer to voters who register. [via Tom Watson, MP]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Not a cocoon
: Underlying the 9/11 Commission's unrelenting coulda/shoulda/woulda criticism of government action before, during, and after the 9/11 attacks is an unstated -- and dangerously wrong -- assumption:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That government could and should prepare to protect us against every possible form of attack.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, would that that were possible and true. But it's neither. This is, instead, a rhetorical trick makes it so damned easy to turn the 9/11 attacks into a hammer to attack ourselves.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Yes, sure, it sounds good to say, for example, that if the orders had been communicated only 13 minutes earlier, fighter jets could have shot down the passenger jets the terrorists had turned into their bombs. It makes it sound as if our government messed this up. It makes it seem as if our government now shares some responsibility for the horrid toll. But let's be realistic! There was not enough time; there was no way to know where there jets were going until it was quite literally too late; and imagine the consequences if one jet had managed to follow Cheney's order to shoot down civilian Americans. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Under the logic of the 9/11 Commission, though, government should be preparing for every contingency. By this thinking...
: Every parcel carried by every passenger on every train should be searched in detail lest some murdering terrorist nutjobs, like the ones in Spain, should decide to set off exploding backpacks on the 5:55 to New Rochelle.
: All our mail should be hermetically sealed in case some murdering terrorist nutjob choose to fill a half-dozen letters with magic anthrax dust.
: Every building should be retrofitted to keep traffic at least a half-mile away lest some murdering terrorist nutjob choose to drive a trick filled with explosive fertilizer to the front door and set it off.
: And, moving from experience to speculation, Times Square -- the epicenter on every media map of possible fallout from a dirty bomb -- should just be shut down in case it should attract a murdering terrorist nutjob as a symbolic target. Ditto Disneyworld. Ditto every mall. Ditto Wall Street. Ditto Hollywood.
: And every American should be equipped with gas masks and geiger counters and bulletproof vests and steel necklaces to guard against beheading by murdering terrorist nutjobs.
: And every American should be told never to go overseas, lest we be targets of murdering terrorist nutjobs there.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That is the logic of the 9/11 Commission. They would expect government to turn America into a cocoon. They would expect the impossible. And they are holding government to that impossible standard.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This is not to say that we cannot learn many lessons from 9/11 and do many things better when, God forbid, we are attacked again. But that's not what the Commission is doing. Instead, it is using "mistakes" of 9/11 to beat up many in power, from the Bush Administration down to the NYPD. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And media reporting of those "findings" only amplifies the effect: COULDA/WOULDA/SHOULDA shouted from the headlines.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now the truth is -- as some reasonable souls say -- that the only real way to fight terrorism is not to unreasonably armor our facilities but is to stop the terrorists from coming into this country and conspiring and arming themselves. By that logic, we should be applauding the Patriot Act and a government commission should be recommending a Constitutional amendment to take away any ambiguity and allow government to spy on, hunt down, capture, question -- and, yes, even strip naked and mock -- terrorists. But we don't want that, do we?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I resent this. Not to sound egocentric about this, but in a sense, I of all people should be hanging on the words of the 9/11 Commission. I came within minutes or feet of death that day. I'm paranoid and nervous for me and my family.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But, in fact, I am first and foremost grateful for the good work of the NYPD that day; because of them I did survive. I wish the Commission would also spend more time -- they have spent some -- praising what was done right that day, for we can also learn lessons from that. And I do not -- I cannot reasonably -- blame government, top to bottom, for what happened to us that day. They cannot protect us from every possible nightmare concocted by murdering terrorist nutjobs; they simply cannot. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The 9/11 Commission has perverted its work and, in my view, committed the unpardonable sin of politicizing 9/11 and turning the attacks of mudering terrorist nutjobs into a litany of things we did wrong, things that are our fault. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
No, 9/11 is the fault of murdering terrorist nutjobs and the only solution to this is to hunt down and capture or kill every one of them we can find wherever we find them -- yes, even in Saudi Arabia, even in Iraq, even in Pakistan, even in New Jersey. I wish I heard the Commission giving us a few more suggestions about how to do that. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The review is in
: The NY Times' Michiko Kakutani delivers a dull blow to Clinton's kidney (or more like a kick to his balls) with her review of his autobiography: The book, which weighs in at more than 950 pages, is sloppy, self-indulgent and often eye-crossingly dull — the sound of one man prattling away, not for the reader, but for himself and some distant recording angel of history. One of her complaints: Mr. Clinton confesses that his affair with Monica Lewinsky was "immoral and foolish," but he spends far more space excoriating his nemesis, independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr, and the press. Well, duh. What do you want, Michiko, a -- pardon me -- blow-by-blow description of the affair? Of course, he's going to devote ink and paper to going after those who went after him; it's his turn. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'll be buying the (shortened) audio version to hear on my iPod. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Here's Newsweek's Cliff's Notes after reading the book. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Spirit of America update
: Founder Jim Hake is back from Iraq with an update. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Exploding TV: Moguls v. geeks
: Jim Kramer explains why Viacom is sinking. He says it's about moguls v. geeks. But it's also about big v. small. And closed v. open. And finite choice v. infinite choice. And control in the hands of companies v. control in the hands of consumers. And about old v. new. And slow v. fast. No, to find out why Viacom’s stock sank to the 52-week-low list, all you need to do is look to the 52-week-high list, where the winners are: video games, satellite radio, video-on-demand, and Internet search engines. Those are the companies with the better models, the better technology that has, in an incredibly short period of time, stolen massive amounts of the fuel that powered Battleship Viacom: the viewers themselves....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Viacom was and is run by moguls, people who want to make deals and who aspire to be machers. Machers aren’t geeks; they laugh at geeks....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Yet in the end, every one of the challenges that have sprung up for Viacom since its merger with CBS was the product of pure geekdom, and unless you were a geek, you couldn’t see the tech two-by-four that hit you until you went to the videotape.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Mel Karmazin’s legacy is that he kept Viacom’s numbers from falling apart despite the company’s outdated business model. Now his departure will stop masking Viacom’s real weaknesses, and Redstone and company will have to face them head on. Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe they’ll call in the geeks. Who are only an email away, eh? [ via Fred Wilson] PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Exploding TV
: More exploding TV: Amazon is looking for a product manager to sell "digital products." What do you want to watch tonight, dear? Let's go look and see what's at the TV store.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Teacher, is this blog going to be on the final?
: Educators using computers are getting together in New Orleans and look at all the sessions about blogs. [via Will Richardson]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kosher
: Two good finds on Steven I. Weiss' very good blog for The Forward:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: A blogger named Esther at My Urban Kvetch writes: Madonna says, "Call me Esther."
I say, "Call me Madonna." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: And Laurence Simon blogs about Juneteenth (wimpy asterisks mine): Blacks get freed, and they celebrate with some of the best cooking around. Cornbread, blue crabs, crawdads, greens, BBQ pork and brisket... you name it, they cook it up and celebrate their asses off.
On the other hand, the Jews get freed, and we celebrate with this shitty food? Boiled egg, parsely, cracker-like bread, salt water... WHAT THE F***? I'd rather still be building pyramids than choking down this crap every year.
F*** this shit. I renounce being Jewish. From now on, I'm black.
Deal with it, but give me a plate of those cornbread biscuits and gumbo gravy first. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 18, 2004
Esther, Schmesther
: I thought it was odd, self-indulgent, and egotistical enough that Madonna of the one name now wants to be called Esther by her Kabbalah klatch.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's all the worse when I looked up Jewish girls' names for this post and found that Esther means "star."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I think we should pick a different name for Madonna/Esther. My favorites: Hadassah (means ornament, which is true enough) or Leah (means tired, which is even truer). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Not that the one has anything to do with the other, other than a Yiddish gag or two, but go see Steven I. Weiss' complaint to MediaBistro and Gawker for exclusing Jewish editors from the editor hot-or-not contest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Box life
: I have a strange thing for Ikea; have since I first walked into its pine-sawdust-scented space. It's the perfect store for the unhandy handyman, that's me. It's a store that makes a social statement: Poor young people need to sit, too. I bragged for years that I got an entire dining room set in the back of my Honda Civic hatchback; it's a damned engineering marvel. And the meatballs are good. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's so crazed that my wife and I actually went to vacation in Sweden because we (I) liked Ikea so much: Any country that can create this must be worth visiting, I said. And it was worth visiting: A country with the culture of Europe and the convenience of America with beautiful women (they really) where everyone speaks better English than anyone in America. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
When I started Entertainment Weekly, famed adman Donny Deutsch, then a bit of whippersnapper, was our agency and when he got the Ikea account, I sat in my office and showed him my Ikea furniture there and told him all the Ikea furniture we had in our home. "Man," Donny said, "you are seriously disturbed." That's how Donny talked even then. I think there was an F word in there somewhere.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Most of our Ikea furniture is gone, now that we've grown up. Just last week, the kid-tolerant coffee tables went. Some shelves will never die but all in all, our Ikea is fading like the color of my hair. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But it's still in my genes, my Ikea fetish. So when I saw this on Gizmodo, I wanted to get it and sit on the floor and make a chair again, for old time's sake.
 PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Aw, shucks
: My favorite marketing man, Hugh McLeod, says something too nice. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now the truth is that Hugh leaves an A-list blog's worth of comments here and I'm lucky that he does; I always enjoy seeing his latest. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Not in recompense but just because it reminds me, I have to tell you that there is something cooler than handing out your blogcards from Hugh: Handing one out to someone only to find that they hand you a blogcard in return. That happened to me a week ago. It should happen more. So go buy blogcards. Don't be caught at your next panel without them.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Cheeky
: I am one of, I'm sure, many who got an email from one Christian Purdy, "associate director of publicity" (I'm guessing $19.5/year) for a small publisher offering to have Cass Sunstein, prof at the U of Chicago Law School, guest blog: "Need a break from the daily grind of your blog? Why not let Cass Sunstein guest blog for a day?" PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now the fact that I consider Sunstein's Republic.com a brainless piece of drek-think and academic sensationalism devoid of intelligence and experience about its subject and bankrupt in its analysis makes it, well, unlikely that would happen. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What gets me about this is that the guy would be cheeky/snotty enough to have someone send blog spam on his behalf. I'd respect the idea a helluva lot more if he actually sent the email himself (or at least had the technical savvy -- which he certainly doesn't have, as his book proves -- to fake it). Just because Larry Lessig has someone weirdly write about him in third person on his own site doesn't mean every law professor needs his Boswell ghost.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Or why don't you just get a blog yourself, Prof?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Blah blog
: VC David Hornik has finally had it. All social software panels are the same. And so, as a public service, he transcribes the latest so you don't need to bother attending the next: "Welcome blah blah blah relationship capital blah blah blah social contracts blah blah blah media businesses blah blah blah identify the rabid fans of the iPod blah blah blah utility media blah blah blah this is the future of the web blah blah blah RSS blah blah blah Spam blah blah blah killer app blah blah blah business model blah blah blah advertising model blah blah blah is this a product or a feature blah blah blah a feature doesn't make a business blah blah blah leveraging relationships blah blah blah decentralized system blah blah blah privacy concerns blah blah blah profiling people blah blah blah social networking is blogging dumbed down for the masses blah blah blah... PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Exploding TV
: More great information for those following the exploding TV thread: Drazen Pantic, a pioneer in bringing the power of video to citizens, has two great pieces on his site:
: This one describes how a peer-to-peer TV network can work.
: This one -- called Anybody Can Be TV -- briefly gives details on such things as open-source video editing and streaming tools. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: More exploding TV: Disney starts its own direct-to-TiVo-like-box service, Moviebeam. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's every mogul for himself out there. Add it up: Disney goes around cable and DVD distribution channels. Starz teams up with Real, risking the ire of cable. TiVo starts its own direct-to-TiVo service, challenging cable and satellite. CNN starts a broadband channel, which would have enraged cable operators except its parent is a big cable operator. McDonald's starts abandoning TV advertising. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We're witnessing the disruption of the TV business by the Internet. Fuse is lit. Explosion coming.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 17, 2004
Fly on the wall
: Robert Scoble gets to watch as Buzz Bruggeman pitches Activewords to a skeptical Esther Dyson. Minds meet. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Pacifism
: David Weinberger, probably the gentlest folk I know in this world (unless there's a bad side I haven't gotten on yet), writes an essay that rings very true with me about not being a pacifist anymore: "Then, one day I was writing a dialogue about the morality of pacifism, and I lost the argument with myself."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
My story isn't the same but isn't all that different. I made myself a pacifist early in life (after being a Civil War fan in the third grade but well before I was Vietnam draft bait; watching Vietnam on TV certainly had an impact). I wrestled with the same angels David wrestled with (what about Hitler? oh, that's now a hypothetical). And then I faced the demons of September 11th and gave up my pacifism, publicly, in front of the few readers I had here a few years ago. Different paths. Similar feelings. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Assigning citizen journalists
: When I saw a story the other day about a media outlet encouraging citizens to send in photos of tornadoes, I wasn't the only one who was worried that this might endanger those citizens. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Politainment
: First, go read the Bill Clinton report, below. I hate it when something that took a lot of work scrolls off the screen. Isn't it pathetic to plug and link to your own post? Yes, it is. Anyway.... Here's one more thought that came out of what Clinton said...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The right was clever, no brilliant, to bypass the news -- which they felt was stacked against them -- to use other media and even entertainment to sell their political cause. Now the left is fighting back and so it's interesting to look at the scorecard:
: Radio -- still owned by the right, of course. Is Air America an inroad? Not if it doesn't survive past the election. But Clinton said its getting audience last night and, of course, Al Franken says so.
: Books -- shifting. Clinton said that during his presidency, most political books were from the right and they filled the best-seller list. Now the left is gaining with Franken, Moore, Clinton, and Clinton. There are still loads of conservatives selling well -- start with O'Reilly. But now it's a battleground. Only thing is, the audience for books themselves is tiny. The hidden agenda (besides earning advances) is going on book tours and getting publicity on TV, I think.
: Movies -- owned by the left. Well, of course, they're a product of left-wing Hollywood, aren't they? There's Fahrenheit 9/11, The Hunting of the President, The Day After Tomorrow in theaters now. What am I missing on the right? Who was the last big right-wing star after John Wayne?
: Music -- always been the left. But I don't think that's effective today; it's no longer and has not been in ages a medium of lyrics and the rebellion these days is often generic: anger at the Man rather than this Man or that Man.
: TV -- outside of the news (let's not get into that), isn't TV rather apolitical? Oh, sure, there's your random anti-Reagan miniseries and the message snuck in here and there. But I think this will be the next frontier of political entertainment. See Al Gore's new network. It won't be as overtly political as Air America, they say, but it will have a world view, of course. And I'll be you'll see some efforts to create the Norman Lear or the anti-Lear in politically hued sitcoms and dramas.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What do you see?
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The mass market is (still) dead
: McDonald's has discovered that the mass market is dead. The mass market started dying with the inventions of the remote control, cable, Internet, and VCR. But it's still news when McDonald's wakes up and smells it. I saw the other day (sorry, lost link) that McD's is even using body paint on scantily clad women to push coming to McDonald's late at night. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Steve Hall has a quote from a McDonald's exec: "Any single ad, commercial or promotion is not a summary of our strategy. It's not representative of the brand message," he said. "We don't need one big execution of a big idea. We need one big idea that can be used in a multidimensional, multilayered and multifaceted way." That befuddled Steve. I think it means: PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The mass market gives way to a mass of niches. The No. 1 hamburger chain has cut its spending on prime-time commercials from two-thirds of its advertising budget to one-third over the past four years and plans to move further away from a one-stop strategy to draw consumers. The money has gone to "all other media" ... Pepsi agrees: "We're looking at the landscape very differently," said Dave Burwick, chief marketing officer at beverage company PepsiCo . "Online will be bigger ... print and outdoor will benefit from where we're going. We're taking dollars directly out of television." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Important, too: The TV upfronts (when folks like movie studios pay a premium to get the time slots they want) is down from last year. See TV is exploding. [via Lost Remote]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Seth Godin reacts to the McDonald's news: I worry, though, about two things:
1. changing the marketing without changing the underpinnings of the business is almost always a bad strategy. If all the people, the systems, the real estate, the factories and the menus are organized around monolithic marketing, slapping a little brand journalism on top isn't going to work awfully well.
and
2. The marketer doesn't get to run the conversation. It's not really brand journalism that's happening, you see. It's brand cocktail party! You get to set the table and invite the first batch of guests, but after that the conversation is going to happen with or without you. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Back
: My blogging friend Rex Hammock is back after sudden silence. Update bookmarks, for he has a new address -- and that is what's bugging him. It's about links. Ever reasonable, Rex says: My frustration is not with losing server space. I am a fortunate person who has access to abundant server space and bandwidth. The fact that Dave Winer took away my access to his server space has absolutely nothing to do with my read on the significance of this event. My frustration is with those who should know better not recognizing that the Cluetrain issue here is about links: That when someone does something, either innocently or with malice, that disrupts the efforts one has made to allow others to find "your stuff" on the web, then they have done something that says, "you don't exist." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Clinton speaks
: "I don't wake up in the morning hating Kenneth Starr. I wake up in the morning feeling sorry for people who believe they are in possession of the whole truth... And I think you should, too," President Bill Clinton told a large crowd tonight after the premiere of The Hunting of the President. "If you want to be forgiven, you have to extend forgiveness, even to people who aren't smart enough to ask for it." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It was an angry -- at last -- yet calm and philosophical Bill Clinton who stood on stage at NYU tonight, at an event sponsored by The Week, as he lectured the audience about the "historical context" of the film they had just watched. The film was based on a book that connected the dots about the -- yes -- vast, right-wing conspiracy that tried to bring Clinton down. It rehashed the troopers and Paula "with the hair and the nose" and Gennifer and Whitewater and the McDougals and Vince Foster with the bullet and, of course, Monica and showed who was behind it all. Just watching Ken Starr, that destructive prig, brought up the taste of bile again. But Clinton doesn't hate Ken Starr, remember. He said that Starr et al "were not independent agents, they were instruments of a grand design."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I found it odd, maybe sad, perhaps distasteful, no, maddening to see Clinton -- whom I admire, let me be clear (or as we say, transparent) -- coming out after the rehashing of all that, even if it was done by his defenders. Yet Clinton saw it as an opportunity for a history lesson. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
To find "the roots of this," he started in the '60s. "The rise of the right in America basically began in the 1960s in all the turmoil over civil rights and the war, aggravated by the women's movement and the gay rights movement and the controversy over Rowe vs. Wade." With the end of the Cold War, he said, the right "didn't have an enemy anymore and needed an enemy and I had to serve as the next best thing. I think it's really important you understand that." He kept repeating, "I think it's really important that you understand," the prof letting us know this will be on the exam.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He said the "anti-government movement" and the religious right "thought they had found a permanent way of holding onto the White House by characterizing the Democrats as weak elitists... And we helped them, frankly. Our party made a lot of mistakes." He said the right considered Carter's victory in 1976 "an aberrational result of Watergate" and that the "anti-government-values crowd basically believes that the most important thing to do is to have the right people in power and concentrate power in their hands...."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But then he want back further. He said that "in every hinge point in history we have a fight like we have now." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"Our founders gave us a mission... to form a more perfect union. That was both a humble statement and a bold statement. It was humble because they recognized as flawed human beings, we will never be perfect... It was bold because it embodies the 18th Century idea of progress. It could always be more perfect.... But we always fight about this. At big times of change, it requires us to define, defend, and expand the union."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now Clinton goes way back. "The personal animosity I engendered, maybe that's because there's something about me they just didn't like... But the time that most parallels that in the history of the country was the beginning of the republic." When the country was formed, he said, the only things we agreed about were getting the English out and Washington in; we didn't agree about the national economy or national legal system. "No one had really defined what it meant to be an American." We debated and grew the union. Then slavery and the union ripped at us; we fought and expanded. Then monopoly business versus government controls; we debated and grew the union. Then the Cold War, then the information age, then the growth of American diversity and a worldwide economy. "The people on the far right have their view and they're pursuing it as they think they should. We can win that fight because when you look back at American history, we have always decided to expand and extend. So I think you should feel optimistic and you should be very grateful -- at least I am -- that the American people, every time they get a clear shot and see what's really going on, they go forward." This, he said, is what we "will debate as we move to a new concensus about what it means to be an American in a 21st Century world."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Then, coming back to today, he says, "The reason the last [presidential] election was 50/50 is we haven't decided where we're going yet." He said there is "an honest disagreement in America today."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Harry Evans got on stage and said we were all assigned 4,000 word essays on presidential politics. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
More....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Clinton's Golden Rules: "The effort of this was to show that I was bad people. I don't think we have to show that they they are bad people. We have to say that we're right and they're wrong." And: "I don't believe we need to get into that kind of demonization. I think the evidence shows our way works better." And: "They don't think they're bad people and I think it's a mistake for us to treat them the way they treated us, because if we do, then they own us, they turn us into the kind of Pavlovian creatures they turn their voters into."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On that conspiracy: "Hilly was once hooted and derided when she called it a vast right-wing conspiracy." He said that when she came home after that, he questioned only the word conspiracy. "Conspiracies are normally secret," he said. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On Susan McDougal: "The star of this movie and my personal heroine was Susan McDougal," Clinton said -- it was the first thing he said after coming on stage -- and she got a standing O, just as he had. "If you like what's in the film about her wait till you read what I wrote about her in the book.... Susan McDougal was a victim of abuse of power. She was simply a political pawn. And there were many more like her."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On the special prosecutors: "I asked for the derned thing.... I was such a naive fool, I thought people actually wanted to know the truth. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong. I lost money in a land deal... That doesn't exonerate me from the stupid personal -- and wrong personal -- mistakes I made... All this started when the press said they wanted to know the truth about what went on, they actually wanted to know the truth." He said his counsel, Bernie Nussbaum, begged him not to approve the appointment of a special prosecutor. He believed Fiske, the first appointee, a Republican, would find the truth and it would be over. But "Fiske was replaced [because] he was too fast and too fair and he had to go." He was replaced by "somebody who was more results oriented, as they say." Ken Starr, he said, "saw himself as throwing the infidels from the temple."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
 : On the press: "The mainstream media basically was in the tank with Starr by and large until the issuance of the Starr report. And I give them this: There was a dramatic sea change then." And: "Media forgot briefly what they did in Watergate. What they did in Watergate was stop an abuse of power... They thought the game was get the President, not stop the abuse of power... But they got over it."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On the New York Times: He said he certainly had problems with their coverage of Whitewater and Starr at first but "the New York Times was the first great establishment institution that got it wrong to at least have a conscience. They did finally say that Kenneth Starr should resign." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On the new media age: "The press changes in the information age, too." In the old days, he said, there were three networks and "they all had enough market share... to afford to send older, very experienced, very seasoned journalists to Vietnam and say here's what we saw... The newspapers had enough money to have a correspondent in Paris and Beijing.. .to write thought pieces. It was a different world. They're in a much more competitive world today and the lines between all media are being merged and the traditional lines between news and advocacy are being blurred." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On politics and media: Well, the right has radio. But the left has movies. Take Moore. Take this. And, Clinton says, the left is making inroads back into other media. "Look at what MoveOn.org did this year. Look at what Air America is doing. Al Franken is beating Rush Limbaugh in a couple of markets with that little tiny network." [Note: Anybody have those ratings books?] "When you're up against something you can either sit around and whine about it or get up and do something about it." He said the right used to produce more books but now the left is, and he sure hopes his is one of the big sellers.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On religion: "What separates us is that we haven't tried to have our politics driven by religion.... That's the historical context of the film and that's why the film is so important." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On sanity: Harry Evans asked how Clinton "sustained yourself in this ordeal." Clinton replied that "most days it bothered me more what was happening to other people.... My friends stayed, the administration stayed, and the American people stayed. That made it a lot easier... I said if I give up on this I will compound my error [agreeing to a special counsel]. When I realized there was no limit to what they could do I realized there was not alternative but to suit up and take the field."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: On the election: "We've got a 50/50 chance, maybe better, that we'll win the White House next time." He said the Congress may shift to the left but only by a few votes. "I think you need to worry more about the concentration of this right-wing view of government, particularly in the courts...."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: I didn't go to the after-party. Nor did I get to hobnob with celebs, though I did see Salman Rushdie and Mike Myers and seats reserved for Uma Thurman, Glenn Close, and Moby. It's late. Notebook's empty. Good night.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: The AP report on the event; not much there. Roger Friedman's FoxNews column on the event. Newsday review of the flick here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Micah Sifry does not partake of Clinton nostalgia. Way doesn't. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 16, 2004
Crime time
: Again and again, I've seen people try to make a publishing franchise out of crime. It last worked when my grandmother read true confessions magazines (before tabloid and reality TV). When I was at Time Inc., they tried, incredibly, to create a crime magazine. Didn't fly. And now I follow this link to a local franchised crime newspaper. Don't get it. What a fun weekly read: murder, mayhem, arson, rape, theft, robbery. Oh, boy, can't wait for the next issue!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Tonight
: About to attend a screening of The Hunting of the President (Clinton, that is); hints of a very special guest; blog later. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Drudged
: Well, I'm honored to have received my first Drudge link for the Michael Moore post below, of course. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Since you're wondering... A Drudge link added about 12k page views per hour in the first few hours. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We, the people...
: Ernie Miller has a great idea: Instead of ditching "God" from the Pledge of Allegiance, we should ditch the Pledge and have our schoolchildren recite, instead, the much more appropriate and meaningful preamble to the Constitution. Ernie then gives us the tale o' the tape for the two documents. We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Boing
: BoingBoing has a new design. Well, it's the content that matters. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
MT pricing, the next try
: SixApart released new pricing for Movable Type and though I haven't studied it yet, it looks like a big improvement:
: Free edition for one author, three blogs, no support.
: Personal edition, $69.95, for five authors and unlimited blogs for "personal use."
: Unlimited personal edition, $99.95, for unlimited authors and blogs for "personal use."
Definiton of personal use: "If you're an individual whose blogs don't support a commercial endeavor, you can use the Personal Use license. (Incidental revenue such as Google AdSense, Amazon Associates fees, PayPal tip jars, or other similar programs which aren't the main purpose of the site are allowed under the personal license.)"
: Commercial for 5-50 users for $199.95 to $1299.95.
I still think they should publish a price for unlimited commercial use; not to do so is to think small. If About.com, a big MT user, were shopping today, would this take them up short?
: Educational for $39.95 for a single teacher and classroom to $999.95 for more than 1,000 students.
: More complicated pricing for not-for-profits.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Michael Moore coverup
: On a clip from a Dateline interview just shown on Today, Matt Lauer confronted Michael Moore about why he did not release images of abuse of prisoners that he had long before the photos from Abu Ghraib came out. Moore ducked and deflected as nimbly as an out-of-shape fat man can, which is to say, not at all. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Moore said that when the photos did come out, it was being treated in a "tabloid" and "s&m" way and so he said he decided to release the images he had in his "context," which is to say, in his movie. Lauer asked why he didn't release the images earlier -- the implication being that he could have stopped further abuse against the Iraqi prisoners. Moore said, to whom? Lauer said, to the government. Moore shook his head. OK, Lauer said, then why didn't you break the story? How, asked Moore, I don't have a TV show. You could have come to us, Lauer said, and we would have shown the story. Moore said he doesn't trust big media. He said he would have been accused of pulling a publicity stunt for his movie.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, no one would ever accuse Moore of that!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's crap. If he really cared about the Iraqi people, Moore would have done something. But he didn't. He cares about his box office.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: FIGHT BACK: Howard Stern called the Daily News' alleged gossip columnist, Lloyd Grove, an f'ing scumbag last night.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He told the story this morning on the air, still "on fire" from the confrontation. Stern dropped into a party for a friend, not knowing that it would be swarming with press, but he's used to that. As he was talking to a friend, he said, some stranger was hanging on his shoulder listening to every word. Stern -- having been told in a what-bugs-you-about-Howard game on his show that morning that he turns his back on people in conversations -- didn't want to interrupt the conversation but he was bugged at this guy eavesdropping. Finally, he turned and the guy introduced himself. Howard puts on his stuck-up, poker-up-the-ass voice: "Lloyd Grove." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"You're an f'ing scumbag," Stern tells him. Grove is taken aback. Stern says Grove wrote something bad about him. Grove says he doesn't remember what he wrote, even though it was only a week or two ago. Yeah, right. Stern yells at him and tells him to get away. Finally, Stern's girlfriend, Beth O, gets him to leave. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But he's still on fire. Back home, he tries to find what Grove wrote. He calls his producer, Gary Dell'Abate, who tells him that Grove called Stern a "thief" for having a similar answer to Johnny Carson's 30 years ago when asked what he wanted on his tombstone: I'll be right back after these messages. A nonitem, as I used to call such things when I was a gossip.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Stern was heading back to that party to confront Grove with what he wrote but his model mate stopped him with tears and sex. He got his revenge on the air this morning. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 15, 2004
More exploding TV
: Netflix to offer downloaded movies (at last). See earlier exploding TV here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Twits
: FoxNews' John Gibson responds to the British version of the FCC slapping him for slapping the BBC. Background here. John says: Twenty-four out of 60 million got mad enough to write letters and launch an investigation, and now the Brit government says I expressed opinions not buttressed by the truth.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This is not so. My opinions about this major Brit media outfit are entirely buttressed by the truth, and they know it... which is what makes them so mad.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Guardian newspaper in Britain now says this particular "My Word" from last January was so incendiary it "shocked many in the U.K."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I can't imagine that's accurate. I shocked many in the U.K.? How is that possible if they listen to and believe their major media outlet, which routinely trashes Americans, the American president, the American military and American policy?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That is what is truly shocking, and I suspect that even though 24 Brits complained, the vast majority knows that all the nasty things the major media outlet says about us cannot be true. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The power of advertising
: At the end of lunch with MeetUp's Scott Heiferman today, we were impressed that the restaurant put a card in with the bill urging us to vote for this place in a CitySearch poll. Scott and I had just been talking about the power of local advertising. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But then we looked at the table and realized that we'd been sitting there talking for well over an hour and ignoring a sizable (3x5) card sitting right there on the table advertising the exact same poll and we hadn't even noticed. So much for the power of that advertising.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Scott took a picture to memorialize the moment on his fotolog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Spare us
: Marketwatch's Bambi Francisco tries to use Google air to blow up a bubble for Plaxo. Yeah, sure, that'll be a huge IPO: A service that has managed to piss off most of the Internet and separate friend from friend. I never response to a Plaxo email. I see no end of posts telling people how to keep those damned Plaxo emails from coming. No one I know trusts Plaxo with their names and addresses. Yeah, that'll be a huge IPO. Just as big as Pointcast!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There's at least copper in them thar hills
: Adman Tom Hespos says blogs do work for advertisers and he offers some advice. [via AdRants] There are quite a few media buyers who end up here for one reason or another. I have this message for them: If you're not considering advertising on blogs that deal with topics of interest to your clients and their target audiences, you're doing your client a disservice. Put down the @Plan runs and the MRI crosstabs for a sec and take a calculated chance for your clients. It will pay off. Relevance is one of the prime drivers of success in online advertising. Blogs have dedicated audiences that come back again and again to consume quality topical content. Your client wants to be associated with such editorial environments (or at least they should). Propose a small test with a blog, gauge its success, and you'll likely find it to perform particularly well....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I think blog advertising will be a force to be reckoned with eventually, but it's going to take some time. First, blogs need to get on the radar screens of major marketers with money to spend. Then it's going to take some time for them to engage in small-scale testing before they make serious commitments. My advice to the blog community is to be patient and to keep doing what you're doing. Content truly is king, and as blogs draw more eyeballs away from mainstream news and topical sites, the dollars will follow the eyeballs. Now those are words of encouragement. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Those missing blogs
: Tom Biro reports on the story behind the weblogs.com shutters. I eagerly await the return of Rex Hammock!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Dream on, Howard
: Howard Dean tells broadcasters his Dean Scream speech "never happened." Yeah, and I go hunting in the wood of Vermont for unicorns. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Just how divided are we?
: We are not as divided as media would paint us. Damnit. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Last night, I was listening to All Things Considered on the way home as they reported on the Supreme Court refusing to rule on keeping God in the Pledge of Allegiance. The anchor said this was a deeply divisive issue and some expert quoted said this was a cultural war over the soul of the nation.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
C'mon, guys. Reality check! Does anybody really believe that the Pledge of Allegiance deeply divides us into a cultural war over the soul of the nation? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Hell, no.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, most people surely have opinions and those opinions may well be statistically divided. But that doesn't mean we're ready to go over war over the Pledge.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I said below and I've said before that we are not a nation divided, as politicians and reporters would paint us. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now it's time that a social scientist or a pollster to measure the passion of our opinions -- and an issue better come out pretty high on that passion scale before any reporter can say it's deeply divisive. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Imagine a 0-5 scale like this:
0 - Don't give a damn.
1 - Would defend my view in a conversation
2 - Would start a conversation on the issue to say what I think.
3 - Would write a letter to the editor (or weblog post) on the issue.
4 - Would consider the issue when voting for a candidate.
5 - Would change a vote for a candidate over the issue.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Most issues that are called deeply divisive probably come out about 0.5 on that scale. We are not facing each other, armed, on the borders of red states vs. blue over the Pledge of frigging Allegiance. We might discuss it over coffee. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's time to demand accurate portrayal of just how divided we are -- and aren't. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: By the way, if this does take off -- if reporters regularly report on how much people care about the issues they report -- I hope it's named the Jarvis Passion Scale just cuz I like the sound of it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Old v. new
: In a post below, I noted that Rafat Ali beat the hell out of the big, lazy papers with his scoop on Starz and Real teaming up to create an Internet movie channel. In the comments, a "reporter" -- who didn't have the guts to leave name or affiliation -- snarked about Rafat's work: Reporters do read blogs, but in order to get the full details on a story like this, they typically agree to an embargo. In this case, the embargo was for Monday, June 14. Rafat broke the embargo by reporting the story Friday, which no reporter at a professional publication could do if s/he wanted to be able to interview executives in the future. Perhaps more importantly, Rafat got several important details of the story wrong. Those who respected for the embargo had access to company executives and therefore, by and large, didn't. I did nothing, for I knew it wouldn't take any time at all for Rafat to come back swinging, as well he should: Mr Reporter
Had you read my story, you would have seen the first para which says both Starz and Real refused to comment on the story. I had been working on the story since early last week, since Rob Glaser shot off his mouth at the D Conference by telling people present at the conference that they were launching this service next week. Someone passed on the tip to me...
The first thing I did was contact the two companies, saying I am doing the story, they should comment officially. but they did not want to spoil there PR plans, which of course I was not a part of.
I spoke to about 20 people, just none of them the official sources, since they didn't want to. I don't adhere to PR schedules, since I am usually not a part of these schedules. I am known to spoil companies' PR plans by breaking stories through unofficial sources..its called reporting, Mr Reporter. Did you learn your journalism from a PR school?
Regards
Rafat Go get 'im, Rafat! Exactly. If all you do is wait for the embargo to be lifted and the press release to be sent out to write your story, then we don't need you, Mr. Reporter; we, too, can read the press release. That kind of news is a commodity. It's also controlled news; by then, it's spun into cotton candy. Let me say that again: We don't need reporters to give us that sort of "news." Especially in a day when news organizations are losing audience and revenue and need to decide where to put their resources, the worst place to put them is in retyping press releases at the same time everyone else is retyping them, after the embargo is lifted. For that, link to the damned release. Start a blog. We still need reporters to do real reporting, to ask the questions people don't want to answer, not the ones they send out on the PR Newswire. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: The "reporter" leaves a response in the comments below that's just as frightening as the first: Please. This is entertainment business journalism, not Watergate. Breaking the "news" that this service was launching is not some big scoop. Everyone knew it was coming fairly soon. Well, "reporter," you still should be serving your audience, your public, by telling them what you know as soon as possible. That's when it's still news, not just a press release. By respecing the embargo, professional reporters were able to get all their details right, something Rafat didn't do. They also maintain good relationships with the companies they cover so that they can get good stories in the future. You really are looking upon your job as that of a flack. Get this straight: The relationship that matters is with your audience, not with your sources!That's not the schoolchild's ideal journalism, but it's the real world. And it's obvious that Rafat's "tip" can in one way or another be sourced back to somebody who knew about the embargoed news. So, clearly, Rafat had better relationships with better sources than you did, for Rafat got the story first and Rafat served his audience, his public better. The simple fact is that blogs can do whatever they want, but professional reporters need to pick and choose their battles, and getting several important details wrong in order to break a story like this a (business) day early is not something that professional reporters an afford to do. Hate to break it to you, mate, but Rafat is a professional reporter. He makes money reporting. He serves a public. He gets quoted. He breaks news. He's as professional a reporter as I know. If professional reporters acted like some bloggers do, there wouldn't be any business news getting broken, by and large. Turn that prism the other way: If reporters acted like bloggers like Rafat, they'd be breaking news instead of just retyping press releases. Bloggers like Rafat provide an important service, but most of what they do is leeching off of what professional reporters do, either through links along with commentary or by "breaking" news that we have to agree to embargo. Claiming the moral high ground when they wouldn't exist without us is laughable. Looks to me as if you leached off both Rafat and your industry's press releases to write the same damned story everybody else wrote. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What's most shocking about this exchange is that you know Rafat's name and my name but you don't know this alleged "reporter's" name. I don't either.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And folks wonder why the public doesn't trust "reporters." This is a case study.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 14, 2004
Your assignment, should you choose to accept it
: Micah Sifry gives reporters 10 questions they should be asking about public campaign finance reform. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Government meddles in media... in Britain
: At last month's The Week event, FoxNews' John Gibson said he was in trouble in the U.K. for calling the BBC a bunch of liars. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Strange but true.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The official British FCC, Ofcom, just handed down a ruling against Gibson. His sin? His crime? His offense to the crown? On the official Ofcom site, it says Gibson "claimed": a) that the BBC had “a frothing-at-the-mouth anti-Americanism that was obsessive, irrational and dishonest”;
b) that the BBC “felt entitled to lie and, when caught lying, felt entitled to defend its lying reporters and executives”;
c) that the BBC reporter, Andrew Gilligan, in Baghdad during the American invasion, had “insisted on air that the Iraqi Army was heroically repulsing an incompetent American Military”;
d) that “the BBC, far from blaming itself, insisted its reporter had a right to lie – exaggerate – because, well, the BBC knew that the war was wrong, and anything they could say to underscore that point had to be right”. Well, yes, that sounds about right to me. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But here's a government agency defending a government network. How do you spell conflict of interest? How do you say in English, "Butt out, bud?"PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This is what is so wrong with government involvement in speech. This is where it heads. Gibson had an opinion. The audience can agree or disagree with that opinion. The audience doesn't need some government agency to decide for it whether the opinion expressed is right or wrong. But what makes this really perverse is that the opinion was right and the BBC was wrong and another damned government commission said so and yet this government commission goes after Gibson. Perverse indeed.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Catchup
: Rafat Ali's Paid Content reported the deal to bring a Starz movie network to the Internet with Real on June 10. The NY Times and LA Times reported it only today, four days later. If the reporters had only read blogs, they could have had the story long since. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Passport
: Here's an AP story on the rash of newspaper sites requiring registration (it particarly seems rashy because Knight Ridder and Tribune have have been putting up the gate a paper at a time). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Years ago, the newspaper industry tried to start a constorium of its online news services, the New Century Network, and among the thing -- the too many things -- it tried to do was create a uniform registration and login for all member sites. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Oh, if only that existed: Register once and get into any news sites without having to reregister or even log in and the sites get the data they want without pissing off their readers. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It would be nice if somebody would try to restart that initiative. Hint. Hint. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A nation undecided, not a nation divided
: I've been arguing for months, since the primaries (here, here, and here), that we are not a nation divided, we are a nation undecided.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Finally -- finally -- I have a story to link to that agrees with that argument. The cover of this weekend's NY Times Week in Review by John Tierney says -- at last -- that this red v. blue war we're supposedly waging is a product of the wishes of politicians. He neglects to say that it is also the figment of the wishful imagination of journalists raring for a fight to cover. Most voters are still centrists willing to consider a candidate from either party, but they rarely get the chance: It's become difficult for a centrist to be nominated for president or to Congress or the state legislature, said Morris P. Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford and senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"If the two presidential candidates this year were John McCain and Joe Lieberman, you'd see a lot more crossover and less polarization," said Professor Fiorina, mentioning the moderate Republican and Democratic senators. He is the co-author, along with Samuel J. Abrams of Harvard and Jeremy C. Pope of Stanford, of the forthcoming book, "Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"The bulk of the American citizenry is somewhat in the position of the unfortunate citizens of some third-world countries who try to stay out of the cross-fire while Maoist guerrillas and right-wing death squads shoot at each other," the book concludes. "Reports of a culture war are mostly wishful thinking and useful fund-raising strategies on the part of culture-war guerrillas, abetted by a media driven by the need to make the dull and everyday appear exciting and unprecedented."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The book presents evidence that voters in red and blue America are not far apart. Majorities in both places support stricter gun control as well as the death penalty; they strongly oppose giving blacks preference in hiring while also wanting the government to guarantee that blacks are treated fairly by employers. They're against outlawing abortion completely or allowing it under any circumstances, and their opinions on abortion have been fairly stable for three decades. Virtually identical majorities of Blues and Reds don't want a single party controlling the White House and Congress. Right. We're Americans, not extremists. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There's more. Paul DiMaggio, a sociologist at Princeton, says: "The two big surprises in our research," Professor DiMaggio said, "were the increasing agreement between churchgoing evangelicals and mainline Protestants, even on abortion, and the lack of increasing polarization between African-Americans and whites. Evangelicals have become less doctrinaire and more liberal on issues like gender roles. African-Americans are showing more diversity in straying from the liberal line on issues like government programs that assist minorities." Alan Wolfe of Boston College "called the culture war largely a product of intellectuals." He said that gay rights could have been a dividing line but that's not proving to be the case. But now, he says, it will probably be a minor issue. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Opinion on gay marriage and civil unions has fluctuated over the past year, but a Gallup poll last month showed increased support, with more than a third of Americans in favor of gay marriage and about half in favor of civil unions. The long-term trend has been to a great tolerance toward gays. The percentage of Americans favoring equal rights for homosexuals in employment has risen since 1977 by more than a third to about 80 percent today. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Support for gay rights has become especially strong among young voters, which suggests that the trend will continue.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"Gay rights could prove to be the issue that ends the culture war," Professor Wolfe said. "If gay marriage does not become a polarizing issue in 2004 - and it does not look like it will - there are no wedge issues left." The article goes on to blather rather unhelpfully on possible causes and disagreement; that's what editors think these articles have to do. It's still a good and important and overdue piece. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But there is still a big story to be reported and written here: Are we really a nation divided? And if not -- and I see evidence here that we are not -- then how did this become the accepted wisdom of media and politics? Who benefits from this chronic illusion of internal war? Who helped foster this myth? What questions did reporters and editors fail to ask? When we concentrate on disagreements in a democracy, are we painting democracy as a failure? But when we concentrate on the agreements in a democracy, don't we instead paint a picture of the shared values of the nation?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And why aren't media reporting -- admiting -- today that we are a nation? Just that: A nation. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We are America. Today, of all times -- as others attack us because we are American -- it is vital that we acknowledge our nationhood and define it, not out of patriotism or ethnicity (we have none) but as a matter of principle, the principle we are defending and fighting for. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We are not a nation divided. Hell, we are not even a world divided. Most Americans, most people, are just people trying to get through a day and a life and do the decent thing and improve their future and avoid politics. It is a mistake -- it is a damned and dangerous lie -- to paint the extremists as normal, whether those extremists are of political or religious. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We're not red v. blue. We're Americans. It's the world vs. America. It's Islamic nut jobs vs. America. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There's the story that needs reporting.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 13, 2004
It's just like New York before Guliani
: Here's a villa for sale in Baghdad: Big basement designed also as anti-aircraft bunker with water facilities. A mere $665k. [via Loic] PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff, cont.
: Some reaction to the Place for My Stuff post, below:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Evil Genius wants it and wants more: sync for contacts and calendars (a la .Mac), RSS information (including what has been read and what hasn't been... Shrook and FeedGator give you pieces of that), and TV and radio preferences to make better recommendations. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: VC Ed Sim doesn't want it all stored on the Internet but on a server in his home, like Mirra, solving privacy and security issues. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I still don't agree because: (1) Consumers won't understand why they should make a capital investment and it will be a hard sell -- witness the trouble TiVo has had getting going. (2) Consumers hate installing anything. (3) A service is more efficient -- it can offer you a terrabyte of storage but no one will use it all. (4) A service can constantly update itself with new software. (5) If the storage sits in the cloud, you can play your stuff on any device in the home -- or anywhere else -- without having to network anything; if you store your stuff on a home-based server in the den, it's not going to be easy to get to yourself from the bedroom TV. (6) It's possible -- possible -- that an in-the-cloud service can deal better with copyright issues. That is, you can store a legal copy of (or link to) a show or song among your stuff in the cloud and play it anytime anywhere and copy it onto limited devices (a la iPod) but not endlessly duplicate and distribute it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
For those last two reasons, cable companies stand well-positioned to provide place-for-my-stuff service. [Full disclosure: I sometimes work with a cable company.] A cable company can serve stuff to your home at high speed from the head-end and elsewhere via the Internet. A cable company will have relationships with entertainment companies and be trusted to hold "copies" of the shows you've bought or rented. But, as I said below, this service could be offered by many other service companies -- AOL, Yahoo, telco -- or software companiesy -- Microsoft -- or a new player. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In any case, I still think this will be a service business, not a hardware business. It will be an essential and big business. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Fred Wilson didn't respond to the post but he is complaining that BitTorrent is filling up his hard drive rapidly. I left a taunting comment saying that what he needs is a place for his stuff. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Ed Sim has a response to the response to the response. Go read it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Social censorship
: Well, here's a dark side to social software: The Chinese government set up a web site to get the citizens to report and rat out Internet sites so the regime can turn around and censor them. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Here's a South China Morning Post report. Here are some screenshots of censored sites. Says blogger Adam Morris: With the record the PRC has on internet dissidents, it’s like asking Chinese people to invite the government to lock up and detain, or otherwise mess with other innocent Chinese people.
It’s like they’re looking for moles.
It’s like during the Cultural Revolution when neighbors ratted on each other and ended up having to face self-criticisms. Adds Berkeley's Xiao Qiang at Many to Many: My view is actually this form of censorship can be quite powerful. This strategy is complimentary to, yet much more effective than simply controlling internet use through law and regulations, and blocking access to foreign sites. It goes together with the governments other efforts such as forcing ISPs and ICPs to show what it calls self discipline and using internet police units to monitor online activity, including people surfing in the many thousands of internet cafes. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Chinese authorities are once again using a strategy which mixes intimidation, uncertainty, and divide and conquer techniques to create fear and distrust among people, therefore forcing internet users to censor themselves online. The Daily Stern: If it quacks like a censor...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: When I started writing the post above, I just wanted to tell you about this news from China. But as I followed more links and read more descriptions, I found that, hmmmmm, this sure does sound a lot like what the American FCC, the Federal Censorship Commission, is doing: PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It set up a web site encouraging citizens to submit complaints about broadcast content. It listens to the zealots it wants to listen to and fines Howard Stern but not Oprah Winfrey. It won't issue specific rules of what is allowed and isn't and instead -- to paraphrase the words above -- uses a strategy that mixes intimidation, uncertainty, and divide-and-conquer techniques to create fear and distrust among broadcasters, therefore forcing them to censor themselves. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Government censorship is government censorship, no matter whether the governmnent is Chinese or American. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I guess that's why they call him Chairman Powell.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
\PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
All the world's a network and all the men and women merely shows
: From Rafat Ali's intelligence service -- a listing of jobs that lets you know what companies are working on -- there's this radio job from Gallup: We are expanding the world’s knowledge of important issues through a new polling-based Internet broadcast, Gallup World News. We are looking for a visionary Producer to manage and oversee production of this daily show. This individual must be creative and fascinated with ideas, new audiences to reach, and different markets to expand. Of course, before the Internet, a company like Gallup never could have considered creating a radio show; the effort to get distribution would have been huge. Now that everyone has distribution, everyone can have a radio show (or TV show or magazine or newspaper). Of course, individuals are doing this with weblogs but companies can, too. They can create -- or better, underwrite -- programming that reaches the audience they want to reach and is compatible with their brands and message. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Of course, we assume Gallup will do more than just read poll results; that would be the dullest radio show or worst commercial ever created. But Gallup can create a show that's about opinion and what the people really think and why we do what we do, filled with experts and real opinionated people -- just as Nike got people to create films about speed -- and Motorola is underwriting a gallery of phonecam images. Gallup would be wise to draw people to its new show and brand by underwriting -- that is, sponsoring or advertising on -- lots of opinioned citizens media. The possibilities in this new world are endless.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 12, 2004
One of so many
: Today, June 12, Anne Frank would have celebrated her 75th birthday. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Calling Flemington bloggers
: Go see Will Richardson's blog. If you're a blogger in or around Flemington, NJ, please stand up and be counted as we try to make Flemington into a pilot project for logging blogging... and video! More later. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 11, 2004
The right to an obituary
: Ronald Reagan is eulogized and memoralized and buried. And some around the world don't understand how we do this here. Some don't understand why we -- his political friends and foes -- can remember only the good at a time like this and nevermind the "buts."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But that is how we do it in America. We believe in a right to an obituary that pays tribute and remembers the good and says a fond farwell. So that is what we gave Ronald Reagan, (almost) all of us. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That is what I want. I always said when I worked on newspapers that the only fringe benefit I will ever get for having worked there is a nice obit. When I go, I expect obits to run wherever I worked: in Chicago and San Francisco and New York and Detroit and even Burlington, Iowa (perhaps that's why I worked so many places, to get so many obits). I hope for the courtesy of an obit in even The Times. And I expect that when they briefly run through my checkered career, they leave out the black squares and omit the customary word "troubled" before the phrase "launch of Entertainment Weekly," for example. I wish for a few nice words from family and friend.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That is how we say good-bye in America. I'm shocked when I read British obits that rehash the nasty bits in a life. I'm surprised when people expect us to dredge a life as we say farewell. That's how others do it. That's not how we do it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Farewell, Mr. President, and rest in peace. Thank you for your service.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
God and the White House
: Ron Reagan had a message as he talked about his father at his burial tonight. He said his father was an unabashedly religious man who did not make the mistake of other politicians: wearing his religion on his sleeve to win votes. When he was shot and almost killed, Ron said, his father saw it as God's wish that he stay and do good. "He accepted that as a responsibility and not as a mandate -- and there is a big difference."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Blogs 'n' brats
: Yup, we're definitely doing this weblog get-together thing all wrong. We have conferences. Iranians have festivals. And Germans grill wursts. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Different
: When Americans go to Germany, the big cultural difference that hits them in the face is store hours. It's a very inconvenient place. And a high German court just ruled it's a matter of constitutionality to keep it that way. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Heiko's unhappy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Celebrating weblogs in Iran
: Hoder, who started the weblog revolution in Iran, couldn't go to the Weblog Fesitval just held there -- imagine how hard that must be -- but he summarized some Persian reports on some remarkable quotes from officials on blogs: In Weblog Festival's closing ceremony, deputy of IT ministery and head research institute raised some important things about blogs in Iran.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The former, Nassrollah Jahangard, wished that every Iranian could have a blog one day and expressed the government's support for persian blogs which, in his mind, are defining the presence of Iran on the Net and make an identity for the Iranian community on the Internet. He also added that blogs are sort of cultureal heritage for Iran and they will make the future of it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The latter, Sohrab Razeghi, said that blogs and the values they carry with themseves are the begining of a modern society in Iran. He said that the openness, subversiveness, and a sense of individualism which are visible among Iranian weblogs are completely new things in the society. he then rejected the idea of government support and said that they should leave the persian blogoshpere alone and let it go in whatever direction it wants.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm actually surprised by mr. Razaghi's comments and believe that he is one the few officials who has really understood the nature of blogging and how it's been evolving in the Iranian online commuinity. What's also amazing about this is that the government is taking a prideful role in weblogs in Iran -- a country that has arrested bloggers for what they've blogged -- while here, the government could care less about this new trend. Come to think of it, I probably like the latter course better. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
See Hoder's post for links to photos that look like no blog confab here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A place for my stuff
: I want a place on the Internet where I can store all my stuff so I can get to it from anywhere on any device to consume, modify, store, or share. This stuff could be anything -- my movies, music, to-do lists, shopping lists (for the family to update), contacts, documents, search history, bookmarks, photos, preferences, voicemail, anything, everything. And it should come with the functionality necessary to execute all those verbs I listed (e.g., a nice little list-making ap). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I want the ultimate -- in the words of George Carlin -- place for my stuff. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Count on this: It will be a big consumer business. I said below, in the middle of another post, that this could come from phone or cable companies, from Google or Microsoft or Yahoo, or from a new company (VCs: pay attention!). A server for everyone and everyone on a server. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm writing this again to highlight it because I see lots of people dancing around this need and desire. See Jason Kottke's smart post about his three wishes for TiVo, inspired by their move into Internet-delivered programming. I agree with two of his wants: He wants TiVo to make better, smarter, categorized recommendations. And he wants TiVo to create community around TV since it is, after all, a social experience. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But I disagree with his third wish: That TiVo becomes the Internet-accessible place for your stuff, complete with that list application. I wonder whether that's not better up in the cloud because (1) you can get to it from anywhere -- even multiple TVs, (2) the storage can be unlimited -- see GMail, and (3) it won't go obsolete. But I agree that I want it, too. Is technology like Christmas: If I hint enough, I'll get it?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: I once worked with a German company called Twest.de that was going to deliver the shopping-list ap and other great little bits that treated the Internet like a life's operating system. Wrong time, wrong platform, wrong VCs, too bad. But now the time has come. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The click vote
: CBS Marketwatch quotes Nielsen on online political traffic and spending: John Kerry appears to be the candidate of choice among Web surfers, but it's still a close race. During April, about 1.6 million people visited the Democrat's site, while 1.5 million perused GeorgeBush.com. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
These numbers come from Nielsen/Net Ratings (NTRT: news, chart, profile).PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Apparently, the Republicans' online advertising isn't doing them much good, even though the party is spending a lot more money. Re-election messages were flashed at 190 million people in April, compared to just 52 million who saw Democrat banners. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Citizens' TV: The people's commercials
: In response to my Explode Your TV post below, Maury Rosenfeld emailed to tell me about the wonderful SpecSpot site, where filmmakers go to show off the commercials they've made on spec and on their own dime to impress the advertising community.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Any newspaper classified campaign should try this spot. Budweiser: Ditto for this one or even better this one. Canon (or any video camera maker): Grab this one. Coke: If you have any sense, go take this commercial and just run it. And MTV: Why not?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Maury explains: Young directors are creating well thought out and well executed TV commercials, on their own dime, in order to "get discovered". These guys usually shoot high end video, sometimes film, with "real" LA crews... they beg/borrow/steal favors, and make promises of future work (when they "make it big")... burn through their credit cards, and, as you mentioned, they take maximum advantage of the inexpensive software: editing, audio, fx etc to make these. I'd imagine that the typical budget for one of these spots is between $500 and $5k, most closer to the former. For reference, comparable spots produced "conventionally" would cost at least $180k - $200k, and that would be hard to do. More typically, they'd be budgeted between $240k-$350k and higher. This raises all sorts of great possibilities. We've seen contests to make commercials for brands within tight restraints. But why not open it up? Help your customers sell your products: Give them footage and product and prizes and attention and money. Sure, there are risks: They could put up commercials that aren't compatible with your carefully crafted and expensive brand message. But what if one of those commercials becomes viral; what if your customers love it; what if it drives sales; what if that's their way of telling you what your brand message really is? What could be better than hiring your customers as your agency? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I think I'll make commercials for brands I like. I have no problem using this space to warn you away from companies I don't like (see DoubleTree Sucks). So I'll recommend my favorite brands: Taco Bell, Apple, Ikea, Lexus, Boss, Stern, HBO... After all, these days, we are our brands. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Now wouldn't/shouldn't that be a marketer's orgasm: Citizens using their creativity to sell products to each other... for free.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: I see that Tom Biro just wrote about SpecSpot too. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern: Swinging the election
: TOLD YA: Polls are showing the impact of the Howard Stern voter. Now, a new poll says Stern - with an estimated weekly audience of 8.5 million - could be Kerry's key to getting crucial swing voters on his bandwagon. The New Democratic Network's poll says (my emphasis): Potentially offsetting the conservative dominance of the radio waves is Howard Stern. The nationally-syndicated radio host is listened to by 17 percent of likely voters, and nationally, they would support Kerry over Bush by a margin of 53 percent to 43 percent. In the battleground states, their preference for Kerry is even stronger, backing him by a margin of 59 percent to 37 percent. More importantly, one-quarter of all likely voting Stern listeners are swing voters. This means that four percent of likely voters this fall are swing voters who listen to Howard Stern, showing Stern’s potential ability to impact the race. Generally, likely voters who are Stern listeners are: 2 to 1 male to female; 40 percent Democrats, 26 percent Republicans, and 34 percent Independents; more liberal and less conservative than the average voter; significantly younger than the average voter (two-thirds are under 50 and 40 percent are under 35); more diverse; and more driven in their vote by economic issues. : Here are some other notes of interest from the poll on Kerry, Bush, Nader, and media: Swing Voters Logging on for News. While television is still the dominant source of news, this poll shows that the Internet has emerged as major source of news, comparable in reach to radio. Indeed, among swing voters, 11 percent say that the Internet is their major source of news compared with 7 percent who say radio. Nationally, 12 percent say radio is their main source of news. No, I'm not going to start into blog triumphalism, arguing that we can swing the election. But the Internet is the great media-leveler and the day will come when the people, publishing, can have as much impact as publishers printing. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Stern can be a swinger but Nader is still a spoiler: Without Nader on the ballot, Kerry has a tiny lead, 47 percent to 46 percent. With Nader on the ballot, Kerry is losing 43 percent to 45 percent (with Nader drawing 6 percent). Nader is drawing his votes from independents and Democrats, the majority of whom would otherwise be voting for Kerry. Without Nader on the ballot, Nader voters prefer Kerry over Bush 58 percent to 22 percent....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Ralph Nader likes to say that he’s just as likely to draw Republican votes as Democratic and hence is not a real threat to cost John Kerry the election. This simply is not true. : Lots of other interesting notes in the poll, including the finding that among undecided voters, the swing issue is security and: these voters are more concerned than the average voter about Kerry’s ability to handle Iraq and protect America from terrorist attack. Even among female swing voters, it is security that is keeping them from becoming a solid Democratic vote. Security is also driving the gender gap wider apart. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 10, 2004
BBC covers Iraqi bloggers
: The BBC reports on Iraqi bloggers, focusing on the blogging brothers Omar, Ali, and Mohammed: One such blog is Iraq The Model, an online diary focusing mainly on politics and reform which is written and run by three Baghdad-based brothers - Mohammed, Omar and Ali. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Ali, a doctor, told BBC News Online that he and his brothers developed the blog because he wanted to send out a more positive message about events in his home country. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"More than 90% of major media outlets have a rather negative agenda and what's the benefit of us doing the same?" he asks. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"We do feel optimistic about the future of Iraq, but we see many facts about Iraq that are not covered, which is a shame." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"They [the media] ignore pictures of good relations between the Iraqis and the coalition and the good interaction between both sides, they only focus on bad events - like what is happening in Abu Ghraib." ...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Ali attributes the rise in popularity of such Iraqi blogs to both the growing number of Iraqis who have access to the internet and an emotional sense that Iraqis want to tell the world about their lives. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"There is an eagerness to reach out to the world and talk because we were silent for a long time," he says. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"They are happy that they can reach the world and that some people are listening and interacting." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Scoops
: Rafat Ali has a scoop about Starz and Real starting an Internet movie service. And Om Malik has a few scoops, too. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
As online bloggers -- especially in the trade arena -- get more readers they will get more sources and more scoops. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The mullahs strike again
: An Iranian journalist has been arrested because of what he published on the Iranian new portal Gooya. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: OFF WITH THEIR HEADS: Ernie Miller gets into a rightful and proper snitfit as he fisks Federal Censor Michael Powell's misplaced trumphalism after the Clear Quisling settlement: Clear Channel copped a plea that some of its broadcasts were indecent. We never find out which specific broadcasts though. "Mistakes were made, although we aren't quite sure exactly what." This is actually one of the scariest sentences in Powell's statement. These are the sort of government settlements one expects in dictatorships. The government gets people or organizations to admit some vague guilt, but how, exactly, they violated the law is never clearly demonstrated. : Ernie -- who has been a leader in media analyzing the importance of the FCC's expansion into profanity -- also wonders why the Clear Quisling decree does not mention profanity. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Travelin' man
: Won't be on the air much today because I'll be in the air and then going to an all-afternoon untrendy trend seminar without wi-fi.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm not meant to travel anymore. Got up too damned early this morning and checked my Continental flight status because, hey, I'm an online wonk and I can. Uh-oh: "Mandatory crew delay." Arrives at Newark too late for untrendy trends. Try to use airline sites to reserve new flight; can't because it's too close to flight time; rush out of room and throw the key at the desk; rush from airport hotel to airport hoping for 6a flight to Laguardia (worry about car at Newark later); American sold out until 8a; grab it; slink back to hotel to get room back; get back online; write this dumb post.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Man, I'm not meant to do this anymore. Make my travels virtual.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Schmeckt gut
: Took the Northwestern crew out to the Berghoff tonight. Still the best damned creamed spinach anywhere. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 09, 2004
F' vous
: Chirac, in the words of the BBC, snubs Bush's suggestion that NATO should get involved in Iraq. Well, that means he's snubbing Kerry's suggestion, too, since that's at the heart of his strategy. He's just snubbing America, again.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Blogs read in the halls of power
: For the second time (the first was in the NY Post, this is in the Wall Street Journal), Paul Wolfowitz is quoting Iraqi bloggers. After a suicide car bombing killed Iraqi Interim Governing Council President Izzedine Salim and eight others on May 17, one Iraqi put that act of terror into a larger perspective for those who wonder if democracy can work in Iraq. His name is Omar, one of the new Iraqi "bloggers," and he wrote on his Web log: "We cannot . . . protect every single person, including our leaders and the higher officials who make favorite targets for the terrorists--but we can make their attempts go in vain by making our leadership 'replaceable.' "PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Exercising his newfound freedom of speech via the Internet, Omar addressed what he sees as the terrorists' fundamental misunderstanding about where Iraq is going. Terrorists--whether Saddamists or foreigners--"think in the same way their dictator-masters do," failing to grasp that the idea of leadership by an indispensable strongman applies to totalitarian regimes--not democracies. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Explode your TV
: TV is about to explode, just as publishing is exploding thanks to the web and weblogs. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Many elements are coming together that will mean the barrier to entry to TV is dropped to the ground. Anybody can produce TV. Anybody can distribute TV. And TV will thus be able to serve any interest. Just as you no longer need a printing press to publish, you no longer need a tower (or cable or satellite) to broadcast. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Of course, that's hardly a new prognostication. Many smart folks, like Adam Curry and Ernie Miller, have been writing about this for a long time (more links shortly). But now all the things that will make this happen are coming together quickly -- why, as fast as global climate change in The Day After Tomorrow. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I've been thinking a lot about what Doc Searls started here and continued here regarding radio and I believe that the tsunami will come first to TV because:
: TV is more exciting to consumers.
: TV is more exciting to advertisers (who have been trying to turn the Web into TV ever since it started).
: Thus there's more money in TV.
: There are also far greater savings in TV. Radio's already cheap to produce. TV isn't. But with new cameras and tools and citizen producers, just a few people (or even one person) can turn out decent TV today.
: TV does not bring with it the added expectation and difficulty of portability; we do expect to get radio everywhere but we don't (yet) watch it in our cars (much). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Citizens TV will not look like the early efforts at TV online. It won't be all edgy Atom films (nobody watches them). Neither will it exactly mimic broadcast and cable (why bother?). But you can, today, turn out useful TV with little effort and expense. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
For example, you could with one camera person and one host and a little editing create a house remake show like the ones my wife and I now love to watch. You could create local shows about sports or politics. You could review movies. You could test drive cars or gadgets. You could teach people how to use, oh, PowerPoint. Or you could create source material: Tape the board of ed meeting and put it online. And then you can distribute it. And then you can get people to watch it. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Here's how it comes together: PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Tools: It will take one now-inexpensive camera, one host, and some editing on inexpensive tools like Visual Communicator or even free, open-source tools, if you wish (Terry Heaton sent me to the work of Drazen Pantic, who can put an entire free editing suite on one bootable disc). That's cheap.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Distribution: You'll no longer need to break into the cable or broadcast or syndication biz. You can put it up on the Internet. Once was, that would cost you a fortune in bandwidth. But thanks to BitTorrent and Broadcatching (see frequent Ernie Miller posts) -- peer-to-peer distribution -- the audience shares the cost. That (pardon me) is the wonder of distributed distribution.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Marketing: The only way to market TV content in the past was, of course, to get distribution. But that changes in this new world where everyone can distribute. How does a weblog get seen? Because people link to it. How will citizens TV get seen? When weblogs and citizens link to it. Also see what Doc has been saying about sending out RSS notifications of new content. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Again, this isn't all new but it is all coming together. I've been collecting links to stories that dance around all this in recent days:
: The New York Times today reports that TiVo will allow you to store and watch shows not just from cable and broadcast but also from the Internet. Soon you can create shows direct-to-TiVo.
: The BBC is going to change the way you watch the Olympics, allowing you to make your own sportscast.
: CableNewser reports that CNN is developing a broadband channel, competing with its cable channels.
: The Times also reported the other day about TV networks that can't get on regular analog cable tiers and so they're moving to the digital tier and then to the video-on-demand tier. Well, it's not far at all to see them distributed on the Internet.
: See PaidContent.org's coverage of Internet-delivered TV networks that go into boxes on your TV: Akimbo and TimeShiftv.com. And get a load of the programming they offer: niches of niches -- Africa Movies, Asian Beauties, Billiard Club, OutOfTheCloset.tv, Sail.tv, The Yoga Learning Center.
: And, of course, see various pioneers who've been writing about all this for sometime: Adam Curry, Doc Searls, Ernie Miller, Dave Winer....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
TV's exploding before our very eyes. Can't wait. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Six column-inches under
: Conventions you wish you were invited to: the 6th Great Obituary Writers' International Conference: In the closing minutes of the 6th Great Obituary Writers' International Conference (their title), one of the events that obituarists hate the most burst in on them. Just as Tim Bullamore, a Bath city councillor who writes for Fleet Street newspapers and the British Medical Journal, began an elaborate slide show on the glories of his city, where the conference takes place next year, someone rushed in and shouted: "Reagan's died!" PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Gasps of astonishment, cries of surprise, uproar and confusion. Several delegates sprinted to the hotel lobby's public call boxes or grabbed cellphones. The bringer of the news was surrounded and peppered with questions. Bullamore's presentation was ruined. Finally, he grabbed the microphone and bellowed: "Reagan's dead and he'll be deader. Let's go on with the show." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He resumed his slides, but it wasn't the same. The 40th president of the United States, Ronald Wilson Reagan, had died inconveniently and thrust obituarists into disarray. But really, they loved it. One delegate, her eyes sparkling, gushed: "Isn't this just wild?" [ via Editors Weblog] PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Do you speak fiddish?
: Protoblogger Steven I Weiss has just launched a blog for The Forward. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Hyperlocal
: I'm at Northwestern getting ready for the final presentation of the hyperlocal news project (go to GoSkokie.com). If appropriate, I'll blog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: The presentation of the Hyperlocal Citizens' Media project -- aka GoSkokie.com -- was great. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
My favorite part came at the end when fuddy-duddy, fuss-budgety, old journalism professors fretted about things that are wrong getting onto the web site. One was "scared as heck" and the other was actually "terrified." One of them warned that a thousand people could be misinformed. It was all quite sensationalistic.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The students shrugged at all the whipped-up fears and quickly said that the community edits itself and corrects errors. And because this medium -- at last -- lets the people have proprietorship over content, they take pride in getting it right and in their reputations. "The end result," said one student, "is an informed public reporting about what they know." Another student said, "It is a means for enacting change democratically." I raised my right-on! fist.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
These journalism students were not in the least bit scared, terrified, or reluctant to question who is a journalist and what is news. Their definition came out loud and clear: If it informs the community and enables democracy, it's good. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
They found a half dozen other hyperlocal citizens' media sites, including WestportNow.com, iBrattleboro.com, Fredericksburg.com, and LiveFromArlington.com. They put up software -- Geeklog -- to get it going. They went into Skokie to sell the site. And it took off, a bit slowly but then it gained altitude. They held a contest and got 100 people to register for the site, then 200. They added photos and video and audio. They created something real and plan to keep it going after school's out. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Other students presented a product -- web with a print companion -- aimed at teens in the Quad Cities of Iowa for the newspaper publisher there (I'm not supposed to give away anymore than that because they're giving the official presentation Friday). But at the end of it all, one (forward-thinking and not fuddy-duddy) j-prof saw something that tied both these presentations together: "It strike me," he said, "how very narrow the landscape of mainstream journalism is."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Not if these students have anything to do with the future of journalism.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm going to another presentation of the Hyperlocal project in downtown Chicago tonight and will be curious to see what the reaction of the j-pros is. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Don't let the designer door hit you in the ass
: Herbert Muschamp, hard-to-bear architecture critic of The Times, says he's tired of the beat.... which should have been obvious to his editors long since. The American skyline of the future will have to get along without any more chunks of quartz, children’s balloons or moon palaces: Herbert Muschamp, The New York Times’ fanciful architecture critic, has told his bosses that he’s getting tired of his current duties and intends to step down before long.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"He’s still the architecture critic," said culture editor Jonathan Landman. But according to Mr. Landman, Mr. Muschamp said he feels that he’s "running out the string"—an unusually straightforward and familiar metaphor, given Mr. Muschamp’s record. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Daily Stern
: CLEAR QUISLING: Clear Channel is settling its indecency case with the FCC. The New York Times reports they will pay $1.75 million (beating the prior record Stern/Viacom settlement of $1.70 million) on top of the $495k they agreed to pay because of Bubba the Love Sponge. The Washington Post's report here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Clear Channel will also admit that it aired indecent programming.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Quislings.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If they had balls or a spine or a soul or a brain, they'd fight this as a matter of Constitutional principle, as a defense of the First Amendment, and simply as good business. For now that they have knuckled under to the FCC, there's no telling what's next.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: SPEAKING OF QUISLINGS: Ernie Miller reports that John Kerry has "clarified" his stance on FCC regulation of cable content. [Kerry spokesperson] Davis suggested that Kerry was not seeking either a crackdown or a free pass for cable and satellite, but a middle ground. Well, that's as clear as Clear Channel. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Man, Kerry, that fence must hurt when you plop down on it like that. Or maybe you're used to it by now. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: AND MORE QUISLINGS: Kerry would grow balls or a spine on this issue if just one thing happened: If Hollywood rose up to defend free speech and demand that Kerry defend it -- or else they wouldn't raise money for him. But Hollywood isn't because, of course, Hollywood has not balls, spine, heart, soul, brain, or good sense. They don't understand that once censorship starts, it only grows. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Boortz says: "There is no greater threat to free speech than the government deciding what you get to see and hear."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Weblog festival
: A comment below reminds us that the Weblog Festival in Iran is on. I love that they don't have weblog conferences. They celebrate in a weblog festival. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The day after the day after
: Bored of sitting in my own little big of global warming -- see post below on the malfunctioning airconditioning at the Skokie DoubleStump -- I went across the street to see The Day After Tomorrow.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I don't want to be the last person on this warm earth to give it the pan it deserves. It's filled with career-crushing (read: Quaid-crushing) performances. It's chocked full of laughable lines ("break out the snow shoes!"). It's built on bad science as flimsy as the Arctic ice pack. It's The Poseidon Adventure -- but with an agenda. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But it's more than another crappy movie. It enrages me. And here's why:PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's bad enough that they picked on New York to destroy. It's bad enough that I had to watch our city being torn apart -- again. But it's worse that The Day After Tomorrow makes it our fault. This extends the horrid and offensive thinking of the age: That we brought terrorism on ourselves. This is the sick side effect of the age of victimhood: When it's not enough to enjoy the masochistic state of being the victim it's better to blame it on yourself. It's Fiskthink. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 08, 2004
Compare and contrast
: PaidContent tells us that Yahoo is testing a new home page.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What, they made it even messier?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Go look at Yahoo. Then go look at Google. Rococo vs. Reformation. Mess vs. not. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
DoubletTree sucks
: I'm imprisoned in a Doubletree "hotel" in Skokie right now in a sweltering room with an airconditioner that doesn't work and a front-desk "manager" who doesn't give a damn. Not that you should care. But some hapless traveler who may come upon this post someday stands warned. DoubleTree sucks. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In-N-Out
: I thought people would give up anything for an In-N-Out burger, even - ahem -their virginity. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But, no, Avril Lavigne wouldn't topple for Fred Durst's everything with fries. Best Week Ever (again) reports Avril's account: "I mentioned to Fred that I was hungry, like, 'I want an In-N-Out burger.' "He had someone go out and get me a whole box of them, with fries. I was like, 'Yeah!.' Then he took a private jet out to one of my shows, expecting me to bang him. He was disappointed that I wouldn't even go near him. He was a little pissed that I went to my room alone that night." PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A three-episode cruise
: Best Week Ever reports the perfect meeting of life and art: The Real Gilligan's Island: That's right -- Gilligan's Island is coming back on TBS -- and this time, you can be a part of it!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The producers of "Gilligan's Island" are teaming with the producers of the "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" to bring you The Real Gilligan's Island.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This all-new version of the classic sitcom will feature real life versions of the original show's characters: a real-life skipper, first mate, millionaire couple, movie star, professor and Kansas farm girl. And one of them could be you!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Just like the original show, the castaways will work together to get off the island, and episodes will include situations drawn from the original series.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So if you're the perfect Gilligan, Skipper, Thurston or Lovey Howell, Ginger Grant, Mary Ann, or The Professor (just what was his name, anyway?), fill out the application and mail it in, along with a video of yourself telling us why you'd make a great castaway.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Who knows, it could be you who takes the fateful trip to that tropic island nest. Go to the open casting call. Or nominate a favorite enemy... PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Come to think about it, about a reality Beverly Hillbillies? Petticoat Junction (who wouldn't want to watch that casting call?)? Cheers (the drunken reality show)? Taxi (with translators)? M*A*S*H (in Iraq!)?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Hired gun
: Hugh MacLeod advises how to use a blog to get a job: 3. Narrow the focus of your blog to just these 4-6 distinct parts. Create them as official categories, if you have to.
4. Blog like crazy about them.
5. If you're any good (I'm assuming you are) eventually somebody interesting will get a whiff of it, and invite you to scatter your pollen throughout their company in exchange for decent money, as opposed to doing it for free in the 'sphere.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Another blog confob
: Mary Hodder together with Chris Shipley, Susan Mernit, and Ross Mayfield are running a blog conference in northern Cal in July. They've asked me to blather; trying to work out the schedule now. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
On my way to Northwestern for the hyperlocal project. Blogging from Skokie later. Oh, how I love catching an earlier flight....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
No Olympics, please
: The NY Times reports on a blog fighting against having the Olympics come to New York. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
RSS primer
: Bob Stepno has a pretty good RSS primer/comparison chart in PC World. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Reverse publishing
: The San Diego Reader is republishing blogger Brian Dear's Brainstorms blog in the paper to show its readers what a blog is really like. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's a good idea. But it doesn't need to be a one-time thing.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The wise print publisher would take, say, Gizmodo and syndicate it in print. [via Blogistan]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Big Blog Company
: Jackie Danicki, whose au Currant blog I miss, is in the blog biz. She reports she's now an associate with the Big Blog Company, which "develops blogs for businesses and trains employees in how to blog (technical, writing guidelines, legal guidelines, etc). It's a blogger-run company and is already doing quite well." Good idea and good for her. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Big Blog Company is hiring! Full job spec here. Preferably Londoners. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And you know what happens to the fatted calf
: Johann Hari (one of the guys at Harry's place) gets past the insipid questions usually asked of the Dalia Lama in an interview in The Independent. And the holy man calls John fat. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Bacteria blog
: David Weinberger reports that Stoneyfield Farms has five yogurt blogs. They're best when they don't just tell the company's story but, instead, look at the world through the prism of the Stoneyfield brand: When they link out to stories about healthy women and children and the environment, they tell us that that's what the company cares about. If they essentially underwrite good blogs about things people care about, that can be good. When they tell me about Stoneyfield's work, well, I don't much care.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Convention assignment desk
: Do we know which bloggers have been credentialed to cover the Democratic National Convention?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I want to know so all of us can start assigning our pool bloggers. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Meanwhile, I neglected to link to the Demo Convention blog with lots already from Matt Stoller. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Helping the Monitor
: The Christian Science church is in financial trouble and so it is looking to end subsidies to the Christian Science Monitor: "We have begun plans for adjustments to the Monitor," Mrs. Campbell said. The goal is to support "the vital role of the Monitor in bringing the highest quality journalism to humanity, while bringing expenses in line with revenue."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Monitor staff members will shortly be asked to "help us formulate the next steps," Campbell said. "This could result in a paper with fewer pages and feature sections, as well as a leaner staff."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Trustees also said they plan to name a blue ribbon panel of experts from pertinent fields to submit ideas and recommendations aimed at moving the Monitor to profitability. The Trustees also invited comments from Monitor readers, which can be sent to ideas@csmonitor.com. Well, they could kill the print edition. Online, the former paper's journalists can serve the world without the limitations of broad physical distribution and the expense of production. Advertising is growing online. However, I see hardly any advertising on the Monitor's site. Is that because they aren't trying or because advertisers aren't buying? [via Romenesko] PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 07, 2004
Appled, piece by piece
: I can't wait to get the new Apple Airport Express. It took a few reads of the site to figure out all it can do for me: PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I can be untethered in hotel rooms.
I can use multiple laptops in hotel rooms.
I can wirelessly play music from a computer on any stereo in the house.
I can extend my wireless network.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
First, I got the iPod. Now this. Before long, I'll be an Apple customer again. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Keys
: I didn't even know that Daily Pundit Bill Quick has a San Francisco real estate blog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Honest day's work
: I smell a trend: This weekend, I linked to a report that ex-VC Andrew Anker is now a corp dev exec at SixApart. Now The Times reports that Steve Harmon, an ex-VC, is joining LiveDeal as a corp dev exec.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So VCs are finally getting real jobs.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
If you consider VP of corp dev a real job....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Blog ads work!
: Jeff Sharlet, editor of the (just redesigned) Revealer, a blog about religion at NYU (under Jay Rose), writes to tell me about his experience with advertising. Moral of the story: Ads on blogs worked. Ads on "media" sites didn't. Now you could argue that's true in part because advertising blogs on blogs is a kind of commercial echo chamber. But no, the blogs blew away the competition. Jeff writes:: The Revealer spent 7 k on advertising in the last month or so (most of our budget). We decided to divide it, roughly, between conventional online media and blog ads. Blog ads blew the conventional media out of the water.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The conventional media we chose were Beliefnet, Columbia Journalism Review, and American Journalism Review. CJR and AJR are small, specialty sites, but Beliefnet claims a readership of 2 million. I don't know what Talking Points, Little Green Footballs, and Daily Kos claim, but I'd estimate that our small, second-level blog ads on those sites EACH outperformed Beliefnet by a factor of 10. At least. Other blogs, like Matthew Yglesias, Reason's Hit and Run, and the Washington Monthly did so probably by a factor of five. And even very small blogs, like Donald Sensing's, beat Beliefnet. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The (Not Quite) Daily Stern
: WHERE'S THE BEEF? I was just thinking this weekend that there's now a good chance the indecent indecency legislation that was running through and is now hiding in Congress may not pass. The House passed its version. A Senate committee passed its. The Senate has not scheduled debate on the bill. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So perhaps naked Iraqis have displaced a naked tit in our legislators' priorities.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And sure enough, today the NY Times wrote that the legislation is stalled. But for all the legislative posturing, the prospects for such a measure reaching President Bush's desk before the November election appear far less assured than they did a few months ago. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In the Senate, a measure approved by the Commerce Committee in March has yet to be scheduled for discussion by the full body. The delay in bringing the Senate bill to the floor is tied partly to the broader politics of the Senate, where Republicans, who hold a slim 51-seat majority, have had difficulty passing major bills. But for the senators themselves, there is also the peril of investing too much political capital in a divisive issue, which has pitted some social conservatives and child-advocacy groups against big broadcasters and civil rights advocates. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In addition, the Senate version contains other controversial provisions - including one that would seek to curb violent content on television, not just sex and swearing - that the House bill explicitly avoided. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
"This looks like a cheap date to me,'' said Charles Cook, the editor of The Cook Political Report, a nonpartisan political newsletter. "You come out for motherhood, apple pie and 'decency,' and you know it's not going anywhere.'' Thank goodness for Congressional inefficiency and the common sense that bubbles up as a result. I know that there are legislators who knew they were supporting something unconstitutional. They convinced themselves they had to: How could you be against decency, they cried. But next at least some of them had to ask themselves: How could you be against free speech? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: KERRY, CENSOR: Some commenters tried to make hay out of John Kerry saying last week that he was in favor of broadcast content regulation where children are involved.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He has said that before. I have disagreed before. So has Stern. I don't like Kerry for that. I don't like him for other things, including his stand on media deregulation. But I do like him for many stands. That's politics. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Kerry is against expanding content regulation to cable. Small favor.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: BADA BING: Adam Thierer of the Cato Institute [via Ernie Miller] wrote at NRO who his daughter would not be watching The Sopranos (I, too, shooed my kids off to bed by 9p) and why that's his job, not Michael Powell's: While all parents face this same dilemma of figuring out what to let their children watch, the choice my wife and I make for our child may not be the same choice the couple across the street makes for their kids. But that's the nature of life in a free society. It's filled with tough choices, especially when it comes to raising kids.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
There is another alternative, of course. Our government could decide for us which shows are best for our children, or perhaps just determine which hours of the day certain shows could be aired in an attempt to shield our children's eyes and ears from them. While there are some who would welcome such a move, I would hope that there are still some other parents like me out there who aren't comfortable with the idea of calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent. When government acts to restrict what our children can see or hear, those restrictions bind the rest of us as well, including the millions of Americans who have no children at all. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Even if lawmakers have the best interests of children in mind, I take great offense at the notion that government officials must do this job for me and every other American family. Censorship on an individual/parental level is a fundamental part of being a good parent. But censorship at a governmental level is an entirely different matter because it means a small handful of individuals get to decide what the whole nation is permitted to see, hear or think. Right. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: SUCKING SUCKS: Kurt Andersen said in his Studio 360 commentary that his producers actually debated allowing his show to air "L.A. sucks" and that some public-radio affiliates bleeped that phrase. That's how far this has gone. The problem facing TV and radio is that to some community somewhere, saying something innocuous is going to be considered patently offensive. That's in the nature of indiscriminate broadcast media.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Consider one contemporary slang phrase: "to suck," meaning "to be inferior." Now once upon a time, in the etymological mists of the 1960s and 70s, I guess this intransitive verb referred to the transitive verb -- that is, to a particular sexual activity.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But it simply doesn't anymore in the current usage. To every American child whom our "community standards" are supposedly protecting, to say that something "sucks" just mean that it's lousy, stupid, crummy, crappy.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Uh-oh: the word “crappy” has its origins in an excretory activity, doesn’t it? ...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But for the last few years and especially the last few months, the FCC has dramatically raised the fines for indecent speech. And the FCC is also defining indecency more broadly than ever - in other words starting to ignore the context.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And broadcasters are buckling under. On this program a couple of weeks ago, for instance, in a discussion of a series of paintings about California, we aired a light-hearted sound bite of somebody challenging the idea that, quote, “L.A. sucks.” My producers debated whether to cut the quote out altogether - and decided against, but did feel obliged to warn all our stations in advance. Some of whom bleeped it....PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
In other words, you can really feel the chilling effect. Which to me is itself chilling. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Because the serious question we face here as a culture is whether we’re going to let our most easily offended communities dictate the rules of what can or can’t be said over the public airwaves.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Because if it’s the word “sucks” today, what’s it going to be tomorrow? Too far. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: F THE FCC: Declan McCullagh of CNET argues forcefully that the time has come to kill the FCC. He's against how they're regulating both technology and speech. These signs warn of an agency that is overreaching. If the FCC had been in charge of overseeing the Internet, we'd likely be waiting for the Mosaic Web browser to receive preliminary approval from the Wireline Competition Bureau. Instead, the Internet has transformed from a research curiosity into a mainstay of the world's economy--in less time than it took the FCC to approve the first cell phone licenses. Michael Powell and George Bush: If you're true deregulators, then deregulate the FCC out of existence. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Rose-colored eyeshade
: I guess they get tired of train-wreck stories in India. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Editors Weblog quotes the head of the Times of India -- which, I didn't know, is the largest English-language paper in the world with 2.4 million circ -- on making the news sunny even under clouds: Pradaeep Guha, publisher of The Times of India, the world's best-selling English newspaper, said that his paper's editorial policy is to emphasize good news - even in the midst of tragedy. For example, "Let's say that there has been a train accident. 100 people died; but five were rescued. We will publish this news with the following headline, 'Big Train Accident, 5 Rescued'. We include all the details, but emphasize the positive," Guha explained, adding that both readers and advertisers had responded positively to the upbeat tone. I should start reading their coverage of Iraq. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Neil McIntosh of Guardian Online adds that the same company is reportedly selling editorial coverage in "edvertorials." Mid Day had the full story. Neil quite properly laments: Is there nothing this newspaper group will stoop to in order to please advertisers? Selling advertising disguised as editorial. Adjusting the news agenda to better suit the surrounding ads. What next? And he wonders when readers will start deserting their titles. But when one title alone has 2.4 million subscribers, I guess you can afford to lose a few. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Fame and fortune
: The NY Times covers Gawker's custom-publishing for Nike. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Behind
: I'm going to the Trendwatching event this week but I'm appalled that they and the supposedly trendy Tribeca Grand don't have wi-fi. Untrendy!
I now will not stay in a hotel that doesn't have at least wired high-speed access. Amazing they'd pick a such a hotel for something called Trendwatching!PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Sopranos lines
: My favorite line from last night: Adriana... She wouldn't do five f'ing years. I thought she loved me... : Howard Stern's was the discussion over the painting: "You're the general, Ton'!" And my colleague's Peter Hauck's favorite line: "Event planning."
: Yours? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: Turns out Aint It Cool News had accurate spoilers ahead of time. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The Male Antidefamation League protests
: During a Howard commercial break this morning, I came in on the middle of a Billy Crystal interview on NPR (there's nothing worse than a serious Crytal... it's not fun, it's not funny). The interview, Susan Stamberg, without a micron of apparent irony, what he plays on his "Walkperson."
Arrrrggghh!
OK, that's it. I'm fed up with "man" being a bad word. I protest. I accuse NPR of bias and bigotry against us.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: UPDATE: Stan in the comments says I'm out of it (not the first time) and that "Walkperson" is from an old Billy Crystal bit (which, for all I know, could have been in the start of this fawnfest, which I missed.... anybody hear the interview?). I find no Google guidance on the connection. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 06, 2004
Protest the evils of oil and polyester!
: The World Naked Bike Ride protests oil dependency. Who the hell knows what flesh has to do with fuel but, hey, anything for cheap peeps. [via Jimmiz]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Unnews
: Ethan Zuckerman links to the U.N.'s list of most underreported stories and then lists five of his own. What are yours?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Catching up in Iraq
: I'm catching up with my reading of Iraqi weblogs. Read this from Baghdadi, an Iraqi-American, on the new government, and tell me whether you saw any of this excitement in media coverage: The beginning for the new Iraq has started and the people of Iraq finally got a government they should be proud of. I was so happy this morning watching the new Iraqi government and the names of those ministers and of course the new president. There was one moment during the whole ceremony that equated to the moment when they announced the capture of Saddam and that is when they announced the new president of Iraq, to me that was a dream comes true. I believe most of us young Iraqis when we hear the phrase president of Iraq, we think of Saddam and only Saddam. Well, history was made today Saddam and his clans have no chance of getting the power or any position in the new Iraq. Iraq is changing and I believe it is changing toward a free and democratic Iraq. I spoke with my family in Baghdad twice today and they are so excited about the new government, my brother was telling me that we all are praying for these guys and Inshallaha god will be with them. I think this is a new era for us and for the Middle East as a whole. Listening to all the names that were announced today, you can not, but think that this new government is the most educated individuals among all the governments in the Middle East. Most of them have a doctorate in their fields of expertise not to mention a lot of them have lived and gained there experience in the west. With the help of the US and the rest of the world, I believe these guys will definitely get Iraq out of this mess. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A year in the life
: A picture a day for a year in one of my favorite cities, Berlin. [via Kunstspaziergänge]PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Good swarms
: Steven Johnson not only gives some link charity to Spirit of America, he also seems something bigger going on here -- good swarms: But the site makes me wonder whether this isn't the beginning of a fascinating new chapter in the web's gift economy. Thanks to the passion of the bloggers themselves, and clustering technologies like Technorati and Blogdex, we've already mastered the art of locating and quickly swarming around the week's hot news item or thinkpiece. (You know the drill: Clay posts a provocative essay about power laws on Monday, and by Friday there are fifty in-depth responses, a dozen fact checks, ten suggestions for future research, and a handful of requests for the Lazy Web.) What Spirit Of America suggests is a version of that swarming directed towards Good Causes: someone halfway across the globe (or halfway across the country, or the county) puts out a call for help setting up a wi-fi network in an under-funded school, or repairing a sewage treatment facility, and within five days they're flooded with funds, spare parts, technical expertise, and good will. And when the network goes online, or the sewage starts getting processed again, we all get to see the results. (Maybe not so fun for sewage, but you get the idea.) And then we get to move on to the next cause.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Say 'blog!'
: Scoble imagines the blogging camera: Imagine a digital camera with Wifi built in, and with something like Radio UserLand built in. Now that'd be crazy, huh? Take a picture, have it automatically thrown up to a weblog whenever there's connectivity (which is quite often now -- even the San Francisco Giants' baseball stadium has WiFi). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Ground Zero's future
: The NY Times celebrates disarray in cultural plans for the World Trade Center site and in a typically self-indulgent editorial act has its own critics blather on about what they'd do there (or, actually, blather on to try to show how cute they can be). PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A.O. Scott, the movie critic, ends up absurdly but starts out ok: We already have more than our share of monuments to polite culture — more than we can use, actually. Furthermore, the concentration of dance companies, museums, performance spaces and whatever else on newly developed acreage is a recipe for urban desolation. The last time such a thing was tried on a large scale, it produced the Lincoln Center complex, which has demanded respect for 40 years without inspiring much in the way of love. Why, on the site of our biggest civic catastrophe, would we want yet another middle-brow mausoleum? Herbert Muschamp, as always, proves to be a self-centered blowhard....I have recently become more sympathetic to the "cop-out" position, which would mean abandoning the flawed ground zero design process altogether in favor of reconstructing the twin towers more or less as they were. Certainly, I'm prepared to defend reconstruction as a cultural act. It would be an offering to Mnemosyne, mother of the muses, from whom all culture flows.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
The reduction to essentials is a great New York tradition, evident in our engineering and in our art. It is the correct tradition to invoke here. And then, to insure its revival, I would propose a school, a center of unlearning as well as learning, a place for disembedding ourselves from the welter of fantasies that has enveloped the country in recent years. This guy should spend his time writing in crayon in the ward. What an insufferable bunch of offensive jibberish. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: But Steve Cuozo in the NY Post remains the voice of sanity regarding the World Trade Center. On Thursday, I was down there shaking my head at a still-destroyed building bringing back such unpleasant memories on the north side of the site. On Friday, Cuozo wrote about it: Nearly three years after 9/11, the blackened, 15-story, soot-caked ruin of Fiterman Hall continues to cast a pall on Downtown. The bleak relic not only darkens the north rim of Ground Zero, it threatens the economic viability of Larry Silverstein's new, $700 million 7 World Trade Center rising across the street from it. And everybody involved is passing the buck. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
That the macabre eyesore remains in place is a civic disgrace. New Yorkers took deserved pride in the swift cleanup of Ground Zero. Yet this white-brick structure just north of there, on the block bounded by West Broadway, Barclay and Greenwich streets and Park Place, still looks much as it did on Sept. 12, 2001. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
It's outrageous that such blight remains just weeks before the Freedom Tower — symbolic of Downtown's tremulous rebirth — breaks ground. And thanks to political gridlock, the eerie monstrosity may haunt the scene for a long time to come. Exactly.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Is a hero a hero only if you like the war?
: Cori Dauber reports this from Andy Rooney on Imus: His complaint was with the practice of considering all the soldiers, airmen, Marines, sailors and Coastguardsmen serving in Iraq as heroes. Most soldiers in Iraq, he said, "they're not heroes, they're victims. They got trapped in the Army."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And what about the WW II analogy? There was "no question about the ethical, moral, righteousness of our war against the Nazis." Today's situation is "not at all the same." (Even if you don't think we should have gone to war in Iraq, I still don't understand how people can argue against the moral righteousness of the war as a humanitarian intervention. It's just beyond me.)PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But Rooney continued: "They just don't have a righteous war to fight," and that's the only reason today's military forces aren't a Greatest Generation. "They don't have an occasion to rise to."PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Fascism is fascism, and it is always a righteous cause to fight fascism with an appetite for global conquest. I agre with Cori on all points and, as usual, disagree with Rooney. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
These soldiers were not trapped in the Army; they volunteered. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Why is getting rid of murdering fascists in Germany different from getting rid of murdering fascists in Iraq? PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
And -- in the context this discussion comes from, it's Bush talking about the war on terrorism and not just the war in Iraq -- this generation most certainly does have the occasion to rise to: the defeat of terrorism and Islamic mass murderers. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: And by the way, how come when a man goes on a rampage destroying buildings throughout his own town and nearly killing his own neighbors, he's known as a "nut" while people who do that in Iraq are known as "insurgents?"PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Seven
: John Battelle reports that Andrew Anker -- ex-head of Wired Digital, ex-VC -- has joined SixApart, making of Movable Type, as exec vp of corporate development. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
We are all journalists?
: Seth Godin says we are all journalists: So, there's now almost 3,000,000 bloggers tracked by some of the online services. That's 1% or so of the active online population, and since it seems as though the number is doubling every month or so, it's starting to get significant.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Remember how you used to curse journalists? Curse them for being lazy, or hyperbolic? ...
Now, everyone with a blog is a journalist. When you run a post accusing a politician of having no personality, for example, you're indulging the public's desire to elect a dinner partner, not a president. When you chime in on the day's talking points, you're a tool, not a new voice.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
So, we come to the moment of truth. Now that anyone who wants to be a journalist CAN be a journalist, are the ethics going to get better... or worse?PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'm an optimist most of the time, but on this issue, I'm afraid I'm a realist. Or we reinvent journalism.
PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
June 05, 2004
R.I.P.
: I won't have much to add to others' posts on the death of President Reagan. Here are lots of links at MaroonBlog. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I saw that somewhere
: FeedDemon 1.1 is out and it includes my favorite feature: search of recent feeds. This is the perfect answer to the hmmm-I-saw-that-somewhere problem.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Shucks, thanks
: Jessica makes a post to say: I am sorry I called Jeff Jarvis Howard Stern's Hand Puppet.
There. I said it. That's one of the nicest things anybody has ever said about me. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Which shows you what people say about me.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
A burger with a side of Hoobastank, and supersize my wi-fi
: Thanks to PaidContent's job listings, I see the McDonald's is hiring a consultant to make "digital customer services" a menu offering. McDonald's Digital Re-Imaging team is tasked with the identification, testing and optimization of new digital customer services for McDonald's restaurants. These self-funding or for profit services will enhance the McDonald's in-restaurant customer experience by leveraging our existing high-speed network. Examples of these services include Wi-Fi internet access and a myriad of content and connection applications. Why should Starbucks be the place to get online? McDonald's has a helluva lot more locations and cheaper drinks. And if Starbucks can go into the music business, why shouldn't McDonald's? It will sell to a younger, hipper (read: less jazzy, folksy) audience. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
No webflower, she
: Mary Hodder lists all the "social media in my pocket.'
And why did this sound vaguely like Mae WestPowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Michael and Me
: A filmmaker does a Michael Moore on Michael Moore, following him around trying futilely to get an interview -- and this guy had no problem getting distribution. Twin Cities filmmaker Mike Wilson's upcoming "Michael Moore Hates America" details his unsuccessful attempts to interview Moore, the director who won an Oscar two years ago for "Bowling for Columbine." ...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
At least three months before its release, the film has catapulted Wilson into national prominence. When an item about "Michael Moore Hates America" appeared on a showbiz Web site earlier this week, Wilson says, he was contacted by nine distributors who want to help book the documentary into theaters. : Moore's new trailer is up here. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
What's a witch?
: Parents should be slapped for taking young, young children to Harry Potter. In front of us just now was a young boy, 4ish, who had no idea what was happening, of course, and also has not yet learned his inside voice. He's asking confused questions every few minutes. As young Harry tries his kid-actor best to show a look of terror, the kid in front of us asked/demanded/shouted, "Why's he scared?" Well, kid, if you want to read about a thousand pages...PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: I thought the movie was better than the last two (and I didn't like the last two much): more plotting, more characterization, more maturity, less and-then-and-then-and-then narrative.
But my son liked the last one better. And my son's the one who's supposed to like it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
This picture will destroy the plastic-surgery industry
: One look is all it takes.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Explode your radio
: Doc Searls has a wonderful, brain-blasting post on the future of radio -- or what we all should imagine the future of radio to be. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
He starts noting that Nokia wants to make phones the preferred device for listening to radio (amen to that; I wish I could listen on my phone or my iPod and not have to carry another device to stay live with the world). And so Nokia wants stations to send data with songs and enable phones for purchase and limited interactivity. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Doc sees that bet and ups it four four big ideas. He wants stations, starting with NPR et al, to send out RSS notifications with programs. I want to hear more about what that can do (which is my way of saying I'm too stupid to get the full potential). Second, wants big companies to partner with small developers and he links to some examples. Yup. Third, he wants to improve the software we use to play Internet radio. Amen. Fourth, and this is where the brain starts to blow, he said: ...we need to take this chance to break radio free from the notion that it's just a commercial utility controlled by government and exempt from constitutional as well as common sense protections of free speech. That means we start our own stations, on which we play, much as we now blog, what we please. But not on the old broadcast model. Instead, on the new RSS-fortified interactive model. The one with the civic gestures we call links. Imagine a world in which all this comes together to take an old medium and explode and reinvent it: PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
: New means of transport bring richer data.
: New means of transport bring two-way communication.
: New means of transport bring new commerce and financial support.
: New high-speed, always-on-everywhere means of communication (3G cellular, wi-fi, and their successors) bring high-quality entertainment and communication to you wherever you go.
: New authoring tools allow anyone to create high-quality entertainment and distribute it to the world and even raise support for it.
: New tools yield new passion and new outlets for talent (see blogs)
: The result, as Doc says, is blog radio: an explosion of choice, talent, commerce, communication, interaction, entertainment. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Forget Howard Stern just going to satellite and reinventing radio. He should help create a whole new f'ing medium. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Link love/Tough love
: This story makes me wonder why anyone would pay attention to reporters analyzing a story when they could hear instead from a pro who speaks from experience -- that is, a player who blogs.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I'll start near the beginning: Jason Calacanis, founder of WeblogsInc, sent me and VC Fred Wilson emails gently whining that we had not given his new Autoblog any link love. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Fred returned, instead, with some tough love. He gave Jason some very fine advice. Damning with faint praise, he said Autoblog was the best looking of WeblogInc's blogs thus far; he then went on to say the rest "feel very bland." Next, he said he doesn't care about cars, being a New Yorker. Next, he asked, "Where is the advertising?" And finally, he said: I am not sure I get where Jason is going with Weblogs Inc. I thought it was a trade publishing model with a focus on tech and startups. But now he's got Engadget, AutoBlog, and BlogMaverick which are more consumer focused. It may be that he's putting up a lot and seeing what sticks. That's not a bad model early in a market. But I think he's eventually got to pick a target market and focus on it.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Bottom line - Autoblog is a nice blog. I bet it will build a good audience. I am rooting for Jason and everyone else who is trying to turn blogs into a business. Jason is smart, scrappy, hungry, bold, brave, and agressive. He'll figure it out. I agree with Fred. Most startups begin wanting to do a half-dozen things and then finally figure out the one thing they should be doing. Jason did the opposite: He started with a clear focus on trade tech blogs and then expanded into a half-dozen things from consumer to celebrity to software. I'd advise Jason to focus on building a big business on what he has proven he knows well: Take trade content and build it into a content, advertising, data, report, and conference business under a strong brand -- but at less cost than in the old, print world and way ahead of any of those old, print competitors. A company needs to figure out its essence -- just as I advised SixApart that they should be doing -- and that's what I happen to think the essence of WeblogsInc. will (or should) be. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
But that's not the point of telling the story. What impressed me about this little episode is that here's Fred Wilson, a top-of-the-heap VC who has raised and won (and, of course, lost) more money than most of us can count, giving free -- and public -- advice to Jason. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
I happened to sit last week with Fred and his partner Brad Burnham (who ought to be the next blogging VC) as I introduced them to someone else and as we chatted about this company and that, I was impressed anew with a VC's ability to summarize the essence of companies and industries and opportunities and risks in just a sentence. Through experience, they take on the art of abstraction of poets. And that's what Fred is giving Jason in that post. And he's doing in public, so -- unlike any time before -- we get to watch and listen and learn. It benefits Jason. It benefits Fred or else he wouldn't do it; this is how he will make contact with people who will come into the relationship knowing what he thinks. It benefits our baby industry because, as Fred says, if Jason succeeds it's good for everyone else who wants to succeed in this space. And it benefits us, the VC voyeurs.PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Finally, that's what makes me think there's no reason to listen to the analysis of a reporter who makes himself an instant expert on a company or an industry when we can go to a player's blog and learn from their expertise and experience. PowerDVD 5.6.0.3 Deluxe warez
Welcome to our new transparent world. <
| |