BuzzMachine
by Jeff Jarvis

August 31, 2004

Politics is conversation (or should be)

: Virginia Postrel nails it:

The most remarkable thing about the speech wasn't its content but how it was delivered. Giuliani spoke fluidly, but in an utterly conversational way, as though he had no text. Instead of trying for old-style oratory, which works for few contemporary speakers, he gave a model 21st-century performance.
This is the era of the Cluetrain. Conversations win. DVDDecrypter crack

Blather about to begin!

: I'm now at PS122 (looking rather out of place in the 'hood in my Conde protective coloration: last season's Hugo Boss green) ready for the blog panel. No wi-fi (you'd think there'd be a good socialist wi-fi thief on the block!); coming on thanks to Treo. I'm stoked on Chick Pea falafel and hummus. See you on the other side. DVDDecrypter crack

: It has been a blogacious day. I felt like the Jeffrey Katzenberg of citizens' media (he of the three breakfasts): One lunch with Rex Hammock, one with Matt Welch, coffee with Roger Simon (in the most secure Starbucks in the Western world, right next to the Convention). DVDDecrypter crack

From the front

: The Reason Hit & Run convention blog is great and I'm not just saying that because I'm seeing one of its bloggers and another on a panel tonight. DVDDecrypter crack

Dumb story du jour

: NPR send a reporter to the riverfront in Vietnam where Kerry served in his swift boat to discover that -- surprise, surprise, surprise -- the Vietnamese neither know nor care about the alleged controversy here. Somebody has too much time or money. DVDDecrypter crack

At the front

: I have to say I was shocked this morning as I came out of the PATH station at Herald Square, a block from Madison Square Garden, and saw the streets closed off with instant Checkpoint Charlies everywhere. DVDDecrypter crack

It's profoundly depressing seeing these changes brought on us by a few pieces of human slime. DVDDecrypter crack

And it's unsettling wondering why we don't need and have this level of security every day. DVDDecrypter crack

What is the right level of security for a thousand guys in funny hats and for all us New Yorkers? DVDDecrypter crack

: Time Warner staffers got disaster bags on their desks this week. DVDDecrypter crack

Can we win the war on terrorism (and Islamic fanaticism and tyranny)?

: Of course, we can't. DVDDecrypter crack

So I don't get the minor dustup over Bush telling Matt Lauer, when asked, "I don't think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that those who use terror as a tool are less acceptable in parts of the world."DVDDecrypter crack

In all fairness to Bush, he's right and it's right to say so: We will never be able to rest from this war. We will be on guard always. We can work not only to make sure the rest of the world rejects these evil slime, we can also tear apart their nests and replace them with lands of freedom and democracy. But these slime are the cockroaches of humankind. They will hide and they will morph. We will prevail. We will survive. We will succeed. But we won't "win" against every terrorist and we should not fool ourselves to think that that day at the surrender table will ever come. DVDDecrypter crack

America as we know and love it is nearing its end

: Hostess, maker of Wonder Bread and Twinkies, is facing insolvency.DVDDecrypter crack

What could be more American? Hell, I am Wonder Bread. And proud of it.DVDDecrypter crack

And when I was TV critic of TV Guide, I called shows "twinkie" so often, my editor made me stop. DVDDecrypter crack

Forget preserving landmarks and open space and the odd toad. We must preserve Wonder Bread and Twinkies!
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News judgment

: Amazing that WNBC in New York did not run Rudy's speech last night. This is New York. This is Rudy. And he was great. The ABC affil had football but the CBS and Fox stations had Rudy. DVDDecrypter crack

Sorry to say that I wasn't wowed by McCain. DVDDecrypter crack

And otherwise, even Fox wasn't showing much because, well, conventions are boring and newsless. DVDDecrypter crack

: I do wish Rudy would get back on the public stage. He could be the man to fix the FBI; I've been pushing for that since the day he left office. He could make a helluva head of Homeland Security, though that's an even more thankless job. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Rex Hammock puts it well on McCain: "John McCain is to Republicans what Bill Bradley is to Democrats. Bigger than life. Genuine greatness. But totally lacking the whole speech-making thing."
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August 30, 2004

Rudy's running

: Guliani clearly had too much fun being before a cheering crowd again. He will run for office soon. I hope. DVDDecrypter crack

Cleaning up the mud

: Leonard Witt says this is one way to clean up campaign mud: The St. Pete Times withdraws the endorsement of a slinging candidate and endorses his opponent. DVDDecrypter crack

Cell phone, cell phone, in my purse, who's the fairest in this verse?

: SmartMobs says women in Britain use cell phones to check their hair, makeup, and -- it being Britain -- teeth.

-- 20 percent of mobile users send snaps of themselves in new outfits to friends to see if they like them. DVDDecrypter crack

-- 18 per cent take pictures of shoes or clothes on display for the same reason. DVDDecrypter crack

-- 5 per cent take pictures of snappy dressers that they see on the high street to copy their style. DVDDecrypter crack

-- 15 per cent frequently pull out their camera-phones to photograph the sides and backs of their hair,DVDDecrypter crack

-- 10 per cent use their camera-phones as a mirror to check their make-up. DVDDecrypter crack

-- 4 per cent even resort to getting the phone out in the middle of a restaurant after dinner - to check their teeth.

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Vlogging the convention

: Folks from Unmediated are going to get new forms of video of the convention using Shawn Van Every's neat technology tonight. DVDDecrypter crack

I'm moving to Amsterdam

: HotSpot Amsterdam just went up, promising to spread wi-fi access across the entire city at reasonable rates. [via EditorsWeblog]DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey, the sequel

: The attorney for Golan Cipel said he would not file suit against almost-ex-Gov. McGreevey. This could still turn into criminal investigations into (a) whether Cipel did or did not try to blackmail McGreevey and (b) whether McGreevey violated the law hiring Cipel. It' ain't over until the skinny guy sings. DVDDecrypter crack

When blogs help... and hurt

: You won't be surprised to hear that I agree with half of this John Podhoretz column and disagree with the other half. John praises blogs for opening up media -- that's the half with which I disagree -- and he uses as evidence of bloggie goodness the Swift Vets story. Of course, I disagree with that. I would hate to think that mudslinging -- whether the mud is the Swifties' snipes or Moore's or those who went after Bush's military record -- is our proudest moment in this new medium. It's not. In any case, John as interesting things to say, so I quote:

I've been listening to mainstream-media types talk about the terrible threat posed to the news business by one new phenomenon or other since I began my career 22 years ago. The complaint is invariably, and drearily, the same: Whatever is new is bad because it supposedly lowers the historically high standards of the mainstream media. DVDDecrypter crack

The last two years in particular have seen the explosion of a new medium — the personal Internet newspaper, or blog — that has already and will forever change the way people get their information. DVDDecrypter crack

This is a thrilling development — unless you are a mainstream-media Big Fish.

Speaking as a bigmouth bass myself, I agree so far. And then...
The success of the Swift-boat vets' ads is the tale of the triumph of the nation's alternative media. The mainstreamers didn't want to touch the story with a 10-foot pole, and they didn't. But the alternative media did. Amateur reporters and fact-gatherers offered independent substantiation for some of the charges. It turned out the criticisms of the Swifties weren't quite so easily dismissed. DVDDecrypter crack

Because there was new information coming out every day, there was more and more to discuss on talk radio and cable news channels. And the story just wouldn't go away, because millions of people were interested in it.

I'd hate to think that we are just a field to grow fodder for talk-radio cud-chewing. Surely, we have a higher calling than that. John continues:
This democratization of the news is clearly a good thing, if only because it increases available sources of information in a democracy. DVDDecrypter crack

But it isn't a good thing if you're a proud part of an Establishment whose authority is being eroded and whose control of the marketplace is being successfully challenged. DVDDecrypter crack

What these Establishment-media types will never do — what they can never do — is consider the possibility that the 24-hour news cycle and the rise of talk radio and the Internet are all positive developments.

Agree with that. Disagree with this:
And I would argue they can't consider that possibility — not only because their platforms are slowly sliding into the quicksand, but because these alternative phenomena have been of great benefit to conservative ideas, anti-liberal attitudes and Republican politicians. DVDDecrypter crack

They hate the Swift-boat story. Hate it with a passion. Some of it's based in genuine conviction. Some of it's patently ideological. And some of it's based in fear. They are worried the bell is beginning to toll for them, and they're right.

There's nothing about this new medium that makes is essentially conservative or liberal or libertarian or vegetarian or whatever. It's just a way for people to communicate. And we agree that all this communicating -- well, most of it -- is a good thing. DVDDecrypter crack

Of French hostages and headscarves

: The irony is downright tragic: The French refuse to support the war in Iraq and yet Iraqi terrorists kidnap two French journalists anyway because the country bans Muslim headscarves. Both French decisions were wrong, in my book, but, of course, that's no reason to offer anything other than support to the hostages and their nation. DVDDecrypter crack

And I also offer this hope: That the French learn a lesson from this: There is no sense in cozying up to terrorists and in forgetting who your allies should be. To
the terrorists, all of civilization is an enemy... and that includes you, France. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan said it better than I could (of course):

One can only hope that Paris gets the message. There is no escaping this fight. It is civilization or Jihadism. We can and should debate tactics; but the sides are clear enough.

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Float like a butterfly, flack like a bee

: Here's the absurd political moment du jour: Don King being interviewed on FoxNews about why he loves George Bush -- and why Bush did not get much of the black vote last time around. Says Shouts Don: "The African-American does not understand the man."DVDDecrypter crack

I'll drink to that

: WebMD reports that 90 percent of heart attacks can be attributed directly to behavioral causes:

Heart researchers say nine risk factors — ones that you can do something about — account for 90% of all heart attacks. DVDDecrypter crack

Previously, researchers thought that only about half of heart attacks were explained by risk factors such as smoking or cholesterol. But now they say that the cause of almost all heart attacks can be pinpointed to one or more of the following:
: Smoking
: Abnormal cholesterol
: Diabetes
: High blood pressure
: Stress
: Abdominal obesity
: Sedentary lifestyle
: Eating too few fruits and vegetables
: Abstaining from alcohol

Get that: Abstaining from alcohol. Break out the merlot.DVDDecrypter crack

I note also that they defined "abdominal obesity" as a waist size in women over 32 inches and in men over 34 inches. Well, you're not going to be make fun of me for being a pencil-necked, 32-inch-waisted (drunken) geek anymore, are you?
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From the streets

: Getting ready for tomorrow night's PS122 blog panel (ok, it's another plug), I'm reading across fellow panelists blogs. Go to the blog of John Perry Barlow (the dancing protestor) for an entertaining report from the bike protest and a report on a resurgence of cocaine, the Republican drug, in New York. Go to Hit & Run for much good reporting, including Julian Sanchez' fun report on flash mobs getting carried away with themselves. And go to Gothamist for lots of reports from fellow blogs. DVDDecrypter crack

One thing voters of all parties can agree upon:

: Mimes and clowns are scary. Political mimes and clowns are also hard to take. [via Gothamist]DVDDecrypter crack

Come to my blogging panel... please!

: OK, here's the last plug for Tuesday night's blogging panel at PS122 in New York. DVDDecrypter crack

It's a stellar bunch and we just signed up Jay Rosen (my first choice in the first place). Ana Marie Cox had to drop out; Jay's not as pretty but he gives great panel. The rest of the panel: Douglas Rushkoff , Jen Chung of Gothamist, political blogging vet Cam Barrett, Julian Sanchez of Reason's Hit and Run, John Aravosis of AmericaBlog, and the legendary John Perry Barlow . DVDDecrypter crack

Click here to buy tickets (no, I don't get a cut... I need a new agent... hell, I need an agent). DVDDecrypter crack

It's at 7 p.m. Tuesday and here's how to get there: P.S. 122 is located at 150 First Ave. on the corner of E. 9th St., near the 1st Ave. stop on the "L" Train, the Astor Place stop on the 6 Train, the 8th st. stop on the N/R line and the 2nd Ave. stop on the F train.DVDDecrypter crack

Please also leave questions and topics for discussion in the comments here.
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The space is the substance

: Jay Rosen has an interesting post (of course) analyzing the space of the conventions: the RNC, with the folksy Bush among the people in the round... vs. the DNC, with Kerry up in the command podium, saluting... vs. the people on Seventh Avenue. (And he disagrees with me about the anachronistic nature of demonstrations.)DVDDecrypter crack

Doesn't the public know what is in the public's interest?

: Gawd, I cannot abide Michael J. Copps, the Democratic member of the FCC and the one most likely to tear down both the free marketplace of both ideas and commerce. DVDDecrypter crack

Today, he writes an op-ed in The Times that perfectly illustrates his nannyfied philosophy of government: He knows what we should know, he knows what we shouldn't hear hear, he wants to take care of us ... even if we don't want anybody to take care of us. DVDDecrypter crack

Copps argues that the networks should be airing the political conventions because we, the people own the airwaves and lend them to the networks, airing the conventions is in the public interest. DVDDecrypter crack

Well, let's examine those assumptions: DVDDecrypter crack

First, is it in the public interest to air the conventions? Well, I'd say that the public is in the best position to judge what is in its interest ... and the public doesn't watch conventions! So who the hell are you, Copps, to tell us what is in our interest? DVDDecrypter crack

Second, you assume that there is value in watching the conventions. But as we all know, no news happens there. They are merely overlong commercials that give absolutely no real sense of what the politicians and parties are all about. So what is the public good in airing them besides giving your politician buddies face time on TV?DVDDecrypter crack

This from the same guy who would fine Howard Stern off the air -- telling his milions of listeners that they should be listening to him, just because Copps says so -- and who would give government a role in deciding who cannot own broadcast outlets and thus who cannot have free speech. DVDDecrypter crack

Copps: Those are our airwaves, not yours.DVDDecrypter crack

Are you better off more liberal than four years ago...?

: Tom Watson (the American, not the blogging MP) says it's a myth that America has moved to the right under the forceful wind of Republican conservatism:

We can argue symbols, of course. (The phony marriage amendment comes to mind). And we should argue about policy. (Iraq). But answer these litmus test questions. Is the Federal government more powerful than it was five, 10, 20, 50 years ago? Does it collect more and spend more? Does it regulate much less? Have reproductive rights been rolled back? Do we spend less on education than we ever have in the past? Are we really more culturally conservative?
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Another "tie"?

: On Meet the Press yesterday, Tim Russert pulled out his tiny white board and started making electoral projections again. This time, he painted a picture of a tie:

MR. RUSSERT: ...so well, 2000 Election Night, the final count, Tom Brokaw, was 271 for George Bush, 267. Because of the changing population demographics, if George Bush wins the same states now, this year, as he won in 2000, it would be 278-260, all right? But let me show you something, Tom. If, in fact, New Hampshire and West Virginia switched to Kerry, New Hampshire being his neighbor, West Virginia having voted... Democrat three of the last four times, it would be 269-269, dead even in the Electoral College. The election would go to the House of Representatives...
Imagine that: Bush's first election was, uh, well, aided by the Supreme Court. And the second would be decided by the House of Representatives. It would be what the Constitution dictates. Nonetheless, what a sticky wicket that would be. Not that it would influence the direction of a second Bush term. He started off his first term acting like a had a mandate, though he didn't; 9/11 did far more to center him than the loss of the popular vote. Yes, the white board fun begins already....DVDDecrypter crack

Good news

: Fimoculous, the unique blogger, is back. DVDDecrypter crack

August 29, 2004

The 9/11 Report: More dissent

: I thought I was alone with my complaints about the 9/11 Commission and how it politicized the process ... and then, ironically, how it depoliticized the report to erase the edges and gather consensus at the cost of the best thinking ... and then how it sold the comforting but ultimately delusional coulda/woulda/shoulda notion that we could have prevented the attacks and are at fault if we don't prevent the next ... and then how it went on tour to impose its recommendations without the opportunity for debate. DVDDecrypter crack

Thank goodness, I am not alone. I have company far wiser than me. DVDDecrypter crack

Judge Richard A. Posner of the Seventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals writes a brilliant essay in Sunday's New York Times Book Review taking apart the too-quickly-accepted wisdom about the 9/11 Commission and its report. Says Judge Posner:

The document is an improbable literary triumph. DVDDecrypter crack

However, the commission's analysis and recommendations are unimpressive. The delay in the commission's getting up to speed was not its fault but that of the administration, which dragged its heels in turning over documents; yet with completion of its investigation deferred to the presidential election campaign season, the commission should have waited until after the election to release its report. That would have given it time to hone its analysis and advice. DVDDecrypter crack

The enormous public relations effort that the commission orchestrated to win support for the report before it could be digested also invites criticism -- though it was effective: in a poll conducted just after publication, 61 percent of the respondents said the commission had done a good job, though probably none of them had read the report. The participation of the relatives of the terrorists' victims (described in the report as the commission's ''partners'') lends an unserious note to the project (as does the relentless self-promotion of several of the members). One can feel for the families' loss, but being a victim's relative doesn't qualify a person to advise on how the disaster might have been prevented.

(Separately, read this poll of 9/11 families, in which The Times finds that their emotions do not reflect those of America at large. We didn't need a poll to intuit that.) DVDDecrypter crack

Posner goes on to tear apart the essential structure of the commission and its report:

Much more troublesome are the inclusion in the report of recommendations (rather than just investigative findings) and the commissioners' misplaced, though successful, quest for unanimity. Combining an investigation of the attacks with proposals for preventing future attacks is the same mistake as combining intelligence with policy. The way a problem is described is bound to influence the choice of how to solve it. The commission's contention that our intelligence structure is unsound predisposed it to blame the structure for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks, whether it did or not. And pressure for unanimity encourages just the kind of herd thinking now being blamed for that other recent intelligence failure -- the belief that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction. DVDDecrypter crack

At least the commission was consistent. It believes in centralizing intelligence, and people who prefer centralized, pyramidal governance structures to diversity and competition deprecate dissent. But insistence on unanimity, like central planning, deprives decision makers of a full range of alternatives. For all one knows, the price of unanimity was adopting recommendations that were the second choice of many of the commission's members or were consequences of horse trading. The premium placed on unanimity undermines the commission's conclusion that everybody in sight was to blame for the failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks. Given its political composition (and it is evident from the questioning of witnesses by the members that they had not forgotten which political party they belong to), the commission could not have achieved unanimity without apportioning equal blame to the Clinton and Bush administrations, whatever the members actually believe.

What a perfect expression of the fundamental flaw in the commission: Partisan masquerading as unpartisan; investigation morphing into advocacy; independence being abandoned for the sake of influence. By seeking unanimity, the commission silenced its own debate (or at least did not share it) and by silencing debate -- first, on the commission and then, in the country -- it cut off the effort to find the best solution that comes from the competition of the best ideas. DVDDecrypter crack

This will sound odd to say, but the problem with the commission was that it dwelled on the past. Well, of course, you say, wasn't that the mission: to find out what went wrong so it won't happen again? In part, yes. But just as the commission accused all of government of a "failure of imagination," the commission exhibited a similar failure by operating under twin assumptions. First, it assumed that we could have seen what would have happened that day and would have had the political and financial will to have prevented it -- when, in fact, most people would have called such intuition merely paranoia. (Imagine the reaction: "You want us to spend billions changing the entire travel industry because you think a hijacker might turn a jet into a bomb? Save it for the X Files, bud.") Second, it assumed that by learning how to prevent 9/11, we will be better prepared to prevent the next attack -- when, in fact, the next attack will be nothing like 9/11; it will be the product of the sick and nimble imagination of these fanatical terrorist enemies. Says Posner:

The tale of how we were surprised by the 9/11 attacks is a product of hindsight; it could not be otherwise. And with the aid of hindsight it is easy to identify missed opportunities (though fewer than had been suspected) to have prevented the attacks, and tempting to leap from that observation to the conclusion that the failure to prevent them was the result not of bad luck, the enemy's skill and ingenuity or the difficulty of defending against suicide attacks or protecting an almost infinite array of potential targets, but of systemic failures in the nation's intelligence and security apparatus that can be corrected by changing the apparatus. DVDDecrypter crack

That is the leap the commission makes, and it is not sustained by the report's narrative. The narrative points to something different, banal and deeply disturbing: that it is almost impossible to take effective action to prevent something that hasn't occurred previously. Once the 9/11 attacks did occur, measures were taken that have reduced the likelihood of a recurrence. But before the attacks, it was psychologically and politically impossible to take those measures. The government knew that Al Qaeda had attacked United States facilities and would do so again. But the idea that it would do so by infiltrating operatives into this country to learn to fly commercial aircraft and then crash such aircraft into buildings was so grotesque that anyone who had proposed that we take costly measures to prevent such an event would have been considered a candidate for commitment. No terrorist had hijacked an American commercial aircraft anywhere in the world since 1986....DVDDecrypter crack

The problem isn't just that people find it extraordinarily difficult to take novel risks seriously; it is also that there is no way the government can survey the entire range of possible disasters and act to prevent each and every one of them. As the commission observes, ''Historically, decisive security action took place only after a disaster had occurred or a specific plot had been discovered.'' It has always been thus, and probably always will be. For example, as the report explains, the 1993 truck bombing of the World Trade Center led to extensive safety improvements that markedly reduced the toll from the 9/11 attacks; in other words, only to the slight extent that the 9/11 attacks had a precedent were significant defensive steps taken in advance.

Posner goes on to say that our failures before 9/11 were not so dire as has been presented and neither have our failures since. He stops reading the narrative at page 338 and lists seven improvements in our defenses implied by the findings and he sees progress: Passengers and baggage are being screened and cockpit doors are secure; legal barriers to sharing information are down; customs is taking greater care with immigrants. He also argues that the thousands of agents assigned to an unwinnable war on drugs should be transferred to the far more urgent war on terrorism, though he acknowledges political impediments to that. We should be training more students in Arabic (I wonder why my local schools haven't added it) and we should have better evacuation plans for buildings. DVDDecrypter crack

His big point is that the FBI is the biggest problem; it's a police force that's not good at intelligence. But note this week that it's not the FBI that's being reorganized under the demands of the commission but the CIA. Posner has much more in his analysis of the CIA and the FBI and what to do with them; go read it all. DVDDecrypter crack

The most frightening thing about the 9/11 Commission report and the reaction to it is that we will do everything they so forcefully insist we should do and then we will relax and say, whew!, we're safe now. But, of course, we won't be. We secure planes and the terrorists attack trains. We secure New York and the terrorists attack New Jersey. We look for men and the terrorists send women. We expect bombs and the terrorists send germs. DVDDecrypter crack

The most frightening thing about the 9/11 Commission is its sureness. We shouldn't be so sure. Says Posner:

Illustrating the psychological and political difficulty of taking novel threats seriously, the commission's recommendations are implicitly concerned with preventing a more or less exact replay of 9/11. Apart from a few sentences on the possibility of nuclear terrorism, and of threats to other modes of transportation besides airplanes, the broader range of potential threats, notably those of bioterrorism and cyberterrorism, is ignored....DVDDecrypter crack

So the report ends on a flat note. But one can sympathize with the commission's problem. To conclude after a protracted, expensive and much ballyhooed investigation that there is really rather little that can be done to reduce the likelihood of future terrorist attacks beyond what is being done already, at least if the focus is on the sort of terrorist attacks that have occurred in the past rather than on the newer threats of bioterrorism and cyberterrorism, would be a real downer -- even a tad un-American. Americans are not fatalists. When a person dies at the age of 95, his family is apt to ascribe his death to a medical failure. When the nation experiences a surprise attack, our instinctive reaction is not that we were surprised by a clever adversary but that we had the wrong strategies or structure and let's change them and then we'll be safe. Actually, the strategies and structure weren't so bad; they've been improved; further improvements are likely to have only a marginal effect; and greater dangers may be gathering of which we are unaware and haven't a clue as to how to prevent.

Hell, even after I saw the result of the first jet hitting the first tower on September 11th, I didn't believe what I had seen. I heard people on the street around me who saw just what I saw say "plane" but I thought it was just a rumor and I wasn't alone. It was not until we heard about the Pentagon and saw the second jet hit that we could all be sure. DVDDecrypter crack

Yes, we suffer from a failure of imagination. We do not, thank God, have the sick imaginations of evil, murdering, fanatical terrorists. DVDDecrypter crack

That is precisely why we should not act sure. That is why we should be seeking more debate, not less; more frightening scenarios, not fewer; more suggestions, not just the commission's. DVDDecrypter crack

That is why we need more voices like Judge Posner's challenging us all. DVDDecrypter crack

August 28, 2004

Pop protest

: Jason Calacanis takes pix of protest posters around town. DVDDecrypter crack

Bush calls Kerry heroic

: Matt Lauer interviewed Bush today and in excerpts on the Nightly News, he is asked point blank whether Kerry's military service was "heroic." Bush said, yes, it was heroic. DVDDecrypter crack

"He's proud of his service and I'm proud of mine," Bush said. DVDDecrypter crack

Were they equally heroice? No, Bush said; Kerry want to Vietnam and that was more heroic than flying his plane. He said that if his unit had been called up to go to Vietnam, he would have gone, but he did not and Kerry did.DVDDecrypter crack

He said we should move on. I'll second that. DVDDecrypter crack

(The interview will be on Today Monday.)DVDDecrypter crack

What I want to know is...

: ... have Glenn Reynolds' family members taken to calling themselves Instas? DVDDecrypter crack

Decent debate

: Take a look at the comments -- 54 at latest count -- about the health care crisis in this post below. With the exception of one twit banned last night, the discussion is helpful, civil, intelligent, conversational. It's a decent debate. I said I hoped that we could devote our breath and bandwidth to something useful, like the healthcare debate, instead of useless, like the Swifties and the Mooreites, and, voila, given a real subject that really matters there is real debate. I'm relieved. DVDDecrypter crack

Demonstrations are so last century

: In the old days, if you wanted to be heard and didn't own a newspaper, you had to hold a demonstration so the people would see that you can a critical mass of folks who thought like you and so media would notice and tell the rest of the world. DVDDecrypter crack

But that was in the old days. DVDDecrypter crack

I read about the rude action of bike riders (a breed I, a runner, am not wildly fond of anyway) who blocked streets in New York because they wanted to protest somethingorother (do we really care what?). Oh, they get publicity. But they also piss off thousands of New Yorkers (who did nothing wrong to affect these left-turning bikers and deserve this treatment). And I'll bet that most people who saw their publicity (a) didn't notice what the cause was and (b) thought they were being pretty silly or rude. DVDDecrypter crack

Demonstrations aren't the way to get your message across anymore. Because now, you can own your own newspaper.DVDDecrypter crack

Yes, you know I'm going to say that you can get your message across on a blog. But, of course, that goes only so far. DVDDecrypter crack

You can also make a movie like F9/11 and get your message across -- and make a helluva lot of money as a bonus! F9/11 has not much more intellectual content than a demonstration full of hand-scrawled signs -- but it's more effective. DVDDecrypter crack

And as media continues to blow apart, you will have more and more ways to get your message across. DVDDecrypter crack

In a sense, this is a return to the roots of dissent: In America's earliest days, demonstrations couldn't work; there was never a critical mass of folks around. So, you wrote pamphlets. Today, you simply use the best media available and there is more of it. DVDDecrypter crack

Stopping me from getting to work and pissing me off is not the best way. And breaking the windows of the place where I buy my decaf certainly is not the way.DVDDecrypter crack

And besides, it's going to be hard to impress the old farts who once were young demonstrators. We demonstrated. We stopped our war. We're jaded now. DVDDecrypter crack

We're going to see lots of demonstrations this week. Many of them will be silly. Some will be rude. But all of them will start to look pretty damned anachronistic. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: If you can even figure out what the hell this protest is, then you probably have a dirtier mind than I do. Good for you. DVDDecrypter crack

But then if John Ashcroft would just sing...

: If even the Washington Times is making fun of the GOP, you know it has to be bad:

The most forlorn soul at the Republican National Convention in New York next week may be the "celebrity liaison," that dutiful GOPer whose job it will be to shuttle actors and musicians to Madison Square Garden.... DVDDecrypter crack

An announcement from Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie promises musical acts that "range from country to classical and from blues to punk." That might be true technically (although I'm not sure who fits the punk billing), but a more accurate release would have said, "a lot of country, a little gospel ... and anybody else we could scare up." DVDDecrypter crack

Brooks & Dunn, Sara Evans, Lee Ann Womack, Darryl Worley — these country stars would be A-list catches if the nation had no coasts.


DVDDecrypter crack

Love ads

: I really like this new online ad model that's bubbling up from John Battelle, inspired by Ross Mayfield, who in turn quoted me (lately linked by Marc Canter and Doc Searls).DVDDecrypter crack

The idea, in sum, is that an advertiser makes ads available and publishers (read: bloggers) select the ads that work for their sites (that is, interest their readers and perform financially). Their readers (read: bloggers), in turn, can take an ad they like and put it on their sites (giving the first blogger a small cut of the action). Advertisers know where all these ads appear (and whether the sites meet their rules; presumably they can pull ads). Advertisers pay only on performance and can refill the ad pot whenever they want or let the ad die if it doesn't perform or has met its goal. DVDDecrypter crack

As John says, what's great about this model is that it puts the publisher back in control. But it's more than that: It gives the advertiser, the publisher, and the reader all more control -- taking control away from a blind network such as Google. Most important: It makes advertising relevant again. DVDDecrypter crack

The problem with Google AdSense et al is that both the publisher and the advertiser lose all control to Google and real relevance is a crapshoot (with good odds, but a crapshoot nonetheless): The advertiser picks the mere coincidence of a word across sites he can't select; the publisher has essentially no control over the ads that appear and no control over the performance of the ad. In the end, advertiser, publisher, and reader are all less than optimally served. Google AdSense is working only because it's the first. But it's not the best. DVDDecrypter crack

The real power of this medium is that it is about relationships. As Doc said to me over lunch a few days ago, markets aren't just conversations; they are relationships. What advertisers should be striving for -- and what technology and network companies should strive to give them -- is not a relationship with a word but a relationship with a consumer. DVDDecrypter crack

: There's another wrinkle: When advertisers pay on performance (that is, clicks), the publisher is penalized if the advertiser's creative sucks. This has been a problem since the start of advertising online.DVDDecrypter crack

So if you really want to be really ballsy, the way to extend the Battelle/Mayfield idea is this:DVDDecrypter crack

Let the consumers create the ads. DVDDecrypter crack

Oh, sure, that sounds dangerous: It may be off message, the agency will fret. It could make the wrong promises, the client could worry. It could be offensive, the lawyers will complain. DVDDecrypter crack

OK, so build in some control: Make a compact with your publisher/blogger (read: consumer) partners: If you want to create an ad for our product (rather than just take the ad we, the agency, created), then we, the agency, get to approve it before it goes up. We, the agency, promise to be open about this: We will kill ads only if they violate the law or a clear set of rules. Otherwise, sure, go ahead, sell our products. Who better to sell them than fellow consumers? As I've been saying lately, a key to this medium is that it tears down the authority of media (and marketers) and establishes the authority of the audience. So let it rip. DVDDecrypter crack

And here's what makes this idea really work: First, the audience gets to see that an ad has been created by a fellow consumer and can go to that consumer's site; it brings an element of accountability and thus credibility. DVDDecrypter crack

Second, the agency can take those ads created by those consumers and use them elsewhere -- and pay the consumer who created them when they perform. Everybody wins. Well, almost everybody...DVDDecrypter crack

The only problem with that is that the creative department of the agency just went home early. But we can't let that stand in the way of a brave new world. Clients won't. DVDDecrypter crack

: Envision all this another way. Start with advertising nirvana: DVDDecrypter crack

A consumer who buys your product sells it for you to another consumer and you the marketer paid nothing to market it. OK, dream on. DVDDecrypter crack

Now step down the ladder one step from the bright light of marketing heaven: The consumer sells your product by creating an ad for you. Another consumer finds an audience for you by picking the ads that work well for his audience, for he knows his audience best. So you give them each a share of your incremental sales. And you have no risk. Still heavenly, eh?DVDDecrypter crack

Now take another step down the ladder: The consumers' ads don't work well or this is a new product they don't understand or your product is dull (the classic online toilet paper example), so you create the ad but the targeting still comes not from the coincidence of words but from the wisdom of publisher/bloggers knowing their audience. Still good. DVDDecrypter crack

Now take one more step down: Nobody's putting up your ad because it's dull ("Squeezably Soft" just isn't cutting it); relevance alone is not getting your ad out there; so you find yourself in an auction marketplace paying more to encourage placement of your ad (but, again, you have no risk because you pay
only on performance). Still beats the present models. DVDDecrypter crack

: All this operates under a simple law: DVDDecrypter crack

Put the consumer in control. DVDDecrypter crack

I've been screeching that in many a business meeting lately about many very different sorts of problems. But if you keep reminding yourself to put the consumer in control, you will win (if you deserve to; that is, if you're not producing overpriced, useless crap). Whether it's news or cars or cereal, consumers know what they want better than you, the marketers, do. And if you can't talk directly to consumers, then talk through their friends (read: the bloggers they read). And if your message isn't resonating with them, then let the consumers talk to fellow consumers. Put the consumer in control and you will win. The 2004 corrollary to that: Put a dumb computer network in control, and, in the longrun, you will lose. DVDDecrypter crack

: There's just one issue in all of this: Nobody has a good name for these ads. And you always need a snappy name. I propose love ads: Consumer create ads for products they love. Publishers place ads they know their readers will love. And who can't love that?DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Ross Mayfield adds up links in the discussion already. DVDDecrypter crack

Oh, no, we wore the same dress to the basketball game!

: Silliest damn thing on TV now: Bronze-medal basketball game delayed because both teams wore white. Guess they're not virgins. DVDDecrypter crack

'60s: The Reality Show

: Tim Oren and I enjoyed Larry Smith's piece about living in the pre-technology-revolution days of the year of our birth, 1954.DVDDecrypter crack

This would make a great reality show -- even better, actually, than the shows about living on the old prarie on PBS. DVDDecrypter crack

Wouldn't it be so much better to bring it close to home? Make the kids of a guy my age live in my youth (when, I tell them, we had black & white TV and only three channels and no computers and no Internet and no iPods and no microwave popcorn and no video games!). For that matter, make a guy my age live in that time and suffer, too. DVDDecrypter crack

The sequel: Make me live in my father's time (so I can verify that he really didn't walk to school 10 miles in the snow). DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Or you could be Doc and sneak along a laptop, bluetooth cellphone, and network link to the tent. DVDDecrypter crack

Take that!

: I quite enjoyed Jay Rosen's trash-talk reply to Jack Shafer's snotty self-importance as he complained that we don't have one press critic of the stature of St. Liebling. Said Jay:

A.J. Liebling wrote the Wayward Press column for the New Yorker. Shafer writes the Press Box column for Slate. Those are roughly similar activities. Shafer tells us that Liebling did 82 press columns over 18 years at the New Yorker. Judging by the Press Box archive, Shafer has written 200+ columns over four and a half years. Is it fair to ask: why has Shafer himself not emerged as the "next" Liebling? After all, he has the most interest in the question. The opportunity has been there for him, week to week. He had motive, means. Is it the anxiety of influence? Other priorities at the time? Lack of competition, perhaps?
They both miss the point; Shaffer really misses it. DVDDecrypter crack

We don't need a single one-size-critiques-all press critic anymore because we have thousands of press critics: Everybody can be a press critic today. That yields both better criticism and better press. DVDDecrypter crack

August 27, 2004

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water again

: Boy, synchronized swimmers scare me. DVDDecrypter crack

Is Botox a banned substance?DVDDecrypter crack

Outrage

: Every journalist and every civilized human on earth should be outraged at the murder of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni at the hands of the slime terrorists of Iraq. Not only is this a terrible crime against Mr. Baldoni, it is sure to chill coverage and freedom of information from war zones, trouble spots, and the Middle East as a whole. How many journalists will see facts and stories for you and me worth risking their lives? How many editors will assign journalists to possible death? DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Some of you probably wondered when I would hit my limit with spiteful, mean, venemous, stupid comments. Well, I just hit it. I closed the comments to this post and banned a bunch of mean fools without lives, hoping they take the hint and take their psychoses elsewhere. Sick people who turn murder into nothing but gunpowder to shoot their bile bullets are not welcome here. DVDDecrypter crack

This is a just a demo at the Afro in Baltimore. Nevermind. I have nothing more to say now. Aren't you lucky?DVDDecrypter crack

All about local

: Ed Cone has put together one heckuva local blog conference down his way. Tomorrow's the day. DVDDecrypter crack

The health-care war

: I am no fan of Paul Krugman's; rarely make it all the way through a column. But today's is a winner, for it rationally sets out the current choice in what I believe is one of the big two issues facing us the election (after the war on terrorism).

In other words, rising health care costs aren't just causing a rapid rise in the ranks of the uninsured (confirmed by yesterday's Census Bureau report); they're also, because of their link to employment, a major reason why this economic recovery has generated fewer jobs than any previous economic expansion.DVDDecrypter crack

Clearly, health care reform is an urgent social and economic issue. But who has the right answer?DVDDecrypter crack

The 2004 Economic Report of the President told us what George Bush's economists think, though we're unlikely to hear anything as blunt at next week's convention. According to the report, health costs are too high because people have too much insurance and purchase too much medical care. What we need, then, are policies, like tax-advantaged health savings accounts tied to plans with high deductibles, that induce people to pay more of their medical expenses out of pocket. (Cynics would say that this is just a rationale for yet another tax shelter for the wealthy, but the economists who wrote the report are probably sincere.)DVDDecrypter crack

John Kerry's economic advisers have a very different analysis: they believe that health costs are too high because private insurance companies have excessive overhead, mainly because they are trying to avoid covering high-risk patients. What we need, according to this view, is for the government to assume more of the risk, for example by picking up catastrophic health costs, thereby reducing the incentive for socially wasteful spending, and making employment-based insurance easier to get. DVDDecrypter crack

A smart economist can come up with theoretical justifications for either argument. The evidence suggests, however, that the Kerry position is much closer to the truth....DVDDecrypter crack

My health-economist friends say that it's unrealistic to call for a single-payer system here: the interest groups are too powerful, and the antigovernment propaganda of the right has become too well established in public opinion. All that we can hope for right now is a modest step in the right direction, like the one Mr. Kerry is proposing. I bow to their political wisdom. But let's not ignore the growing evidence that our dysfunctional medical system is bad not just for our health, but for our economy.

You can debate his conclusion, of course -- and I'd far rather see you debating that than all this Swiftie crap. That is what we should be spending our breath and bandwidth on, not mud. DVDDecrypter crack

The ethic of the link

: The background: Doc wrote a post about radio that I thought was great and so I linked to it. In that post, Doc said things that were too nice about me and I chose to ignore that because it would have seemed like tooting my own horn by pointing to it: My linkie Oscar moment (Doc likes me, he really likes me). But then Ben turned around and said that he thought it odd that I was pointing to Doc's post without acknowledging what seemed to Ben like some psychological conflict of interest (was I linking to get you to see the nice words? ... but then, if I really wanted you to see them, I would have mentioned them, no?). Ben didn't have comments then, so I sent him email explaining that I thought it was better not to mention my connection -- because Doc's post was so good -- but I did acknowledge debating the point. Ben started comments and put up my email, which is good. And Doc, typically, came back with a great internal debate on the point, which is my point of posting this whole shaggy-dog story. Says Doc:

Much of what we're doing here amounts to teamwork. It's not formal, or even conscious in many cases, but it does involve lots of "yes, and..." posting. Sometimes praise is involved. More often it isn't. What matters is that we're not doing it alone. And that we're only beginning to understand what that's about.
And then Mary Hodder joins in the discussion.
So I would say it's right to point, for referrals and attribution, and lineage of thought, for community building and transparency. I'd rather know that Doc and Jeff refer to each other explicitly, than have it all happen behind the scenes, as if we all develop every idea in a vacuum, the way old style journalism appears to develop their stories. The people formerly known as the audience still maintain some of the training from big media, where we were led to believe this was true and real. It is not. DVDDecrypter crack

This is a matter of people getting used to the new online queues, the new behaviors and tools that support them, including both first and second order ones. But as people adjust, I think this ethical question will be worked out, and people will see the transparency and linking for what it is, and appreciate knowing the lineage up front, so they might make their own decisions about the ideas, the texts and the relationships within different communities who collectively collaborate on ideas and plans.

And I link to -- and like -- them all.DVDDecrypter crack

Abu what?

: All Things Considered had a handy pronounciation guide to Abu Ghraib from a bunch of Baghdadi Arab speakers.DVDDecrypter crack

It's ah-BOO [throaty, breathy, rolling R]reb. DVDDecrypter crack

We're not a nation divided... we're a nation at the center

: The latest WSJ/NBC poll (free link) says that Bush holds a slight though statistically insignificant lead over Kerry but that his policies hurt him with undecided voters. DVDDecrypter crack

I've long been amazed at Bush's insistence on playing to his right wing. He certainly wasn't voted by a mandate! He did not have a right-wing revolution behind him. He gained strength across the board because of 9/11. If he had played to the center, he might have had a chance of getting votes he never could have gotten before (see: me) but he turned away those voters by swinging further right by appointing Ashcroft and lately by pushing the edge on gay marriage, stem-cell research, and by not pulling back his Vietnam attack hawks ... well, you know the list. I used to think this was ideology but now I wonder whether it is odd political paranoia: a chronic need to "solidify the base."DVDDecrypter crack

But my point isn't about Bush. It's about America. Once again, we're portrayed at a nation of extremes, red v. blue, when the truth is that the closeness of our votes only indicates our strong preference for the center. DVDDecrypter crack

The other important note from the poll is that Bush trails Kerry in 17 key battleground states. Usually by this time in an election, I'm ready to start making bets, state-by-state. But not this year, not quite yet. DVDDecrypter crack

August 26, 2004

Can't wait

: Engadget has the first pix of the new Treo 650 with features I've been waiting for. Where/when can I get one?DVDDecrypter crack

Whereabouts

: I'm headed to Baltimore Friday to talk to staffers at the Afro newspaper about citizens' media and all that. Blogging when possible. DVDDecrypter crack

Couldn't stay away

: Colleague/blogger/former-blogger/blogger Joe Territo found the blog taking over his life -- well, yeah -- and rashly killed it. Then his fans mourned. Seen it before. Once a blogger, always a blogger. DVDDecrypter crack

Joe tweaks me here. I was one of the folks who wanted him to return. So make it worth his while. Link love, people. Link love!DVDDecrypter crack

If you thought the campaign was dirty...

: As I passed through Chicago yesterday, a truly disgusting story I hadn't seen much elsewhere was all over the papers: The bus driver for the Dave Matthews Band dumped sewage from the bus into the river, hitting a tourist boat and a boatload of tourists to boot. DVDDecrypter crack

Anarchists: Don't you get an ideas in New York. Delegates: Stay on land. DVDDecrypter crack

Well, four out of five ain't bad

: Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, who supposedly taught the world how to die, died. DVDDecrypter crack

She argued that there are five stages to dying (unless hit by a bus): denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.

Two days ago, surrounded by children, grandchildren and two close friends, the woman who made it acceptable and imperative to talk openly about death and dying was asked whether she was ready to "transition."DVDDecrypter crack

"Not yet," said Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, 78, who started the discussions on the death process more than 35 years ago.DVDDecrypter crack

Since 1995, she had suffered a series of strokes that left her partially paralyzed and found herself working through the very stages of dying she outlined in the 1969 book, "On Death and Dying." She told friends and family she experienced them all: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.DVDDecrypter crack

"When will you know that you are ready?" her close friend, Brookes Cohen, asked at her bedside at an assisted-living facility in Scottsdale, Ariz.DVDDecrypter crack

"I will know it from my head to toe," she answered.DVDDecrypter crack

As hours passed, she lost the ability to talk, so her readiness went unacknowledged. She died Tuesday evening as her grandchildren played and the television blared in her room.

Sounds to me like she hadn't quite embraced No. 5. Can't blame her. DVDDecrypter crack

But this is a bit like Jim Fixx dying while running and Dr. Atkins dying while tubby. DVDDecrypter crack

That grim reaper does have a fine sense of irony.
DVDDecrypter crack

Take the pledge

: In every campaign, we get to the debates and we come to that moment when one candidate -- the most recently slimed -- turns to his opponent -- the most recent slimer -- and challenges him to take a pledge to run a clean campaign.DVDDecrypter crack

It's time to take the pledge now, boys. DVDDecrypter crack

But this time, it's the voters who will turn to you and tell you to put down the rocks. DVDDecrypter crack

We have just 11 weeks left until we pick a President. We have huge issues to debate. We have unprecedented threats facing us. We have new opportunities as well. The last thing we need right now is more mud.DVDDecrypter crack

I was going to wonder this morning whether this was the dirtiest campaign in modern history. But then Layne reminded me of a few others (see below). Yes, there have been dirtier dirty tricks. But the tenor of this campaign and its coverage is turning unrelievedly slimy. Enough. DVDDecrypter crack

Put down the rocks. Tell your bullies to put down their rocks. DVDDecrypter crack

Take the pledge, boys. DVDDecrypter crack

Memories...

: Ken Layne says the Bush campaign is just making dumb campaign moves reminding voters of both the fact that their guy ducked Vietnam while their opponent fought there and that their party has a history of a few, uh, less-than-stellar campaign techniques.

Doesn't anybody remember the backlash of the BlowJob Impeachment, or what happened to another incumbent Republican president with "overzealous" campaign advisors? As I've said about a dozen times on this site, when you work for the Bush / Cheney ticket, the last thing you want to do is remind people every day that John Kerry fought in Vietnam.
DVDDecrypter crack
August 25, 2004

Dance and the world dances with you

: John Perry Barlow plans to disrupt the RNC by breaking into spontaneous dancing. DVDDecrypter crack

Delegates will no doubt think this is normal New York behavior. Artsy-farts, we New Yorkers. DVDDecrypter crack

They're forever blowing bubbles

: Loved this phrase in Om Malik's coverage of the big injection of VC bucks into Vonage today:

Citron said Vonage was cash-flow positive excluding the costs of acquiring new customers, according to the newsreport.
That's like saying the company is cash-flow positive, excluding expenses. DVDDecrypter crack

Moooooo

: I am in the cattlecar that is Continental at O'Hare. Well, actually, I'm in the Kobe beef car, the airline club, and it still feels like we're livestock.DVDDecrypter crack

Why does anybody fly anywhere anymore?DVDDecrypter crack

Dead trees tell no tales

: Can't find the exact AP story I found in various papers today (I'm on a slow connection at the O'Hare lounge right now) but I find it hilarious that Barnes & Noble and other booksellers say they're being accused of bias for not having enough copies of the Swifties' tome when, of course, that is the fault of the Swifties' right-wing publisher, who clearly didn't believe in this enough to print enough copies. DVDDecrypter crack

See also Amazon's shift of its review policy on this book, giving into the mudslinging that has become the standard of this campaign:

"We've decided to suspend our normal customer review policies and rules for this title," according to the notice. "For example, we usually prohibit ad hominem attacks. That policy in particular seems to be incompatible with presidential election year politics. Therefore, short of obscenities, reviews on this book are now a free-for-all. We take no responsibility for the following discussion. Aren't presidential election years great? Have fun!"
Yes, what fun: democracy as a contact sport. Whippee!DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: The Reuters story:


Barnes & Noble, the world's largest bookseller, on Monday issued a statement saying it had sold out of the book and, in effect, held up its hands in surrender to what it called "thousands of complaints" from both supporters and detractors of the book. DVDDecrypter crack

Supporters, Barnes & Noble said, are claiming the bookseller has intentionally not stocked the title or is hiding it, while detractors are asking stores to remove it altogether. DVDDecrypter crack

"(Complaints) started in the stores, and the home office has been inundated as well," said a company spokeswoman.

And the AP:
Its publisher, Regnery Publishing Inc., won't have more books available until later this week, and that order also will not be able to meet demand, Barnes & Noble CEO Steve Riggio said in a release. DVDDecrypter crack

Riggio said Barnes & Noble has no political agenda. DVDDecrypter crack

"The fact is Regnery has not been able to keep up with customer demand for this title," he said. "Further, the publisher cut our original order for the book in half. We've been put in the difficult position of having to defend ourselves over a title we can't seem to get enough copies of from the publisher."

Well, gee, if the Swifties think this is so damned important, maybe they should just put it up on the web... for free. DVDDecrypter crack

Comrades at arms

: Got a nice email from Andrew Sullivan, on R&R, offering covering fire on the Swifties and Instaphnom. Hurry back from the beach, Andrew. DVDDecrypter crack

Campaign punches and punchlines

: Jon Stewart started his interview with John Kerry saying, "I watch a lot of the cable news shows, so I understand that you were never in Vietnam.". DVDDecrypter crack

Right?DVDDecrypter crack

At a time when the campaign has become so dirty and sad, it was smart to go on a show where people could not only get back to the issues but get back to civility and laughter. DVDDecrypter crack

Beats the news.DVDDecrypter crack

Character III

: The Freeway Blogger gives us historical perspective on character. (See the Revolutionary War Veterans for Truth.)
DVDDecrypter crack

Character: II

: If I were going to talk character as an issue -- and I won't -- I'd be more concerned about a candidate who allowed or condoned dirty campaigning in the present tense than about these particular supposed sins -- by either candidate -- in the past tense. DVDDecrypter crack

Every voter I know from both sides is turned off by the slime being slung during this campaign. DVDDecrypter crack

This is leadership?DVDDecrypter crack

You can say that the left was first with Michael Moore, attack dog, accusing Bush of deserting. And you'd be right. But it's the Swifties who are now leaving a bad taste in the mouths of voters.DVDDecrypter crack

In fact, if they keep going, I think there's a good chance that the Swifties and their ilk, having broken the camel's back, will end up winning this race for Kerry.DVDDecrypter crack

Character: I

: If all goes according to plan, the Philadelphia Inquirer's op-ed page will be reprinting my post about character as a nonissue today. DVDDecrypter crack

Very cool that the Inquirer quotes from blogs every Wednesday. That's the ticket: Listen to the people.DVDDecrypter crack

[And, hello, Philadelphians. I can't let this opportunity pass without giving my sister, the Rev. Cynthia Jarvis at Chestnut Hill Presbyterian, a plug.]DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: It's in the paper. DVDDecrypter crack

Whereabouts

: I'll be traveling much of today, going to Chicago to talk to a very big ad agency about the wonders of citizens' media. Posting when possible. DVDDecrypter crack

August 24, 2004

Four Olympic questions?

: Since when did men's swimming become the plumbing of sports: all butt cracks? DVDDecrypter crack

: And why is the BBC worried about nipples?DVDDecrypter crack

: Where has women's beach volleyball been my whole (adult) life?DVDDecrypter crack

: Did I really have to know that Misty May carries the ashes of her dear dead mother in a medicine bottle in her backpack and sprinkles them on the ashes of the volleyball sand? DVDDecrypter crack

Kill Blog

: Quentin Tarantino started a blog. [via AdRants]DVDDecrypter crack

Pardon?

: Maciej Ceglowski has moved to Montreal and is trying to adjust to Quebecois French and so he put up a handy chart of difficult translations, which includes:

What it says: sous-marin de 12 pouces
What I hear: undersea boat of twelve thumbs
What it really means: 12-inch sub
DVDDecrypter crack

You are what you wear

: TrendCentral says H&M will be putting out its own magazine in 22 countries this week. DVDDecrypter crack

Spirit of America: Drink beer and feel good (in more ways than one)

: Tonight, the Spirit of America -- a great charity that is raising money to help make life better for Iraqis -- is having a fundraiser with beer in New York. Details here. Sadly, I can't make it; traveling. But you should go!

Location: Heartland Brewery
35 Union Square West, New York, NY
When: Tuesday, August 24, 6:00pm to 8:00pm
Phone: (646) 366-0235
Cost: $40 for an open bar of wine+beer. Food will also be served.
DVDDecrypter crack

Old dog, new tricks

: Ev just noted the fifth birthday of Blogger. Little did he know then.... I knew less....DVDDecrypter crack

Ev et al et Blogger changed media and politics. Changed my career. Changed my damned life. But at first, I couldn't figure out what the hell it was. DVDDecrypter crack

It wasn't very long at all after that launch when I met Nick Denton because I'd read about this amazing thing he and chums had started called Moreover, which took headlines from all over the world and turned them into categorized feeds of the latest news. We had to invest. In those days, people went running after new companies to throw money at them (luckily, I didn't catch many but we did catch Moreover). And so I met Denton. DVDDecrypter crack

Nick, with his mumble-smart accent and practiced Brit cool, confused me about the business model for Moreover (I'm less confused now, or better be, since I'm on the board) and then said he had to show me something new. He and I used to compare great new things we'd found online. That ended years ago. DVDDecrypter crack

We huddled over my laptop connected to a dial-up line in our attorneys' office as he showed me Blogger at the rate of speed at which my son operates when he shows his grandparents things on computers and completely befuddles them: DVDDecrypter crack

See here, there's a story I like, I can hit this button and it will bring up this box and it has a link in it and I say this and then I hit this button and then I go to this page and, look, it's online!DVDDecrypter crack

Nick stared at me, awaiting my amazement -- rather the way I suspect Albert Einstein looked at his wife when he discovered relativity and she said, "That's nice, dear." I nodded politely. DVDDecrypter crack

I didn't get it for sometime -- a few months. I did get it in time to follow Nick's advice and get my employer to invest in Pyra/Blogger (which is now a nanoshare of Google, thank you very much). I did get it once I started reading what people did with this strange new tool. I started reading blogs.DVDDecrypter crack

And life changed. Oh, I'd long been a pop-culture populist. As a TV critic and as a reporter, I had long blathered in defense of the taste and intelligence of the people. But now I didn't need to speak for the people. Thanks to Blogger, the people spoke for themselves. And I loved listening.DVDDecrypter crack

As many of you know, I didn't start this blog until after Sept. 11. And as soon as I did, some of the great blogging pioneeers I'd been reading -- namely Welch and Layne -- started linking to be and I saw that this was not about content, this was about conversation. DVDDecrypter crack

Finally, long after Blogger was born and I first saw it, I started getting it. Or to put it in the obnoxious argot of our age: I grokked blogs. DVDDecrypter crack

And the rest is... well, a helluva lot of blather about the wonders of citizens' media and how it is changing the world, not to mention a helluva lot of blather right here on these pages, not to mention countless links and comments and conversations back and forth. DVDDecrypter crack

Did Blogger change the world five years ago? I think so, but that will stand open for debate for sometime yet. I do know it changed me. DVDDecrypter crack

Excellence in ass comfort

: Howard Stern just said he ordered a Rush Limbaugh Excellence in Broadcasting chair for $519. DVDDecrypter crack

August 23, 2004

From the front(s)

: Salam Pax puts up lots of pictures from his sojourns into Najaf and Sadr City. DVDDecrypter crack

War is sad

: Jay Rosen says the essence of the Swiftie story is sadness: It's sad that we're still fighting (over) Vietnam. DVDDecrypter crack

The way I said it this weekend: "The real lesson of the whole Swift Board brouhaha is this: America isn't over Vietnam -- not by a long shot."DVDDecrypter crack

Glenn Reynolds quotes Dale Franks today with a proposal for a truce -- the same one I have been proposing since the beginning of this:

In order to move the presidential campaign away from what happened or didn't happen in Vietnam 35 years ago, I offer a suggestion. Since the Kerry camp wishes to argue that official Navy records are conclusive proof that Kerry served honorably and with distinction, I suggest that those of us opposed to Kerry offer to accept that argument, as long as the Kerry people accept the logical corollary: the official Air Force records indicating George W. Bush was honorably discharged from his service is conclusive proof that he properly met his obligations as well.
Sold. DVDDecrypter crack

But now, sadly, we've moved from fighting over Vietnam again to fighting over who started fighting over Vietnam again. Reynolds says Kerry violated a truce on Vietnam in American politics. DVDDecrypter crack

Can you say "quagmire"? Vietnam was invoked by Iraq-war opponents and they would probably say it was Bush's fault for creating another Vietnam. (Readers of this site will know I am not a quagmirist and wouldn't take the position.)DVDDecrypter crack

Well, my fellow Americans, it seems we need to go back on the couch to deal with this Vietnam thing. DVDDecrypter crack

But in the meantime, we have a President to elect. Don't we all just want to move on?
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Technoloot

: Om Malik gets the scoop on Technorati's new financing, reportedly $6.5 million. Good. And congrats! (Now buy some servers or a new architecture that's reliable! That's because we depend on you.)DVDDecrypter crack

: MORE: Ross Mayfield also announces that he closed a round of financing, adding Pierre Omidyar to his list of illustrious investors. Congrats here, too!DVDDecrypter crack

: Omidyar (founder of eBay, in case you've just left the cave) also announces on his blog that he has expanded past a foundation to a fund to invest in and support for-profit ventures. I like the philosophy, of course:

To understand why we decided to expand, you have to understand how I look at things like eBay and Meetup.DVDDecrypter crack

In talking about eBay over the past few years, I've emphasized the way eBay has helped people pursue their individual passions and discover their own power to make good things happen; how they've become empowered by participating in an open and honest marketplace, in a level playing field, meeting and working/trading with people who share their interests.DVDDecrypter crack

When I first learned about Meetup, I saw much of the same thing at work, though quite different on the surface: people discovering their own power, and connecting with others to realize that power to make good things happen.DVDDecrypter crack

Ever since eBay, I've been inspired by people discovering their own power, and believed that every individual can make a difference....

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Yo, anarchists!

: I do hope that the anarchists coming to New York for the Republican convention aren't stupid enough to bring violence to this city. New Yorkers will not tolerate it. More violence -- violence from smelly, obnoxious Americans -- is the last thing this city needs. I swear if these bozos try any of their tricks, New Yorkers will as one descend upon them without mercy. DVDDecrypter crack

Last week, the Times wrote about anarchists as, well, unpredictable. DVDDecrypter crack

Then, last night, a commenter below pointed to the twits at Indymedia putting up the names, addresses, phone numbers, and hotels for RNC delegates -- and there's only one reason to do that: to spook or assault these people. I won't link to it so as not to be an accessory to this would-be crime.DVDDecrypter crack

Is character really an issue?

: It's accepted wisdom that character is an issue in elections, especially Presidential elections. Let's examine that assumption. DVDDecrypter crack

Sure, if you know with good evidence that a candidate is a lying, thieving, stealing, sliming, philadering, cheating, insane idiot and louse -- well, then, yes, character is an issue. DVDDecrypter crack

But when is any human being really so one-dimensionally flawed (and when -- since 1933 -- are every one of his backers so hypnotized or stupid or corrupt to allow him to get this far in life)? DVDDecrypter crack

Now I know what some of you are going to say: Aha! You have a problem with character because Kerry's character is being attacked and you're likely to vote for him; how friggin' convenient for you! Think what you will; you will anyway. I had the exact same problem with Michael Moore going after Bush's character and even went on CNN to defend Bush against Moore. I am equal-opportunity on this topic: I hate both sides' muck. So try to rise up out of the primordial ooze of political mud and mire for a moment and consider the question of the real value of debate over a candidate's -- any candidate's -- character. DVDDecrypter crack

I find that I have many problems with character as a campaign issue:DVDDecrypter crack

1. Character is not a measure of competence. And what I really want in a President is competence. Jimmy Carter had character; he was a terrible President. Jerry Ford was his Republican counterpart: good guy, nothing President. Bill Clinton ended up with a cracked character but I say he was a good President. Richard Nixon had the character of a cockroach, yet he was, in many ways, quite competent. DVDDecrypter crack

2. Character is used mostly as an excuse for good old-fashioned political mudslinging: Dig and sling some dirt at a candidate and then hide behind the oh-so-noble notion that you're just trying to reveal the candidate's character when all you're really doing is running a dirty campaign. DVDDecrypter crack

3. Character is the argument that will never end. If you don't like the candidate, you'll say he has crappy character. If you like the candidate, you'll defend his character and say that the other side is just a bunch of character assassins. Wheels spin, mud spurts, and we don't get anywhere. It's mean-spirited. It's unproductive. DVDDecrypter crack

4. Character cannot truly be measured until it is tested. You won't know whether someone has the character to face the Presidency until he or she faces it. You won't likely know whether they'll step up to the plate or steal it until you watch them faced with the choice. DVDDecrypter crack

5. Character is a distraction from the issues that really matter, the issues a President can influence that, in turn, affect our lives. Look at this campaign in many blogs and certainly on TV: We're not arguing the important issues that supposedly divide us; we're sniping instead. Once again, it's unproductive. Worse, it's divisive and destructive.DVDDecrypter crack

6. Character is a proxy for morality and morality is a proxy for religion and religion mixed with government always scares me. We hear candidates attacked because of their character and values and what that too often really means is that the snipers disagree with the candidate's stand on abortion or gay marriage or school voucher or even the environment and development. Slippery, that slope. DVDDecrypter crack

None of this is to say that we will not or should not vote on character. At the end of the day, unless a candidate has a stand or stands we simply abhor, each of us will inevitably end up judging whether to vote for candidates based on whether we trust or admire or like them. That's as it should be.DVDDecrypter crack

But when we start arguing over such intangible and personal criteria -- when we start yelling at other people that they should or should not trust or admire or like someone the way we do -- then the argument reaches often absurd and usually useless depths. DVDDecrypter crack

This election, its issues, and its choices are too important to let that happen. DVDDecrypter crack

Is character an issue or a distraction? Is character and issue or a weapon?DVDDecrypter crack

Testing blog mettle

: Think of the next 11 weeks until the election as a challenge: as a test of weblogs' real value: DVDDecrypter crack

When we wake up after the election, will we be able to point to the ways and posts in which this new medium contributed, or at least tried to contribute, to improving the coverage of the campaign and the policies of the candidates and the wisdom of the electorate? Will we have made a difference at all? Or will we have made it worse?DVDDecrypter crack

Did we push the coverage and the candidates in ways that mattered? Or did we wallow in mud? DVDDecrypter crack

Now is our opportunity to show what we can do. So what can we do?DVDDecrypter crack

I am blogs' biggest booster, blathering on to any who unfortunate enough to listen about the power of citizens' media. DVDDecrypter crack

But I also have to say that I've been a bit disheartened in recent days by the incessant gotchaism of some blogs and more commenters in our new medium. DVDDecrypter crack

OK, we're human. And we're independent. Bloggers have opinions and the means to share them. A blogger is under no obligation or expectation from anyone else to fix the world or do journalism's job or cure its ills or, Lord knows, to repair politics. You want to say -- and say again -- that you think Bush/Kerry is a liar or stupid or a flip-flopper or frightening or incompetent, great: Have at it. Pluck the low-hanging fruit of democracy. DVDDecrypter crack

But we also say that blogs gives us all an opportunity to present a new viewpoint and to bring together information from disparate sources and to turn news and campaigns and even government into conversations and to improve them. DVDDecrypter crack

So are we?DVDDecrypter crack

I'm not talking just about the Swifies or the Mooreites, so don't get mired in all that. And I'm certainly not trying to say that I'm any paragon of value or virtue myself, so spare us your sputting comments; I'm no expert in health care and that's why I wish wiser bloggers than me would illuminate the subject. And as I say in another post today, I also don't want to find this wallowing in another roundabout about character.DVDDecrypter crack

I hope that what we can contribute is better conversation and debate and information and questions about the issues that affect our lives and our world. I hope that we can contribute is a better gauge of what citizens are saying. I hope that what we can contribute is a push to improve campaigning and coverage of it. DVDDecrypter crack

So here's my challenge: As you see examples -- on the blogs you read or the blogs you write -- of posts that in any way improve this campaign, save them. When it's over, on the morning after, I'll ask again. And then let's assess our value.DVDDecrypter crack

We bloggers are all quick to judge mainstream media. Shouldn't we turn the same spotlight on ourselves?DVDDecrypter crack

August 22, 2004

Yankee go home? Ok, we will

: I was hoping the David's Medienkritik would translate this irony-rich piece from Die Zeit; my German isn't good enough to catch the nuance: Namely, Zeit notes the humor of Germans suddenly whining about our troops leaving.

Ach, look, how the Americans have again suddenly become so dear and precious to the Germans when it hits them in the wallet. The announced withdrawal of large numbers of US troops stationed in Germany has unleashed consternation at the threatening loss of jobs and accusations that the Americans want to get themselves out of their “Nato responsibility.” Nanu? Since when is it a part of the responsibility of Nato and the US Army to maintain jobs in Germany? Just a year and a half ago the majority of Germans were certain the USA and its President represented a greater danger to world peace than Saddam Hussein, and the US armed forces were considered fearsome executors of the sinister US plans for world domination. Now, however, German politicians and union people, who marched at the very front of the peace demonstrations, are pouting and grimacing like children who feel they have been left in the lurch by Daddy because the number one war-monger wants to deny us the trusted presence of our uniformed American friends.
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Good news!

: New York journalist and Iraqi hostage Micah Garen has been released. DVDDecrypter crack

Go, team!

: Drudge says Bush may go to Athens to root for the Iraqi soccer team. No, really. DVDDecrypter crack

SHOUTING POINTS MEMO

: Ed Cone has a downright brilliant column giving into the trend in political discourse these days with a SHOUTING POINTS MEMO. An excerpt of his advice:

I am right, and you are wrong. DVDDecrypter crack

You are not just wrong, you and those like you are intellectually insufficient and morally suspect. Why do you hate our country? Think of the children....DVDDecrypter crack

You speak in cliches, slogans and sound bites. I speak in pithy phrases and time-tested words of wisdom. You call names, I tell it like it is. You are vulgar, I am colorful. DVDDecrypter crack

My candidate is a hero. Yours is a zero. One cannot compare the youthful hijinks of my guy with the youthful wantonness of yours. My guy makes mistakes, yours commits sins of the worst kind. And likes it. My guy was misquoted, or simply misspoke, while your guy was caught on tape saying exactly what I expected him to say....DVDDecrypter crack

Your attempt at humor reveals your narrow-minded bigotry. Your reaction to my own attempt at humor shows that you cannot take a joke. DVDDecrypter crack

I disagree with what you say, and I will defend to the death my right to tell you so. Jerk.

Enjoy the rest. Mark my words: This is going to be a classic.DVDDecrypter crack

If we in this supposedly conversation medium will not stand up for a higher level of discourse, who the hell will?
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Tet offensive

: Meep leaves a wonderful comment below and I quote in full:

Jeeez. Boomers.DVDDecrypter crack

Vietnam was over before I was =born=. And boomers =still= think they're the center of America. Well, I've gotta say, not for much longer. DVDDecrypter crack

Most people my age don't even know what the whole Vietnam thing was about, and why it's considered a "bad" war compared to those "good" wars. What's the diff between Korea and Vietnam, I'd like to know, other than in Vietnam we let the commies win? DVDDecrypter crack

You know what this reminds me of? "The South Will Rise Again" nuts. Think of the bitterness of the old confederate vets that festered for years... and the South remained a backwater until it gave up that confederate outlook and decided to join the 20th century and become a magnet for business. Are boomers going to be eating their livers in retirement because of Vietnam? Sounds like it to me. DVDDecrypter crack

Looking at my mortality tables (I'm an actuarial-type), I note that boomer deaths are really going to pick up over the next couple decades. I'm hoping that will finally get people to shut up about Vietnam. I notice that generation Xers (my generation) don't go on about this crap - unlike the children of the confederates, we're not carrying this forth to future generations. So I guess the boomers should wallow in this while they're still alive, because their children sure won't.

I just hope that in 2035 someone not yet born writes in a medium not invented: "Jeez. Xers. Iraq was over before I was =born=."DVDDecrypter crack

Come to think of it, I do hope that in 2035, someone not yet born writes, "The war on terror was over before I was born." We can only hope. DVDDecrypter crack

: Anil adds in the comments:

Being the same age as Meep, I have to agree and also point out that it's likely that we're the ones (those born 1975 and later) who are likely to decide this election. Keep on blathering about non-issues, folks...
: And Robert Sterling pipes in:
FWIW, I'm an early X-er born in 1970, with a fairly keen recollection of the mid-70s. I remember how bad hippies smelled, and that alone is nearly sufficient to indict your generation.
Hey, I was clean. I wore really goofy purple shirts and sandals (no socks). But I was clean. DVDDecrypter crack

Cablevision sucks!

: But we knew that, didn't we? The reason they suck today: Suddenly, I couldn't send email. After wasting an hour of my time and Hosting Matters' time, it turns out the damned cable ISP overnight switched to require all outgoing mail to go through only its SMTP server. Now correct me if I'm wrong (please) but when I go to the office tomorrow, I'll just bet I'll have to switch it back again; and then switch it tomorrow night, and on and on. They didn't tell anybody; they just did it because, hey, we're the cable company and we suck but you're stuck. (I live too far away from a central phone company office to be able to use DSL, so I am stuck.) Cablevision sucks. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: It gets better. Two Cablevision managers said to me with straight face that I could upgrade to a business account. So I could move from my $40 account to one that costs $110 just because Cablevision decided to change a rule to inconvenience its customers (and, by the way, this also shows that Cablevision did not have to change this rule). That's clearly not good, I said. "Well, it's an option," they said. Yes, and so is sitting on top of a flagpole in my underwear. But I think I'll pass. DVDDecrypter crack

If you're a Cablevision customer victim, the man in charge is one Wilt Hildenbrand at 516 803 2300. Call and complain. If you walk to Cablevision, demand that your complaint be escalated, as well. DVDDecrypter crack

Not so swift

: The real lesson of the whole Swift Board brouhaha is this:DVDDecrypter crack

America isn't over Vietnam -- not by a long shot. DVDDecrypter crack

I said when Kerry gave his acceptance speech and John-John salute in Boston that I couldn't believe Vietnam had been rehabilitated as a word and a war in America. Well, I couldn't believe it for good reason. What we're really seeing in this alleged controversy now -- besides mud-slinging for mud-slinging's sake -- is the old prowar and antiwar sides fighting over the war once more. DVDDecrypter crack

By emphasizing Vietnam, Kerry scraped the scab of the war. And then the Swifties -- backed by Bushies -- poured salt onto it. The wound is not healed. And it's stinging again. If we're not careful, it will start bleeding.DVDDecrypter crack

Nothing good is coming of this. It's not illuminating anything about the candidates. Oh, you can screech at me all you want about this in the comments -- Lord knows, you have -- but all the screeching won't tell me what to think. As a voter, I still say I don't care. DVDDecrypter crack

I don't care about the Vietnam war.DVDDecrypter crack

We are in a war now. We are in a war against terrorists and Islamofascists and for modernity and civilization and America. That is the war I care about. DVDDecrypter crack

You can blame whomever you want for this fuss and muss. I don't care about that, either. You can argue that this is really about character -- Kerry's or Bush's; I'll have a fuller answer to that shortly. DVDDecrypter crack

And you can say it's about media but note that news media are doing what news media should do: They are reporting. They didn't just swallow what the Swifties had to say. They dug and found out that everything isn't as the Swifties or as Kerry says; it's never that simple, folks. So see the Chicago Tribune today, where one of Kerry's men points to the untruths of the Swifties. See the Washington Post this weekend sorting through errors of fact or memory on both sides. See the New York Times Friday pointing to inconsistent statements of the Swifties and their Bush backing. Be careful what you wish for: Big news media is paying attention and it's reporting. DVDDecrypter crack

But this argument can go back and forth forever and will we be one bit better off? No, we won't be. DVDDecrypter crack

I watched the start of Meet the Press this morning (before the kids hijacked the TV for Sponge Bob) and not one second was devoted to how to improve the country, only to the mud. DVDDecrypter crack

Vietnam has moved on and we haven't. DVDDecrypter crack

Meanwhile, there are issues pressing us today: the war on terrorism and terrorists' war on us; health insurance; the economy; education; free speech; technology innovation; energy independence; and on and on. And we're wasting sweat and bile over this. Throw away your WayBack machines, folks. DVDDecrypter crack

Vietnam is over. It's the war we lost and we keep losing it. DVDDecrypter crack


: MORE: After writing this post, I read a comment left below by David Crisp, who seems to be editor of BillingsNews faulting bloggers of both sides on this story:

....bloggers have blown the Swift Vets story bigtime. I've been looking through the blogosphere for two weeks for even one fair-minded account of this controversy. Every place I turn, I find only pro-Kerry folks who think it's a nonstory and pro-Bush folks who start with the assumption that Kerry is a liar.DVDDecrypter crack

That's just garbage. I want the facts before I decide whether it's a story. And I'm willing to entertain the possibility that Kerry might be a liar, but that's not where I want the discussion to start.DVDDecrypter crack

To get a handle on where this story really stands, I have found no worthy alternative to the mainstream media. They may have moved more slowly than bloggers, but they did real reporting, added new information, put the issues in perspective and made sense of it all.DVDDecrypter crack

Maybe somebody in the blogosphere has done that, too, but I sure haven't managed to find it. Maybe I rely too much on Instapundit. Please, somebody tell me where to find a balanced blog account. All I find is arrogance, flim-flam and self-congratulation.DVDDecrypter crack

What's really sad is that bloggers and reporters could make great partners: reporters asking questions on the ground, and bloggers doing research and fact checking and creating a forum for discussion. I would love to run a tough story through a gantlet of concerned bloggers who would help me hone, focus and sharpen it. But as a working reporter, all I seem to get from bloggers is contempt.DVDDecrypter crack

If blogging is what we have to look forward to as a replacement for newspapers, then I think I'll give up reading altogether.

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Free radio

: Doc Searls writes an amazing piece on the possibly doomed fate of radio -- and more than radio -- at the hands of so many competing forces who have it in their crossfire, including Congress, the FCC, the music industry, and more. I can't summarize it and do it justice -- so go read it -- but I will quote this:

To Congress and the FCC, broadcasting isn't speech. It's transport: a delivery system for "material" and "content".....DVDDecrypter crack

Think of a metaphor as a box of words. We all think and talk inside the shipping box when we speak about "moving" or "delivering" goods we call "content" to "end users" or "consumers". This is what Powell does when he describes broadcasting as a "medium" through which we "receive" stuff he calls "material".DVDDecrypter crack

Broadcasting isn't the only business in the shipping box. In fact, business itself lives there. Ever since the industrial revolution created an enormous system in which the few produce for the many, most business finds itself somewhere amongst the distribution chains that run between producers and consumers. That's why we have so many more people "adding value" than creating it.....DVDDecrypter crack

All the talk about "content" reveals a conceptualization of broadcasting as a delivery system, primarily for visual goods: stuff you see. Not stuff you hear or read as you would with speech--the freedom protected by the First Amendment....DVDDecrypter crack

Which brings us to the place where we're peaceably assembled right now, the Net. That's what we need to defend, against the very transport metaphors we all unconsciously use. Specifically, we need to fight against the characterization of the Net as yet another medium....DVDDecrypter crack

We're fighting for a place here. Or, in the original parlance, a space. Either way, it's no freight-forwarding system.

Go read the rest. DVDDecrypter crack

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Google: go transparent

: Seth Goldstein makes a good case for Google to be transparent about its clickstream: the number of searches, the number of sponsored clicks, and the average cost per sponsored click. He makes this argument on behalf of investors, now that they are public, since Google has -- with what is, sadly, becoming its typical hubris -- declaring that it's not going to report financial results the way other public companies do. (But just watch: This will deflate the company's value and they will be forced to do what the investment community demands. In the end, the Google IPO turned out the way the investment market would have had it turn out. The marketplace always wins.)DVDDecrypter crack

But there is another reason for Google transparency: Its customers and affiliates deserve to know what's happening. Advertisers want to know more about where their ads appear and what happens to them. And content owners should get more details on what is served on their sites and what they are paid as a resalt. DVDDecrypter crack

Google is now a public company and must be transparent in public. Transparency is one protection against evil. DVDDecrypter crack

August 21, 2004

McGreevey speaks (sort of)

: NJ Gov Jim McGreevey writes an op-ed in the Sunday Times. It's all about justifying his decision to resign effective Nov. 15. It's not about the tough questions he needs to start answering -- regarding his employment of Golan Cipel, among other things. DVDDecrypter crack

Salam

: Commenter CharlesWT tells us that Salam Pax is back at this blog. But, once again, we need to wonder about the identity; there's no link to this from his old blog, only an odd link to something else. DVDDecrypter crack

In the shadow of terrorism

: Odd, but it was only this morning, as I watched the Olympics, that I remembered the reason People magazine sent me to L.A. as part of the team to cover the Olympics in 1984:DVDDecrypter crack

Terrorism.DVDDecrypter crack

I was the hard news guy in the house that fluff built, having worked on newspapers. And so they sent me in case disaster struck, as it had in Munich in 1972. (I was also assigned to write just-in-case obits of Prince Charles and Diana in case they were killed on their wedding day, which also happened to be our closing day. The fluffier staff members thought this quite ghoulish. It was just news.)DVDDecrypter crack

The threat of terrorism in America seemed quite distant then; we had a few contingency plans (it was news to them that if something happens, you should go right to the hospitals) and then we sat out by the pool. DVDDecrypter crack

Of course, today, this is more than a threat. It is experience. DVDDecrypter crack

Like Jay Rosen in his latest 9/11 post (this is the last time I'll link to that today), I was struck by Washington Post New York bureau chief Michael Powell's phrase:

...those of us -- myself and his wife, among others -- who came within the shadow of the falling towers on Sept. 11 had acquired an intimate view of terror....
An intimate view of terror. That is so right.DVDDecrypter crack

So during these games -- as on any given random day in New York -- that view is in the back of the mind. Happened before. Could happen again. Now we know. I'm relieved that a week of the Olympics have gone by without problems. I pray the next week is the same. I pray the same for the convention in New York and the election and every day after that. DVDDecrypter crack

Back in 1984, in America, terrorism was a distant possibility you'd nod at. Today, terrorism is an ever-present fear you live with. DVDDecrypter crack

The flag

flagpin.jpg: In Jay Rosen's latest post about 9/11 and journalism, there is this about journalists wearing the flag:

Apparently if you say things like "journalism changed after 09/11" you sound like a fellow traveler with Fox, and with the Right's work-the-refs view that "journalists are unpatriotic and bad because they show bad stuff on TV which undermines Amerca," as [Matt] Stoller put it. Use language like "duty to the nation" and you sound like a winger.DVDDecrypter crack

Well... I think any journalist of any persuasion would have been wise to wear a little American flag on their lapel after 09/11, and even wiser to explain what the symbol meant in that context, going on air with the news. If necessary, fight about the flag and what it says when worn in a gesture of solidarity.DVDDecrypter crack

But I'm also intrigued with the idea of the flag-less press, which shows no signs of membership, no solidarity, except the fraternity of fellow observers.

I'm so glad to hear Jay say that. DVDDecrypter crack

I never but never was a flag-waver or -wearer before 9/11. I started afterwards. My view: Evil swine killed thousands around me and tried to kill me that day just because I am American. So, of course, I will wear my flag as the tiniest sign of defiance. I know that wearing the flag confuses people (flag=right) but I don't care. I want to reclaim the flag from partisans and apologists and terrorists. I wish we all wore the flag. I wish we were all united enough to do so. DVDDecrypter crack

I am an American. As we say here in Jersey, You gotta problem with that?DVDDecrypter crack

Golden

: Olympic swimmer Scott Goldblatt blogs [shhhh; don't tell the IOC; see the post below] about Michael Phelps' amazing decision to forego another medal to let a teammate compete and win. DVDDecrypter crack

Goldblatt also wants us all to know about a charity auction of Olympic athletes' memorabilia that he is organizing for the Melanoma Research foundation. Details here. Pass it on! More info on the auction:

ATHENS - Together with eBay Giving Works, two-time Olympian Scott Goldblatt ( Scotch Plains, New Jersey / Kansas City, Kansas ) is organizing an Olympic Team memorabilia charity auction to benefit the Melanoma Research Foundation....DVDDecrypter crack

In May of 1997, Goldblatt lost his mother, Linda Goldblatt, to this disease.
"I have seen what this disease can do, and together with your help, hope to educate others in the prevention of the disease," said Goldblatt.DVDDecrypter crack

Goldblatt is asking Team USA members to help in this auction by donating a unique item.

DVDDecrypter crack

IOC's restraint of speech and trade

: The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, coaches, anybody involved in the games from blogging them. As if they have a chance in hell of stopping it.

The International Olympic Committee is barring competitors, as well as coaches, support personnel and other officials, from writing firsthand accounts for news and other Web sites.DVDDecrypter crack

An exception is if an athlete has a personal Web site that they did not set up specifically for the Games.DVDDecrypter crack

The IOC’s rationale for the restrictions is that athletes and their coaches should not serve as journalists — and that the interests of broadcast rightsholders and accredited media come first.DVDDecrypter crack

Participants in the games may respond to written questions from reporters or participate in online chat sessions — akin to a face-to-face or telephone interview — but they may not post journals or online diaries, blogs in Internet parlance, until the Games end Aug. 29.

What a crock of crap. The IOC says competitors can't be journalists? That's saying they do not have any right to free speech and can speak only through journalists. That's offensive and stupid. But then, that's the IOC. [via Loic]DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Dan Gillmore says this is about greed. Period. DVDDecrypter crack

Journalism at eye-level

: When I talk about the news business these days, I find myself constantly returning to the same refrain:DVDDecrypter crack

We must bring journalism down to a human level, down from the tower it built to separate itself from the public, down to eye level.DVDDecrypter crack

Please allow me to glue together a series of thoughts on the subject:DVDDecrypter crack


: I found myself ranting on the topic a few times recently when I was talking with separate groups of smart folks about the branding and image of journalistic endeavors. The topic of names came up and all the obvious ones for news products have been words you want to etch in granite: Tribune, Times, Guardian. That's news the way it used to be or some hoped it would be: behind stone walls, inside the cathedral, separate, cold, above, beyond. DVDDecrypter crack

Now we are seeing that if journalism is to survive, let alone prosper, it must speak at a human level and must also listen; it must join in the conversation of the community. DVDDecrypter crack

Given that, the names we should consider should be more human, like Pulse, Sinews, Face, Eyes, Ears, Tongues, Hearts, Feet, Guts, Shout, Spit, or, yes, Spleen. DVDDecrypter crack


: Now see Jay Rosen's two inspiring posts about whether 9/11 changed journalism -- or rather, whether it changed journalists. DVDDecrypter crack

Do we admit we are human and have a human reaction to the event? Do we allow ourselves to root for our side in this war -- which requires recognizing that we are at war and what side we are on? And if we don't -- if we act as if we do not have our own worldviews, as Jay puts it -- doesn't that too often end up perverting our coverage so, in a futile and misguided effort to be objective, we try to be fair to terrorists (did anybody worry after 1933 about being fair to Hitler?)? Just because you have a worldview doesn't mean you have to do nothing but argue for it; it doesn't mean you can't ask tough and uncomfortable questions; it only means that your questions have some context. DVDDecrypter crack

This is really about admitting that we are human. As a human being, you must have a reaction to 9/11 and to deny it, to hide it, is to lie to those to whom you are trying to be truthful, your public. To instead be human and admit your reaction and the worldview it reshapes is to give a context to what you say so your public can better judge it. Isn't that more honest? Isn't that thus better journalism?DVDDecrypter crack


: Now see a wonderful speech Hodding Carter gave to the AEJMC journalism confab in Toronto two weeks ago. I'll quote at length; he begins by talking about his newspapering days:

We practiced journalism with zeal and, occasionally, foolhardy abandon. We took up the implicit demands – the implicit responsibility inherent in the First Amendment – and let people know our editorial mind when most of them would have happily been spared that opportunity. We covered our region, warts and all. DVDDecrypter crack

And we participated in the life and civic causes of our town – Greenville, Mississippi – with avocational fervor. We saw ourselves as citizens as well as journalists. We saw ourselves not simply as a mirror reflecting what was happening in the community, or as its critics, but as indivisible from it, a piece of the community’s fabric....DVDDecrypter crack

We practiced civic journalism, public journalism, regularly and routinely, without ever having heard the term. God knows we did so with no anticipation of the intensely vapid and frequently demagogic controversy that was to surround its articulation or of the overt attempt by certain of the journalistic elites to suffocate its resurrection three and more decades later. DVDDecrypter crack

For us, the journalist as citizen was not a doctrine or a debating point – it was the whole point of the enterprise....DVDDecrypter crack

Grieve over the polls’ mounting evidence of the separation between the people on the one hand and the institutions designed to protect and advance their interests on the other. DVDDecrypter crack

Gaze steadily at the decline in the public’s belief that the First Amendment should be taken at face value, embraced as the lifeblood of democracy, respected in practice under the most heated of circumstances. DVDDecrypter crack

And then consider the slow but steady erosion in the connection – as measured by readership and viewer ship – between the public on the one hand and print and television media on the other. DVDDecrypter crack

All are part and parcel of a mushrooming societal phenomenon, not random unrelated phenomena....DVDDecrypter crack

We in journalism and in the academy have been playing the wrong game, the game of separation from our own society. DVDDecrypter crack

We complain because “they” don’t read what we write, appreciate what we teach, understand the fundamentals of our trade and our society – but we complain at arms’ length, from on high, from the sidelines....

The journalist is a member of the community, not apart from it. The journalist is a citizen equal to every other citizen. The journalist is human.DVDDecrypter crack


: This isn't just about opinions and bias and honest people having honest disagreements about how they view the world and the news. Yes, that's most of it. DVDDecrypter crack

But it's also about business. It's about how our audience/market/public views us and what we try to sell them. It's even about how we deliver the news.DVDDecrypter crack

I mentioned a few weeks back going to focus groups at which news consumers, casual and fervent, looked at the mirror -- knowing that Journalism was on the other side of it -- and complained in one voice, "Your stories are too long!" For them, our stories are repetitive. They are filled with show-off paragraphs. They waste the readers' time and that is a terrible sin. DVDDecrypter crack

If you were having a conversation with someone and realized you were boring them, wouldn't you shut up or at least get to the point? But that's just the problem: News, until now, hasn't been a conversation. DVDDecrypter crack

[And, yes, I recognize the irony of making that point in the middle of an unusually long and rambling post. As a wise editor of mine once said to me as I was writing a breaking story on deadline: "Find the nearest period." I'm almost there.]DVDDecrypter crack

This is also about how, where, and when we deliver the news. We used to inconvenience the audience because we didn't have much choice: We made you wait until we delivered the paper or put our show on the air. Well, now, we can deliver you the news wherever and however and whenever you want and if we don't do that, aren't we being rather rude? Aren't we still being haughty if we think you will go out of your way to read or hear what we have to say about the news you already know? DVDDecrypter crack

Making journalism human is about humility.DVDDecrypter crack


: Of course, humility is being thrust upon journalism, like it or not, by the likes of Jayson Blair. Nothing makes it clearer that journalism is not an infallible institution, but rather the product of a bunch of quite fallible humans. DVDDecrypter crack

Humility is also thrust upon journalism, of course, by the birth of bloggers: Now mere mortals can do what the high priests of journalism do without the institutions, the capital, the educations, the infrastructure but with the push of a button. Bloggers can question and cajole the institution. They bring it down to size. They even the playing field. They make everybody human. DVDDecrypter crack


: Good things come of making all journalism human. It makes all humans journalists. DVDDecrypter crack

Last week, as I said here, I went to Flemington, NJ, for a hyperlocal blog MeetUp and almost 30 good neighbors showed up eager to spark and join in the conversation of the community. These good people will share more information than a paperbound newspaper ever could afford to gather and print. But it's also important to note that most of them came there because the newspaper told them about it and the editor of the newspaper was there. Everybody has something to contribute to this conversation. DVDDecrypter crack


: Now this all seems obvious and trite because it is. But even so, we in journalism lose sight of this all the time. That is why we come together to have conferences about transparency and about public journalism and why we appoint ombudsmen to listen to the public. DVDDecrypter crack

But it's really quite simple: Journalism is about people telling people things they want or need to know. If you remember that, if you see journalism as a conversation at eye-level, then you're less likely to hide behind priestly invocations of objectivity; you're less likely to hide your own opinions and emotions; you're less likely to bore and inconvenience those you're hoping to serve; you're more likely to listen; you're more likely to actually end up knowing what the people you're serving want and need; you're more likely to succeed. DVDDecrypter crack

We're only human. DVDDecrypter crack

August 20, 2004

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Blogpulse news

: I've been playing with Blogpulse, comparing references in blogs -- not in media but in blogs -- to swift boats (or swiftvets or swift) in blue, vs. Cambodia in yellow, vs. health in green. Note how much blog users -- thank goodness -- care about health issues over the nonissues of the Swifties.DVDDecrypter crack

By the way, here's Bush (in blue, for variety's sake) vs. Kerry (in yellow, make no inferences) vs. Nader (in green, how appropriate):

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DVDDecrypter crack

The hostage we know

: Tristan Louis, a blogger, knows the latest hostage in Iraq, Micah Garen, and worked with him at Earthweb. See Tristan's post here and Doc's post here. DVDDecrypter crack

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Lemmings to the fryer

: Went to the new Jersey City Fatburger for lunch today. Ridiculous line. Didn't move. I left. It's just a burger, folks. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Could New York be the death of Fatburger? DVDDecrypter crack

Ken Layne reports in the comments:

Fatburger is slooooooow. It's not fast food. (And it's not my favorite California burger, but it is very tasty and very substantial. More like a burger you'd get in a decent steakhouse.)DVDDecrypter crack

Even with nobody in line -- say, at 2:30 a.m. -- it takes forever. I will admit to falling "asleep" in my car at the drive-thru window. More than once.DVDDecrypter crack

Wait a week or two for the novelty to pass, then make your order, go out for a newspaper or whatever, and then you will have a happy lunch.

New Yorkers aren't patient like Californians; I learned that first-hand when I lived out there. I'd go psycho waiting for a table while all around me were drugged. New Yorkers have places to go, people to see, things to do. New Yorkers have lives. DVDDecrypter crack

Reporting for duty

: Gizmodo reports on a high-tech cup that will test the motility, fertility, motivation, eagerness of your sperm. DVDDecrypter crack

News TiVo

: Microsoft's Newsbot is trying to serve you personalized news based on other news you looked at, very TiVolike and Amazonlike. Interesting idea. Execution so far is iffy: If I look at "general news" I get more "general news." But I like that I can look at my history and delete stories from it.DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey dominoes

: Ya gotta love Jersey politics: a surprise every day. Pick up today's Jersey Journal right here in Jersey City and see this:

I'M GAY, AND MAD
Freeholder says governor is using sexuality to deflect criticism DVDDecrypter crack

Hudson County Freeholder Ray Velazquez is so offended by the governor's handling of his legal troubles and so worried that the gay community will be hurt by the scandal that he is publicly acknowledging that he, too, is a gay elected official. DVDDecrypter crack

Most troubling, he said, is the allegation that Gov. James E. McGreevey put his lover on the public payroll. DVDDecrypter crack

"It's not enough to say, 'I'm sorry, I'm a gay man,' to cover up those things," Velazquez said this week at his Downtown law office....DVDDecrypter crack

A relative newcomer to county politics, Velazquez was selected by the Hudson County Democratic Organization in July 2003 to fill the seat of Nidia Davila-Colon, who resigned after being convicted a month earlier of corruption charges.

: Meanwhile, the latest on the guy who claimed he was Golan Cipel's gay lover... in the pages of the NY Post and News. The Star-Ledger (which did not run the original story) reports today that he was arrested:
But in addition to his sex claims, police reports reviewed by The Star-Ledger yesterday show Michael David Miller has falsely told police he is a CIA operative and that the satellite dish on his house is used for CIA communication. In a series of phone calls to police and Essex County courts, the doctor has told a bizarre tale of an Iranian tenant he claimed would blow up the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. DVDDecrypter crack

Essex County Sheriff Armando Fontoura said Miller "has a serious problem with reality," and sheriff's officers, along with officers from the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, arrested the doctor last night. DVDDecrypter crack

Miller was taken into custody about 11:30 p.m. at his home on a warrant charging him with impersonating an FBI officer and causing false public alarm, the sheriff said.

Anybody can hold a press conference and end up in the News.DVDDecrypter crack

At the front

: Reporters are either a brave or stupid lot but they do risk their lives to try to bring us the news. See Christian Science Monitor reporter Scott Baldauf's account of a caravan of journalists who dared to go to ground zero in Najaf.

On the horizon we could see the gold dome of the shrine.DVDDecrypter crack

If anyone was going to turn back, now was the time. Eighteen cars suddenly dwindled to eight.DVDDecrypter crack

We moved past one more US checkpoint, and then into a no man's land. To our right was the old cemetery, site of what US officials have called the heaviest hand-to-hand fighting US forces have seen since Vietnam. Ahead of us, we could see Mahdi Army fighters moving around into firing position. We waved our white flag and proceeded slowly.

[via Lost Remote]DVDDecrypter crack

Infantile politics

: Fell asleep on the couch last night before I had a chance to recommend Dahlia Lithwick's guest column in The Times on the backfiring attempts to infantalize Bush as a campaign tactic of his opponents. DVDDecrypter crack

The tactic backfires because when you call Bush an idiot you also, by necessary extension, risk calling anyone who ever voted for him or considered voting for him or even supported him as President an idiot, and you also ignore the power of the people around him, who are not idiots. It's a rather idiotic strategy, for it turns off the people you are hoping to win over. DVDDecrypter crack

That is the same problem I have with all the Swifties' spittle-sputtering I can so conveniently follow in daily detail over at Instaphnom. As I said in a comment below when I dared mention the conservakerfluffle here, I'm looking at this as a voter and as a voter, I do not care about this nonstory -- just as I did not care about the nonstory of Bush's alleged military vacation -- and the more you screech about it, the more I turn off as a voter. I know I am not alone. DVDDecrypter crack

I actually have two problems with this: DVDDecrypter crack

First, it drags the political debate and campaign into the septic tank. Weren't we supposed to be better than that in this new medium? Weren't we supposed to be smart and talk about issues and what mattered in voters' lives and avoid the shallow, useless, mean-spirited example of attack journalism. Weren't we, huh?DVDDecrypter crack

Second, this all distracts from the real debate that should be occurring -- over health care, troop pullouts, Iraq, homeland security, the economy....DVDDecrypter crack

I'm equal-opportunity on this. I dismissed the attacks on Bush and the National Guard. I dismissed and attacked Michael Moore for his hatchet job on Bush in Fahrenheit 9/11. And I dismiss these attacks-for-attacks'-sake on Kerry. Shut up already. Stop wasting my time. Stop sputtering. Stop yelling at me to care about something I don't care about. Stop treating me like I'm some sort of lying pondscum if I consider voting for one of the two candidates for President -- either of them. I'm a voter, not an accomplice. DVDDecrypter crack

So now see how Lithwick goes after liberals in a liberal newspaper for the way they are going after conservative Bush:

It cannot have escaped anyone's notice that much of the current Bush-bashing aims to infantilize him. The most devastating segment in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," for instance, features the president - just after he learned of the second attack on the World Trade Center - perched on a chair in a Florida classroom, looking glazed and confused as he listens to a reading of "The Pet Goat." Mr. Bush's aide might well have whispered the news to one of the assembled students to greater effect, and the implication is inescapable: for seven long minutes, the president was Not a Man....DVDDecrypter crack

What's wrong with continuing efforts to characterize Mr. Bush as a not-particularly-smart third grader? For one thing, it plays to every stereotype of liberals as snotty know-it-alls who think everyone in a red state is anti-intellectual or simple-minded. It answers name-calling from the right with name-calling from the left. DVDDecrypter crack

These assertions also insult anyone who voted for Mr. Bush in 2000. Rather than offering an argument for Mr. Kerry, they merely disparage swing voters, who may be tempted to defect to the Democrats over the war or the economy, by sneering that they voted for a kid - and a dumb kid at that.DVDDecrypter crack

One of the most enduring memories from the Bush-Gore debates in 2000 was Al Gore, all sighs and eye-rolls, trapped in what must have felt like the middle-school playground fight from hell instead of a presidential debate. Everything about Mr. Gore's demeanor signaled that he felt he was giving a punk kid a much-needed scolding. Which missed the point: a lot of very smart people voted for Mr. Bush in 2000 because to them, he represented a return to honesty and morality. Dismissing him as a stupid child, and these voters as stupid-children-by-association, is no way to win them back.DVDDecrypter crack

Furthermore, the campaign to cast Mr. Bush as a bumbling child ignores the very grown-up machine that stands behind him. Infantilizing the president shifts the focus away from the Cheneys, Rumsfelds, Ashcrofts and Wolfowitzes....

Read the rest, please.DVDDecrypter crack


DVDDecrypter crack

August 19, 2004

Is this blog on the final?

: The New York Times writes about blogs in the classroom and a pioneer in the field, New Jersey's own Will Richardson, gets some well-deserved attention. DVDDecrypter crack

Blog bday

: The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn has been blogging for a year and he writes a column reflecting on this change in life. DVDDecrypter crack

He asked me to blather in email. Always a mistake. Click more if you want to see what I sent him. I'm being quite repetitive with things I've said here already; that's how one hunts for the perfect sound bite....DVDDecrypter crack

Editors' first response to the blogging phenom should not be to write blogs but to read them. We in media have owned the printing press for centuries. Now, thanks to blogging, the people own the press and its power; they are speaking and it is our turn to listen. I am beginning to see more evidence that mainstream media is listening: You will see blogs quoted by Howard Kurtz at the Washington Post or Jeff Greenfield at CNN (who told me he starts every day reading blogs); you see blogs, in the words of KenLayne.com, fact-checking our ass, which is good for our credibility. It has been slow but it is picking up speed.DVDDecrypter crack

The uptake of blogs within mainstream media is slow because of various old-media concerns: editing, copy-editing, process, fear. That's too bad, but it will change as nonbloggers see how much fun the bloggers are having with this new relationship with the public. The great advantage of blogging is that it brings journalism down to a human level; it puts us eye-to-eye with our public and lets us join in the conversation in our community.DVDDecrypter crack

I do believe that blogging, or some variation on the theme, will become part and parcel of any media enterprise: political correspondents are picking up blogs the way the used to pick up scotch; Zach Braff's movie Garden State has a blog; when the big Jim McGreevey story broke in New Jersey, we reported everything we knew as soon as we knew it on an NJ.com blog.DVDDecrypter crack

In the end, blogging is just a tool -- history's easiest publishing tool connected to the world via history's best communications network. How can we not all use it?DVDDecrypter crack

Over the line

: Rafat Ali alerts us to a new blog advertising option that, unfortunately, gets it wrong. DVDDecrypter crack

Blogversations wants marketers to sponsor blogs. So far, so good. The wise marketer, as Chris Locke said in Gonzo Marketing, will see that by underwriting a blogger who shares the same passion, marketers will tell that blogger's auidience that they, too, share the passion; we're all in this together.DVDDecrypter crack

Blogversations, however, gets it backward. It wants marketers to actively tell a blogger what to discuss and then they will sponsor that discussion. Oh, I'm sure they'll say they won't tell the blogger what to say, only the topic. But in my judgment, this goes over the line: It calls into question the blogger's credibility (would she be talking about this if she weren't paid to talk about this?). And it is contrary to the essence and appeal of blogs: I talk about what I want to talk about. Love it or leave it, read it or not, sponsor it or not, that's what we bloggers do. DVDDecrypter crack

The truth is that any marketer can probably find just the discussions they want to sponsor without having to artificially inseminate the body blog. DVDDecrypter crack

I have the same problem every night when I hear on NPR that so-and-so foundation underwrote not the news on NPR in NPR's own independent judgment but instead underwrote some specific area of coverage. Would NPR have chosen to cover that area, in its best judgment, if it weren't being paid to cover it? This puts NPR's judgment in question. I'm not saying NPR necessarily did anything wrong or anything differently from how it would operate normally; the issue now is that we don't know. DVDDecrypter crack

I'm all for sponsorship and underwriting of blogs. I simply counsel that we have to be careful to maintain our blog integrity, our own voices and views, for that is the real value of this new medium: It's by real people about real people.DVDDecrypter crack

Weirder and weirder

: The McGreevey story is, of course, getting weirder and weirder; these stories always do. Earlier this week, there were rumors of a New Jersey professor who would come out as alleged gubernatorial misterstress Golan Cipel's gay lover, wrecking his claim that he's straight. Then, today, the Daily News printed a story about this professor. But it is riddled with so many clues that the guy's missing a few coffee beans in the grinder that it's more scandalous that the News printed the story at all. For example:

In a manic, disjointed interview, Miller said that Cipel had made a pillow-talk confession: He still carries a torch for McGreevey.... DVDDecrypter crack

Miller also claimed to reporters that he is a CIA operative who takes pills doled out by the intelligence agency to make his skin darker so he can infiltrate unnamed groups....DVDDecrypter crack

Miller - who insisted on speaking Spanish because, he said, he hates the United States...DVDDecrypter crack

"Despite his problems, I'm going to go visit him," said Miller, shirtless and wearing purple shorts....DVDDecrypter crack

The doctor said he was a happily married man with two children, when, at age 38, he acknowledged he was gay. DVDDecrypter crack

"One hundred thousand dollars worth of therapy later and I still don't understand," Miller said.

And from the Post:
Last night, with his house surrounded by reporters, Miller spoke to the throng in only blue shorts and white socks, his hair disheveled. DVDDecrypter crack

At times cursing and erratic, he alternatively told scribes he would talk to them in Hungarian, Spanish or Hebrew. DVDDecrypter crack

"He's a little scattered," a relative member said.

But I guess he's news.

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Is there a Republican Kos?

: A reporter well-known to all of us asked whether there is a Republican Kos that is "creating his own targeted House and Senate races and getting money" them with Kos-like visitiblity. Can you name any? DVDDecrypter crack

Janet Jackson in Abu Ghraib

: The Independent does quite a pundit's two-step to tie Janet Jackson's nipple to Iraq:

It has been impossible to ponder the issue of public morality in America these past few months without wondering whether we aren't living in weird parallel universes. In the first, 2004 has been the year in which the United States was caught torturing prisoners in Iraq, was accused of lying about weapons of mass destruction, and was deemed to be violating the US constitution and international law by holding so-called "enemy combatants" indefinitely without trial.DVDDecrypter crack

In the second universe, none of these matters one jot: not as moral issues, anyway. In this universe - the province of cable television, talk radio and the strangely hermetic corridors of power in Washington - there has been only one noteworthy moral outrage in 2004, one thing to offend the consciences of decent citizens and make them despair of the nation's moral fibre.DVDDecrypter crack

We are talking, of course, of Janet Jackson's prime-time breast exposure...

Wow, what a stretch.DVDDecrypter crack

Caf competition

: Went to lunch with a friend of a friend yesterday at the Time Inc. cafeteria. Hadn't been back there for a dozen years, since storming out of the place. Hasn't changed in all that time -- which means it's looking pretty ratty these days. You'd think our Conde caf would have caused a little competition. Come on, Time Inc., time to update. The rest of the company moves uptown to a damned palace and you're still stuck in the '90s. DVDDecrypter crack

Not so swift

: I don't give a hoot about the Swift thing but I will be curious to see today whether all the Swifties out there link to this.DVDDecrypter crack

August 18, 2004

Iran and Israel: Not what you think

: Iranian blogger Hoder connects some dots and finds that young Iranians do not have the view of Israel you'd assume: Many are appalled at Iran's horrid, hateful policy that led to its judo competitor refusing to compete against Israel's at the Olympics. DVDDecrypter crack

: Meanwhile, the mullahs warn that they'd make preemptive strikes against Israel. DVDDecrypter crack

Blogger on caffeine

: Jim Romenesko, the media world's premier blogger, has a new blog about Starbucks:

A former Starbucks employee tells your STARBUCKS GOSSIP webmaster in an e-mail: "Did you know that a store manager gets a bonus for running a store with only a handful of people on benefits? As that one writer told you [in a comments posting], they give you benefits for 20 hours, and they may do that for one period...."
[via Steve Rubel]DVDDecrypter crack

A gold medal in blogging

: NJ.com blogger Scott Goldblatt and Olympic swimmer is part of the team that won the gold medal in Athens.DVDDecrypter crack

DesignThis

: When I started working in online 10 years ago this month (I'd been online for another 10 or more years before that) the one argument I had to keep beating down from old print editors, designers, publishers, and advertisers was about design control. DVDDecrypter crack

They all wanted to control the design of content -- which sounded reasonable -- and HTML thwarted them, especially back then, when browser pagess were all battleship-gray and pixels were the size of baseballs and colors were few and fonts were fewer. They all took to turning everything into an image so they could control the look. The fact that images delayed the download over slow dial-up lines didn't bother them. Their ego -- their control over content -- was more important than the audience they were trying to serve. What broke them of that bad habit was the audience clicking away from any slow page; substance -- and time -- mattered a helluva lot more than style. DVDDecrypter crack

Things are better all around today -- HTML, screens, fonts, colors, speed have all improved -- but still, the most beautiful web page isn't half as pretty as the prettiest print page. But we've learned that's OK.DVDDecrypter crack

The battle is almost -- but not completely -- over. Some folks still want control, so they produce PDFs. And the public still rejects them. See Vin Crosbie's roundup of the sales of electronic versions of print newspapers here. See also the considerable kvetching about the use of PDF's at ChangeThis. DVDDecrypter crack

I was going to lay off the site for a bit, because I already took my potshot and because I like ChangeThis creator Seth Godin and don't want to seem to be harping. DVDDecrypter crack

But then I saw this on Godin's blog and I couldn't help but react. Seth, to his credit, quotes some of the messages complaining about his PDFetish but then digs in his heels and says:

I refuse to enter the "is PDF bad" debate, but the one thing we all have to agree on is this: OF COURSE it matters what it looks like.DVDDecrypter crack

We judge books and blogs and tv shows and even people "by their covers" every single day.DVDDecrypter crack

Acknowledging that makes it easier to spread your ideas, and it alerts you to the fact that you might be embracing some ideas (like who to vote for) based on cues that have nothing to do with logical, rational reality. Abe Lincoln would come in fourth in a three way election if it were held today.

A few responses:DVDDecrypter crack

First, these are supposed to be manifestos, aren't they? Not tablecloths. Not lingerie. Manifestos. And in a manifesto, isn't it the ideas, the arguments, the facts, the words that matter? DVDDecrypter crack

They could have printed the Declaration of Independence with elderberry juice on cowhide and it wouldn't have looked as elegant but it would have been every bit as powerful. DVDDecrypter crack

Second, I think the design of some of these PDFs actually distracts from and hurts the message: They picked a serendipitous, happy-go-lucky font for the pullquotes and it doesn't fit so well with the topic of executing children; it's downright tasteless.DVDDecrypter crack

Third, if you really believe that about Abe Lincoln, then you don't think much of The People and I don't understand why you're even bothering to change their minds with manifestos. That's both insulting to the citizenry and cynical about society. Whether it is a president or a position paper or a product, I do believe that The People have both the good sense and the good taste to know the difference between the two and to know what matters. DVDDecrypter crack

Besides, other than John Kennedy, name one handsome president. I can name lots of handsome losers.DVDDecrypter crack

: Now I can't rant on about design in this space without acknowledging its own butt-ugliness. I would like to pretend that's purposeful, but it's not. I grabbed an old Blogger template, made a few adjustments, and left it alone because I am too lazy and too frightened of code and change to bother with it. I do plan to get a clean new design. But whenever I say that, inevitably, someone tells me not to; those folks say they're tired of slickness and don't want it to get in the way of what is being said. More design is not always a good thing. I learned that the very, very hard way at the launch of Entertainment Weekly. We had a great design ... six weeks before launch. But the head designer kept futzing every day until launch and I didn't have the experience to know how to stop him and when we came out, we had -- I will now confess -- a confused mess. We got deserved raspberries and underwent the fastest redesign in magazine history. Too much design is always a bad thing.DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Ken Layne adds in the comments:

PDFs are sort of like the microfiche of the Web. Yes, if you absolutely have to get the information, you'll use it. But who would crouch over a microfiche machine for reading pleasure?
DVDDecrypter crack

With cheese, please

: Fatburger is coming to New Jersey today! Jersey City, in fact. I'll be dining there soon. DVDDecrypter crack

Now to hell with this blogging thing. How about an In-N-Out franchise?DVDDecrypter crack

A beautiful view

: Every time I come through the World Trade Center and look at 7 World Trade rising again, I smile. DVDDecrypter crack

Today, Lockhart Steele at Curbed puts up a beautiful photo of the sight. DVDDecrypter crack

Big news: Iraqi bloggers run for office!

: This is wonderful news: Two Iraqi bloggers -- brothers Ali Fadhil and Mohammed Fadhil of IraqTheModel.com -- announced today that they are running for the Iraqi National Assembly.DVDDecrypter crack

How's that for democratizing? Two citizens who had no voice in their nation a little over a year ago came to blogging and now have a voice that matters -- they are quoted often in many major papers -- and are using that platform to gain a voice in their government. DVDDecrypter crack

Tom Villars has helped them set up a web site in English and Arabic -- where you can go and contribute to their campaign. Here is their announcement:

Baghdad, IRAQ August 18th, 2004 -- Two popular Iraqi webloggers, Ali Fadhil and Mohammed Fadhil, today announced their candidacies for the Iraqi National Assembly.DVDDecrypter crack

The bloggers, who are brothers, have been writing their popular weblog www.IraqTheModel.com since November of 2003. Their weblog has been quoted in major world media, including the BBC, USA Today, Wall Street Journal, National Review, Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Bulletin, Dallas Morning, and New York Post.DVDDecrypter crack

We believe that we represent an important segment of the Iraqi people that was never organized before under any category as a result of the oppression of the past regime. Now this segment has come to see the necessity to contribute to the building of a new Iraq in a way that is entirely different from the old ways that are still dominant in the Middle East and that are governed by religious fanaticism and pan-Arab nationalism.DVDDecrypter crack

We see that remaining silent is not an option in our battle towards democracy and freedom and that everyone who seeks a better future should take part in this battle.DVDDecrypter crack

علي فاضل (Ali Fadhil)DVDDecrypter crack

Through our writings in our weblog and communication with different opinions and view points we find ourselves committed to reconsider the way in which we can serve our nation. DVDDecrypter crack

We also saw that our somewhat daring opinions were accepted by many people whether westerners or Iraqis and we see that we have the capability to clarify our vision about Iraq's future through talking to Iraqis directly. DVDDecrypter crack

Our work on the weblog opened our minds more, made us bolder and encouraged us to communicate with our fellow citizens as they're the ones who can make the change and they're the ones we started to write for their sake.DVDDecrypter crack

محمد فاضل (Mohammed Fadhil)DVDDecrypter crack

The bloggers are running under the banner of the Iraqi Pro-Democracy Party. Elections will be held after December 2004. For the complete list of party candidates and more information on the party's history and its platform, please visit our website www.iraqdemparty.org.

The brothers add on their blog:
For sometime we thought that we can help by doing our jobs and by posting our opinions here on the blog, and while we still think it does help, the battle against tyranny and fanaticism in our country demands more than that. It demands that each one of us put all the effort he/she can make and take an active stand regardless of how difficult or dangerous it may seem. We simply cannot just stand and watch and we hope that we will encourage others also to do their best in order to achieve our freedom and establish democracy in a country that suffered more than enough from wars, dictators, terrorists and fanatics.
We believe that democracy is the only cure to all those diseases and the only answers to all threats. As hard the battle seems now and as far victory may look, we believe in our people and we believe in our friends and we know we will win.
: One of the fuzziest cliches of American politics is that one person can make a difference. But look over to Iraq -- and Iran -- and you begin to believe that one person can make a difference. In Iran, Hoder was the Johnny Appleseed who brought blogging to his nation and it is changing the culture and the country. In Iraq, Zeyad got his friends Ali and Mohammed to blog and they got more friends to blog and now they are running for posts in a new government in a new nation. Scrape the scales of political and media cynicism from your eyes and see what these brave people are doing now that they have the chance to do it: They love freedom of speech and democracy so much they are risking even their lives to work for it. DVDDecrypter crack

Perp humor

: Many mornings when I drive into Jersey City, I end up behind paddywagons perpmobiles as the county sheriff and various local police departments drive their apprehended alleged aholes to the county courts. This morning, I was behind a delivery from Union City and saw incongruous florid blue script painted on the back. Got closer to see what it said: "Bad Boys: We told you we'd come for you."
Gotta love a guy with a gun and a sense of humor.DVDDecrypter crack

August 17, 2004

It's not sex. It's a Mossad plot. Well, of course.

: A certain well-known columnist joked in email to me the other day that he was convinced Jim McGreevey's alleged misteress Golan Cipel was actually an Israeli Mossad agent. I chortled and told the famous columnist that if only he had a blog, I'd be linking to him. Of course, I'd add: Heh!DVDDecrypter crack

Well, Aljazeera is on the case and they say it was, yup, a Mossad secret plot: Well, naturally. Everything is Israel's fault, isn't it?

And here Foreign Policy/Intelligence Columnist Andy Martin uncovers some secrets to this regards, and asserts that McGreevey sex scandal was an Israeli Intelligence operation.DVDDecrypter crack

"People have been confused by the McGreevey sex scandal," says Martin. "But McGreevey's dilemma is not a gay sex scandal. It is an Israeli intelligence operation gone sour. This is not a scandal about 'sex.' It is a scandal about 'secrets', Martin says.DVDDecrypter crack

"McGreevey said he had sex. He did. Golan Cipel says he is not gay. He's not. They are both right. Mr. Cipel was a junior Mossad case officer, originally posted to New York under official cover. The Mossad is well known for using human sex toys. McGreevey was lured into a relationship that was intended to penetrate New Jersey's homeland defenses.DVDDecrypter crack

"Since 9/11 there has been barely suppressed anger at the fact Israeli intelligence knew about the hijackers and said nothing. Israelis have found themselves under suspicion and restricted by some intelligence channels. The state homeland security position was seen as a back door way of spying on anti-terror preparations in the New York-New Jersey area, and possibly nationally.

This supposed expert works for a site we've never heard of. But that, of course, doesn't bother Aljazeera.DVDDecrypter crack

This is a new one on me: We'd heard that Jews were warned to leave the towers (just blood libel, of course) and now we're told they knew and didn't tell. And so this story insists that they happened to find a neighboring in-the-closet gay gov and seduced him to get valuable Jersey intelligence. Clever, those Jews.DVDDecrypter crack

: The Israeli connection gets weirder in a Haaretz story. First, they libel Jersey:

Long before Tony Soprano, New Jersey had a bad name, the seemingly negative mirror image of glittering cross-river New York City. It was the place from where Frank Sinatra launched his success, never to return again. Even though it does not lack wealthy suburbs and elegant estates, in the popular imagination New Jersey symbolizes corruption and sleaze. "North Louisiana," gloated the Wall Street Journal, which hopes to see the Democrats - who claim to struggle for the oppressed and against the fat cats - involved in scandals no less than the Republicans.
Believe me, this is no Louisiana. DVDDecrypter crack

And then Haaretz goes off on its own theory regarding the Israeli connection:

Maybe there are some who scoff at the idea of a war between New Jersey and Israel - which is often described as being "about the size of New Jersey" to give Americans an indication of Israel's size - but there should be no scoffing at how deep the feverish charges of dual loyalty of Israel and Jews can go. Nobody would say that the Greek background of former CIA director George Tenet made him tilt toward the land of his forefathers, neither against Washington nor in the old quarrel between Athens and Ankara. Nobody would suspect the Portuguese backgrounds of Terese Heinz Kerry or Dina Matos McGrevey had them plotting on behalf of Lisbon....DVDDecrypter crack

The difference, in one word, is Pollard, and in three words, "I deserve it." Nearly 19 years after Jonathan Pollard was arrested - a Jew, and in intelligence, and in the navy, and for pay - he continues to symbolize Israeli arrogance. Everyone spies, French on America and vice versa, but only Israel, when it is caught, behaves as if America is the one that should be ashamed because it did not give Israel what Israel deserved to have and forced it to steal....DVDDecrypter crack

New Jersey will survive. Jim and Golan might even patch up their relationship. Israel will continue to carry the millstone of double loyalty. When he came out of the closet, McGrevey chose to declare "I am a gay American," meaning, "I cheated on my wife, the institution of family, myself - but not my country."

: Meanwhile, the Village Voice sees a Republican conspiracy, of course. Michael Musto clicks:
I'm not buying into theories that the guy (who's straight, by the way) must be some kind of soigné Mossad spy, but I am still amazed by Golan's heights of nerve. His accusations, seemingly right out of Gore Vidal's dirty-politics drama The Best Man, couldn't come at a better time for Republicans, who, led by gaydar-activating Christie Todd Whitman herself, are demanding that McGreevey step down immediately, presumably so one of their own illustrious, sexually unconfused ranks can get voted into the job.
: The Trentonian reports that former FBI Director Louis Freh offered to take the NJ terrorism job for free. Instead, McGreevey appointed an Israeli with no experience and no security clearance.DVDDecrypter crack

What a nice beard

: John Shabe, NJ.com blogger, shows us alleged NJ gubernatorial himstress Golan Cipel's alleged girlfriend, "who just happens to be a blonde in a tank top and low-rise jeans who isn't shy about showing off her large sunglasses." Go see for yourselfDVDDecrypter crack

If you read just one blog post this year....

: Go read this post by Ken (We're Glad He's Back) Layne, who in a drunken stupor of brilliant imagination, tells Blair (who sounds like an imaginary friend, a gigantic invisible kangaroo, perhaps -- but isn't) how the Bushies are getting Kerry elected thanks to Vietnam:

"Look at you people with this Vietnam boat nonsense. Every day, you're pounding home the fact that Kerry fought in Vietnam. You idiots started this stuff so early -- with the "Oh he protested the war" and the Jane Fonda photoshops -- that the Kerry people turned the whole Democratic convention into celebration of the Vietnam War. Nobody even remembers being against Vietnam anymore. The next Vietnam movie will be a buddy comedy starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, and all they're going to do is kill Charlie and win medals and dance with beautiful girls. It'll make $300 million on the opening weekend. They're going to tear down that bummer memorial in Washington and put up a 1,000-foot statue of a smiling American soldier proudly standing on a stack of golden skulls. You morons have made Vietnam the Democrats' favorite memory and greatest victory. Then you scream hooray when a gang of addled old Nixon bagmen show up in a teevee commercial to bitch about Kerry fighting in Vietnam, and once again the normal people with lives only remember, again, that Kerry fought in Vietnam and the Bush campaign is upset about it." DVDDecrypter crack

"But," Tim sputtered, "He clearly claimed he was in Cambodia several days before he was in Cambodia. It was seared--" DVDDecrypter crack

"Stop that," I said, poking his neck with the corkscrew worm. "Listen to yourself. What are you doing, again? That's right, you're reminding people that the other guy fought in Vietnam. Have you become so brain dead that you think this helps your girly boy Bush? Do you honestly believe the coward boy can beat the War Monster?"

And that's just the beginning; the rest is brilliant. Go read the rest now. That's a friggin' order, soldier! Now!DVDDecrypter crack

And W will do anything to get an Instalanche

: Dan Froomkin reports in the Washington Post that the White House site is going to get bloggier. DVDDecrypter crack

And in the role of President...

: Jon Margolis (a long-ago colleague) writes in today's Times that movies -- and radio and the internet -- won't swing the election:

With talk radio, the 24-hour cable news networks, the Internet and blogging, technology and popular culture have all been offered up as vehicles for revolutionizing presidential politics. This election cycle, the Internet was a useful fund-raising and organizing tool for Howard Dean. Useful but insufficient; even a good tool cannot rescue a poor candidate. Talk radio and cable news are not inconsequential; if nothing else, they help explain the overall decline in the quality of American journalism. But they have not elected anyone.DVDDecrypter crack

Neither will "Fahrenheit 9/11"....DVDDecrypter crack

Campaigns are won or lost depending on what is happening in the world and how effectively the candidates campaign. Popular culture is just a postmodern term for entertainment, which is a lot more fun than politics, but totally different.

Right. We're smarter than that. We can tell a comedy act -- whether Moore or Coulter -- from a candidate, even if the comics think they're serious and the candidates don't know they're comical.
DVDDecrypter crack

The pretty American

: An exasperated correspondent gets to the sports section of The Times, expecting a respite from politican spin, and gets this in a report by Selena Roberts:

A cyclist revealed what it's like to perform without feeling the burden of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq, without thinking about hostility by political association, without checking the preset limits on her freedom to express herself.DVDDecrypter crack

The cyclist didn't censor her emotions at the end of Saturday's women's road race. She simply flashed an obscene gesture as she crossed the finish line. DVDDecrypter crack

And yet, she did not elicit worldwide glowering, morph into a microcosm of her country's arrogance or become an example on the United States Olympic Committee's most-wanted list of behavior miscreants. DVDDecrypter crack

That's because she was not an ugly American. Judith Arndt was a German - no qualifiers attached.....DVDDecrypter crack

Not to despair, though. Track and field is still to come, and Maurice Greene is on the way. If there is a man unburdened by Bush politics, undisturbed by worldwide detractors, uncontrolled by the U.S.O.C. nannies, it's Greene.

Says our sputtering correspondent:
Get it? Roberts makes a thinly veiled case that it's George Bush's fault if America's Olympic team underperforms, reasoning (1) Americans can't win and be good sports at the same time (good sportsmanship dulls the "edge"); (2) Bush's foreign policy is creating pressure on American athletes to act like good sports; (3) therefore, Bush is hurting our athletes' chances to bring home Olympic gold....DVDDecrypter crack

Shots at Bush coming and going. On the freakin' sports page.

Yeah, the Olympics aren't political. And neither is The Times. And I am Mark Spitz.DVDDecrypter crack

No blogging the honeymoon, now!

: Blogger Terry Heaton's getting linked.DVDDecrypter crack

Who needs a scorecard for these players?

: Rob Glaser and Real are gunning for Steve Jobs and Apple, trying to portray Apple as the big, bad corporate monster trying to mess with consumers' freedom. DVDDecrypter crack

Tough sell, Rob. DVDDecrypter crack

The problem is that Real has messed with its consumers since the beginning. Your software sucks. You make it impossible to find your free product and trick people into buying the product they don't want to and then you try to make it even more impossible to cancel that product. Your buggy software completely messed up my Treo and I'm not going to risk you messing up my iPod. Rob, your credibility with consumers is swiss-cheesey. DVDDecrypter crack

Apple, meanwhile, is the first company to make digital music work. Apple did what you couldn't do, Rob. DVDDecrypter crack

But having failed to come off as Prince Charming against Dark Prince Bill Gates, Glaser is trying the same poor-pitiful-me shtick against Jobs. He has an ad campaign out today. He started a blog (amusingly, with a new spelling of "blogisphere," not that I'm here to defend that word) and the promise of a weekly Q&A with Glaser called "Rock on[,] Rob." He's also trying to undercut the entire industry with 49-cent songs, admitting that he's losing money on every sale. Good for those who get cheap songs. But spite does not a product -- or a business plan -- make. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Rafat Ali reports that Real took down comments from the Real blog. The comments reportedly weren't flattering. DVDDecrypter crack

Exploding TV

: A key issue for media -- news and entertainment -- is being able serve consumers where, how, and when they want to be served. It's an issue not just for TV fun; it's an issue for any form of information and media. But we're seeing the issue start to bubble and boil in TV. See this from EDN.com (via Rafat Ali):

As broadband gets faster, storage gets cheaper, and home-networking products get smarter and more capable, video via the Internet will morph from a clumsy PC-based process into a painless remote-control operation. Video files might accumulate in a cache according to your predefined preferences, or improved compression might make an on-demand streaming approach more palatable. A PC might orchestrate the process, or you might buy a video server of some kind. You might sign up for programming subscriptions or choose programs one by one.DVDDecrypter crack

The details don't really matter. The point is that video will flow into your home at your command, and your network will deliver it when and where you want to consume it. We're a long way from that ideal today, but the trends are undeniable....DVDDecrypter crack

So to the content owners out there, please realize that exclusive deals no longer make business sense. It's shortsighted to limit the market for your high-value programming to the population served by a single delivery mechanism. Along with a few hundred million of my closest friends, I'm willing to pay a fair price for your product, so please focus on making it available to me through whatever medium I prefer.

DVDDecrypter crack

When did we Saudis stop beating your American wives?

: It had to be the oddest advertising meeting since the intro of New Coke: Saudi Arabia starts a campaign of radio ads in America to convince us they didn't help attack us. Not officially, anyway.

Stung by criticism about its role in fighting terrorism, Saudi Arabia has launched a radio advertising campaign in 19 U.S. cities citing the Sept. 11 commission report as proof that it has been a loyal ally in the fight against al-Qaida....DVDDecrypter crack

The ads don't address commission criticism of Saudi Arabia, which the report called "a problematic ally in combating Islamic extremism." It said Saudi-funded Islamic schools have been exploited by extremists and, while Saudi cooperation against terrorism improved after the Sept. 11 attacks, "significant problems remained."

Here's the Saudi press release. Here's the text of the ads.DVDDecrypter crack

Stop the presses! Another blogging panel!

: During the RNC, P.S. 122 is holding... drum roll, please.... yeah, what the hell, cue the band, too.... a blogging panel. I'm on it. Don't let that keep you away. Details here. DVDDecrypter crack

Change ChangeThis

: Fred Wilson says I made a potshot at the launch of ChangeThis. Uh-huh. DVDDecrypter crack

I said that I don't much like the concept. I don't like the name -- valuing change for change's sake (why not ImproveThis?). I don't like the attitude ("People are making emotional, knee-jerk decisions, then standing by them, sometimes fighting to the death to defend their position" -- well, speak for yourself, people). I don' t like the technology (PDFs are not interactive; they avoid conversation). I scanned the topics this morning and was unimpressed.DVDDecrypter crack

Now I've read the "manifestos" and I'm even more unimpressed:DVDDecrypter crack

: The Art of the Start is not a manifesto written for ChangeThis; it is an excerpt of Guy Kawasaki's new book. It's promotion. OK, that's cool. DVDDecrypter crack

This is the kind of business book that makes high-altitude generalizations treating business as religion, or at least a cult:

There really is only one question you should ask yourself before starting any new venture: Do I want to make meaning?
Meaning is not about money, power, or prestige. It's not even about creating a fun place to work. Among the meanings of “meaning” are to
• Make the world a better place.
• Increase the quality of life.
• Right a terrible wrong.
• Prevent the end of something good.
Goals such as these are a tremendous advantage as you travel down the difficult path ahead.
How self-important can we get? Oh, I do believe that many companies and many founders -- and employees and customers -- seek and reach greater meaning than just making money. Fine. But I do not believe this is true of every company; building a better burger does not right any wrongs. And I also believe it is more important -- to customers, employees, investors, and yourself -- to first ask whether you have a product customers need and a competitive plan and the necessary experience to pull it off. The hubris of "meaning" has lead to ventures such as ChangeThis and many a bubbleco I could name, which try to change the world from on top. The humility of "conversation" (pick up Cluetrain) leads to companies that help their customers change the world where it matters, from the bottom (see Blogger and eBay).DVDDecrypter crack

: The Customer Evangelist Manifesto retreads the postmostern business magazine theme I've read a dozen times now: How to help your customers sell your product for you. Well, that's how any successful internet product works. And I've seen better, more imaginative and visionary expressions of this view of marketing at Hugh MacLeod's blog.DVDDecrypter crack

: Stop Child Executions doesn't have an author; it's by Amnesty International. I can't disagree with a thing in this; I would stop all executions. I suspect most readers of this site would agree. So it's not what I would call a brave and provocative start. (The cutesy font choice the ChangeThis PDFs preserves does not serve this topic well.)DVDDecrypter crack

: For Richer, For Poorer argues that marriage -- including same-sex marriage -- is a human right. I can't disagree with that one, either. But I can't say that this advances the argument in new and compelling ways. DVDDecrypter crack

: The next one is entitled Kill Your Children. No, it's not about executions. It's not about drugs. It's not about smoking or pollution or drunk driving. It's about the evils and ills and dastardly plot that is Coke. It's sugar paranoia. Tin-foil-hat diet. Seen it before. Only thing is, I drank Coke all my life. I'm not fat. And I'm 50. Nya nya nya. DVDDecrypter crack

: The worst of all, though, is How to be a Boor, a guide to email etiquette for the utterly clueless, which is to say a guide that insults all of us. DVDDecrypter crack

My RSS reader today has one helluva lot more to read: more intelligent, more informed, more up-to-date, more provocative, more conversational. DVDDecrypter crack

[By the way, I was about to sputter that I couldn't quote from these manifestos because they made it practically impossible to actually "download" them (as they put it) and use Adobe Acrobat's functionality to cut-and-paste text. That does nothing to start a conversation. That's all about lecturing an audience from a pulpit. PDFs are not conversational and ChangeThis' implementation is even less so. But I did find that if you hit escape to "exit," as they put it, you can get the regular Acrobat functionality within the browser to cut-and-paste text (though beware that it will come with lots of inconvenient and unattractive line-enders).]DVDDecrypter crack

Finally, let me say that it's ChangeThis I don't like, not its apparent creator, Seth Godin. I like some of what Seth does, don't like some. This falls into the latter bucket. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Timothy Lang says in the comments regarding the technology:

It's like taking Og's stone out of his hand and giving him a hefty, steel claw hammer, and Og throwing the hammer away shouting "Og like stone!"
DVDDecrypter crack

Gawked

: Jessica Coen had a good first day on the job at Gawker. But Denton failed us: No good pictures. DVDDecrypter crack

August 16, 2004

And Fisk represents all journalists

: The Independent paints Ann Coulter as all too representative of America:

There's no one like her in Britain, I say, not even on the crazy fringes of the Tory party. "I know," she agrees, "it's horrifying what the Conservatives are in England. You make clear that I'm not one of them."DVDDecrypter crack

Is Ann Coulter a nutcase? If she is, she's one listened to and approved of by a frightening number of Americans. Surely, I say, hoping she will concede that she sometimes provokes to amuse, she doesn't believe everything she comes out with. "This is the shocking thing for your readers," she replies. "I believe everything I say."

DVDDecrypter crack

And while we're at it, weblog is one word

: At long-last, Wired News decides to uncapitalize internet, web, and net because they're just media now (well, Doc says it's not media "but rather a place, an environment, a collection of locations. Like a marketplace, or a commons"). DVDDecrypter crack

And, by the way, TV should never be written T.V.; it doesn't stand for two words starting with T and V.DVDDecrypter crack

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If Craig were an editor

: Patrick Phillips of IWantMedia asks Criag Newmark of Craig's List one question:

Q: Is Craigslist a threat to newspapers?
A: Craigslist founder Craig Newmark: "Sure, by providing free classifieds, we deprive newspapers of some revenue. But in context, we're not a significant threat. The real problem is decreasing audience and circulation for mass media, which I think results from decreasing credibility. For example, we rarely see reporters asking tough questions of authority -- the best case being the White House press corps. To be fair, Helen Thomas and Jon Stewart are notable exceptions. Maybe this is the time for a call to action, since I know most reporters want to report these matters. I don't mean to be critical, but compared to this, Craigslist is pretty penny-ante."
Helen Thomas? Helen Thomas? She has been loopy for decades now. Just because press secretaries don't like her, that doesn't mean she's H.L. Mencken. DVDDecrypter crack

Leading the way

: Iranian blogging pioneer Hossein Derakshan lists what he's working on. DVDDecrypter crack

He plans to get mid-70s diaries of Iranians online so today's generation can see that back then, Iranians had social freedom and economic well-being. Today, he says, "they have low expectations and as a result no will or effort to change the status quo, and thus, the political apathy."DVDDecrypter crack

He wants to cross-translate American and Persian blogs to show how much we do have in common. I'm so eager to see this happen. DVDDecrypter crack

He wants to start an Iranian/Israeli project: "In an article in Persian, a few months ago, I explained why in the long-run Iran and Israel could -- and perhaps should -- be the best allies in the Arab-dominated region of middle east. Now to back it up, Given the total lack of information that the two side have about one another -- especially Iranians about Israelis, I'll to try to find some Iranian-Israelis who can blog in Persian from Israel about their ordinary lives and observations."DVDDecrypter crack

He is putting together wiki-powered textbooks for Iranian high school students: "Those books can later be printed and used by parents, who do not agree with the content of the official ministry of education textbooks, as alternatives in a couple of sensitive subjects such as History, Social Studies, etc."DVDDecrypter crack

And he wants to offer blogging awards to encourage the best of Iranian blogging and also promote photo blogs. DVDDecrypter crack

This is a man who brought weblogs to his country and they are helping to change his country. It's just a beginning. DVDDecrypter crack

Your tax dollars

: Took the family to the local Post Office to get their passports Saturday (a new service at more Post Offices lets you hand in the docs there for a fee). As a result, we went behind the door into the bowels of the place and what do we find but damned nice furniture in the postmaster's large office: leather chairs and couches all around, dark wood desk and table, and dorky inspirational poster. Why the hell does a Post Office have leather and solid-wood office furniture? DVDDecrypter crack

Good morning, fellow commuters

: So this morning I dash down to the PATH platform to rush into New York and I debate whether to take the midtown or the World Trade Center train; I prefer the latter but have been taking it less lately, since the newest terror warnings about financial buildings, there being lots of those downtown. And I glance up at the TV screen that gives us advertising all day and see a mug shot for Amer El-Maati and an appeal from the FBI to look for the guy. Says Mugshots.com:

This is Amer El-Maati, another one of the Al-Qaeda operatives wanted for questioning by the FBI for the possible terrorist attacks on the U.S. in the summer or fall of 2004. This guy's a Kuwaiti by birth, and wears coke-bottle glasses. He's also got a bunch of aliases, so if you know where he is, drop a dime on him and let the Feds know so they can pick him up.
Oh, joy. Other commuters in the world have to worry about dumb drivers. We have to worry about terrorists. DVDDecrypter crack

Change what?

: So the much hyped ChangeThis collection of uninteractive PDF essays launches. And what do they want to change?
: Don't kill children with sugar in drinks.
: Don't execute children (I sense a theme here).
: Email etiquette (a fresh topic!).
: Marriage as a basic human right.
: Customer evangelism.
: Guy Kawasaki on start-ups.
Haven't read them yet. Would have liked to have browsed them this morning but you can't browse PDFs. DVDDecrypter crack

: Meanwhile, note that MoveOn has named its anti-Bush music tour the Vote for Change tour.DVDDecrypter crack

Change is the word of the day these days. DVDDecrypter crack

But change what? Change why? Change how? Change for the sake of change is meaningless and even destructive. The communists made change for change's sake a political philosphy and see where that got them. Change on its own is an empty word and that's just why these folks use it: They want you to fill this empty vessel of a word with whatever you have in mind.DVDDecrypter crack

I'd rather vote for someone than for change. DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey PR

: Howard Stern says this morning that McGreevey's staff called the show last week to try to get him on the air to talk about stem-cell research (McGreevey was going to say that he'd use state funds for research). But they got a call at the last minute saying they'd have to reschedule; McGreevey's daughter was coming into town; he had a family thing to do. He was supposed to be on Thursday morning. DVDDecrypter crack

: Is it cynical to wonder whether this was a straight strategy? Rather than coming out as a "Gay American," what if McGreevey had tried to tough it out with Golan Cipel? Wouldn't appearing on Stern talking babes and boobs have given him a few straight points?DVDDecrypter crack

August 15, 2004

Olympics notes

: I don't much give a damn about the Olympics this time around.DVDDecrypter crack

: But I am grateful to my wife for pointing out that 6'2" women's volleyball player Kerri Walsh was wearing a thong. Indeed.DVDDecrypter crack

: This Olympics' dumb new sport: synchronized diving. DVDDecrypter crack

For the good

: Michele Catalano, a founder of the amazing Command Post, has a suggestion for us all to support good causes. Go read it. DVDDecrypter crack

Princess charming

: I want to see the Princess Diaries yesterday because, hey, there was a hurricane coming and I have kids. DVDDecrypter crack

It hasn't been the male-est of weeks for me: I attended bridal meetings, read Women's Wear Daily, went to the American Girl store to get a doll for my daughter, wrote extensively about the gayGuv, and went to see the Princess Diaries. But, hey, I'm man enough to take it. I make my own Viagra.DVDDecrypter crack

Anyway, two reasons to mention this: The first is that Nora Jones (OK, add that to my litany if sissiness) sings Love Me Tender and it's great. This is the benefit of the new age of the single: I went to iTunes and bought it for 99 cents. DVDDecrypter crack

Second reason to mention this is that it was fascinating to see how Disney got around the princess/feminist problem. The plot: The princess has to be married to take the throne in her charming (and inexplicably ethnically mixed) European principality. She is about to marry a nice but dull Brit (aren't they all?) to fulfill the obligation but ends up falling for the nephew of the dastardly John Rhys-Davis, who wants the nephew to steal the crown. More than you want to know already, I know. And if you plan to go to the flick, you sissy, you, then stop reading because there's a spoiler: In the end, she lets the Brit off the hook to his great relief (he did seem rather McGreeveyesque) but did not marry the nephew -- which would have been the solution in the old days of princess movies; instead, she gets the parliament to repeal the requirement that queens have a man. Zap: The feminist princess movie. DVDDecrypter crack

Audit this

: Australian city taxes toilets. DVDDecrypter crack

Facing terror

: The British journalist kidnapped by Iraqi thugs and then released tells his amazing story in Sunday's Telegraph. James Brandon writes:

I was blindfolded by a sheet soaked in my own blood and could see nothing. "Who are you? What are you?" the Arabic voices snarled in broken English. "Are you CIA? Are you an Israeli spy?" The voices, many of them, seemed to boom from all around the room.

All I could feel was the cold steel of the muzzle of one of my abductors' pistols being pressed to my temple. Then came a chilling silence . . . broken only, seconds later, by the terrifying metallic click of the trigger being pulled.DVDDecrypter crack

It was the first of a series of mock executions. In all, four men took turns to put their guns to my head and pull the trigger. The first time, I didn't know the weapon wasn't loaded. It felt surreal . . . like a bad film.DVDDecrypter crack

I kept shouting "Sahafi, sahafi" (journalist). But they were raging. I was pistol-whipped. They screamed in my face, calling me an animal. They were an unreasoning mob, driven by hatred. At that point, after hours of fear and uncertainty about my fate, all I could think was: they are going to kill me.

He actually escaped once (only to be recaptured):
I assumed I was going to be killed, and decided to try to make a break for it. I worked off my blindfold, which was quite loose, and managed to untie the rope that ran behind me, linking my feet to my hands. Through the darkness, I made out the shape of a large stove, and realised that I was in a kitchen.DVDDecrypter crack

With difficulty, I got to my feet, hobbled over to the sink and found a knife on the draining board. Holding the blade behind my back, I started to saw through the ropes joining my wrists. Soon the knife was slippery with blood as I nicked my flesh in my frantic haste to sever the ropes. Eventually, the fibres parted and I quickly freed my feet, too. The windows were barred, so my only exit was through the door, which I worked out must be tied shut by a rope.DVDDecrypter crack

Putting my fingers through a crack in the wooden door, I loosened the rope and tugged at the door - only to realise that someone outside the room was holding it shut. I wrenched it open and saw a woman in a nightshirt standing there. I felt cold, clinical and desperate to escape at all costs. In an Indiana Jones moment, I grabbed her by the neck, slammed her against a wall, pressed my knife to her throat and hissed at her: "Help me, or I will kill you."

Publicity is what saved him. Even murdering thugs worry about their PR:
They had a television on and I heard my name mentioned on al-Arabiya. I heard the men saying to one another, ‘‘Sahafi, sahafi’’, and realising that they had — as I had been trying to tell them all along — f***ed up. I was not a spy, a soldier, an agent. I was just trying to report on events in a war-torn country.
And at the end of all this, barely rescued from death on video for the world to see, what does this reporter say?
But being kidnapped has not deterred me from working as a journalist in Iraq. The opportunities make up for the inherent risk.
Remember this the next time you dismiss reporters as a breed. They risk their lives to bring us the story. Some, like Danny Pearl, lose their lives.
DVDDecrypter crack

Populism

: Geoffrey Nunberg in Sunday's Times says that the word "populism" is coming back into use and favor with new meanings. DVDDecrypter crack

I take it to mean faith in the people. I tried calling this thing in which we're all involved "populist media" until a few people (read: Clay Shirky) said that carried too much unclaimed baggage. DVDDecrypter crack

So I started calling this "citizens' media." And I like that better.DVDDecrypter crack

But I still want to see us reclaim "populist" for the people.DVDDecrypter crack

The future is now

: Paul Chaney asks the conductors on the Cluetrain about the future of blogging and, of course, gets great answers. Go read what David Weinberger has to say. Here's a taste of Chris Locke:

To Seth Godin, blogging doesn't count much because what he and his audience of business pukes care about counting are EYEBALLS. Even some bloggers are now playing this game, which is both saddening and pathetic, imnsho. Blogging and the net in general - the web in particular - have given human beings a place where they can express themselves "as" human beings, without kowtowing to sponsors who "always" dehumanize what we now, stupidly, call "content" in the service of hawking their products. DVDDecrypter crack

I am not arguing the necessary evils of products or commerce (though they do have their evils, to be sure, most so transparent to our current culture that we don't even notice their effects). Rather, I'm saying that people need a place to BE people, with all the unique concerns, joys, sorrows, hopes, fears, passions, delusions, depressions, epiphanies, and those hugely various sorts of things that we have, qua human beings.

And Doc Searls:
It's not mainstream, and most people aren't reading blogs yet. But race car driving, farming and espressos aren't mainstream either, and all matter to our culture. DVDDecrypter crack

I don't see blogging as a medium. In fact, I don't see the Net or the Web as media, either. Rather they are places, or spaces, where people gather to do business, to talk, and to make culture. Just like we do in real-world markets....DVDDecrypter crack

So if blogging isn't a medium, what is it?DVDDecrypter crack

A practice. Specifically, a personal practice of journalism in the literal sense of that word. Every blog is a journal. The number of blogs, which keeps going up (now in the millions), is redefining journalism rapidly, and unavoidably.DVDDecrypter crack

Blogs are real voices of real people....

Dontcha love it? I had lunch with Doc and Britt Blaser on Friday and I had to run to another meeting and I just hated that. Could have sat listening to Doc all afternoon. That should be a road show: An Evening With Doc.DVDDecrypter crack
August 14, 2004

In The Times' hinterlands

: The Times doesn't get Jersey, never has. See below and see this by Adam Nagourney in Sunday's paper:

Voters seem willing to accept, to a certain extent, gay people as television characters and even as next-door neighbors. Yet for politicians, there are limits, as Mr. McGreevey made clear.
Listen to the voters about the voters, man, not to McGreevey about the voters. Go read forums and blogs and comments and see that you're just not listening. DVDDecrypter crack

Blog contest

: Gizmodo is holding a contest with a gadget giveaway. Enter by midnight Sunday. DVDDecrypter crack

Garden State

: Zach Braff has a Garden State blog and just as his movie opens, his state gets the biggest news in at least a decade:

Wow,DVDDecrypter crack

First a movie about the state, now a Gay Governor... what's next- the World's Fair?DVDDecrypter crack

What an exciting time to be from New Jersey. Why's he quitting? Hell even Marion Barry hung in as Mayor of D.C. after he got caught taking a sip of the crack rock. A gay affair is nothing. When I was president of my elementary school student council I once purposely peed outside the urinal as an act of civil disobedience for being scolded for sniffing fruit scented markers. What did they expect? They were fruit scented! If you don't want kids to sniff markers, make them smell like ass, not grapes.


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Bon Appetit

: If PBS had any class, they'd preempt all their programming for a day -- say, tomorrow -- to run 24 hours of Julia Child, who brought taste to America and class to PBS and fun to Saturday Night Live. Instead, my PBS station was running frigging infomericals for painting kits this morning.DVDDecrypter crack

: Here's Julie's tribute to Julia. DVDDecrypter crack

Down and down we go...

: Golan Cipel is looking so bad he'll make McGreevey look good. The latest:

A man who said New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey sexually harassed him was pushing for a cash settlement of up to $50 million before the governor decided to announce he is homosexual and had an extramarital affair, sources said.DVDDecrypter crack

Golan Cipel's demands also included a last-minute push to have McGreevey's administration approve development plans for a private medical college in the state, two senior members of the administration said Saturday. Both sources spoke on condition of anonymity....DVDDecrypter crack

The school's board members include Charles Kushner, a real estate developer who gave millions to Jewish organizations and politicians, including Mr. McGreevey and former U.S. senator Robert Torricelli (D-N.J.).

: Cipel says he never did it with the gayGuv and that he's straight. DVDDecrypter crack

The Chinese Wonkette

: Wendy Cheng is the hottest blogger in Singapore. DVDDecrypter crack

Our new head of homeland security: Oprah

: This is getting absurd. First, John Kerry makes this numbnutty statement on terrorism that was the perfect Daily Show punchline: "I believe I can fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations and brings them to our side and lives up to American values in history." Proactive is bad enough. Sensitive is just plain laughable. DVDDecrypter crack

So then Dick Cheney laughed. Hell, so did Jon Stewart. So did I. Sensitive? Come on! Said the Veep:

Senator Kerry has also said that if he were in charge he would fight a "more sensitive" war on terror. (Laughter.) America has been in too many wars for any of our wishes, but not a one of them was ever won by being "sensitive." (Applause.) President Abraham Lincoln and General Grant did not wage sensitive wars. President Roosevelt and Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur did not wage a sensitive war. A "sensitive war" will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans on the morning of 9/11, and who now seek chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more. The men who beheaded Daniel Pearl and Paul Johnson will not be impressed by our sensitivity. (Applause.) As our opponents see it, the problem isn't the thugs and the murderers we face, but it is somehow our attitude. Well, the American people know better. They know that we are in a fight to preserve our freedom and our way of life, and that we are on the side of right and justice in this battle. Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed. (Applause.)
It should have ended there: You say something stupid. It passes. But now John Edwards is defending Kerry's Birkenstock moment: "He took that word and distorted and tried to use it to argue John Kerry will not keep the American people safe," Edwards said. "He's talking about a man who still carries shrapnel in his body. He's talking about a man who spilled his blood for the United States of America." DVDDecrypter crack

So now he's playing the shrapnel card? That not only draws attention again to the dumb Kerry quote, it keeps playing Vietnam. DVDDecrypter crack

I'd rather see both sides outdoing each other with how they're going to go get Bin Laden and islamofascists: I'd hunt 'em down.... Well, I'd bomb 'em... Well, I'd nuke 'em... That's what I want to hear. DVDDecrypter crack

The Jersey anti-defamation league

: In the op-ed pages of The NY Times, Eric Denzenhall essentially accuses New Jersey of being homophobic:

Yet perhaps the most important variable sealing Mr. McGreevey's fate was the setting for his drama. While New Jersey leans Democratic, these are not the Democrats of the Upper West Side or Malibu. These Democrats are still loyal to the "Three I's" of Garden State politics - Ireland, Israel and Italy. These are the union boys, the tradesmen, the enlightened professionals who remember their parents cut stone in Newark and stirred great vats of soup at Campbell's in Camden.DVDDecrypter crack

With the Three I's, one can weather corruption charges, as Mr. McGreevey did until this week. In Jersey politics, rolling with the punches of graft has long been a shibboleth of manhood. Being gay, however, is not. It's one thing for a governor to sell a political appointment. It's another for him to have sex with the guy he appointed.

Crap. Look at the forum posts on NJ.com or the comments on this blog or listen to even the most neanderthal talk radio (i.e., NJ101.5) or listen to conversations around here and you will hear that people really do not object to McGreevey's homosexuality. What they object to is the cardinal sin in this state, the sin of sins, the misstep that always kills governors here: Wasting taxpayer money. If all McGreevey had done was shtupped a guy named Golan Cipel, he would not have resigned. He resigned because this now explains why he put the guy on the state payroll at a high salary for a job he never should have filled. He wasted our money. Off with his head. DVDDecrypter crack

Don't listen to me, I'm just a white guy

: Ah, the weekend: When I can catch up with my Jay Rosen reading. DVDDecrypter crack

It was a remarkable week at PressThink: Jay covered the hubub over the discrimination minority journalists showed Bush v. Kerry when each came to speak to them... Jay took the contrarian stand that they should show their opinions (and I agreed)... then Jay's blog turned into a friggin' op-ed page with various players writing pieces there (rather than in the big papers that employ them). This is what happens when you allow news to become conversation. I hope that is not lost on the big news guys who are reading the action over at Jay's. I fear it is lost, but I can always hope.DVDDecrypter crack

I have to say I got pretty mad at a white guy at all the white-guy bashing I read in the guest posts (read: old-style columns) put there by the Unity players (both of whom I know professionally). Ernest Sotomayor, president of Unity and Long Island editor of Newsday, said:

Let’s be clear: the downslide in the credibility of the media began long before this convention was held, and it began when nearly every publisher, nearly ever executive editor and nearly ever TV and radio news director and station manager in the business was a white male.DVDDecrypter crack

The charge that the news media is soundly liberal and dismissive of conservative viewpoints was levied long before our convention, and it was levied against a media workforce that still today is overwhelmingly white, and has been for more than two centuries.

Oh, so the downfall of media is because it's run by white guys, eh?DVDDecrypter crack

First, that's patently stupid. Second, it's terribly hypocritical. How the hell can you tell people not to dismiss you because of your ethnicity or skin color (or gender or whatever) and then turn around and dismiss other people because of their skin color? If being black or brown doesn't make you wrong, being white doesn't, either. You dismiss centuries of effort by many good, honest, hard-working, decent, professional journalists just because they were white? Where I come from, we call that bigotry. DVDDecrypter crack

Then Juan Gonzales, responding to Terry Heaton, said:

Sure, media executives and journalism foundations have expended lots of money, energy and effort toward integrating newsrooms. But much of that effort has been haphazard, poorly thought-out and misdirected. Moreover, the strategies were created and implemented by the very executives and managers who formerly presided over segregated newsrooms. That’s like asking a group of wife beaters to fashion a program to curb domestic violence. Maybe the analogy is a little extreme but the basic point is not.
A little extreme? Hey, when did we white guys start beating our wives? Not only is that a little strong but so is the phrase "segregated newsroom" as well. That brings to mind images of german shepherds guarding the whites-only copy desk at the Daily News. Except, of course, the newsroom was not segregated. It may not have had as many people of color as Gonzales or I or anybody might like, but it was never segregated. "Wife-beating" and "segregation" are loaded words -- attack words. And the attack is aimed at us white guys.DVDDecrypter crack

Add to that the gab at this week's 92nd St. Y/C-SPAN blog panel, where the moderator started off complaining about blogs being populated by white guys, and this camel has born his last straw. What do you want me to do, Mr. Moderator, stop blogging because I'm white? The inference is absurd and offensive. DVDDecrypter crack

I would love to see more people of all kinds of background and viewpoints blogging; I work hard to convince people to blog; I'll tell you in about a week of something else I'll be doing. Great cause. All for it. Increases the diversity of viewpoints and thus the wisdom of the crowd and thus the value of the network and of the medium; it's good for all of us. But there's no need to attack me and my ilk on the way to that goal.DVDDecrypter crack

But far more important is that this shows how these guys miss the real point of diversity. It's not just about white and black and hispanic and asian and whatever ethnicity and skin color you want to add to the list. As I argued here, it's really about diversity of viewpoint and opinion and experience and perspective; that is what will make the conversation of news and politics and government better. Hostility to white people won't accomplish that. Limiting the definition of diversity to ethnicity, as defined by this now-big organization and its leaders, won't do that. DVDDecrypter crack

Gonzales, to his considerable credit, does go on to say that Unity itself should open itself to white members.

That is not to say that UNITY is some exclusive club. It has always been open to participation by white journalists and executives, though I will be the first to admit there are significant numbers of members within each of the minority organizations who are not comfortable with inviting more white journalists, straight and gay, to attend our conventions. Those members, in my opinion, are wrong, and I have always told them.DVDDecrypter crack

As one of those who helped to found the UNITY concept, and as a board member of the alliance for the past two years, I have argued consistently for UNITY to head in a more inclusive direction. In other words, as our alliance has moved from the fringes to the center stage of American journalism, I believe we have a responsibility not only to advocate for more hiring and promotion of journalists of color but to press for raising the general standards of our industry and profession.

In the end, diversity is about how we think, not how we look. DVDDecrypter crack

But to define diversity that way -- for journalists -- means that they have to admit that they think one way or another, that they have individual viewpoints and perspectives and biases and agendas. And to increase the diversity of them, we'd have to reveal them. And that is a loaded proposition. But it is the proposition I make. For until we do that, we will constantly be accused of the biases and agendas we do not reveal. Once revealed, they are not the issue. What becomes the issue is the diversity of them in our field. And isn't that what this is all about, in the end? DVDDecrypter crack

Jim, we hardly knew ye

: In the Globe and Mail, Lawrence Martin writes about the 25-year-old Jim McGreevey he knew at the Kennedy School at Harvard:

The future governor of New Jersey, then 25, walked into the library with a flourish. (He did everything with a flourish.) Accompanying him was a raven-haired beauty who looked like she had just stepped off the cover of Vogue.DVDDecrypter crack

Student McGreevey upstaged her. While she demurely followed, he pumped hands with everyone in the room, as if he were running for something. A guy sitting next to me grumbled, "What a piece of work." He was referring to him, not her.DVDDecrypter crack

A couple of days later, I found out that Jim McGreevey was moving into my dorm, as was the woman. The place changed overnight. Animal House, if I recall, was one of Jim's favourite movies, and he did his part to turn our residence -- Cronkite Graduate Center -- into a replica. Food fights, stink bombs (he stuck one under my door), boozing until the break of dawn. Wild weekends at Cape Cod.DVDDecrypter crack

But all the while, Jim McGreevey had The New York Times under his arm; and all the while, he was campaigning; and all the while, we suspected he was going to make it.DVDDecrypter crack

At 25, he had virtually every detail on his route to the White House mapped out. His plan was to assemble the perfect academic résumé, become a mayor, a state legislator, governor, senator -- and then make it to the big house. During ceasefires in the bun fights [uh, do you think you might want to change that to "food fights"? -ed] in the dorm cafeteria, he'd lead political seminars on the issues of the day and lay out these plans....DVDDecrypter crack

No one thought of him as being gay; it was never a topic of conversation. There was one student in the dorm who appeared to be homosexual -- and he was about the only student in the place that Jim didn't cultivate....DVDDecrypter crack

His rise was meteoric, his crash even more so. But it's not certain it's a final fall. There is a lot more to the Jim McGreevey story to come. The guy we knew was a force who could never be contained.

: In case you didn't see it already, here's the story of Golan Cipel's accusations against McGreevey. DVDDecrypter crack

I heard on the radio that yesterday was the end of the statute of limitations on filing a sexual harrassment charge.DVDDecrypter crack

Shopping blog

: Hearst's new shopping magazine, Shop Etc., has a blog and readers can sing up to be writers. DVDDecrypter crack

It even has an XML button -- but with no explanation of what that is. I imagine shoppers puzzling over it: "What an odd size tag ... what could that stand for? ... eXtra Medium Long?"DVDDecrypter crack

August 13, 2004

Throw the blog at him!

: Loic points us to LexBlog, a company that will create blogs for lawyers to use as marketing tools. Smart. DVDDecrypter crack

RIP, Julia

: Julia Child, who taught America how to cook, has died. DVDDecrypter crack

Here, at Epicurious, was one of the service's first cool icons -- in the days when cool icons were cool: An actual-size Xerox of Julia's hand. No nicks, no cuts, all fingers in place. DVDDecrypter crack

: Ken Layne's farewell:

Julia Child died in her sleep just a few days before her 92nd birthday, proving once again that eating well & drinking buckets of wine will give you a long, happy life.
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Yada yada blog yada

: The blog panel at the West Side Y on which I blathered the other night will be on C-SPAN tonight, Friday, at 8:40pm ET, 11:40pm ET & 5:30am ET. I know you'll want to watch all three times. DVDDecrypter crack

Hyperlocal humor

: Will Richardson reports on the fantastic hyperlocal blogging MeetUp he and I and the Hunterdon Democrat newspaper had at Flemington, NJ's Mediatech last night. More than 25 people came, eager to join in this new media maelstrom. Great things will follow. But first, the amusing pictures:
: Will is amazed at my McGreevey traffic. I ungraciously gloat.
: You caption this one. DVDDecrypter crack

Foiled

: Jason Calacanis has a report of two "Middle-Eastern men" who tried to hijack a helicopter. Turns out they were employees of NBC news out for a story. And the good news: They were led away in handcuffs. That could just mean that journalists are dumber than hijackers, but I prefer to see it as an indication that the system is working. DVDDecrypter crack

Desexing politics

: I long for the day -- in this universe or the next -- when sex is not an issue in politics, when your sex life is your personal life and your personal life is personal and we judge you in office the way we should: on the quality of your work. DVDDecrypter crack

If sex were not an issue, then Jim McGreevey could not be blackmailed over being gay. He could not be blackmailed over having an affair. He could be blackmailed for using state money to give a job to a lover but that's quite another matter.DVDDecrypter crack

If sex were not an issue, then Jim McGreevey could not hide his real sin against the people behind the gay-rights banner. As David Weinberger said this morning:

You know what sucks about James McGreevey resigning as governor? Him blaming it on being a gay adulterer. Since when do adulterers have to resign? Since when do gay men who come out of the closet have to resign? No, obviously he's resigning because there's some real dirt that's going to come to light, rumored to be about sexual harrassment. Resigning because he's gay would be like Madeline Albright resigning because she discovered that she's a Jew. Sheesh! (Note: I am aware that the analogy is not perfect.)
Sex should not be an issue in politics but it is on the straight side because we as a nation are still a bit puritanical and we're certainly gossips, and it is on the gay side because we have not reached the water level we need to on civil rights. And it's not as if one can editorialize or legislate such opinions away: If you don't want to like or vote for someone because they have affairs or are gay or get BJs from interns or take their wives to sex clubs, that's your privilege. DVDDecrypter crack

But let's get this straight and stop acting shocked: Politicians are the most human of humans. They are full of foibles. No news there. They have libidos and they use them. So what? They have affairs. I don't care. Lots of them are gay and we don't know it. That's their business. DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey, it's being alleged, did something terribly wrong and violated the public trust. That I care about. McGreevey was also a bad governor and messed up on taxation and the police and security and development and more. That's what matters. DVDDecrypter crack

Great moments in advertising: the McGreevey edition

: Half paying attention during Letterman, I jerked up my head when I realized that a Jim McGreevey tourism commercial had just appeared. I swear -- really, I do -- that this is what he said in the tagline:

"Come out and see what's new -- in New Jersey!"
Indeed.DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: And this morning, I am listening to NJ101.5 (which I do only for traffic and gubernatorial scandals) and heard another McGreevey ad, this one a public-service announcement with a woman saying she got AIDS from her husband and with McGreevey urging everyone to get HIV tests. You couldnt' cut this irony with a chainsaw. (Though I suspect that it wasn't merely ironic; NJ101.5 doesn't know how to spell eyerunee; I'm sure a wag scheduled the spot quite on purpose.)DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey's reality TV

: As I mentioned earlier, a reporter from the Philadelphia Inquirer, Daniel Rubin, called me earlier tonight to talk about McGreevey's announcement as television. What remarkable television it was. DVDDecrypter crack

On the one hand, this was reality TV with more raw, real human drama than any reality TV ever aired and more bluntness than any political speech ever given. Knowing what was going to happen for a few hours before he came on camera, I expected a duck and feint job from a politician. Instead, we saw an emotional, forceful, courageous announcement of a man's secret. DVDDecrypter crack

But on the other hand, this was utterly unreal. Roiling just below the surface were a dozen other stories that were not told: There are the reports that the man who forced McGreevey's secret out was his gay lover whom McGreevey hired for a $110,000 state job for which the man was utterly unqualified. There was his wife, standing there as if stoned. There was the hard-slap realization that McGreevey had used this wife and one before and children by both marriages as his beard for his political career. There was the contention that McGreevey was now using his gayness to obscure other sins and crimes. There was the story of an apparently devout Catholic who did the sin thing. There was the anguish of a gay man in the smoke-filled closet. There was the political intrique of maneuvering to avoid an election in November and keep the governor's office in Democratic hands. There was the media's role in helping to keep McGreevey's secret. There were the other secrets waiting to come out: the story of the broken leg and God know's what else. All this down the road in the home named Drumthwacket. Unreal.DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey's speech looked like a blast of steam but that hid the witches' cauldron of bubble, bubble, toil, and trouble. DVDDecrypter crack

Usually, what we see in media -- and in politics -- is the unreal masking the real. Here, the real masked the unreal. DVDDecrypter crack

: Perhaps McGreevey will set a new bar for political confessions. What if Bill Clinton had come out and defiantly declared himself an American sex addict? What if Bush had come out and openly admitted he was a drunken slacker who pulled every string he could find to avoid putting on a uniform? What if Kerry came out and said he never could get Southeast Asian geography straight: I am a cartographic dyslexic! What if Dean screamed, I suffer from hyperactive ADD? What if Nixon said, I was a crook? Ya gotta problem wid dat?DVDDecrypter crack

This speech was as dramatically amazing as it was tactically perfect.DVDDecrypter crack

Even the queen of snark-cynicism, Wonkette, is softened: "Excuse the expression, but screw Obama. This was the speech of the year. The most high profile outing, well, ever, and McGreevey handled it with grace and dignity. He sort of makes me want to go gay, too."DVDDecrypter crack

Put this speech next to the Nixon Checkers speech, the Clinton sex speech, the Johnson abdication speech, the Gov. Rowland beat-impeachment speech, even the horny Duke of Windsor speech -- you name it -- and it stands out as the best public confession in modern media memory. DVDDecrypter crack

Who elected the 9/11 Commission?

: The New York Post echoed my concern about the swallowed-whole recommendations (read: dictates) of the 9/11 Commission. Our leaders should be taking these watered-down-by-consensus suggestions and having the vision and courage to create the reforms that will truly protect us. Instead, Kerry and Bush and legislators aplenty are falling over themselves to do as they're told by the commission. And then they'll think they'll have done their job to protect us. And they'll be wrong. Says the Post editorial:

Members of the 9/11 Commission are rapidly becoming the dinner guests who won't leave. DVDDecrypter crack

On Tuesday, Co-Chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton were on Capitol Hill, insisting that Congress pass the panel's recommendations in toto, despite legitimate reservations from some Pentagon officials. DVDDecrypter crack

Let's cut to the chase: The panel's members completed the job they were asked to do. They need to vanish.

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August 12, 2004

Plugged

: Bryan Keefer of Spinsanity and CampaignDesk, who emceed the West Side Y blog show I joined the other night, just appeared on the Daily Show to plug his new spin book (which I bought the other night) and just got a great endorsement from Jon Stewart. DVDDecrypter crack

"By the way, as he turns to leave, he says, to me, 'I'm 12.' "DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey's unsecret

: Well, I didn't know.DVDDecrypter crack

But apparently, everyone else in New Jersey media knew McGreevey's secret. And if that's so, it raises lots of questions. I'm not saying they should have outed him; I long for the day when a politician's personal life is just that. But if he indeed hired his lover for a state job for which that reputed lover was in no way qualified... well, that's a crime. Why didn't we know? We want to know.DVDDecrypter crack

Robert Sterling says at MemeFirst:

Every single politically astute person in New Jersey has known about McGreevey's homosexuality for a long time - at least since 2001. In fact, McGreevey's elaborate efforts to stay in the closet were a source of periodic amusement to New Jerseyites, as when he shattered his femur in 2002 while in the company of his boyfriend, and then concocted an elaborate cover story that claimed the injury occurred while walking down the beach with his wife....DVDDecrypter crack

So why has McGreevey come out of the closet now? And so publicly? Simply put, he's in deep doo-doo, and needs a way out. His administration has been wracked with scandal to a degree that well exceeds even the norms of New Jersey. There are at least two distinct rumors of lawsuits or complaints about to be filed, which seem sufficiently distinct to me that they may possibly concern two different men. One of the rumors definitely concerns an Israeli national named Golan Cipel, whom McGreevey appointed to a high paying state anti-terrorism post, before complaints of Cipel's lack of qualifications caused the governor to withdraw the appointment. Were Cipel to admit a sexual relationship, McGreevey's conduct on this matter may be indictable. By resigning - and simultaneously declaring himself a member of a persecuted minority - McGreevey may be able to dodge this and any number of other criminal investigations....DVDDecrypter crack

So this is a standard CYA move by McGreevey.

DVDDecrypter crack

This is just a demo post. Ignore the man behind the curtain.DVDDecrypter crack

More McGreevey

: I just spoke with a reporter at the Philadelphia Inquirer about McGreevey's speech as a moment in television (more on that shortly) and he said that when McGreevey announced he was gay, there was applause in the newspaper newsroom.DVDDecrypter crack

: Continue reading the NJ.com breaking news blog on McGreevey. It has news and lots of vox pop. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Drudge says:

McGreevey's office had called the FBI on Thursday and complained that lover had requested $5 million to quash the suit, which assistants to the governor saw as extortion...
DVDDecrypter crack

Whereabouts

: I'm at a packed blog MeetUp at MediaTech in Flemington, NJ. Will be blogging McGreevey later.....DVDDecrypter crack

: Will Richardson is doing a great job now talking to more than 25 people about hyperlocal blogging. I think Flemington could become the epicenter of the movement. DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey's out....

: Amazingly, McGreevey is starting his press conference with a most personal announcement. Throughout his life, he said, he had grappled with his identity. He talked about getting married twice. Having doubts in school....DVDDecrypter crack

"Were there realities from which I was running?" he asked. "I do not believe that God tortures any person simply for its own sake.... In this, in the 47th year of my life, it is arguably to late to have this discussion. But it is here and it is now.... And so my truth is that I am a gay American. And I am blessed to live in the greatest nation... with the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world."DVDDecrypter crack

"Yet because of the pain and suffering and anguish I have caused to my beloved family.... This is an intensely personal decision and not one typically for the public domain and yet it cannot and should not pass... I am also here today because shamefully I engaged in a consensual affair with another man that violated my bonds of matrimony. It is wrong... It is inexcusable...."DVDDecrypter crack

Amazing! DVDDecrypter crack

"I am removing these threats by telling you directly about my sexuality," he says, telling the press that if his sexual life had remained secret the state would have had problems. DVDDecrypter crack

"Given the circumstances surrounding the affair and its impact on my family and my ability ... as governor, I have decided to resign."DVDDecrypter crack

He is resigning as of Nov. 15. That means there is no special election, a Democrat -- the Senate president -- will fill in. DVDDecrypter crack

That had to be the most public coming out ever. DVDDecrypter crack

: It was a remarkable speech: so painfully personal.DVDDecrypter crack

If this were just McGreevey coming out of the closet, that would be that.DVDDecrypter crack

But there's more to this: The hiring of Cipel and the reputed involvement with him is an ethical scandal in and of itself.DVDDecrypter crack

There have been other campaign finance scandals dancing around the governor's office.DVDDecrypter crack

And he was a rotten governor. I voted for him. I was wrong. He messed up the budget, robbing the "rich" to buy votes from the middle class. He messed up development issues, pissing off both sides. He made lots of hiring mistakes. He was a suburban mayor who did not have the experience to be governor. DVDDecrypter crack

So it's more than McGreevey coming out of the closet.DVDDecrypter crack

Nonetheless, again, it was a most amazing moment in American politics. DVDDecrypter crack

: Here's the full text of the McGreevey speech (I live-blogged the partial quotes above).

At a point in every person's life, one has to look deeply into the mirror of one's soul and decide one's unique truth in the world, not as we may want to see it or hope to see it, but as it is. DVDDecrypter crack

And so my truth is that I am a gay American. And I am blessed to live in the greatest nation with the tradition of civil liberties, the greatest tradition of civil liberties in the world, in a country which provides so much to its people. DVDDecrypter crack

Yet because of the pain and suffering and anguish that I have caused to my beloved family, my parents, my wife, my friends, I would almost rather have this moment pass. For this is an intensely personal decision, and not one typically for the public domain. DVDDecrypter crack

Yet, it cannot and should not pass. I am also here today because, shamefully, I engaged in adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony. It was wrong. It was foolish. It was inexcusable....DVDDecrypter crack

I realize the fact of this affair and my own sexuality if kept secret leaves me, and most importantly the governor's office, vulnerable to rumors, false allegations and threats of disclosure. So I am removing these threats by telling you directly about my sexuality. DVDDecrypter crack

Let me be clear, I accept total and full responsibility for my actions. However, I'm required to do now, to do what is right to correct the consequences of my actions and to be truthful to my loved ones, to my friends and my family and also to myself. DVDDecrypter crack

It makes little difference that as governor I am gay. In fact, having the ability to truthfully set forth my identity might have enabled me to be more forthright in fulfilling and discharging my constitutional obligations. DVDDecrypter crack

Given the circumstances surrounding the affair and its likely impact upon my family and my ability to govern, I have decided the right course of action is to resign. To facilitate a responsible transition, my resignation will be effective on November 15th of this year.

Audio here. DVDDecrypter crack

: Says NJ.com editor Dean Betz on the NJ.com newsblog:

The dirt is about to get very deep, and the governor's apparent moment of courage will probably reveal itself to be tainted by cowardice - maybe a lot worse.
: Here, prominently displayed on the NJ Governor's home page is the governor's "code of conduct."
The Governor shall not accept any personal gift, favor, service or other thing of value under circumstances from which the Governor knows or has reason to believe that such personal gift, favor, service or other thing of value is offered with the intent to unduly influence him in the performance of his public duties or under circumstances from which it might be reasonably inferred that such gift, service or other thing of value was given or offered for the purpose of influencing the employee in the discharge of the employee’s official duties.DVDDecrypter crack

The Governor shall not knowingly act in any way that might reasonably be expected to create an impression or suspicion among the public having knowledge of his official duties that he may be engaged in conduct inconsistent with this Code.DVDDecrypter crack

Consistent with the other provisions of this Code, the Governor shall use the information, property and funds under his or her official control in accordance with prescribed procedures and not for personal gain or benefit.

: From the NJ.com Statehouse Forum:
: "Being a gay governor isn't the problem; being a CROOKED governor is."
: "It's not about Mc Greevey being gay! if it is true a law suite will be filed by Golan Cipel, the whole prospective changes because Jim Mc Greevey gave a position to Cipel in exchange for sexual favors. God, a position dealing with the security of the people of this state! This is where the real problem lies."DVDDecrypter crack

: Radio's Kevin McCullough's blog on the topic.
DVDDecrypter crack

McGreevey out!?!

: NJ Gov Jim McGreevey is quitting today. More to come later. I will link you to everything on NJ.com.DVDDecrypter crack

: The NJ.com Statehouse Forum has the hints to what's coming. DVDDecrypter crack

: The reason, you'll learn soon, is incredible. DVDDecrypter crack

: Here's the NJ.com breaking news blog; they'll be on top of this huge story. DVDDecrypter crack

: NJ101.5 radio is saying that it's not 100 percent he will step down. The TV stations are hedging like mad. DVDDecrypter crack

: Here's the WABC report. DVDDecrypter crack

Let's put it this way: It's not a campaign finance scandal.DVDDecrypter crack

: It's dripping out: Golan Cipel is reportedly going to file a sexual harrassment claim against McGreevey. DVDDecrypter crack

Cipel was, with great controversy, appointed as state anti-terrorism chief early in the administration. DVDDecrypter crack

: For reference only, here's a link to McGreeveySucks.com.DVDDecrypter crack

: Let's put it this way: You Soprano's fans will remember the surprise about this guy on the Sopranos. A Jersey trend in the making. DVDDecrypter crack

: Says PoliticsNJ.com:

If McGreevey were to resign before September 15, New Jersey would have a special gubernatorial election on November 2, 2004. If he were to resign after that date, Codey would hold the office until the end of McGreevey's term in January 2006.
: The NJ.com Statehouse Forum says that McGreevey's mysterious broken leg is related. Rumors....DVDDecrypter crack

For the record, so far, all this is rumors and reports. DVDDecrypter crack

: The background on Cipel is that he was hired by McGreevey to be head of homeland security for the state -- even though he had no experience in that (other than being an Israeli).
Overheard in my office: "This is worse than banging your intern."DVDDecrypter crack

: The press conference is much delayed. Wonder whether they're sedating McGreevey... or bribing his wife.
DVDDecrypter crack

Morning reading

: I'll say more on this later but I have to run to a meeting about brides (hey, it's a job). But in the meantime, go read what Doc has to say. DVDDecrypter crack

Clearly

: J.D. Lassica writes in the OJR about transparency and trust, blogs and news media. He also gives us a fascinating chart from Technorati tracking inbound links to big media v. blogs. For the story, JD asked me to riff in email (a very dangerous thing to do!). If you dare, click on "more" to see what I sent (soundbites you've heard before if you've made the mistake of hanging around here).DVDDecrypter crack

JD:DVDDecrypter crack

We are witnessing the growth of a culture of transparency. It has its
roots in open-source software, which believes in the wisdom of the
crowd; and in the gift economy of Amazon reviews and MP3 sharing; and in
weblogs.DVDDecrypter crack

Bloggers are more trusted, I think, because they are human and too often
news organizations are not. Bloggers tell you who they are (usually) and
what their backgrounds and biases are and their readers can judge them
and engage with them on a personal level. News organizations are big and
often monolithic and are reluctant to admit let alone share perspective
or agendas. And the reporters and editors in them sometimes hide inside
the cathedral of journalism -- witness the frighteningly disdainful and
cluelessly blind email NYU's Jay Rosen got from a University of Missouri
journalism professor calling citizen journalists "bloogers and pretend
journalists with no commitment to ethics, laws, fairness etc." Well,
that's a fine way to respect your audience and reach out to the people
who are rejecting your journalism.DVDDecrypter crack

And that gets me to the nut of it:DVDDecrypter crack

Bloggers see news as a conversation. It's not over when it's in print;
it's not fishwrap. News improves and the facts and the truth come closer
when the discussion begins: when bloggers "fact-check your ass" (in the
words of blogger Ken Layne); when readers become writers (in the words
of Jay Rosen); when the audience asks the questions the reporters didn't
ask or finds the facts they couldn't find or adds the perspective they
couldn't think of.DVDDecrypter crack

I often tell news people that their first and most important reaction to
the blogging phenom should not be to write blogs but to read them. We
have had the printing press for centuries; now the people own the press
and the broadcast tower and it is our turn to listen. It is our turn to
engage in a conversation on equal footing. We need to ask ourselves in
the news business whether we see ourselves truly as members of our
community or still above it.DVDDecrypter crack

If we are to enter into a conversation with the people we once called
our audience, we must be open with them. They expect that of us in this
culture of transparency.DVDDecrypter crack

And shouldn't we be transparent? We demand transparency of the
government officials, politicians, business leaders, even celebrities we
cover. It is our turn to open the shades, to reveal our process and
prejudice, to engage in the conversation, to join in the community... to
be transparent. Shouldn’t we, of all people and professions, be the most
transparent?DVDDecrypter crack

I was delighted at the Aspen Institute made transparency the topic of
its latest Conference on Journalism and Society and I was happy if
nervous that they allowed me -- in my role as Blog Boy, rather than
Media Man -- to harp on the power of citizens' media and the virtues of
transparency. I was then heartened at the reaction. Where I had seen
dismissive skepticism of this blogging thing at similar gatherings in
the past, here I found eager curiosity. And I was impressed with the
desire, in varying degrees, by everyone in this group to enhance the
transparency of our business, journalism. Some would go farther than
others. I'm among those who believe we should start with a presumption
of transparency and reveal anything in our process that does not hamper
newsgathering. Others believe strongly that we should be judged by our
product, not our process. But all are aware that we need to work to
enhance transparency, for that will build and rebuild trust. DVDDecrypter crack

August 11, 2004

In the lions' den

: Atrios brings his link oomph to the site of blogging Democrat Nathan Rudy, who's running for the county board in my neck of the woods, which is 99 44/100ths pure Republican. DVDDecrypter crack

: By the way, near as I can tell, Atrios took his name (Duncan Black) back off his site. As a friend of mine once said to a former lover: You can't go back in the closet, honey. DVDDecrypter crack

The big one

: Nicholas Kristof has a frightening column in the New York Times today. It presents a scenario of a 10-megaton nuclear device lit at Times Square (why the hell does everyone have to use that as the next ground zero: the very corner where I work?). OK, we've heard that before. But then he says:

Could this happen?DVDDecrypter crack

Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.

In his next column, he'll tell us how to reduce that risk. If it's not too late. DVDDecrypter crack

Not-so-swift boats

: Glenn Reynolds once accused me of getting obsessed on the FCC vs. Howard Stern and the First Amendment. I disagree but fine, he saw that as a friendly intervention.DVDDecrypter crack

In that same spirit, I'd say that Glenn is going overboard -- pun a fringe benefit -- on the Kerry swift boat/Cambodia hooha. DVDDecrypter crack

I tried to do a search on what Glenn had to say about the Bush National Guard hooha; couldn't get it right; but I'll bet Glenn didn't go so glub-glub deep into the attempted Bush scandal as he is going into the attempted Kerry scandal. DVDDecrypter crack

And in any case, I don't think either is a big issue or should be a big issue in this campaign for either side. I don't think this is a productive fountain of blather. I think it is symptomatic of picking presidents by gotchas and personality rather than issues and stands, which is the dumb and dangerous way to pick presidents. I fear it feeds an atmosphere of gotchas and presidential hatred (about which I've written much; see the links in this graph). DVDDecrypter crack

In a post Glenn belittled yesterday, Matt Welch said it well:

What I don't understand is how anyone professes to truly give a flip about what John Kerry and George Bush did 32 or 36 years ago. On Friday, I was given a talking-to by a right-of-center friend (who told me, helpfully, that "even though you're a liberal we still like you") about Why I Should Care About the Swift Boaters, and last night a left-of-the-dial pal wanted to get me excited about Bush's National Guard service … and in both cases my reaction is the same: Is this what you're basing your vote on this November? Really? Whatever happened to the New Seriousness after Sept. 11? And how many people who are feverishly talking up all this nonsense have NOT already long made up their minds on who they're going to vote for?DVDDecrypter crack

As far as I can tell, every presidential candidate with military experience has embellished it, and every candidate with a youthful drug habit has tried to paper it over.

Let's remember a few things:DVDDecrypter crack

First, we're not voting for sainthood here, even for a Pope. We're talking about politicians. Do any of us think that there's a politician alive who hasn't stretched something? OK, all of you who raised your hands, I have some WMDs to sell you. Under the Brooklyn Bridge.DVDDecrypter crack

Thus, second, let's concentrate on what matters: Doing the job of running the government. DVDDecrypter crack

Third, as I've said lately, I'm going to keep calling people on this wasteful and distracting and ultimately destructive game of gotcha. I said it over the Bush National Guard nonstory. I'll say it over this nonstory. It doesn't get us anywhere except mired in bile. Worse, it's just getting boring. DVDDecrypter crack

Let's pull up anchor and move on. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Glenn snarks back:

I think that I have a ways to go before I catch up to Jeff's Stern coverage in terms of either volume or tone. But I promise to quit covering this issue so much as soon as the major media -- who certainly didn't ignore the Stern issue, or the bogus Bush/AWOL claims -- start carrying the ball.
I'd say it has been obsessive over there in recent days. Just in the interest of intervention, my friend. DVDDecrypter crack

But let's go back to Matt's point: Let's assume that (1) Bush did not do his duty and lied about not doing his duty and (2) Kerry stretched the truth about doing his duty. Let's just say it, for the sake of argument. Is that going to change anyone's vote? No, I can't imagine it will. Does it change my view of either man? No, it doesn't. And that means it's so much one-sided cynicism.DVDDecrypter crack

It's just more Gotchaism. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: Glenn adds, just to complete the record:

ANOTHER UPDATE: In an update to the post linked above, Jeff says that I'm snarking at him, and that I belittled Matt Welch in this post. I certainly didn't mean to be either snarky or belittling -- I was aiming for polite disagreement, and thought I'd achieved it. I like both Jeff and Matt a lot. But I think that this is an important issue, and I would have thought that two champions of the blogosphere like Matt and Jeff would have approved my work to bring in original documents and material not available on the web, and make them part of the conversation. And given that the Kerry Campaign now seems to be admitting that the Christmas in Cambodia claim is false, I don't think I can be accused of raising phony issues. I appreciate Jeff's call to "move on" and address other issues, but I've done that too. I just think that -- given the importance Kerry has placed on all of this stuff -- this sort of dishonesty is worth noting, and I'm disappointed that the big media seem to be covering for him.
Yes, fear not, Glenn, Matt, and I all like and respect each other (though we'll skip the hug). We clearly disagree about how to view this. And that's why there's a conversation. DVDDecrypter crack

Saving the industry

: Fred Wilson is doing God's work: He -- like all civilized souls -- hates spyware, but he found that legislation heading into Congress to try to stop it would also stop cookies advertisers need to advertise on and support web sites (and without those cookies, believe me, they won't advertise). So Fred goes to see his senator and shows him the light. Anything the rest of us should be doing, Fred?DVDDecrypter crack

Is this going to be on the final?

: The Olympics coverage is taking me back to the hell of sixth grade. Oh, how I hated Greek myths!DVDDecrypter crack

Another day, another panel

: David Teten put up notes from last night's blog panel at the West Side Y. It was taped for C-Span (so now I'm officially boring). Best line of the night: Daniel Radosh reminding us we shouldn't take this thing too damned seriously: I wouldn't want to live in a blogosphere, he said, where we could not speculate on whether Lindsay Lohan has breast implants. (Daniel thinks no, I think yes, by the way.)DVDDecrypter crack

August 10, 2004

World Trade Center health registry

: More than 50,000 people have now signed up for the World Trade Center health registry. I've signed up. If you were there, so should you. DVDDecrypter crack

Reuters' agenda

: John Kerry and answered George Bush's question on the war, saying that he would still have authorized the war in Iraq, even knowing there were no WMDs there. Of course, he says he would have used that authorization differently if he had been president. DVDDecrypter crack

I say that was the stand-up thing to do. Kerry knows it won't be popular with his corps -- it could even send some running to Nader -- but he said what he would do and didn't back away. I respect him for that.DVDDecrypter crack

Reuters today does the followup with Bush still trying to tweak Kerry -- fruitlessly, in my view -- and here's the headline: DVDDecrypter crack

"Bush Goes After Kerry on Iraq War Admission"DVDDecrypter crack

Admission is an awfully loaded word -- as in, Kerry admits he would support the war Reuters opposes.
DVDDecrypter crack

Help bring free speech to Iran: Click here

: Iranian blog pioneer Hossein Derakhshan's blog is being blocked by Iran's mullahs. His only way around this -- until technology geniuses invent incredibly clever ways to foil censors -- is to buy new domains. So click here and go help him buy some. DVDDecrypter crack

jarvisstamp.jpgDo not bend

: Stamps.com got final approval to let you use your own photos to create stamps. DVDDecrypter crack

Not a nation divided, just a nation deafened

: I've been saying for sometime that we are not a nation divided -- that's just how media and politicians want to portray us because it fits their agendas. The truth is that we all have lives; they don't. So they spend their time shouting at us, deafening us. But they don't represent us.DVDDecrypter crack

I'm not alone in this view. In this week's Time, Joe Klein says it's "only the blabocrats":

We are a divided nation, it is said. There is a cultural chasm between the red states and the blue, between the religious and the secular, between Michael Moore's America and Rush Limbaugh's. The "culture war" has become a pillar of the conventional wisdom. But is it real? Is it possible that the great partisan divide is a media-induced mirage, little more than an exaggerated case of squeaky-wheelism? There is plenty of evidence that the very real disputes pushed by political activists and chair-throwing media yakkers—call this the Anger-Industrial Complex—are being carelessly extrapolated to include a far less vehement populace. DVDDecrypter crack

Take the Moore/Limbaugh divide. A new Annenberg poll shows that the two infotainers are little more than postmodern tribal leaders: an estimated 8% of Americans saw Fahrenheit 9/11 in July, and an estimated 7% listened to Limbaugh. Their tribes are hilariously antithetical on a range of issues—83% of Rushites support the way Bush is handling Iraq, 87% of Mooreists are opposed; 85% of Rushites support Bush's handling of the economy, and 82% of Mooreists don't. DVDDecrypter crack

And yet, these extremist clumps throw disproportionate weight in the public square....DVDDecrypter crack

Maybe we're just busy living our lives. A new book by the Stanford political scientist Morris Fiorina, Culture War? The Myth of a Polarized America, argues that a closely divided nation isn't necessarily a deeply divided nation.

Amen. DVDDecrypter crack

It's deceptive and destructive to insist that we are at each others' throats because it skews the public debate toward venomous trivia and away from matters that matter. And it sets a bad example for public discourse: When I talk about politics and issues with family and friends, we disagree, but we don't bulge veins and shout the way they do on TV. But on TV and too often on the Internet, the shouting is drowning out the reason. This fosters hatred. DVDDecrypter crack

Look at the comments under the Tit for Tat post below: I -- evenhandedly, if I do say so myself -- said I didn't care about the efforts to find military gotchas about either Bush or Kerry -- because it doesn't affect (a) the future or (b) our lives. What ensues in the comments is a fair volume of venom spitting. So listen to yourselves, folks: You sound like a bad cable "talk" show. You're not arguing about matters that matter: I'd prefer to you see you go after each other -- or better yet, go after solutions -- on health care in an effort to find common ground for improvement. Or homeland security. Or stem-cell research. Or education. Or tax reform. Not this. All this blab produces nothing but bile. It's not productive. It's not helpful. It just stinks. DVDDecrypter crack

Says Klein:

Scream journalism — Crossfire, Hannity and Colmes, the various "gangs" and "groups" of Washington blabocrats assaulting our senses — was always nauseating, but it was more understandable in a world where the most important issue was the definition of the word is. It was the only way to scare up an audience in those days. But this is a different world now. And we are being forced to examine the most serious, complicated sorts of issues—war and solvency—through an anachronistic, irresponsible political-media lens created for more trivial times.
Right. We have real issues in this election, real choices, real questions. But we're wasting time talking about this crap. Worse, we're falling into the media-political complex trap: We are believing our own PR that we really do hate each other. We don't. You know damned well that if you met any of the people you're shouting at, you'd end up having a civil disagreement over beers. DVDDecrypter crack

This is not a call for us all to get along. The last thing I want to see is a group blog hug. Perish the thought!DVDDecrypter crack

No, instead I'm merely arguing -- in line with Klein -- that most of us on most issues most of the time are not filled with division and hatred; that's just TV. Most of us are getting on with our lives. Most of us care about trying to do what's right. DVDDecrypter crack

And so it is time to call media and politicians on their libelous lie about us, the people. We're not a nation divided. They are the divisive ones. I intend to keep calling them on it. DVDDecrypter crack

The real division in the end is not red from blue or right from left. The real division will media from audience, politicians from constituents, the powerful from the people. That is the "us" vs. "them" at work here. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: And also I'm not alone in the argument that we've had enough of presidential hatred.DVDDecrypter crack

See Namoi Klein in The Nation -- The Nation! -- taking lefties to task for their politics of snark:

It's not that the President is dumb, which I already knew; it's that he makes us dumb.... You know the line: The White House has been hijacked by a shady gang of zealots who are either insane or stupid or both. Vote Kerry and return the country to sanity. DVDDecrypter crack

But the zealots in Bush's White House are neither insane nor stupid nor particularly shady. Rather, they openly serve the interests of the corporations that put them in office with bloody-minded efficiency. Their boldness stems not from the fact that they are a new breed of zealot but that the old breed finds itself in a newly unconstrained political climate. DVDDecrypter crack

We know this, yet there is something about George W. Bush's combination of ignorance, piety and swagger that triggers a condition in progressives I've come to think of as Bush Blindness. When it strikes, it causes us to lose sight of everything we know about politics, economics and history and to focus exclusively on the admittedly odd personalities of the people in the White House. Other side effects include delighting in psychologists' diagnoses of Bush's warped relationship with his father and brisk sales of Bush "dum gum"--$1.25.

It is as if we have turned over the body politic to a People magazine mindset -- the dark side of People magazine: It's all about personality. It's predicated on the belief that a single famous person actually matters. We might as well pick our winner on American Idol, the way this is going. DVDDecrypter crack

But wait: The people, I have faith, are ignoring these fringe fits of feistiness. They're sitting back and asking what is best for the nation and themselves. And they will give their answer in November. All the rest is merely a tabloid nightmare. [via Daniel Radosh]DVDDecrypter crack

: See also Radosh's sum-up of various reviews and views of Nicholson Baker's book about a would-be Bush assassin. My take -- not on the book, but on a review of it -- here. DVDDecrypter crack

Tit for tat

: I didn't care about the hooha hooey over Bush's military work records just as I don't care about the hooha hooey over Kerry and the swift boat vets. It's all about trying to find a gotcha. It's sniping. It's not about running the country and improving the world. Enough already. DVDDecrypter crack

Digital division

: At last week's journalism education confab, Jay Rosen, Hossein Derakhshan, and I were all taken aback by this kneejerk response to blogging: DVDDecrypter crack

Asked the kneejerks: What about the people who can't or won't blog because they (a) don't have computers or (b) don't have broadband Internet access or (c) don't spell well?DVDDecrypter crack

Hossein shook his head and said to a few within earshot that folks in Iran and Iraq have those problems but still manage to blog.DVDDecrypter crack

Jay shook his head and said for all to hear, to paraphrase: Yeah, so, what do you want us to do about it?DVDDecrypter crack

As they say on Family Feud: Good answer. Good answer.DVDDecrypter crack

My response: Well, there's one helluva lot more access to blogging than there is to printing presses and broadcast towers!DVDDecrypter crack

Blogging does not cure society's ills. It does not make have nots haves. Blogging is not meant to be done by all. DVDDecrypter crack

The point of blogging is simply that those with the will now have the way. Those who want to publish something to the world can. They can find a PC and Internet access and if they can't, well, I'm sorry, but it's not as if there is a universal right of blogging.DVDDecrypter crack

And it's not as if blogging should be deemed worthless -- the limousine of free speech -- just because not every person on earth can or does partake in it. DVDDecrypter crack

The odd thing is that I've attended many a blog conference where just this point was raised and the neckjerk reaction of the crowd is to start nodding heads in unison: Oh, yes, we all should be concerned about those who cannot blog. Well, hell, if you're so concerned, then invited the great unblogged into your home to share your PC and your cable modem!DVDDecrypter crack

It's a silly PC argument that is ultimately empty and silly. DVDDecrypter crack

: UPDATE: In the comments, see lots of good notes from Kathy Shaidle and this from Jay Rosen:

This point--blogging sounds great but what about the digital divide?-- was raised at all three panels I was on in Toronto. When I finally lost patience with it, I first asked the woman: so what's your solution? She looked shocked and said, "well, I don't know." Neither do we, I said. "We're doing about it what you're doing about it."DVDDecrypter crack

She looked confused, and came up to me after to explain that she didn't mean to suggest that she had any answers. (No kidding!) But she didn't really have a question, either, and that fact had eluded her. All she had was a PC reflex. It's kind of sad.

DVDDecrypter crack

Proud blog papa

: My son has been blogging up a storm here. He just put up a PHP tutorial he wrote (and he's a 7th grader) for a local tech camp. He also has earned almost $100 in Google AdSense in the last six weeks. Here ends the proud father's bragging. DVDDecrypter crack

August 09, 2004

The terror warnings

: I actually bought a copy of Time today to read what they said about the terror intelligence and warnings. I challenge the nya-nyaers to go read it and still argue that the government should not have warned us about what they learned.

But there remains plenty of cause for concern. Al-Qaeda has cased targets for years before attacking; preparations for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa began in 1993, for instance. Intelligence and law-enforcement officials familiar with the material recovered in Pakistan told TIME that the discs revealed far more detailed, wide-ranging and current research and planning by a terrorist group than have so far been made public. Though the surveillance information on the discs was done mostly in 2000 and 2001, one disc contained an updated photo of the Prudential Plaza building that was added to the al-Qaeda file in January of this year.
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Tasteless towers

: An Australian radio station uses the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in its crass promotion. Ozzies enraged. DVDDecrypter crack

Jersey blog meetup!

: The folks at NJ.com, together with blogger/teacher Will Richardson and other good people are holding a blogger MeetUp this Thursday, August 12 at 7 p.m. at MediaTech, upstairs at 118 Main Street in Flemington, NJ. All bloggers, would-be bloggers, and the merely curious are invited to please, please come on by. DVDDecrypter crack

The family that sleazes together....

: Don't you just love it: The NY Post reports today that one factor in the success of so many reality shows is that for the first time in years, prime time is now filled with shows that families can and do watch together. Survivor and Fear Factor and American Idol are good for American family values!DVDDecrypter crack

Comment changes

: I finally (belatedly) added comment spam protection, because I was wasting time on the bile-slurpers who spam blogs. Besides adding Jay Allen's wonderful program, I have made it necessary for you to preview comments first before posting. Pain? Perhaps. But it also gives you that extra second to ask, "Do I really want to say this? Do I really want to add this morsel of snark to the permanent record? Or should I think better of it?"DVDDecrypter crack

Disunity

: Jay Rosen has a followup to his excellent commentary on the Unity Kerry-ovation hooha.

The whole logic of diversity hiring assumes that minority journalists will exert and express themselves within the councils of the profession, and--for example--at daily meetings in newsrooms. Freedom of speech in public settings is not a trivial issue for people who band together to make their voices heard in journalism.
I agree. DVDDecrypter crack

There are two issues at work here: diversity (of ethnicity or opinion?) and free speech (do journalists have it?). Below, I called for redefining diversity around opinions that are openly held. DVDDecrypter crack

The ironies are foghorn-loud. Here is an organization of ethnic journalists that forms to rally around their special interests as ethnic journalists. If they didn't have special interests -- if they didn't have an agenda -- they wouldn't be coming together. So we should be surprised that they have opinions when Kerry or Bush come to talk? DVDDecrypter crack

This only throws a spotlight on the essential hypocrisy of journalistic objectivity and rules of alleged ethics that put a gag on journalists when it comes to expressing their opinions openly. DVDDecrypter crack

I think it is unethical to withhold those opinions in public, to act as if you don't have them, to lie by omission. DVDDecrypter crack

I also think that Unity should be pushing for diversity of different definitions -- diversity of viewpoint and opinion and new source and not just hiring. This whole thing is a bit too insular to the journalism community. It's an echo chamber, damnit. DVDDecrypter crack

The bottom line of all this is that journalism should be the town square at which we, the people, come together to find facts and explore problems and try to find solutions and share our diverse viewpoints in an effort to discern the wisdom of the crowd -- of the democracy. That is diversity at work. DVDDecrypter crack

Changes at the top

: Choire Sicha is making the long-anticipated move to editorial director of the Gawker Media empire. Jessica Coen is taking his place at Gawker; I'm told she's cute. DVDDecrypter crack

Luxury kills

: Time says that the terrorists were planning to use limousines to blow up the Prudential Building and other targets -- because limos are hardly ever checked and because they have darkened windows and, no doubt, because it's symbolic: They love to turn our symbols of success against us. What's next: exlpoding Manolo Blahniks?DVDDecrypter crack

It's about control

: At the journalism confab from which I just returned, one media exec raised what has become a standard complaint about all this new media: Fragmentation. It's said as if that is an ill of the age. My answer: Turn that word around and look at it from the opposite perspective -- from the individual's perspectived -- and it's really a question of control. The audience is moving to lots of new places now that they have the choice, now that they have control. The single, shared national experience we keep sighing about existed for only a few decades as we lived with three networks and fewer and fewer newspapers. The natural state of media is fragmentation: consumers gain choice, media loses control, citizens gain control. Fragmentation is good. DVDDecrypter crack

In a variation on this theme, Sunday in The Times, Jack Rosenthal filled in for Dan Okrent and whined about too much news:

Much more news and much faster news: it has created a kind of widespread attention deficit disorder. When news events cycled in and out of the spotlight more slowly, they stayed in the public mind longer. People could pay attention until issues of moment were resolved. Now, we are surrounded by news - on the TV at the gym, on the AOL home page, on the car radio on the way to work. To pass through Times Square is to be enveloped by no fewer than four electronic zippers flashing headlines day and night....DVDDecrypter crack

Saturation coverage now seems inevitably to exhaust the public and leave the media eager to move on. But that means the spotlight goes dark even when the wrongs endure. That, in turn, suggests that this all-news environment is creating a new responsibility for The Times and other serious media: systematically to look back, recall and remind.

This, too, is a question of control. Rosenthal longs for the allegedly good old days when The Times and the big media outlets controlled the news cycle, as he quaintly calls it. Now we all do.DVDDecrypter crack

This is the way I put it in Toronto:DVDDecrypter crack

It used to be, we waited for the news -- when the paper was plopped on our doorstep, when the show came on the TV. Now the news waits for us -- we get what we want when and where we want it. DVDDecrypter crack

More news is good. Choice is good. Citizens controlling their media is good. Fragmentation is good. DVDDecrypter crack

August 08, 2004

Toward a new definition of diversity

: Perhaps it is time to come up with a new definition of "diversity" in American media.DVDDecrypter crack

Perhaps we should be looking for diversity of viewpoint -- though that means one has to admit having a viewpoint -- rather than merely diversity of ethnicity.DVDDecrypter crack

This is an era of fusion people: I've watched Tiger Woods, Soledad O'Brien, and Vin Diesel refuse to be categorized by one of their ethnicities or another.DVDDecrypter crack

This is also an era of fusion opinions: You can't tell a conservative or a liberal by his or her cover... and so we want them to tear off the covers and reveal themselves.DVDDecrypter crack

So now go read Jay Rosen's excellent wrap-up of the brouhaha that occurred at last week's Unity convention of minority journalists, many of whom gave John Kerry a standing ovation while most gave George Bush at best a polite and seated clap-clap. DVDDecrypter crack

Two forces come together in this story: The journalism orthodoxy, which says that journalists should not have public opinions, and the diversity orthodoxy, which defines diversity, as Michelle Malkin says, as merely "skin-deep."DVDDecrypter crack

Jay, as only Jay can, gets to the marrow of the group-think going on here: that "the display of political feeling is unprofessional" ... that ethics are about following rules set by the rule-makers... that minorities are ethnic minorities (not opinion minorities)... and so on. Go read his neat surgery of the ideas at play here. DVDDecrypter crack

Like Jay, I hope we have the ambition to break up that grouppressthink.DVDDecrypter crack

Imagine a world where:
+ Journalists admit they are human, just like their publics...
+ Journalists admit that they, like their publics, have viewpoints...
+ Journalists admit those viewpoints so their publics can judge what they say in that context...
+ Journalistic organizations seek out and publish or broadcast a variety of viewpoints so their publics can judge what the journalists are saying...DVDDecrypter crack

Imagine a world in which we value diversity of viewpoints and opinions -- not just birth -- so we can seek the wisdom of the crowds to find the best solutions to the issues that face us. DVDDecrypter crack

In this world, it would not be big news that a gaggle of journalists gave the liberal candidate a standing O; it would be confirmation of what many already think of journalists -- and of what Dan Okrent confessed when he wrote that, indeed, The Times is a liberal newspaper. DVDDecrypter crack

Isn't it better to be honest? And isn't honest the essential value of journalism?DVDDecrypter crack

And having been honest, isn't it better to then seek diversity of many defininitions -- ethnic, sure; and sexual, of course; but also political and economic and and geographic (suburbanites are was underrepresented in major media!) and educational (I'll bet we're thick with Harvard diplomas) and religious (and nonreligious) and attitudinal (optimists vs. cynics) and on and on? It's so damned one-dimensional so define diversity by one dimension. DVDDecrypter crack

How do we seek that diversity? I've told editors at various confabs and panels that we no longer need to assume that the only route to diversity is through hiring (though there's nothing wrong with such hiring). We need not be limited to whom we can hire to gain diversity because that is limiting. We can -- yes, I'm about to raise weblogs -- find an ever-growing world of diverse viewpoints in citizens media. Embracing what citizens think and say is a step toward the real goal: Representing what the citizenry thinks. DVDDecrypter crack

Presidential hatred

: We have slid to dangerous depths of presidential hatred in this country. DVDDecrypter crack

Both sides are plenty guilty: the rabid righties who hated Bill and Hillary and the seething lefties who hate W. Two wrongs make too many wrongs. DVDDecrypter crack

The dangers of presidential hatred are many:DVDDecrypter crack

First, it makes the debate stupid. The presidential haters think that getting rid of one man will get rid of our problems. That's naive. It's dumb. And it cuts off serious debate on difficult issues. "President X is evil" is pretty much a conversation stopper. (See Enough Gotchas.)DVDDecrypter crack

Second, what goes around comes around. The left has lost its right to complain about the demonization of Clinton the First because of its own treatment of Bush the Second. So just wait until Clinton the Second gets into office.DVDDecrypter crack

Third, presidential hatred speaks ill of us. Whether to young people entering the republic or to Frenchmen who want to hate us -- or to terrorists who want to kill us -- it only makes us look bad.DVDDecrypter crack

Fourth, it shifts our attention away from the real bad guys. Terrorists and tyrants are the enemies -- presidents are not -- and the real bad guys are glad for the distraction, thank you.DVDDecrypter crack

Fifth, we don't know where this will lead, but I fear it could lead to assassination. No, Michael Moore will not pull the trigger (he doesn't like guns, remember). But this atmosphere of hatred could inspire and embolden someone to try. The ultimate extension of presidential hatred could be assassination.DVDDecrypter crack

The movement of presidential hatred is dangerous and destructive. It puts higher value on argument than conversation, on invective than improvement. It is time to put an end to it. It has gone too far. DVDDecrypter crack

See Nicholson Baker's new polemic/novel, Checkpoint, about a man determined to assassinate George W. Bush "for the good of humankind" with his "Bush-seeking bullets" in the belief that murder is a means to a cause: "By causing a minor blip of bloodshed in one human being I'm going to prevent further bloodshed." DVDDecrypter crack

See next Leon Wieseltier's brilliant dissection of Baker and his book and the atmosphere of presidential hatred. I love this lead in his New York Times review:

This scummy little book treats the question of whether the problems that now beset our cherished and anxious country may be solved by the shooting of its president. Nicholson Baker's novel does not advocate the assassination of George W. Bush, to be sure. It is more cunning. ''Checkpoint'' comes armored in ambiguity about its own character. The protagonist of the novel, who is preparing to perpetrate the deed, is quite obviously an unbalanced individual, a misfit, a loser, a fantasist, a paranoid, and so his violent plan for rescuing the United States cannot be taken seriously, though of course this is true of all such conspiracies. And Baker includes another character, a sensible friend of the homicidal progressive, who tries to dissuade the man from acting so drastically on his alienation. So ''Checkpoint'' is not, strictly speaking, an incitement to a crime, and there is no need for the F.B.I. to pull people off the hunt for this summer's terrorists and open an investigation into the fictional devices of a certain Nicholson Baker. Except for its inflammatory theme -- Baker's novels have always been desperate to be noticed, and here he breaks new ground in his sensationalism -- ''Checkpoint'' could be dismissed as another of Baker's creepy hermeneutical toys. But this is no ordinary inquiry into obsession. The object of Baker's fascination this time is the murder of the president of the United States. And the fascination is genuine. Like all of Baker's books, this one is much too close to its subject. This novel whose subject is wild talk is itself wild talk, and so another discouraging document of this age of wild talk.
Yes, art -- or polemics hiding behind the cloak of art -- are not trying to etch a message for the ages; they are trying to change the world today. Baker, Moore, John Le Carre, the Manchurian Candidate (which I have not seen yet): It's all political argument, but without the discipline of facts or the opportunity for debate. It used to be when art abstracted the world, it made you think. Now, when art abstracts current issues, it wants to make you mad. It's not just talk radio that's doing this now. It's cable news and nonfiction books and movies and now even works of fiction. DVDDecrypter crack

So I'm glad that Wieseltier identifies the bigger, badder, stupider trend at work in society, in politics and art.

For the virulence that calls itself critical thinking, the merry diabolization of other opinions and the other people who hold them, the confusion of rightness with righteousness, the preference for aspersion to argument, the view that the strongest statement is the truest statement -- these deformations of political discourse now thrive in the houses of liberalism too. The radicalism of the right has hectored into being a radicalism of the left. The Bush-loving mob is being met with a Bush-hating mob.... American liberalism, in sum, may be losing its head.
And Wieseltier finds similarities between the monologues of the demented assassin in the Baker's novel and those of Bush haters in op-ed pages:
The opinion that these are not normal times, that the Bush years are apocalyptic years, is quite common. ''We are no longer in the ordinary times we were in when the conservatives took out after Bill Clinton,'' Janet Malcolm recently explained in a letter to [The New York Times]. ''We are in a time now that is as fearful as the period after Munich.'' Life in South Egremont, Mass., may be excruciating, but Malcolm's knowledge of the period after Munich has plainly grown dim. And who, in her ominous analogy, is Hitler? If it is Osama bin Laden, then she might have a little sympathy for the seriousness of this administration about American security, whatever her views about some of its policies. If it is George W. Bush. . . . Well, she continues: ''Those of us who are demonizing George W. Bush are doing so not because of his morals but because we are scared of what another four years of his administration will do to this country and to the world.'' So whether or not Bush is Hitler, he is a devil. This is what now passes for smart....DVDDecrypter crack

The demagogue's gravest sin is not incivility, it is stupidity.... It will be disastrous, for liberalism and for America, if the indignation against George W. Bush becomes an excuse for a great simplification, for a delirious release from the complexities of historical and political understanding that it took the American left decades to learn.

This is why I try to give the administration at least a chance; I don't want to pile on -- and that's a problem, too. There is plenty to criticize in this administration! But I fear that others who have wise and well-founded criticism are shying away from joining the mob. As Weiseltier puts it: "There are many good reasons to wish to be rid of George W. Bush, but there are no good reasons to wish to be rid of intelligence in our public life."DVDDecrypter crack

But there's good news: To go up against Bush, Democratic voters did not select an opposite -- Alien v. Predator (Bush v. Dean); they selected a bore. There may be little to love in John Kerry but there is little to hate. It has been said that he's another Carter (or, I'd say, Ford). Maybe what we really need is a president who bores us and that's the choice we have this fall. DVDDecrypter crack

Blog slap

: Also in Leon Wieseltier's review of Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint (see above) is this uppercut to bloggers' egos. Referring to the book's would-be presidential assassin, he writes:

We infer from what is said that Jay is a deeply unhappy man. His wife has left him, his girlfriend has left him, he has lost his job as a high-school teacher, he works as a day laborer and has declared personal bankruptcy, he spends his days reading blogs. (About the deranging influence of blogs Baker makes a sterling point.)
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Bzzzzzzz

: I caught Maureen Dowd, touting her book, on the Sunday morning gabest this morning and now I know why I rarely see her on TV: The woman has a horrible voice for broadcast. She drones like a lawnmower. DVDDecrypter crack

Bloggers blather!

: I'll be on a panel on blogging at the West Side Y at 35 West 67th Street Tuesday at 7:30. They're charging for the event (and, no, I don't get a cut). DVDDecrypter crack

August 07, 2004

Coming soon to a porn site near you!

: Among the things stolen from the Hilton sisters home by a thief:

A laptop computer and photos of Paris Hilton and boyfriend Nick Carter were also missing, the magazine says.
Can you imagine what's on that drive and in those pictures?DVDDecrypter crack

Bad comic timing

: Bad taste meets bad taste.DVDDecrypter crack

Earlier today, I wrote that Bill Maher started his show with a "joke" about a Ronco necklace for Americans going to Iraq: a big, steel ring to prevent beheadings. And this morning, there were reports that another American has been beheaded by the slime over there. The reputed victim, it seems, was a San Franciscan who's running for the Board of Supervisors there. Here's his site. DVDDecrypter crack

: Now it turns out that beheading is a hoax: The "victim" videotaped his own execution to draw attention to his campaign.

Vanderford said he understood if relatives of those killed in Iraq thought his stunt was misguided, but he offered no apologies for the hoax.DVDDecrypter crack

"I see how it could be considered disrespectful. But I think people, if they look at it, will understand two other big issues it brings up," he said. "A small group of disgruntled people in Iraq or Saudi Arabia could just get more attention just by easily releasing something like I did on the Internet."

What an incredible asshole. And I suppose in World War II, he'd stage his own gassing just to say Holocaust deniers could have a point if they had a point. DVDDecrypter crack

Guys, it's not funny. These are gruesome, brutal, horrid murders, not punchlines. DVDDecrypter crack

: My commenters -- thank you, guys -- reported this was a hoax while I was out on a jaunt to the orthodonist's (not for my teeth, by the way). There was also discussion about my linking to what turned out to be a hoax. I explain in the comments that when I linked to this story this morning, I said there "were reports of" this beheading. That's the way such things are handled in the news business; rather than saying there was a beheading, you say there were reports of a beheading because that's all you know for sure -- the reports -- and that's also a way to indicate that you're not sure the reports are true. That's the accepted way to handle such things. Now perhaps that's not good enough. Perhaps as a blogger, I should/could have added a caveat listing the things that could raise suspicion about the reports (e.g., there was no evidence that this guy was in Iraq or was missing and he was running for office in San Francisco... which is usually certification for looniness). But that would have been pure conjecture as well and if the reports had turned out to be true -- which was quite possible -- I would have come off as an ass. Bottom line: The commenters continued the conversation that is news and alerted the readers here to the fact that this was a hoax and I'm grateful; that's the way our new medium works. DVDDecrypter crack

August 06, 2004

Whereabouts

: At the airport on my way back home. See you later....DVDDecrypter crack

Free!

: Jay Rosen is speaking now to the AEJMC journalism education confab and he tells the educators:

Blogging represents to me freedom: intellectual freedom.
He tells them it gives him the power to publish and "independence from editors." Knowing, envious chortles from the crowd. Next, he says, blogging gives his "ideas a place in public conversation." And it lets him publish in the same public space as Howard Kurtz or Jack Shafer; he can compete. DVDDecrypter crack

: Len Witt is blogging the blogging as he moderates the panel. DVDDecrypter crack

: For the benefit of the audience in Toronto, here's a link to the list of recommended blogs I put up after Aspen. DVDDecrypter crack

Changing the world, one post at a time

: At dinner last night with Hossein (Hoder) Derakshan and his wife Marjan, Jay Rosen, Rebecca MacKinnon, and Joey deVilla at a fusion Persian restaurant in Toronto (envious, eh?), talk turned, of course, to the question of how to spread weblogs -- and free speech and, if we're lucky, democracy with them -- in other countries as they have in Iran, thanks to Hoder's good work. Here's our list:DVDDecrypter crack

1. Promotion. Hoder says it is important to get prominent people, like journalists, blogging in these countries to bring attention to it. He wants to set up an award for Iranian blogs -- not for the best blog but for the best post, which is appropriate to the medium. We talked about the need to creat a blog news service that would translate and reblog notable posts from around the world: Hey, big news guys, here are the stories you're missing but here's a link to where you can get them. And hey, powerful politicians, here is what the people are reporting in your country. And hey, readers around the world, here's a new perspective on a country you're not seeing in the paper or on TV -- either because it's not coverered or it's covered from a high-altitude and not from a human level.DVDDecrypter crack

2. Tools. We need to get tools and instruction translated into Arabic and other local languages. They need to be the appropriate tools -- so, for example, bloggers can post via email when they can't get Web access. For blogging to take off in a country, it has to be done in the native language. Efforts are underway.DVDDecrypter crack

3. Hosting. If rich folks want to help the cause of free speech and understanding, providing free and anonymous hosting that's not under the control of repressive governments will help.DVDDecrypter crack

4. Detours around censorship. The web technical community needs to invent new ways to get around government censors, who regularly block access to specific blogs and to blog domains (e.g., Blogspot and Typepad). Hoder's site is now blocked in Iran, which lost him a lot of traffic that matters, but he also found that more people are now subscribing to his RSS feed instead. Separate RSS feed services, cacheing of blogs, clever redirects, and other means need to be created to keep free speech free. DVDDecrypter crack

It has happened in Iran. It is happening in Iraq. Rebecca says it's exploding in China (though I wish that news service existed so we could get an idea of what people are saying there). Where else should it be happening? Afghanistan. Turkey. Egypt. Saudi Arabia. Indonesia. Central Asia......DVDDecrypter crack

(And the kebobs were great.)DVDDecrypter crack

Unfair and unbalanced

: A commenter points me to a story I missed (because it was on UPI): Thirty-eight Democratic and independent members of Congress want to meet with Rupert Murdoch to complain that FoxNews is nice to Republicans.

"The responsibility of the media is to report the news in an unbiased, impartial and objective manner," the letter reads.
Who says? No, really, who says that is the "responsibility of media"?

That is an American assumption of recent vintage. Media got started with pamphleteers grinding axes, eh? Only in fairly recent history has "objectivity" been a prime directive of news -- which is only a subset of media -- and that is being cast aside these days as the audience -- the people -- gravitate toward news with attitude, whether that attitude is FoxNews' or the Guardian's. (By the way, if you broaden this past news to media, as these guys do, then what they say should also hold for Fahrenheit 9/11 and OutFoxed. They are media, too.) DVDDecrypter crack

Here are members of Congress acting as if there is a law that media -- not just news -- has a responsibility to be unbiased, impartial and objective. And they practically threaten Murdoch with the force of law:

The letter's co-signers include Rep. Jan Schakowsky, D-Ill., a member of the House Democratic Leadership, Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich., ranking member on the House Judiciary Committee, and Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., ranking member on the Joint Economic Committee.DVDDecrypter crack

A spokesman for Rep. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said there were legislative avenues that the group could pursue as a secondary measure but declined to speculate on what those might be.

Is that a threat? Sure sounds like it.DVDDecrypter crack

This is why I object so strenuously to FCC regulation of speech and media, whether that is Howard Stern or FoxNews, whether that's what you can hear on the radio or next see on cable or next read on the Internet. It's none of government's business to regulate what we say. That's why we have a First Amendment, remember? DVDDecrypter crack

Rupert Murdoch starts a station that has a viewpoint and he puts it on cable, which -- remember -- is not under the control of the FCC.