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.

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.

: 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).

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

: Of course, we can't.

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."

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.

America as we know and love it is nearing its end

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

: 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.

: 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."

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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]

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

: 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.

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."

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.

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.

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?

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.

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]

Come to my blogging panel... please!

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

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 .

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

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.

Please also leave questions and topics for discussion in the comments here.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

Well, let's examine those assumptions:

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?

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?

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.

Copps: Those are our airwaves, not yours.

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?

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....

Good news

: Fimoculous, the unique blogger, is back.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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....

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.

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

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.

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

August 28, 2004

Pop protest

: Jason Calacanis takes pix of protest posters around town.

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.

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

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.

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

(The interview will be on Today Monday.)

What I want to know is...

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

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.

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.

But that was in the old days.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

: 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.

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....

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."

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


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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

: 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.

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

Let the consumers create the ads.

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.

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.

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.

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...

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

: All this operates under a simple law:

Put the consumer in control.

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.

: 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?

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

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.

'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.

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

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.

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).

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

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.

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.

August 27, 2004

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

: Boy, synchronized swimmers scare me.

Is Botox a banned substance?

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?

: 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.

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

All about local

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

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.

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

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.)

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

Abu what?

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

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

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.

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."

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.

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.

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?

Whereabouts

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

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.

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!

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.

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

Well, four out of five ain't bad

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

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."

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

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.

"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.

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

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.

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

That grim reaper does have a fine sense of irony.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

Take the pledge, boys.

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.

August 25, 2004

Dance and the world dances with you

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

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

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.

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.

Why does anybody fly anywhere anymore?

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.

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!

: 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.

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.

"(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.

Riggio said Barnes & Noble has no political agenda.

"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.

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.

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.".

Right?

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.

Beats the news.

Character III

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

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.

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

This is leadership?

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.

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.

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.

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

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

: UPDATE: It's in the paper.

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.

August 24, 2004

Four Olympic questions?

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

: And why is the BBC worried about nipples?

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

: 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?

Kill Blog

: Quentin Tarantino started a blog. [via AdRants]

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

You are what you wear

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

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.

Old dog, new tricks

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

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.

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.

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.

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:

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Excellence in ass comfort

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

August 23, 2004

From the front(s)

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

War is sad

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

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."

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.

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.

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.)

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

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

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.)

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

: 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

Is character really an issue?

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

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.

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)?

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

Testing blog mettle

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

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?

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

So are we?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Good news!

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

Go, team!

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

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.

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....

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.

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....

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

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.

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

Tet offensive

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

Jeeez. Boomers.

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.

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?

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.

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=."

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.

: 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.

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'