BuzzMachine... by Jeff Jarvis

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.

LINK | Comments (15)

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.

LINK | Comments (5)

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.

LINK | Comments (1)

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.

LINK | Comments (3)

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]

LINK | Comments (2)

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.

LINK | Comments (2)

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.

LINK | Comments (13)

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.

LINK | Comments (21)

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."

LINK | Comments (4)

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?

LINK | Comments (8)

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.

LINK | Comments (0)

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]

LINK | Comments (0)

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.

LINK | Comments (4)

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.)

LINK | Comments (2)

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.

LINK | Comments (11)

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?

LINK | Comments (17)

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....

LINK | Comments (17)

Good news

: Fimoculous, the unique blogger, is back.

LINK | Comments (4)